Editor’s Note: This story was originally published in the June 1953 issue of Outdoor Life and it reflects the language and stereotypes of the times.

A COLD OCTOBER drizzle was soaking the Ontario bush when the old Ojibway Indian and his wife beached their canoe below our tent. They had a little boy with them, sort of wedged in the bow ahead of the woman, and he was yelling bloody murder. 

They looked too old to be his parents, and the man explained that, jerking a finger at the toddler and grunting, “Mamma dead.” 

After we welcomed them with cigarettes, the woman held the boy up and pointed to his mouth. “Hurt,” she said. And he wailed at the top of his voice. 

Neither my partner, K. K. (Knick) Knickerbocker, nor I is a medicine man, but we got the idea. The poor little cuss was teething, and they’d come to our camp hoping we could do something for him. I rummaged in my gear for the best remedy we had, a bottle of aspirin. We didn’t dare give them the whole bottle for fear they’d feed them all to the kid. So I shook out a dozen tablets, broke each in half, then pointed to the face of my watch and held up half a tablet for each hour. 

They were tickled pink. The woman poked the first dose into the boy without ceremony. He went right on crying, but they paid no attention to him. 

They came up to our tent and the man’s eyes fell on our two 70-pound-pull hunting bows and the arrows. Curious as a kid with a bulging Christmas stocking, he tested the razor-sharp edge of the four-bladed arrowheads, tried the pull of my bow. Then, after looking in vain for firearms, he grinned at me, and said, “Moose big. String-gun too little.”

KNICK AND I were still chuckling about it long after the Indians paddled away. 

“Honest Indian,” Knick said. 

But we didn’t share all the old man’s doubts. I started hunting big game with a bow in 1935, and I’ve never carried a gun since. Knick’s also an experienced archer, and he’d come all the way from Virginia to match his bow with a moose. Up to the time of our moose hunt, I’d killed nothing bigger than deer (though I’ve added moose, bear, antelope, and elk to my list since) and neither had Knick. Still we both felt our bows would stop a moose. Other archers had proved that. 

The Indian wasn’t the first to rate us underequipped for moose hunting. We’d had difficulty finding outfitters and guides willing to handle us, once they learned we intended to use bows rather than guns. 

One outfitter bluntly canceled our reservations. Another said he was booked full. 

We didn’t blame them. Surprisingly few know much about the killing power of hunting bows. And since big-game guides live largely by the success of their parties, it’s only natural that most shy away from archers. Guns get more game. 

It wasn’t until Knick and I contacted Archie McDonald in Quibell that we were able to arrange for a moose hunt in Ontario. And I confess we’d been in Archie’s main camp on Cliff Lake two days before we let it be known we were gunless. By that time it was too late to pack us out. 

For guides we drew Bill Humphries an Victor MacQueen, an Englishman and a Scot respectively, and they were good sports about the thing. We were to hunt in an area where they trap beavers in winter. They assured us there were plenty of moose there, and if we were willing to take chances on bows it was O.K. with them. 

So the four of us set out for Cedar River, the outlet of Lake Wabaskang, 100 miles north of International Falls. We worked through a chain of lakes—Twilight, Evening, Mystery, Cliff, Cedar, Perrault—traveling in two canoes with five-horsepower outboards, and portaging over rocky trails. Cold rain fell in an endless drizzle, broken only by harder squalls. We were wind-bound on Cliff Lake, on Cedar, and again at the lower end of Wabaskang. 

We made camp late one afternoon, dried our clothes and bags, and let a good fire drive the chill from our bones. By morning the rain stopped, and the world began to look like a fit place to live. 

It became a wonderful world when we took our casting rods down to the Cedar and flipped our spoons at the foot of a low waterfall. We caught wall-eyes and northern pike as fast as we could take ’em off the hooks. The pike ran 10 to 12 pounds apiece. In 30 minutes I landed three that totaled 40 pounds. We hung a few in trees around camp for bear bait. We put back the ones we caught after that; it was wall-eyes we wanted for eating, and the river swarmed with them. 

Yet we found the best fishing of all at Wine Lake, a few miles down the Cedar from Wabaskang. Lake trout from three to 12 pounds had come up in the shoals to spawn, and they pounced on our lures the way a leopard goes after a goat. Now and then we hooked lunkers that wouldn’t be handled on our medium-weight casting rods. We broke lines and smashed tips on some I bet weighed over 25 pounds. We kept no lakers, still preferring wall-eyes at camp, but we caught them at the rate of 10 or 12 an hour anytime we fished. 

It was raining again the second morning, but Knick and I had come a long way to kill a moose and we didn’t have all fall to do it. So after breakfast we climbed into the two canoes and headed downriver. 

Knick and Bill turned off where Wine Lake has its outlet in the Cedar, but Vic and I kept on another three or four miles. Then we went up a small creek and into a little unnamed lake that Vic said was a moose hangout. By that time the wind was blowing a gale and the cold rain had us drenched to the skin. We went ashore, got a fire going, and huddled over it until our teeth stopped chattering. Then we went moose hunting. 

Wet weather gives an archer one great advantage over the prey. He can move without noise, which he must do to get close enough to score with an arrow. Vic and I traveled slowly, combing every open place ahead. Eventually we spotted a sleek whitetail buck, a six-pointer, coming toward us. I picked an opening ahead of him in the brush and lined an arrow on it. When he walked into it I let go. It should have been an easy shot, since his neck and part of his shoulder were in sight at about 30 yards, but there was too much thick stuff in the way. Or maybe it was my fault. My fingertips were numb with cold by that time, and I didn’t get off a good release. 

I heard the arrow thud into something solid and saw the deer whirl and run. I found the arrow, bedded in a young pine, three paces short of where he’d stood. It had brushed a twig, glanced off, and whacked into the tree. “I got a name for this place.” I told Vic. “Let’s call it Arrow Lake.” 

He grinned, but it was a feeble performance, and I could see he was biting his tongue to hold back some remark on my performance. 

It helped when I missed another shot at a bigger buck late that afternoon. I shot high, and again I blamed my cold fingers. But I knew better than to alibi to Vic. We saw seven deer that day, including three bucks, and I could have killed all three with a rifle. By the time we got back to camp I realized that any fragment of faith Vic and Bill may have had in archery was as good as gone. At supper the guides exchanged significant glances across the fire and acted like a couple of guys who have picked a lame horse. 

THE WEATHER broke two days later, and we saw stars overhead and pink in the morning sky for the first time since the hunt began. We hurried through breakfast and were on our way before sunrise, running, the canoes through a winding canyon of gold and scarlet foilage. We hadn’t realized how far autumn had advanced. Ducks got up in front of us, and an eagle soared lazily overhead. 

We separated once again, agreeing to meet for lunch. Vic and I saw two cow moose that forenoon, but nothing with antlers. Knick and Bill stalked a good buck but couldn’t get within range. 

At noon we met in a cove formed by a big point that thrust half a mile out into the lake. We were finishing the last of our grub when a series of low, whimpering grunts rolled across the water to us. Bill lifted a warning hand. We listened until it was repeated. 

“Cow, calling,” Vic said softly. “She may have a bull with her.” 

We got up noiselessly and laid our plans in a hurry. The point was connected to the main shore by a neck of land about 200 yards wide and timbered with open stuff. Knick and I would have a chance for shooting there. The guides would drive, starting at the far end of the point, and if there was a bull with the lovelorn cow he’d have to come past us to get ashore. 

Knick and I picked our stands and Bill and Vic shoved off in one of the canoes. Ten minutes later a cow moose come out of the willows 300 yards away, splashed through the shallows, and struck out across the cove. When nothing else showed up in three or four minutes I relaxed. Then I heard a heavy animal coming through the brush in a hurry and headed almost at me. I caught a glimpse of brown, too light for a moose, and an eight-point buck came busting out of the adlers. He was spooked, and going places, but I had him in the open and I knew he was my buck. 

He went past me at 15 yards, running in long, reaching bounds. I shot when he was broadside. The arrow made a good solid hit, but I saw that I’d failed to lead him enough. I’d aimed for the rib section but the arrow had flashed into his flank. 

I found out later the shot would have killed him anyway, likely within 100 yards. The four-bladed head had severed big arteries and was bedded against the hip bone. But I didn’t know that at the time. 

The only apparent effect of the shot was to slow him down. His long jumps changed to short, high hops. I sent another arrow after him before he’d gone 20 yards. It sailed over his back, a clean miss. 

He was going straight away from me, 40 yards off, when I loosed a third arrow. That sounds like fast shooting with a bow but my average time between shots is five seconds, and the buck lost a lot of his speed as a result of my first shot. 

I took a little more time with that third shot. It struck him in the back of the neck, just below the head, and he went down like a dishrag. When we dressed him we discovered the arrow had gone through the first vertebra behind the skull and had driven deep into the brain. No bullet ever killed a deer quicker. 

Bill and Vic came out of the brush in a few minutes, plainly disappointed and disgusted. They’d heard no shooting, of course, and I realized it hadn’t even occurred to them there could be a kill without gunfire. 

“See anything?” Vic asked with patient resignation. 

“Saw a cow moose and a buck,” I replied. “The moose swam the cove.”

“What happened to the deer?” 

“He went right through here,” I said, pointing. 

I let them take the lead, and they almost fell over the dead buck. 

