Just another article about the rut……. It seems everywhere you look this time of year, every outdoor publication, website, or otherwise, you can find an article about the whitetail rut. “Ten things you must have to bag your buck”…. “Twelve mistakes every hunter makes during the rut”…. “Six NEW must have products to bag the biggest deer of your life”…. Etc., etc., ad nauseam….. Sure, some of these write ups are fun to read. Others occasionally provide some real new and useful information or other data that could certainly be of service to you while in the woods. More often than not it would seem, after reading these different articles for the last twenty years, it’s nothing more than redundancy. I suppose that’s to be expected, even needed in some cases. I mean, there are only so many different ways can you approach rattling, and the basic use of a grunt call. On the flip side, each year there are new hunters going afield for the first time. Many of whom may not have a mentor to teach them such things. They seek out this information like a man stranded in the desert and his quest for water. Some are likely able to wade through what is beneficial versus what is nothing more than another sales pitch; craftily marketing their hidden agenda under a cover up of conveying priceless information. But none of that is what this is about, heck, I am sure somewhere out there over the rainbow this same article I am keying this morning exists. Certainly I cannot be the first man to wake up with such feelings weighing on his mind…. While I also enjoy the many tools available to modern hunters, I at the same time, do my best each year to keep perspective. Most of us can agree that no call, scent, scent lok, or any of the other hundreds of products available today will guarantee you success. The only thing that can truly put the odds in your favor is time spent in the deer woods. That time is what is on my mind today. Time, it is such a precious and valuable thing. So often taken for granted, every hunting season I find myself planning my time in efforts to maximize my hunting. Some weeks, months, or years I am afforded more, others less. But isn’t that time what the fall is really all about to a hunter. The time spent chasing that buck. The solitude of the tree stand, or excitement of the stalk, that is what renews, recharges, and invigorates our souls. So, I invite you to not lose focus of what “THE HUNT” is truly about this season. Don’t get too overly caught up in the latest gadget, or the need to shoot that booner you have on your trail camera. Just hunt! Enjoy your rut, and every moment you get to spend in the amazing creation we call home. When that moment of truth arrives, and you are standing over him, take a moment to look back and reflect on your season. Relish in it, every early morning wake up. The cold windy morning shivering on stand with fingers and toes long since numb. ENJOY IT! Thomas (T.J.) ASH The Break, Team Hunter My apologies for the poor formatting... some thing gets lost when I hit post...
I am proud to say that once again this year I did not buy a single hunting magazine, watch a single hunting show, use scent control camo, purchase a single deer scent, use a deer call, or do a single sunrise hunt. I hunted 1 time and managed to keep life in perspective.
Great reminder and well said!! All to often we get caught up in the kill and forget everything that leads up to that moment!! I know many times I put so much pressure on myself I take away the enjoyment of just being outdoors!!
I hunted bunches of times, kept life in perspective and loved every minute of it. If my goal was to hunt once a year I'd find a different hobby. Great article T.J.!
Depends on what you call hunting, there is a whole year of prep work to get one shot. One has to be able to balance all things in life to find inner peace, a daily appreciation helps keep things in perspective.
To each their own, wasn't criticizing. I just enjoy the time in the woods from sept till Jan too much to have it over after one sit. It makes it easier for me considering I could kill a deer every sit and never be out of tags though. Congrats on the buck this year, guess there's no chance of a pic?
Didn't take it that way. I don't go anywhere to scout, hunt, check trail cams, or shed hunt so I appreciate my hunting atmosphere every time I enter my driveway. I posted a pick up in the white tail hunting section, post name it's time.
Wow! You posted a buck pic and I missed it?! I went and dug it up, really cool buck! Congrats and thanks for sharing him!!
You basically nailed my wisconsin hunt...had some of the best activity that I've ever had on stand, not to mention encounters of animals I don't see here. Hunted with good friends and had a blast...yes I could have shot a buck 2 hours into the hunt and been done, but chose not to. I don't regret it at all.
