RutWear™ Big Game Technologies - Rut Talk

Training for Your Backcountry Hunt
Written by Field Expert Jeremy Hoefs

If you hunt like me, success during hunting season is directly related to the level of preparation. Preparing for DIY (do-it-yourself) public land hunts doesn't come from properly placed food plots or trail cameras. Instead it comes from intense training, like shooting archery 3D tournaments, running local road/trail races, and strength training. Hunting in the harsh conditions of the backcountry is rough mentally and physically. Year after year elk hunting success is around 10 percent. How can you be in the 10 percent who punches their tag? Follow these tips to push the odds in your favor. more details


BioMass: Serious Summer Groceries
Written by Austin Delano

Now that deer season is finished, one thing that should be playing through the mind of the serious deer manager is "warm season food plots."


If there is one thing that I enjoy more than hunting it is planting summer food plots and giving my resident herd the high protein groceries they need for optimum health and growth.
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Country Singer Paul Bogart Connects with a KS Whitetail
Brandon Wilmoth, RutWear Field Expert
Kansas Racks & Quacks had TV Host Dave Poteat of Inside Outdoors TV & upcoming country singer Paul Bogart in camp for the first five days of the 2008 Kansas Rifle season. We hunted hard, had a lot of good laughs and ate great thanks to my wife Jennifer's cooking.


The first night Dave and Paul arrived we made a quick scouting trip around some of the grounds Kansas Racks & Quacks had available to hunt. The first place we checked we encountered a buck at two hundred yards. I quickly realized he was a buck that I had trail camera pictures of and had nicknamed Tower because of his 150 inch frame as only a nine pointer. Little did we know this was only the beginning to a great week of Kansas deer hunting. [...read more...]


"Help! What am I going to do with all this deer meat?"
(Brandon, Mississippi) When a freezer full of the season's harvest finds you scrambling for unique ways to prepare a venison meal, look no further than The Complete Venison Cookbook (Quail Ridge Press, paperbound with convenient lay-flat binding, 432 pages, $19.95) by Harold W. Webster, Jr.


The Complete Venison Cookbook solves the riddle of why some venison is tough and has a strong taste and how to prevent it completely and addresses virtually every aspect of venison processing, preparation, cooking and preservation. From basic recipes for home and camp to elegant dining occasions, over 700 delicious venison recipes for steaks, chops, roasts and ribs, chilies, stews, stroganoff, meat loaves, and burgers are included, plus over 250 recipes that complement venison. [...read more...]


Hit the Road
Brandon Wilmoth, RutWear Field Expert
Do you ever wonder why the same guys always get the biggest deer, limit out on ducks each day, and can go upland hunting and are finished by noon? There are many aspects to having successful hunts and one key part is hitting the road. To be a successful hunter you have to go locations nobody ventures and are there at the right time. [...read more...]


Kansas Hunting Heating Up
Brandon Wilmoth, RutWear Field Expert
Kansas deer hunting is getting very interesting now in this 2008 season. The bucks are on the move and looking for hot does. The weather is beginning to balance out and becoming cold and crispy in late November. State reports have it that rut has been in full swing for more than a week and you can catch bucks "cruising" the timber almost all day long. In my area of south central Kansas, I have been seeing some nice bucks harvested but I, myself, am still waiting for a Kansas monster. I have been having great success with grunting and rattling in a wide variety of eight, nine, and a few ten pointers but still have not saw the buck I want to put my tag on. [...read more...]


Fall Approach
By RutWear Field Expert, Robert Watson

Thoughts of last season rush through my head as I sit back in my office daydreaming, thinking about the big bucks that passed by my stand just outside of bow range. Even though some of the bigger bruits managed to slip through the woods without offering a shot one giant met his fate!

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Food Plot & Conservation News

BioMass: Serious Summer Groceries
Written by Austin Delano

Now that deer season is finished, one thing that should be playing through the mind of the serious deer manager is "warm season food plots."


If there is one thing that I enjoy more than hunting it is planting summer food plots and giving my resident herd the high protein groceries they need for optimum health and growth.
more details


Wildlife Food Plots and Soil pH: Is There a Connection?
by Richard Tharp, Wildlife Biologist, Alabama DFW Wildlife food plots, also known as "green fields," are highly popular among white-tailed deer hunters and enthusiasts. Planting some type of food source for wildlife has increasingly become big business since the 1970s. Establishing and maintaining wildlife food plots is one management strategy used by landowners and sportsmen to provide wildlife with one component of their needs. Huge sums of dollars are spent on seed and fertilizer to produce these wildlife food plots across the nation.
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A Glut of Does Harms Bucks
Article from QDMA Written by: John J. Ozoga

In white-tailed deer, the adult sexes live separately during much of the year, just as they do in mule deer, red deer, elk, moose, and many other ungulates. Scientists refer to this social and geographical separation as “sexual segregation" or "niche separation" of the sexes.


Related does live in close-knit matriarchal societies, composed of mothers, daughters, grandmothers, great-grandmothers, and so forth. Bucks, on the other hand, form fraternal or bachelor groups generally composed of unrelated males. In either case, social group size and the degree of social complexity varies depending upon many different factors that influence deer herd sex-age composition and density. {Read More}


Aggressive Doe Harvest
In today's era of overabundant whitetail populations, one of the most common challenges facing those practicing Quality Deer Management (QDM) is harvesting enough antlerless deer on their property annually. In fact, in some areas it seems that no matter how many antlerless deer you harvest, little, if any, population impact is achieved. {Read More}


The Alfalfa Challenge
Alfalfa is among the Cadillacs of deer forages, but just as there are reasons why we don’t all drive Cadillacs, there are reasons why every deer manager cannot successfully grow alfalfa — a long list of them. But the obstacles to success with alfalfa can be overcome if you know what you must accomplish when you set out, and if you have the resources to meet your goal. Consider the following, then decide for yourself if you are up for the alfalfa challenge. {Read More}


Diversify Your Whitetail Woods -- Tree Plantings for Deer
While all QDMA members are dedicated to the principles of Quality Deer Management, without Quality Woodland Management, your efforts will not achieve their full potential. Recently, my father and I embarked on a major project to improve the habitat for all wildlife on our property in Pike County, Pennsylvania. {Read More}