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Vic muttered. Bill added, “No shooting or nothing.” It wasn’t lavish praise, but the way they said it made it about the biggest compliment I’d ever had on a hunting trip. 

Back at camp that night, however, I could see the two weren’t convinced that a bow was proper moose medicine. They’d witnessed a trial demonstration and were inclined to give me more credit than I deserved, but there’s a difference of something like 800 pounds between a moose and a deer, and to their way of thinking, killing a moose would require a far more lethal weapon. 

Knick and I voted to try the Arrow Lake country next morning. We’d seen plenty of moose sign there and also a couple of cows. It looked like a good bet. 

Knick and Bill left camp first but they loitered on the way down the Cedar, scouting for tracks, and Vic and I passed them. But five minutes after we paddled into the little lake they came out of the creek behind us—just in time for the show. 

Right then, with both canoes in plain sight, a moose showed up at the edge of the alders across the lake. We saw his antlers first, over the top of the brush, and then he waded into the water. I had my glasses on him before he took three steps. He was a big bull with a fine head. 

WHY HE DIDN’T spot us, I still don’t know. While our canoes were fairly close to shore and he was almost half a mile away, we had no cover. I didn’t think there was a chance we could cross to his side of the open lake unseen. But we had to try. 

Vic and I crouched low and drove our canoe with hard, noiseless strokes. Knick and Bill were close behind as we rounded the end of the lake. A brushy point now hid us from the moose, so Vic turned the canoe toward shore. I was out of it and into the alders before its bottom touched land. 

When I’d last seen the bull he was coming down the lake in our direction, walking slowly in shallow water about 25 yards offshore. There was a strong wind, blowing in my favor and making enough noise in the undergrowth to cover my movements. A few yards back in the brush I found a game trail running parallel to shore, and I followed it until I figured I was halfway to the moose. Then I took a branch trail down to the water. 

Unable to see more than a few yards along shore, I crouched at the edge of the alders and waited. Nothing happened for a minute or two, and I was sure the bull had heard me and turned back. But I squatted there patiently and listened. 

Then I heard him, splashing and grunting. Another five seconds and I caught sight of him through a hole in the bushes, 75 yards off. 

For an instant I was as near to buck fever as I’ve ever been. He looked as big as a boxcar, and I recalled what the Indian had said about my string-gun. Suppose he was right? That was a lot of moose bearing down on me. I wondered what he’d do when my arrow drove into him. Would he come crashing for shore and pound me to a pulp with his big hoofs? 

Then I took another look, sizing up his black bulk and his broad antlers, that shone like polished mahogany. They’d go 48 inches or better. I thought of Knick, Bill, and Vic back on the point, watching from the brush, waiting for my shot. 

My bow was up to it. Was I? 

IF THE MOOSE kept his course he’d pass in front of me about 20 yards away. I could take all the time I wanted, and at that range I could hardly miss. 

I found another opening in the brush and settled myself on one knee. I could no longer see him but I could hear him coming. Then his neck and shoulders filled the opening. I brought the bowstring back to full draw and heard the sharp, satisfying twang as the arrow left it. And I was on target. The feathers of the arrow suddenly sprouted out from the center of the bull’s rib section. 

“That ought to fix him,” I murmured to myself. 

The moose flinched and stiffened. For an instant he froze in his tracks. Then he whirled and lunged toward deeper water. But he made only three jumps before he stopped broadside to me. 

I had a second arrow on the string when he humped his back, stretched out his neck, and blew a red gush from both nostrils. I eased off my draw then, knowing he was done for. He turned toward shore, but his legs buckled and he went down. One arrow killed him before he’d moved twice his own length from the place where he stood when it hit him. 

We got ropes on him and towed him ashore. When we dressed him we found that my arrow had entered between two ribs, sliced through the lungs, cut off big blood vessels, and stopped when the head sheared off a rib on the opposite side. The moose was dead a minute after he was shot. That’s how a hunting arrow is supposed to kill. 

The Indian and his wife and the little boy turned up at camp about noon next day. Maybe they smelled meat. Anyway, they heard of our luck—perhaps via the moccasin telegraph. The kid was quiet, but both he and the old ones looked hungry. 

Read Next: Carmichel in Australia: Charged by a Backwater Buffalo

We had two moose tenderloins hanging in front of our tent. I took one down and gave it to the old fellow. He grinned from ear to ear, and the woman started to paw through the duffel piled under a tarp in the middle of their canoe. She came up with a faded sugar bag full of wild rice, and handed it to us. When they were making ready to leave the man saw my bow propped against a tree. He looked from it to the moose quarters hanging near by. “String-gun plenty big!” he grunted. 

It was Bill, the once-skeptical guide, who whooped a hearty “I’ll tell the world” back at him. Across the fire that night Vic put an interesting question to me. “How much would it cost me,” he asked, “to get a bow like yours?”

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On December 13, 2021, Logan Harlan carried a late-season buck tag onto New Mexico public land in hopes of finding a good-sized whitetail. After a few unsuccessful days with his dad Larry and sister-in-law Lorri, the group eventually eyed a large 6-by-6 on public land—a rarity in the heavily checkerboarded region they were hunting. Logan watched the buck for a grueling five and a half hours and belly-crawled a few hundred yards before eventually firing a shot with his 6.5 Creedmor. The buck went down instantly. This perseverance and grit shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who knows the Harlan family. They own a taxidermy studio and booking agency and, according to their Instagram and Facebook profiles, they live to hunt.

Whitetail deer aren’t exactly a top game species in New Mexico. Coues’ whitetails and Eastern whitetails, which New Mexico Game and Fish refers to as “Texas whitetails”, comprise roughly five percent of the annual deer harvest statewide. Mule deer make up the other 95 percent. This skewed ratio lends to a rather jarring statistic: Only two New Mexico whitetail deer have ever graced the Boone & Crockett record book. 

Or, at least, that was the case until Harlan took his shot in late 2021. After the requisite 60-day drying period, his typical 6-by-6 scored 176 ⅞ inches. This score would have been even higher had the buck not broken off its left main beam, but it was still enough to edge out the previous record holder, Samuel Beatty, by a half-inch. (The scarcity of New Mexico whitetails is so extreme that B&C doesn’t maintain non-typical records in the state even though the first two record-book whitetails were 6-by-5s.) 

Read Next: The True Backstory on Why the Mitch Rompola Buck Was Never Entered as a World Record

This is usually the moment where the hunting media frenzy hoists Harlan in the air and celebrates his success. But that didn’t happen in February 2022, when the drying period would have ended and the record would have changed hands. In fact, not many people really knew about the buck until North American Whitetails published the first known article about Harlan’s hunt on July 17, roughly 17 months after the drying period ended.

It’s unclear why it took so long for the story of Harlan’s buck to surface. As of right now, NMGF hasn’t updated the record book on its website. (NMGF didn’t immediately respond to OL’s requests for comment.) But Harlan’s name and scoresheet now reside in the B&C book at the top of the New Mexico records, right where they belong.

The post The Record Whitetail That No One Heard About…Until Now appeared first on Outdoor Life.

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More and more slug-gun states in the Midwest and East have legalized the use of straight-wall rifles during deer season in recent years. Straight-wall cartridges, like the .350 Legend and .45/70, give whitetail hunters superior accuracy at shorter ranges, making them safer to shoot than necked cartridges in densely populated areas. But rifled and sabot (pronounced “say-bo”) slugs are far from outdated. Countless hunters in the middle of this country take smoothbore and rifled-barrel shotguns afield each fall, hoping to punch a tag with these short-range projectiles.

Both rifled slugs and sabots are ideal for the distances hunters aim to kill whitetails—typically inside 150 yards—in shotgun-only states. Their lethality has been well documented after decades of successful use in the deer woods. But there remains a long-standing argument among slug-gun hunters: Which projectile is best suited for killing whitetails? Over the years, the editors of Outdoor Life have shot a variety of rifled slugs and sabots from the bench and in the field and know well the capabilities of each load. If you’re trying to decide which round is ideal for your hunting style, here are the realities of shooting rifled versus sabot slugs.

The Difference Between Rifled Slugs and Sabots

Hunters using shotguns for deer—either by preference or mandate—can select between a smoothbore that uses rifled (also known as Foster-style) slugs or a rifled bore for sabot loads. A rifled slug has small helical grooves cut into the base of the projectile, but the slug does not have a specified twist rate like a centerfire round does.

There is some conjecture as to whether the vanes in a rifled slug cause the projectile to spin at all. So, I talked to long-time gun writer Dave Henderson, who has decades of slug shooting experience and a wealth of knowledge after a 55-year career of interviewing some of the foremost ballisticians in the country. He also authored a book, Shotgunning for Deer: Guns, Loads, and Techniques for the Modern Hunter, which details the innovations in slug technology.

“Rifled slugs have no twist rate,” Henderson says. “The slugs transit the barrel static and exit that way. There are photos from a manufacturer in my book that clearly show the rifling on the slug is worn smooth in the barrel and the slug never rotates. The slug’s accuracy comes from the extreme nose-heavy design, giving it the ‘rock-in-a-sock’ or [badminton] shuttlecock flight characteristic.” 

The cuts are also there to allow the slug to pass through a choke tube safely. If the grooves were not in place, there would be more friction between the barrel and load, which would cause a considerable drop in performance or possibly result in a failure. The advantage with rifled slugs, of course, is that you don’t have to buy a special rifled barrel. You can use one shotgun to hunt deer, birds, and other small game.

