It happens around this time each deer season—a late-season hunter shoots a buck, but when he grabs an antler to drag him out of the woods, it comes off in his hands. Worse yet, a late-season hunter looking to fill his antlerless tag, connects on a doe only to find that it’s a buck that has already shed his rack.

So what causes bucks to shed their racks? Is it colder-than-normal temperatures? Heavy snow? Truth of the matter is that although those factors may come into play, it’s more about testosterone than anything else. [ Read Full Post ]

With the biological rut all but wrapped up, our buck sightings across whitetail country have dwindled dramatically. All the bucks haven’t been killed, but they are really feeling the pressure and making themselves scarce. Your best bets for killing a good buck now are taking advantage of severe weather conditions (providing you have them) and staking out high carbohydrate food sources like standing corn and unharvested bean fields. The post rut, need to feed is in full swing and mature bucks are repairing their rut-exhausted bodies by heading to food sources. [ Read Full Post ]

You probably first learned about carbon in earth science—how it is the basis of all life and has countless applications and uses. But what your teacher likely left out of the curriculum is the history of how carbon came to be used to control hunters’ scent.

In 1901, inventor Raphael Von Ostrejko made the first microporous activated carbon, which is capable of trapping molecules. In the 1970s, activated carbon cloth was invented to protect military personnel from nuclear and chemical agents. In 1992, Scent-Lok Technologies developed and sold hunting apparel containing activated carbon to prevent human odors from reaching game, and—voilà!—a new industry was born.

But activated carbon isn’t the only technology on the scent-control block these days. Zeolites, antimicrobials, and ozone also are being used to keep hunters from getting winded. Here’s a look at how each of them works. [ Read Full Post ]