Thanks for your perspective, I enjoyed what you wrote. I sold my first deer hunting magazine article to North American Whitetail in 1991. I got paid $350 for it. That was darn good money. Today, NAW pays $450 for a feature, which includes the rights to run it online. Think about how many magazine articles I need to sell per month to make a good living. Think about how hard it is to keep coming up with new and innovative things to talk about for all those articles. Outdoor magazines are struggling because all the advertising money that used to go into them is now divided up among websites, facebook, TV and pro-staffers. Page counts are down and writer pay is down because advertising revenue is down. Fortunately, I have been able to adapt when many writers have not. I have written some books that provide a small income stream, I have a youtube channel and a blog that both provide a small income stream, A few companies send me a quarterly paycheck for using and promoting their products. I just released a bear hunting video and I do a lot more online writing than I used to. 10 years ago, most any website wanted to trade links for articles or pay next to nothing because they thought it was good to just get a lot of content on the site. It took some time, but eventually they learned that quality content was way better than lots of content. Some of the sites I write for now pay $500 for a feature with good photos. I write a weekly column for the largest outdoor website, which doesn't pay nearly that much, but it's there every single week. I have also diversified. I write more fishing content than ever, and I have positioned myself as a leader in bear hunting. 2014 was the first year since I have been writing that my online income was greater than my income from print. It's the future. I have found that the key to coming up with new bowhunting topics is to go bowhunting. So while you are relaxing and unwinding in a treestand, I am sitting there analyzing everything I see and trying to determine if there is an angle I can use for an article. When you enjoy the view, I am trying to get a good photo of it. Bowhunting is rarely relaxing for me, but I hunt in several states most years, and I live and breathe it. Every check that comes to my mailbox has something to do with hunting. Not many people can say that. So do not disrespect or ignore the magazines or the online hunting content. No matter how much it bores you, at your experience level, there is some beginner out there who is eating up every word and learning to be a better hunter from it. I get just as much or more satisfaction out of that than I do from the paychecks in the mailbox.
I absolutely in no way was... sure I took a poke at the industry in a sense (in that there is often redundancy), but truly meant no disrespect. I also very clearly said it has it's place and even wrote about the beginners.... However that really wasn't the intent of the writing at all, it was nothing more than a friendly reminder to enjoy the hunt for what it is. Sad, that you can no longer fully enjoy your time in the stand. I also spend much of my time in stand both filming and clicking on my DSLR, it only adds to my enjoyment. Thanks for your comments and congrats on making a living doing what many would no doubt enjoy.
Bernie in all due respect even you will have to admit that the quality of hunting mags has slipped with revenue. I pity the youngster starting out trying to learn if his only source to gain information is a hunting magazine or hunting show. First of all they would be frustrated by unrealistic expectations and what their first success may be. Second of all they more than likely will not be able to afford all the gear the mags say they need to hunt but you can bet that a young kid is going to buy a grunt call over a safety harness so he can get a shooter.
I do appreciate any author who writes a book, I appreciate in-depth explanations and inspection more than 450 words on shinny paper sandwiched between ads. I have purchased and read one of your books and appreciate your writing style, other than you are wrong about the quality of deer hunting in Minnesota you do a fine job.
First of all about my views on the quality of deer hunting in Minnesota. You must understand that I grew up in Iowa and Bowhunted there from 1973 until I moved to Minnesota in 2001. I have bowhunted there every three years since. I have seen some of the best bowhunting there is. My issue with Minnesota deer hunting is not about how bad it is, but about what it is compared to the potential of what it could be. That is another issue entirely. You are entirely right about unrealistic expectations from TV shows. It's not a true picture of hunting today for most of us. And yes I agree that the magazines are not producing much that is new or revolutionary any more. There was just so much to learn when I started writing 25 years ago, today, the scientific studies have answered so many questions, and insightful writers have passed along a lot of information. There is a point of diminishing returns when there simply isn't much eye-opening info. Things we take for granted today would have been revolutionary thought 25 years ago. That first article I sold to North American whitetail in 1991, the one that got my foot in the door writing for big magazines, was called CRP means big bucks. In that article I showed how bucks were using the CRP fields (the CRP program started in 1986) which was something new to almost everyone. They thought CRP was for pheasants. What I said in that article was eye-opening for most deer hunters, but today, everyone knows deer use CRP. There are still nuggets of good info to be learned. Just last year I learned something very valuable about how bucks use scrapes, and wrote about it. Seems like every study shows that bucks visit scrapes almost entirely at night. But that's because they are putting trail cameras at the scrapes and getting photos and basing all their info from that. What I learned is that most bucks won't come to the scrapes during the daylight, especially scrapes on the edge of the field where they have to expose themselves. Instead they circle downwind of the scrapes, staying in cover if possible, and scent check them. They don't get their picture taken, but they do check the scrapes during daylight. The application of that knowledge is obvious. Thanks for your comments and of course we can agree to disagree about Minnesota!
So, just curious as I would assume you must have an opinion... In what ways do you feel outdoor publications could improve on their content. Personally I still enjoy reading the stories of hunts, product reviews (when unbiased hahaha) and the like. Just seems strategies and tactics seem to often get regurgitated, but we have covered that here.... Really cool about the CRP info, being from KS it certainly plays a critical role in our deer habitat now.