“Rifled slugs may be fired in smoothbores or rifled barrels, with no advantage in either,” Henderson says. “The rifled slug sort of skids across the rifling in the barrel and exits the way it would a smoothbore.”

Sabot-style rifled barrels typically have twist rates that can fall between 1:18 to 1:36. For instance, the popular Ithaca Deer Slayer III and Savage 220 have a barrel twist of 1:24 (that’s one full rotation of the slug every 24 inches). But the Savage 212 has a 1:35 twist. Interestingly, former OL shooting editor Jim Carmichael found no statistical difference in accuracy between using a 1:28 and 1:32 rifled barrel in a 2008 slug gun test (more on this later).

“It’s the sabot slug that benefits from—in fact virtually requires —a rifled bore,” Henderson says. “The rifling grips the polymer sleeve(s) on the slug, imparting a stabilizing spin on the projectile while still in the barrel. In most cases the sleeve is discarded after exiting the bore.” —J.G.

Rifled Choke Tubes

Sabots can also be shot through a smoothbore with a rifled choke. Buying a rifled choke tube is a cost-effective way to use sabots in a smoothbore without incurring the expense of a completely new barrel. Sabots are streamlined bullets encased in plastic much like bird shot is loaded into a wad. When the round is fired, the slug remains in the plastic casing and spins down the barrel until the projectile leaves the muzzle. At that point, the sleeve and slug separate, and the projectile continues to spin as it travels downrange. Sabots are often polymer-tipped and sub-caliber, which translates to .50 in 12-gauge guns. By comparison, standard smoothbore slugs are between .72- and .75-caliber. —P.M.

Sabot vs. Slug Trajectory

Most 12-gauge rifled slugs weigh either 1 or 1⅛ ounces. Sabots weigh under an ounce, or 437.5 grains, and can range from 250 to 376 grains. Both hit hard enough to anchor any whitetail at a reasonable distance. But you will see more sustained velocity from sabot slugs. Sabots continue to travel at higher speeds for longer due to the aerodynamics of the projectile.

To confirm this, all you need to do is look at the trajectory of two 3-inch loads—Federal TruBall rifled slug and Federal Trophy Copper sabot—with a zero of 100 yards. The physical makeup of the projectiles is quite different, which drastically affects their performance downrange. TruBall has a weight of 438 grains and a muzzle velocity of 1,700 fps. Trophy Copper is lighter (300 grains) and leaves the muzzle 300 fps faster, at 2,000 fps. In the table below, you will see that TruBall’s trajectory dissipates more rapidly than Trophy Copper when both loads are shot out to 200 yards under the same conditions. —J.G.

Rifled Slug vs. Sabot: Which Load Offers Better Accuracy?

A few years ago, during a lengthy range session, I shot 2¾-inch 1-ounce Federal TruBall rifled slugs from an open sight Benelli M2 and Winchester 2¾-inch 375-grain Dual Bond sabot slugs from a scoped Browning A-Bolt. At shorter ranges (out to 75 yards), there wasn’t much of a noticeable difference between rifled and sabot slug accuracy. But when I started shooting out to 100 yards and beyond, the sabot excelled.

During my day on the range, I was not shooting rifled slugs through a scoped smoothbore, which could have contributed to the inaccuracies. But I have done so many other times and found that the rifled slug simply won’t perform at distance like a sabot can. For instance, that 12-gauge 1-ounce Federal TruBall slug weighed 437.5 grains, compared to the 375-grain Winchester Dual Bond sabot. The TruBall slug also had a muzzle velocity of 1,300 fps compared to the Winchester’s 1,800 fps. Slower, heavier projectiles are going to drop faster and have a less effective range than a slightly lighter, but much faster one. —P.M.

Jim Carmichael’s Slug Gun Test

Miller’s findings were confirmed by the ballistic data I gleaned from Carmichael’s test published in the October 2008 issue of OL. With the help of Randy Fritz, who builds the incredibly accurate Tar-Hunt slug guns, Carmichael tested 27 rifled and sabot slugs, shooting over 1,000 rounds from a 50-pound, remote-operated slug gun engineered by Fritz. Carmichael’s testing protocol called for five three-shot groups of each load out to 100 yards, though he did fire a few five-shot groups to confirm load consistency and the accuracy of the equipment.

The table below details the best 20- and 12-gauge groups from the four manufacturers—Federal, Remington, Winchester, and Lightfield— included in the test. Most of the loads Carmichael shot were sabots, but he did shoot two Winchester rifled slugs as well. You can see from the data that the sabot groups were much tighter than their rifled counterparts. —J.G.

Should You Use a 2¾-Inch or a 3-Inch Slug?

Most of my experience with slugs—rifled and sabot—has been with 2¾- and 3-inch 12-gauge offerings. It’s my contention that a 2¾-inch is adequate for killing deer, and that a 3-inch load simply generates more recoil with a slight amount of increased velocity. I chronographed Winchester’s Elite 3-inch Dual Bond sabot and found the muzzle velocity increase in a Browning A-Bolt to be only 50 fps faster than the 2¾-inch offering of the same weight. Granted, velocities can fluctuate for a variety of reasons, including the physical makeup of the bullet, elevation, and weather conditions, but I’ve never found that extra quarter-inch to make a marked difference.  —P.M.

 The 20-Gauge Sabot Slug  

When I worked in Illinois, a shotgun-only deer state, I noticed many whitetail hunters selected 20-gauge sabot slug guns. So, I was curious about 20-gauge range capabilities and asked Hornady’s Seth Swerczek about it.

“I think 20-gauge sabot loads are popular because of their reduced recoil,” Swerczek says. “Both of our 12- and 20-gauge sabot slug loads offer honest 200-yard performance, so you’re really not giving up any effective range by opting for the 20-gauge.”

A 200-yard shot with Hornady’s 2¾-inch 20-gauge SST sabot might be pushing the boundaries of that load’s effectiveness, especially if the shot placement isn’t precise. But the 250-grain slug can kill a deer at 150 yards. According to Hornady’s ballistics chart, the SST has a velocity of 1,331 fps and 983 ft/lb. of energy at that distance. Dial your shot back to 100 yards and the same load produces 1,200 ft/lb. of energy.

What helped sell me on the 20, aside from reduced felt recoil, was an opportunity to hunt hogs with a scoped, rifled-barrel Winchester M1300 pump several years ago. The longest shot I made was close to 100 yards, and the longest shot I saw anybody else connect on—with the same setup—was just over 120 yards. At 100 yards, those 20-gauge sabot slugs seemingly hit with the force of a .250-grain .45/70 (it’s actually about a 250 ft/lb. difference in favor of the Hornady MonoFlex over an SST slug in a side-by-side comparison). Regardless, the terminal results on 200-pound hogs, considerably tougher to bring down than a whitetail, were spectacular. —P.M.

Read next: The 15 Best Shotguns for Deer Hunting

Pick a Slug or Sabot Based on How You Hunt

Which option you choose—rifled or sabot slug—will be subjective based on your hunting needs. From 75 yards and in (with the occasional poke out to 100 yards) a rifled slug holds its own compared to a sabot. But if you have any chance of a 100-yard-plus shot, a sabot is clearly a better choice in terms of accuracy and trajectory.

I did ask Swerczek which sells better, Hornady’s SST sabot loads or the company’s traditional American Whitetail rifled slugs. He confirmed sabots are much more popular. That’s not surprising since most hunters are interested in getting the maximum distance they can from their firearm. But also, a sabot capable of shooting 50 to 75 yards farther can be the difference between killing your target buck and helplessly watching as it walks out of sight on the last day of gun season. —J.G. and P.M.

The post Rifled vs. Sabot Slugs: Are You Shooting the Right Whitetail Load this Deer Season? appeared first on Outdoor Life.

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Bowhunting for whitetail deer is the most accessible and thrilling big-game hunt in all of North America. A mature, rut-crazed whitetail buck that stomps and grunts his way into bow range on a crisp November morning is a true spectacle to behold. Executing a perfect archery shot on that old buck—drawing your bow undetected, holding for the ideal window, squeezing the release, seeing the arrow in flight, and hearing it hit home—is perhaps the purest moment in all of modern hunting.

If you want to get in on the action, you’ve got a lot to learn. Bowhunting for deer requires general woodsmanship and hunting knowledge, plus some specific skills and gear. In this guide, we cover everything you need to know about how to bow hunt deer, including:

• How to find places to bow hunt
• Understanding deer behavior and deer sign
• Basic bowhunting gear
• How to practice shooting a compound bow
• Bowhunting tips and tactics
• Shot placement and shot selection
• Blood trailing and recovering your deer

The good news is that there are a lot of deer out there (more than 30 million), and every state east of the Mississippi has a robust whitetail population. Many western states also have excellent bowhunting opportunities as well. Find our full forecast on the 2022 deer hunting season here. With the right knowledge and gear, you can embark on a lifetime of bowhunting adventures. If you’re already a deer hunter and interested in adding an archery season to your fall, just skip down to the section on basic bowhunting gear. Otherwise, here’s how to get started.

How to Find Places to Bow Hunt

A bowhunter’s job is to ambush a deer at close range and then make a clean, killing shot. That can seem intimidating when you consider the fact that whitetails frequent large forests, small woodlots, rolling farm fields, expansive marshes, and almost every other wild land in between. So where do you start?

