Whitetail Strategies: Go To Them

I’ve often said that, “I’d rather hunt one day where big bucks are plentiful, than one month where they’re not!”

If you want to bow-kill big’uns, this saying couldn’t be truer. Do the homework, find the hotspots, get the tags, and hunt there.

If you live where the big’uns are plentiful, well then great, case closed. If not, then hunt locally for most of the season, BUT do whatever it takes to have a two-week rut hunt lined up in a big buck Mecca!

There is a plethora of areas across our great country that regularly produce quality whitetail bucks. No matter where you live, record-class whitetails can be accessed within reason. And I’m talking “Do-It-Yourself” hunts here. You don’t need an outfitter. Do the homework, get geared-up and get gone.

Camp in your truck, trailer or pitch a tent. Stop griping and start driving. Burn some greenbacks, burn some fuel, burn some bootleather, and burn some time. Don’t “feed the monkey” (outfitters), pour your resources into “self” hunts, and get savvy and satisfaction.

For 20-plus years now, I’ve been living this very life — all DIY, as “blue-collar” as it comes. I’ve accrued 30-plus P&Y whitetails with this approach so don’t tell me it can’t be done.

Get tough and “git’er done.”

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Eddie Claypool provides tips on bowhunting, with an emphasis on whitetails. Claypool has harvested 63 Pope & Young-class recordbook animals including 35 whitetails (Coues included), 16 elk and eight mule deer. All the animals were taken on do-it-yourself hunts.