Begin your search relatively close to home. As a new bowhunter you’re going to need to spend time in the woods to learn. So, you want your main bowhunting area to be a place you can visit often with an easy drive. From there, consider the following types of land.

Private Land

Scoring a small piece of private land is a dream scenario for a new bowhunter. Maybe you have a family member or close friend with some farm ground you could hunt. Or maybe a neighbor might let you hunt on the back 40 acres. Or maybe you know some veteran hunters who might give you access to their private ground for part of the season. You could even try your hand at landing a small, affordable hunting lease. In any case, private land is ideal for a new bowhunter because it helps you avoid the biggest challenge in public-land hunting: competing with other hunters.

Public Land

If you don’t have access to private land, use a mapping app like OnX or Huntstand to identify public hunting lands in your area. Common public lands that usually allow bowhunting for deer included:

• State forests
• State wildlife management areas
• State natural areas
• National forests
• National wildlife refuges
• Waterfowl production areas
• Scenic wild river areas
• Bureau of Land Management lands

There are also a variety of private land programs that provide public access for hunting. Those programs include:

• Walk-in areas
• Voluntary public access areas
• Logging company owned lands
• Conservation easements
• Managed forest lands

Always check your local regulations before making plans to hunt a piece of publicly accessibly land. Even within states, similar types of public hunting land can have different regulations.

Once you’ve identified the piece of land you like (either public or private), then it’s time to look closer using your mapping application. Take note of access points, farm fields, bodies of water, and general topography (hills, ridges, lowlands, etc.). Once you have a lay of the land, it’s time to put boots on the ground and do some scouting.

Understanding Deer Behavior and Sign

There are an infinite number of articles written about whitetail behavior, deer sign, and the rut. But at the most basic level, deer need to eat, drink, and find a safe place to bed every day. During the rut, they need to breed. Deer leave sign behind as they move through the woods and progress through the breeding season. Understanding deer behavior, deer sign, the rut and how hunting pressure impacts it all, will help you pinpoint the best places to hunt at any point throughout the season. The following basics will get you started.

Basic Deer Behavior

In general, deer are most active in the early morning, the late evening, and at night. During the middle of the day, deer bed down in areas where they won’t be bothered by predators. This could mean thickets, grassy patches of marsh, or remote wooded ridges. However, deer do feed throughout the day, usually just closer to cover.

By late afternoon, deer will typically stir from their bedding areas, and start to mill around looking for food and water. By evening or nighttime, they’ll head for major feeding areas like agricultural fields or oak flats where there are lots of acorns on the ground. By morning, deer will start to head back to the security of their bedding areas. This means that ideal places to ambush whitetails is on trails between feeding areas and bedding areas or on core feeding areas themselves. But remember, there are no hard-and-fast rules on deer behavior. Whitetails will do whatever they like, whenever they like.

The Whitetail Rut

The rut (or the fall breeding season, which is spurred on by decreasing daylight) greatly impacts deer behavior and patterns—typically in a good way for hunters. As the photo period shortens testosterone in whitetail bucks increases, which drives them to breed. This means that rutting bucks will spend more time on their feet, searching for does when the rut begins. There are several phases to the rut, but in most parts of the country heavy rutting activity begins in late October and continues through mid-November. During the rut, bowhunters should target major deer trails or naturally occurring funnels (like a strip of woods between two ponds) to intercept cruising bucks.

It makes sense to hunt all day during the rut, since bucks could stomp by at any time. Many mature bucks are killed each year between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Bucks also fight for dominance during the rut, however it’s important to note that whitetails are not territorial. Bucks are fighting over breeding opportunities, not the ground itself. So, when all else fails, hunt where the does are, and soon enough a buck might come charging by.

Reading Deer Sign

The best bowhunters are knowledgeable woodsmen. They know how to read tracks, scat, sign, and interpret how deer use the landscape. This takes a lifetime of practice to master, and the only way to get good at it is to spend time in the field. However, these basics will get you started.

Tracks

You’ll find deer tracks in mud, sand, and snow. The points of the hooves tell you which way the deer was heading. Buck tracks are typically longer and wider (they appear blockier) and doe tracks are typically more slender. If you consistently see fresh tracks in the same area over and over, you know that’s a good area to hang a trail camera or a stand.

Scat

Deer poop is another easy way to identify that whitetails have been in the area. Look for an area that has a variety of scat freshness. In other words, there’s fresh poop, old poop, and very old poop laying around in piles. You’ll find this in main feeding areas or bedding areas.

Buck Rubs

As soon as bucks shed their velvet, they begin rubbing their antlers on trees. These rubs are sometimes made one after another along a trail—this is called a rub line. Rubs are good for showing that a buck was in an area, but they are not necessarily a dead giveaway for a hunting spot. However, spots that receive rubs every year, or large “sign post rubs” are worth targeting, at least with trail cameras.

Scrapes

A whitetail scrape is a circular dirt spot where deer have scraped away leaves and debris with their hooves. They can vary in size from about two feet in diameter, up to the area of a small dining room table. Above the scrape there will be a branch that hangs to about chest height, this is called a licking branch. Both bucks and does will urinate in scrapes and rub the glands on their face against the licking branch. Doing so leaves behind their scent and lets other deer know who’s around. You can dig into the details around hunting scrapes and making mock scrapes here, but for a simple explanation, think of them as that fire hydrant in the neighborhood that every dog likes to sniff and urinate on. Scrapes are most often used at night, so hunting over a single scrape is a bit of a gamble. However, active scrapes (which are often made along field edges) are good places to hang trail cameras. If you find a buck hitting a scrape in the daytime, it often pays to hunt it right away.

Basic Bowhunting Gear

Getting started bowhunting is an investment in time and money. Buying the wrong gear can cost you more of both, so here’s a guide to make sure you’re headed in the right direction. You’ll need:

• Bow or crossbow
• Arrows
• Broadheads
• Release aid
• Rangefinder
• Quiver
• Treestand or blind
• Knife
• Pack

Choosing a Bow  

The brand or model of bow you choose is not important. What’s important is that the bow fits you. There are two key things for bow fit: draw length and draw weight. Modern compound bows are so efficient that you can effectively hunt with low draw weight, so leave your ego out of that equation. You want to be able to draw the bow straight back easily. No wrestling the bow back through a series of awkward and dangerous movements. Just a nice easy pull, straight back. 

Equally important is draw length, which requires a studied eye to set properly. Also, your draw length might change a little as your form improves. That’s why you really need the help of a great archery shop to buy, set up, and tune your first bow. For many people, a good archery shop (not a big box store) requires a drive, but trust me, it’s worth it to get started properly. 

The Complete Bow Setup

There are many shiny and seductive accessories at archery shops, but for a new archer, keep it simple. A three- or five-pin sight, a Whisker Biscuit, and a bow quiver are all you need. A lot of the best bows for the money come as ready-to-hunt packages, which make things easier and save you money, which you can use for archery lessons. 

Arrows and Broadheads

You can’t shoot just any arrow from your bow. Arrows come in sizes, called spines, that correspond to your draw weight, arrow length, and point weight. When you’re buying a bow, the shop staff will help you figure out that equation, and every arrow manufacturer has a spine chart or calculator to help you find the right size arrow. 

Broadheads, like bows, are a matter of personal preference. Many will work great, and you don’t have to spend a lot of money on them to kill deer. But you do need to make sure that the broadhead you choose is sharp and shoots where you aim it. I recently tested more than 20 of the best broadheads, and you can use that review to help guide your choice. But you still need to shoot the head you choose and get it sharp again before you go hunting. 

Hunting Gear

You can kill a deer in jeans and flannel sitting in a natural blind. But a treestand makes the already difficult task of shooting a deer, a little easier. You’ll of course need all the treestand-related gear like a safety harness, lifeline, bow hanger, and bow pull-up rope. A small bowhunting backpack is helpful for carrying essentials like a knife, license, food, and layers. Trail cameras aren’t necessary, but they’re a helpful tool for new hunters because they can give you the confidence that there are deer in the area. 

READ NEXT: What Colors Can Deer See?

Avoid Gear Rabbit Holes

Bowhunting gear is fun. There are a lot of interesting products on the market as well as communities of people who are zealots for their preferred gear style. From heavy arrows to tree saddles, bowhunters can get downright tribal with gear choices and they can be pretty convincing that their way is the best way. But, becoming a successful bowhunter is not about the gear you choose. It’s about spending time shooting at the range and learning in the woods. Stick to the basics and let your taste in gear evolve through experience. 

How to Practice Shooting Your Compound Bow

Basic Archery Form 

You’ll hear the term “archery form” thrown around a lot in archery discussions, and form just means the set of steps you follow each time you shoot. Here are the important steps:

Grip

A good grip uses your body’s natural bone structure to help you support the bow and imparts no torque. Start with a relaxed hand and slide it up the bow’s grip until it can go no farther. The web of your hand should now be in the throat, which is the deepest part of the bow’s grip.

Next, rotate your hand until only the area between your thumb and the palm’s lifeline contacts the grip. As you look at your hand, your knuckles should be set back and at a 45-degree angle to the riser. Point your thumb toward the target, and lightly rest your other fingers on the front of the bow. If you find yourself squeezing the bow’s grip, tuck in your fingers, so they don’t touch the bow. If you use the tucked technique, you’ll need a finger or wrist sling to prevent the bow from dropping. Apply slight pressure to the bowstring to set your grip into place, and keep your hand relaxed throughout the shot.

Draw

Straighten your arm that holds the bow and pull with your arm attached to the string via the release aid. Keep your finger away from the trigger during this process—the one time I failed to mention that to a student, it resulted in a dentist visit. You should not need to make a violent motion to bring the string back, if you do, your draw weight is too high. Imagine the arm doing the pulling as a train, where your elbow is the locomotive leading the way. 

Anchor

Your anchor is simply the point at which your bow is at full draw and you settle in to aim. An often-missed portion of anchor is something called alignment. As your cams rollover and you feel the draw stops hit, it’s time to move your elbow and shoulders into position. Moving them into alignment means you’ll be supporting the weight of the bow with bone structure, rather than muscle. Bring your elbow back and around your head so that it’s in line with the arrow. Your shoulders should be aligned with each other and pointed toward the target. Once in this position, you’ll feel that keeping the bow back is very easy. Then look through your peep sight and center the circular sight housing within the circle of your peep. You can add more reference points to your anchor like a kisser button, which can make centering your sight an easier process. 

Aim 

Place the pin for the distance you’re shooting on the target and let it float around your aiming point. Don’t try to stop the movement. Just let the pin naturally float and move on to executing your release. 

Release

There are a lot of ways to activate a release. But the easiest to start with is to set the release so that the trigger is fairly heavy. You should be able to rest your finger on the trigger without it going off. Step one is to touch the trigger and hook your index finger around the trigger. Then slowly increase the pressure until the shot breaks. 

Follow Through 

There’s enough time between the release and the arrow disengaging for you to change the arrow’s path. So, your job in this moment is to do nothing. Don’t move, and don’t add flair to the shot. Just keep your eyes on the spot you want to hit and maintain your position. 

Learn to Shoot

You can learn archery form by reading articles, watching videos, or from old uncle Bobby, but you’ll be much better off by getting instruction from a qualified coach. A few lessons to learn the fundamentals followed by a lot of practice will set you up for success. 

Making Shots Under Pressure 

Shooting groups in the backyard is one thing. Making the same shot when your pin drops onto a live animal is the true test. Success here is not about making yourself less nervous. It’s about shooting the same shot despite the nerves. To do that, don’t focus on how much you want to shoot the deer. Instead, keep your focus on the steps you need to do to achieve that result. Focus on the key steps of your archery form—one by one. By executing each step and only focusing on those tasks, you reduce the chance of making a bad shot. 

How to Bow Hunt Deer, Tips and Tactics

Hunt the Wind

Whitetails navigate the world by scent. They have incredibly powerful noses that lead them to food, other deer, and help them avoid predators. This means that bowhunters must always stay downwind from deer. Check prevailing wind data and hang key stands based on that info. Also make sure you have stand setups that are optimal for different wind directions. If the wind isn’t right for a given stand location, simply don’t hunt it on that day. If deer get downwind from you, they are almost guaranteed to smell you before they get into bow range. If you blow out deer from a stand location, you can burn that spot for several days.

It’s just as important to factor in wind when approaching your stand. Never let your scent blow into a bedding area. Likewise, don’t let your scent blow across the main trails that you are trying to hunt.  

Kill Your Scent (as Much as Possible)

Many veteran bowhunters (myself included), believe that it’s worth trying to reduce your scent. To do this, you can shower with scent-free soap before you hunt. Wash your hunting clothes with scent-free detergent. There are a variety of scent-killing sprays that you can spray on your outer layers before you walk into your stand. Avoid getting strong scents (like gasoline while filling up your truck) on your clothes or boots before a hunt. Wear rubber boots and spray them down. Avoid touching vegetation with your bare hands on the way into your stand.

All these tactics will help prevent you from being busted by deer; however, you’ll never consistently beat a deer’s nose. So always hunt with the wind in your favor, no matter what scent mitigation tools you use. 

Set Up for Close Encounters

Bowhunting for whitetails is a close-range game. When you’re a new bowhunter, it needs to be an ultra-close-range game. No matter how accurate you are on targets, your first shot on a whitetail deer should be 20 yards or less (read my story about deer jumping the string). To make this happen, you need to set up your stand or blind close to where you expect deer to show. Treestands are the go-to option for most bowhunters. Pick a good-sized tree that’s about as wide as your shoulders. If you’re using a hang-on stand, mount the stand so branches or forks break up your outline. Make sure that you have cover behind you. If you’re using a blind, brush it in diligently and tuck it into existing cover so you’re not sticking out in the open. Confirm that you’re setting up close enough to main trails by using a rangefinder. And when you’re sitting in your stand waiting for deer, range trees, rocks, bushes, ect. Establish a 20-yard perimeter and don’t shoot beyond it.

Hunt Does

It’s important for anyone learning how to bow hunt deer to get useful field experience. The only way to do that is to start shooting deer. And the best way to do that is by targeting does in areas with high deer densities. Many states have areas where whitetail populations are too high, often where rural lands meet suburbia. Trophy potential usually isn’t very high in these areas, but for a new bowhunter, any cleanly killed deer should be considered a trophy.

Use Calls and Scent Attractants

There are dozens of different deer calls and attractant scents on the market, and many of them are useful. They key is to use them sparingly. You can’t simply hammer on a grunt tube and expect deer to come running from far and wide. When it comes to calls, a grunt tube and a doe bleat are a good place to start. Read about deer calling tips from the experts here.

When it comes to scents, I’ve found that a little Tink’s 69 Doe-in-Rut sprinkled on a scent wick will get bucks (at least younger bucks) to stop in shooting range during the rut. But you still need to be in the right place at the right time.

Shot Selection and Placement

We’ve already covered taking close shots only. Now you need to know where to place your arrow. In the simplest terms, you want your arrow to enter behind the deer’s shoulder, pass through the heart/lungs area, and exit the body cavity (here’s our ultimate guide on where to shoot a deer). In other stories and on social media you might read about shooting heavy arrows that will penetrate the bones in a whitetail’s shoulder. It’s true that certain setups will penetrate bone without issue.

But beginner bowhunters should first learn proper shot placement behind the shoulder, no matter what setup they’re shooting. That means broadside and quartering away shots only.

On broadside shots, aim just behind the deer’s front leg (when it’s in the forward position) and halfway up the body. There are a lot of charts and videos online covering archery shot placement on whitetail deer. But this simple video from the National Deer Association is the best.

On a quartering away shot, visualize a line coming up from the front of the deer’s offside front leg. You want your arrow to exit through that line. However, you should pass on extreme quartering away shots. Buy a 3D deer target and practice shooting quartering away angles, and the high angle from a tree stand, as much as you can. When shooting from high angles pay close attention to how the arrow enters the 3D deer’s “body cavity.” With the arrow’s downward angle, you still want it to penetrate the top of the heart.

Blood Trailing and Recovering Your Deer

You got to full draw, waited for the deer to get into the right position, and let it fly. Congratulations, but your hunt isn’t over. You haven’t fully learned how to bow hunt deer until you’ve developed blood trailing skills. There are two keys to recovering deer: patience and attention to detail.

Watch and Listen

At the shot watch and listen. Listen for how the arrow sounds when it hits the deer. A hollow sounding “thunk” often means a shot through the body cavity. A loud “crack” often means a direct hit to bone. Watch how the deer reacts. A mule kick often means a shot through the lungs. A hunched up, arched back often means a gut shot. Continue watching as the deer runs (or walks) away. Mark the last spot that you saw the deer, and take a photo of that spot with your phone. Continue listening even after you no longer see the deer. Oftentimes you can hear them crash down. Mark the direction it sounds like the deer was traveling. From your stand, take a photo of the spot the deer was standing when you shot (this is called the hit site).

Wait for 30 Minutes

If you didn’t see the deer fall or clearly hear it fall, you job now is to wait. Just hang out in your stand and relax for 30 minutes. Set a 30-minute timer if you must. Climbing down early and rushing the blood trailing job is a good way to bump (scare off) a mortally hit deer. Bumped deer can run a far way and are often impossible to recover. Do not make this mistake. 

Call for Help

If you have hunting buddies or even a friend who likes the outdoors, now is a good time to call them. It’s much easier to blood trail a deer with a little help. Plus, when you find your deer, it’s nice to have a friend to help drag it out.  

Analyze the Hit Site

After a full 30 minutes, climb down from your stand or leave your blind and go directly to the hit site (the spot the deer was standing when you shot). Look for blood and look for you arrow. Bright red blood with bubbles in it typically means a lung shot. If you find your arrow and it’s covered in bright red blood with some bubbles, this is a very good sign. Mark the spot of first blood.

Now, follow the blood trail slowly and carefully. A deer that was shot through both lungs (and the heart) will bleed profusely. The trail should be relatively easy to follow. Still, take your time and leave trail markers every 20 yards or so to mark the trail. Within about 100 to 150 yards, you should find your deer.

Marginal Hits

If you comb the hit site and don’t find an obvious splotch of blood, or if you find blood that smells, rank and gutty (or has green slicks in it) then you’ve likely made a marginal hit. Quietly, and I mean very quietly, work your way toward the spot you last saw the deer. If there’s still a poor blood trail, or signs of a gut shot, it’s best to pull out and leave the woods. You should wait several hours, and likely overnight, before continuing the search. A gut shot deer can take hours to expire, bumping it means you might never recover it. Many states have volunteer blood trailing dog programs. Calling in an experienced blood tracker with a dog can be incredibly helpful for a new bowhunter. Tracking a marginally hit deer is a real challenge that even experienced hunters struggle with. For more information, click on the links below.

• 6 Blood Trailing Lessons Learned from Tracking Dogs
• 10 Myths About Blood Trailing Deer
• How to Bloodtrail and Track Wounded Deer
  

What it Means to Be a Bowhunter

The best bowhunters are patient, thoughtful woodsmen. They’re excellent shots on the range and in the field. And more than anything, they enjoy being in the woods and trying to get close to the animals they pursue. Bowhunting takes more practice and attention to detail than other types of hunting. Becoming a bowhunter means committing to mastering a craft. If that sounds like fun to you, then welcome to the club. We’re glad to have you.

The post How to Bow Hunt Deer appeared first on Outdoor Life.

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FOR A WEEK we had been hunting chukars above the Snake River in eastern Washington, my son Chris and I, laboring along those god-awful lava slopes each day and getting back to camp late, bone-tired and rock-sore. We were set up just across the river from Lewiston, Idaho, where Jack O’Connor lived. I’d meant to call him and let him know we were around. But as the week wore on and we wore with it, getting raunchier by the day, we didn’t figure the O’Connor hearth would be much enhanced by our presence.

I should have known better. The next time we stopped at Paul Nolte’s Lolo Gun Shop in Lewiston there was a message waiting: “Dammit, call me. O’Connor.” 

By phone, Jack told me he didn’t give a hoot how we looked. He’d seen dirty Levis before. “When you get in from hunting today, come on up to the house,” he barked. “We’ll have a libation and look at some stuffed animals. Then we’ll eat beefsteaks someplace. Adios.” Click. 

The libations were waiting when we got there, and the stuffed-animal tour got under way. It was something, it really was, although I can’t recall many details. Hides, horns and tusks, cases of superb custom rifles and shotguns that dreams are made of. Shelves of classic books bound in buckram and leather. And in the high-ceilinged trophy room, the big heads the grand slam of sheep, the stately racks of elk, caribou, moose, mule deer, kudu, and orderly benches with reloading presses, and racks of dies and components. Then back by a slightly different route, past more hides and oiled walnut and blued steel. 

If I was dazed by all this, 19-year-old Chris was stunned. He hadn’t said a word. When we got back to the living room, Jack asked: 

“Tell me, Chris, have you ever seen anything like that before?” 

“No, sir. I sure haven’t.” 

“What do you think of it?” 

“Well, sir,” said Chris thoughtfully, “you don’t fish much, do you?” 

In the 20 years I knew Jack O’Connor, it was the only time I ever saw him at a loss for words. 

As a matter of fact, Jack hated fishing. And for a gun editor, surprisingly, he wasn’t exactly breathless about handguns, either. But when it came to the long guns, and applying rifle and shotgun to the taking of game, he was deeply experienced and expressed that experience in some of the best writing that’s been done on the subject. 

Jack was one of my guiding lights in the late 1930s, when I was beginning to shoot and hunt. He was one of a special band of dream-spinners called gun writers—men like Bob Nichols, Col. Townsend Whelan, Maurice Decker, Ned Crossman, Phil Sharpe and Elmer Keith. I savored their exploits on the target range and in the field, coveted with wonderful guns they pictured and praised, and tried my best to apply what they taught me to my old low-wall .22 and the local farm thickets. 

I don’t know how many of those old-time gun writers and editors really hunted. Some of them, like some of today’s shooting writers and editors, probably hunted little or never. But there’s no denying O’Connor’s credentials in that department. His hunting skill went beyond basic shooting ability and coolness in the presence of game, although he had developed great measures of each. Jack also knew the game he hunted. He knew what it took to hunt and kill that game decently, and even more important, he knew what the game needed from the land if it was to withstand hunting pressure. He wasn’t just a sometime shooter who could turn a clever phrase. He was a hunter who’d been there and done it, and it showed. It always shows. 

Jack relied heavily on personal experience, but he was enough of a technician to distrust isolated examples and fluke occurrences. He preferred to test a bullet, cartridge or rifle in many ways before drawing a conclusion. I don’t think he ever felt really familiar with a particular cartridge until he had hunted with it. Sure, he reported on new loads and rifles tested only on the bench, but his gilt-edge endorsement was generally reserved for guns and ammo proved under rigorous field conditions. 

To the shooting public, Jack O’Connor’s middle name was “.270 Win.” He was the cartridge’s official press agent—so outspoken in its praises that he had a sort of spiritual copyright on it. The .270 may have been Winchester’s baby, but Jack was its adopted daddy. This got a bit wearisome in his later years. He was sometimes a little touchy about his public identification with the .270, but he brought it on himself with glowing anecdotes like this one from his story “Up to Our Necks in Deer”: 

“Whoopee!” said Zefarino. “That’s the kind of rifle I like, one that has power. One shot and the buck doesn’t move. How do you call it?” 

“The .270,” I said. 

“The same you shot the ram with, no?” 

“The same. 

“With the .30 you shot a buck and it ran. Then the smaller boy shot a buck with the .25 and it ran. Now the large boy shoots a buck with this rifle and it is dead in its tracks. How good a rifle, this .270!” 

“It shoots a good ball,” I said. “A very fast ball.” 

So spoke O’Connor, and the .270 flourished apace. And characteristically, Jack knew whereof he spoke. He’d wrung out the .270 on three continents. He shot at least 36 species of big game with this cartridge. These included more than 30 rams (four grand slams of American mountain sheep and four Old World species), an even dozen moose, more than a dozen black bears, two grizzlies, at least 18 elk, 17 caribou and several species of deer. How many deer? I doubt if even Jack knew. He also used the .270 in Africa on such tough game as oryx and zebra, as well as ibex, gazelle and antelope in Iran and India. 

In many ways, Jack was in the catbird seat as a gun writer. He developed during the 1920s and 1930s when great advances were being made in really modern rifles, sights and cartridges. It was a time when the bolt-action sporting rifle and its high-intensity cartridges began to really come into their own. New powders and primers and revolutionary bullet designs were appearing, telescopic sights and mounts were evolving rapidly, giant strides were being taken in fitting rifle actions and barrels into one-piece stocks, and men were revising what they’d known about accuracy. Jack O’Connor knew many rifles and shotguns, but he’ll always be most closely identified with the superbly accurate, strongly breeched, bolt-action rifle with ’scope sight and fast, jacketed bullet. After all, he was mainly a man of open country, of mountains and plains and deserts, and this showed in his interests and preferences. 

As a gun writer who depended heavily on hunting mileage, he had plenty of grist for his mill. Born in Arizona Territory in 1902, he grew up in a hunter’s paradise that still had overtones of the Old West, next door to the game-rich desert wilderness of Mexican Sonora. He’d begun writing during a period when new road systems and air travel were opening up many remote hunting ranges in the West, British Columbia, the Yukon and Alaska. He had served his apprenticeship at the close of one era and the beginning of another. 

I first met him in the fall of 1958, at the first Winchester Gun Writers’ Seminar, at Nilo Farms in southwestern Illinois. Those were some fandangos, those early seminars, including such scribes as Warren Page, Pete Kuhloff, Larry Koller, John Amber, Pete Brown, Dave Wolfe, Elmer Keith, Les Bowman, Col. Charley Askins, Bill Edwards, Tom Siatos and such notable drop-ins as Col. Townsend Whelan, Nash Buckingham and Andy Devine. 

I’ve never laughed harder, learned more, or had days and nights pass any faster than at those early Winchester seminars. Rich talk and wild tales, all leavened with deep experience and salty humor. How I wish we’d taped some of those sessions in the old Stratford Hotel! About half the guys were more or less deaf, of course. A conversation between Jack O’Connor, Lee Bowman, John Amber and Elmer Keith could be heard through most of the hotel. A stranger might get the idea they were violent antagonists yelling at each other. Not so. They were good friends just trying to hear each other after too many years of unshielded muzzle blasts. And later on, after dinner, we’d all convene for the main bullshoot with half of us sitting on the floor while actor Frank Ferguson, Pete Kuhloff, Andy Devine and other masters vied in round-robin story contests that would send us to bed at 3 a.m., completely laughed out. 

Yet, I don’t think I ever heard Jack O’Connor tell a joke at one of those shindigs. He just wasn’t a joke-teller. His style of humor was anecdotal. You never belly-laughed at an O’Connor story; it was wry, dry and low key. His humor lay in the sardonic twist of real experience, and he often used it to make a point. For instance, this comment on rifle stock design: 

“Sometimes very slight changes in curves and angles make the difference between a beautiful and graceful stock and a homely and ordinary one. I am thinking of two sisters I once knew. Both were blond, witty and charming. But one (though she was a fine cook and had a heart of gold) was a rather ordinary-looking lass who got by on her good disposition and winning ways. The other was a tearing beauty, a creature so lovely that one look at her sent young men’s blood pressure skyward and set them to uttering wild, hoarse cries and tearing telephone directories apart with the bare hands. Yet actually those two girls looked much alike. It was easy to see they were sisters. What made the difference was an angle here, a line there, small dimensional differences in eyes, noses, mouths. And so it is with stocks.” 

Jack was a great admirer of the late H. L. Mencken and shared many of that great man’s views on the sad state of the English language and the world in general. Like Mencken’s, even Jack’s compliments could have a wire edge. I once spoke at a dinner meeting that Jack attended. I can’t remember the subject now, but Jack came up afterward and said: “Well, that wasn’t quite as bad as I thought it would be. It was fairly tolerable—although as a rule I hate afterdinner speakers like God hates St. Louis!”’ 

He spoke with authority, for his wife, Eleanor, was a St. Louis girl. Jack met her at the University of Missouri. Still, I couldn’t let that slight to one of my favorite cities go unanswered. I loved to needle Jack. 

A couple of years later, coming into Lewiston from Missoula, I passed a pulp mill whose sulphite stink tainted the air for 10 miles up the Clearwater. When I saw Jack, I gave it to him: “O’Connor, don’t you ever badmouth St. Louis again! Why, I can’t wait to get back to the Mississippi and away from this west Idaho stench! Come home with me, Jack, and breathe some good air for a change!” 

He gave me a long, level look through those wire-rimmed glasses of his. You could almost hear the gears meshing. He asked: “Madson, tell me something. How much does Remington pay you to work for Winchester?” 

“Not enough!” I said without thinking. 

“AGREED!” Jack yelled triumphantly. It made his whole day. 

We had some good yarning sessions on guns and hunting, although near the end of his life it seemed that Jack was less disposed to talk about guns than other subjects. And a thing he never tired of discussing was writing. 

Jack was a trained journalist with years of teaching at Arizona universities. All that showed, too. His work was disciplined, carefully controlled and structured. It wears well. Jack never used a heavy word when a light one would do, and he seldom used any word carelessly. He was a relentless self-editor who knew that simplicity and directness are the essences of good communication. His sentences were short, crisp and to the point. No, come to think of it, they weren’t always short. As a fine double-gun seems lighter because it is well-designed and balanced, so Jack’s longer sentences usually seem shorter than they really are. 

Jack was a durable man and well designed for his calling, seemingly made of slabs, laths, bits of wire and scraps of leather. He had to be named O’something. With that long upper lip and wire-framed specs, he was Paddy to the life—and the older he got the more Irish he looked. Now and then he’d wear a shapeless tweed hat that someone had given him; all he needed then was a blackthorn stick to be the image of a reformed Donegal poacher. 

He was also inclined to be a dour man. He was outspoken and intolerant of those he considered fools, phonies or bores, and some of his bitterest opinions were reserved for writers who produced what he called “the vast amount of vague, windy, sloppy and sometimes dishonest writing that is put out about rifle accuracy.” 

Most of Jack’s career was linked with Outdoor Life. He wrote his first piece for OL in 1934—a conservation story titled “Arizona’s Antelope Problem.” He did several more stories for the magazine during the mid-1930s, and late in 1936 editor Ray Brown asked him to write exclusively for OL. Jack accepted, and took a year’s leave of absence from teaching journalism at the University of Arizona to write magazine stories and work on a book. Thus he entered the rarefied world of freelance writing. 

He was back at the university full-time, and still doing articles for Outdoor Life, when shooting editor Ned Crossman committed suicide in 1939. Jack was asked to replace him, and began doing a regular department called “Getting the Range.” In the June 1941 issue Jack was named arms and ammunition editor and continued in that job until 1972. During his years with Outdoor Life he wrote more than 200 articles for the front of the book, in addition to shooting columns that appeared almost monthly for about 43 years. No other gun writer has racked up that much mileage with one magazine. 

Jack retired officially from Outdoor Life in 1972 although he served as shooting editor for another year after that. During those last years I hunted upland birds in level fields with him. He got along fine, but his mountain days were about over. He’d been in a bad car wreck in 1957. 

Jack died on Jan. 20, 1978, aboard a cruise ship returning from Hawaii, just two days before his 76th birthday. His wonderful wife and favorite hunting companion, Eleanor, was with him at the end—and followed him within the year. 

A few years before Jack left Outdoor Life we were yarning away an autumn evening in Lewiston, talking about hunting in general and gun writing in particular. Jack had been reflecting on the old-timers—Whelan, Sharpe, Nichols, Crossman and the rest-when he suddenly turned to me and said: “John, how in hell can they ever replace me? Who can they find who’s seen what I’ve seen, and can write about it?’’ 

My first impulse was to land on him for such a typical O’Connor remark, but after a moment’s reflection I understood. No one could really replace him. He was the product of a special time, and we’ll not see his like again, for the country and experience that shaped Jack will never exist again. He couldn’t be replaced; he could only be succeeded and by a younger man who’d write for today’s shooters, sharing their problems and hopes and not letting the rich memories of vanished places and long-ago hunts sour today’s adventures. A successor like Jim Carmichel, who Jack approved as “a good writer and a very knowledgeable young man.” Coming from O’Connor, that was about as good as anyone will get. 

The epitaph of Western artist Frederic Remington is simply: “He knew the horse.” If two generations of shooters and hunters were to rephrase that, Jack’s stone would say: “He knew the rifle and loved the game.” 

Good hunting, old friend. See you in camp at sundown.

This story, “Remembering Cactus Jack,” originally appeared in the July 1980 issue. Read more OL+ stories.

The post The Legacy, and Last Years, of Jack O’Connor appeared first on Outdoor Life.

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On a cold and windy November morning, Darin Williams climbed into his truck long before daylight. The 51-year-old checked his cell for trail camera photos, and he was stunned to see a picture of a colossal Kansas buck that had crossed a food plot and walked within bow range of his blind that morning.

“Neighbors and I knew that buck was around, but no one had a chance to take him,” Williams tells Outdoor Life. “Some trail cam pictures of the buck had been taken about three weeks earlier, but nowhere near my farm. Some friends also had seen him with does, always locked down with one in a draw or timber.”

So Williams was surprised to see the buck on his 7-acre pea patch without a doe.

“I thought, maybe, just maybe, he’s roaming again looking for hot does because the rut was wide open.”

It was Nov. 16, 2022, and Williams decided to hunt his blind that afternoon. It was 20 degrees, and the wind was strong—20 mph—but blowing in the perfect direction for his blind.

Williams is a farmer in Waverly, Kansas, and he had found a huge shed in 2021 that turned out to belong to a buck his buddy, outfitter Travis Sipe, recognized.

“The buck had a unique rack, with heavy mass and lots of points, and Travis said the shed I found matched the buck he had seen, and that he was trying to put clients on. Travis even had a bowhunter in 2021 get a 20-yard shot at the same buck but missed. The buck was a bit smaller in 2021, in about the 200-inch class.”

The peas Williams planned to hunt over were planted in a travel corridor between patches of timber on his farm. Williams had planted the peas for deer and hoped a small pond would attract them, too.

“The spot was choice because it was well off public roadways, but not too far for me to reach using my ATV,” says Williams says.

As he drove his Ranger eight miles to his hunting blind that afternoon, he saw lots of deer.

“The rut was wide open, and I saw several giant bucks chasing does as I drove to the pea patch,” Williams says. “At least two of the bucks were big shooters in the 150-inch class.”

But Williams, who has deer hunted Kansas for 30 years, knew this buck was special, and he was committed to holding out for it. Early in his sit, Williams saw a few does and small bucks chasing them. When a coyote showed up, he thought his hunt was over. But not long after, a 6-point chased a doe through the peas, and she dashed into thick brush near Williams’ blind. The buck stopped in the open field, however, and stared at the thick cover behind his blind.

“I knew he was looking at something, so I turned around and saw a nice 145-inch, 8-point buck chasing a doe in brush behind me.”

That summer Williams had cleared a path to access his stand, and the deer were clearly using it as a staging area. Its timbered edges were dotted with rubs and a few scrapes. The 8-point chased his doe through cover around Williams’ blind and into the peas. Then that buck stopped and turned toward Williams’ blind.

“That 8-pointer was on full alert,” Williams says. “He stomped the ground, walked away in the pea patch, then came back, looking into cover behind my blind. He did that several times, and I knew something was going on. Then the 8-pointer suddenly looked different—absolutely petrified.”

Williams turned again, and saw the giant buck just 15 yards away, pushing a third doe through the cover. He watched the giant buck for about 15 seconds, then the two deer disappeared into brush as they worked away from his blind. He considered grunting, but didn’t.

“I had decided to let everything just happen that afternoon—keep it natural, without messing up the magic,” he says. “I had 45 minutes of hunting light remaining and had the biggest buck I’d ever seen chasing hot does around my blind. So I sat, watched and waited.”

About 15 minutes passed, then Williams spotted a doe appear on a trail, headed toward the pea patch. As the doe worked to just eight yards in front of his blind, the colossal buck appeared on her trail, about 35 yards away.

“He was very cautious,” Williams says. “He’d walk a few steps, stop and sniff and look at the two does and 8-point in the field. Then he’d take a few more steps.”

Finally, the buck stopped just 10 yards from the elevated blind.

“But I could just see his nose and tips of his antlers, because a cedar tree was blocking his body,” says Williams. “Then he took another step, and I could see his whole side.”

The does and the 8-point moved farther out into the field, and the colossal buck stepped directly in front of the blind, broadside at 8 yards.

Williams’s Ravin crossbow was snapped into a tripod rest, and he didn’t dare make a sound by detaching it. So he picked up the crossbow, tripod and all, and settled the 30-yard crosshairs low on the deer’s chest and pressed the trigger.

The arrow was there so fast that Williams never saw the shaft in flight. The buck jumped away, then turned running back toward the blind. He wobbled, then crashed 35 yards from the shot.

“The buck never knew what happened, or knew it was hit,” says Williams. He was shooting a fixed-blade 100-grain Slick Trick that he says struck the deer’s heart and passed completely through.

It was the first buck Williams had ever taken using a crossbow. He’d bought a Ravin that fall specifically with this buck in mind, thinking that if he was lucky enough to get a shot at the buck, it would have been somewhere around 50 yards—beyond his comfort range with his compound.

“If I’d known I was going to get an eight-yard shot at that buck, I’d have brought my compound,” he says. “But I wasn’t going to chance messing up that incredible opportunity for the buck of a lifetime, so I used my crossbow.”

Williams called his friend Travis and some other buddies to help him load the buck. Williams is quick to give others credit for his good fortune, noting that his buddies helped him set stands, blinds, and trail cameras so he could keep farming in the weeks leading up to deer season.

Williams says a Boone and Crockett scorer officially measured the buck in Topeka at a Buckmasters event in January. The 24-point nontypical had a gross score of 236 5/8 inches and a final score of 230 0/8 inches.

Boone and Crockett, which does not categorize deer by method of take, accepted the crossbow-killed buck into its record books, where it ranks as the 45^th largest nontypical in Kansas. But Buckmasters records a separate crossbow category, and Williams’ deer is the new No. 1 nontypical whitetail taken with a crossbow in Kansas. (Buckmasters, which also has a slightly different scoring system from B&C’s, measured his buck at 244 1/8 inches.)

Williams says he’s missed some giant bucks in his 30-plus year bowhunting career, including a couple bucks that pushed into the 180- and even 190-class. But this buck has more than made up for those mistakes.

“My dad died almost two years ago, and he’s the one who brought me to this point in my hunting life,” says Williams. “Dad wasn’t much of a deer hunter. But he showed me the way to a good rural life and farming, and without him none of this would have happened … I wish he was here to help me celebrate this great buck, and share the joy it has brought me and a lot of others, too.”

The post Farmer’s Giant Nontypical Buck Confirmed as a New Kansas Crossbow Record appeared first on Outdoor Life.

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Anthony Faus of East Berlin, Pennsylvania, arrowed a monster buck with a crossbow on Oct. 15, 2022. He tagged the 22-point non-typical giant in Adams County near the Maryland state line. He shunned publicity, however, and his trophy went largely unrecognized until now.

That all changed last month when Faus’ friend offered to take the rack to a Pennsylvania Game Commission scoring event in Harrisburg. The buck was measured there and officially scored 228 3/8 inches, according to GoErie, making it the new No. 2 non-typical archery buck in the Pennsylvania record book. Faus’ deer is also the fourth largest buck ever recorded in the state—regardless of method of take.

“It’s one of the most impressive racks I’ve seen in my 15 years of being an official scorer,” Bob D’Angelo, who coordinates the state’s Big Game Scoring Program and is an Official Boone & Crockett Club scorer, told Outdoor Life.

D’Angelo told reporters he was grateful that Faus’ friend brought the antlers in to be officially scored. The animal deserved to be recognized, he said, as it was only a fraction of an inch short of the state’s number-one archery buck. The Pennsylvania state-record archery buck was harvested in 2016 by Eric Carns in Clearfield County, and scored 228 6/8 inches.

“Some people will go to all extremes to get it scored and want their photos taken with it and the notoriety that goes with it,” D’Angelo said. “And then you get something like this where the guy wasn’t even going to get it scored.”

Read Next: Oregon Bowhunter Arrows New State-Record Cascade Roosevelt Bull

Faus’ buck has a 26 7/8 inch outside spread, with an inside width of 18 4/8 inches, and a dozen of its 22 points were deemed abnormal by the scorers. The buck’s 14-inch-long G2 was incredible, according to D’Angelo. And he said the antler bases—both of which had circumferences measuring more than five inches—were some of the largest he’s ever seen in all his time scoring whitetails.

PGC division chief Todd Holmes, who’s a certified scorer for Boone and Crockett, also helped measure Faus’ monster buck.

“I’ve guided in the Midwest a few years, and I got to hold some impressive sets of antlers,” Holmes told GoErie. “But that was the biggest one I’ve ever held in my hands.”

The post New No. 2 Pennsylvania Archery Buck Is Finally Recognized appeared first on Outdoor Life.

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Editor’s Note: Richard P. Smith is a longtime outdoor writer and editor from Michigan. What follows is his perspective on the Rompola Buck, one of the most controversial whitetails of all time. The author has covered the story of this buck since the very beginning.

Back in 1998, an experienced bowhunter named Mitch Rompola shot an enormous typical whitetail buck in Grand Traverse County, Michigan. The buck scores more than the buck that currently sits  atop the list of Boone & Crockett records. Little was known about the measurements of the Mitch Rompola Buck besides the final score, the exceptionally wide inside spread, and the fact that it was never entered into the record books. 

But recently, a score sheet for the deer has mysteriously surfaced on social media. It’s unclear if the scores filled out on that sheet are legitimate (more on this later). But what is crystal clear is that there are many folks who still believe the Rompola Buck is real and that it would be a world record if it were ever officially entered into the B&C books. As someone who has covered the story of this buck since it first surfaced, I’m one of the believers.

The score sheet, like the antlers from the whitetail, have been under wraps since the rack was measured by a panel of three men, presumably for entry into state records maintained by Commemorative Bucks of Michigan during late March 1999. All three men were CBM measurers, but Gary Berger also scored big game for Boone & Crockett, Pope & Young and the Longhunter’s Society. Lee Holbrook (one of the other three scorers) was on the list of Pope & Young scorers, too. Al Brown was the third member of the panel.

It was assumed the rack would be a new state record typical and CBM bylaws require panel measuring of any antlers that are a potential record. Rompola already held the state record for typical bow kills with a 12-pointer he arrowed in 1985 that scored 181 ⅞ (that wasn’t the only buck he had in state records). Also, Rompola had been scoring chairman for CBM for many years, so he was well aware of the rules. He had previously been a measurer for Boone & Crockett and Pope & Young, too.

The rack from the massive whitetail that Rompola killed with a bow on November 13, 1998 ended up with a net score of 216 ⅝. That not only set the record for Michigan typicals, but it also set the typical world record. Then, as now, the number one typical whitetail in Boone & Crockett Records was the Hanson buck—a Saskatchewan 12-pointer shot by Milo Hanson that netted 213 ⅝. 

After the buck was discussed on the popular Joe Rogan podcast and a score sheet was posted on social media, many are once again asking: Why isn’t the Rompola Buck in the Boone & Crockett Records … or any records, for that matter?

The Mitch Rompola Buck’s Score

I knew Rompola personally through my involvement with CBM. I wrote and edited the first editions of the state’s big game record books and was editor of the organization’s quarterly magazine, Buck Fax, for a number of years.

I’ve known Mitch since the early 1980s and considered him a friend. I wrote a number of articles about his big buck success with bow and arrow, including the story behind the state-record buck he tagged in 1985. The monster deer he killed in 1998 generated more articles, and it also generated fallout far beyond what anyone could have imagined. The rack was so big and its shape so unique that many people didn’t believe it was real. 

The antlers grew off to the sides of the deer’s head instead of going upward, which contributed to the wide inside spread and long beams. The inside spread of the antlers taped out at 30 ⅜ inches and both antlers were more than 32 inches in length. The right beam measured 32 6⁄8 inches and the left was 32 2⁄8. Even the largest trophy whitetail antlers typically end up with main beam measurements less than 30 inches. For reference, the Hanson buck had main-beam measurements of 28 ⅜ and 28 ⅛.

The DNR aged the buck at 7 ½ years old, well beyond the age that most whitetail bucks reach anywhere in the U.S. The buck’s age made it possible for him to grow the impressive headgear. Circumferences of the antlers at the bases were 5 3⁄8 and 5 5⁄8 inches. All but one of the other circumference measurements were between 4 4⁄8 and 5 inches.

The second and third tines on each side were the longest, ranging from 11 to more than 13 inches long. Brow tines and the last points (G5s) were the shortest, being between 4 and 5 inches in length.

All of the measurements on the right antler totaled 96 3⁄8 inches and came out to 94 inches on the left side. When those two numbers are added to the inside spread of 30 3⁄8, the rack’s gross score was 220 6⁄8. There were only 4 1⁄8 inches of differences (deductions) from one antler to the other, yielding the net score of 216 5⁄8.

A Scoresheet Surfaces

A scoresheet for the Mitch Rompola Buck was recently posted on the Mitch Rompola Fan Club Facebook group, which has more than 3,200 members. The description for the group reads in part: “This group is dedicated to Mitch Rompola and those of us hunters who either know Mitch personally, know of his stature, ethics, morals and credibility as well as his remarkable bowhunting skills, etc. And those of us that believe Mitch isn’t a fake, didn’t fake his legendary bow kill of what would be a record buck as well. Many of us believe that Mitch got a raw deal — his name slandered, disrespected, accused of something that he never falsified or did wrong…”

It’s unlikely that this scoresheet is the original one that was completed by the panel of scorers. As several members of the Facebook group noted, the sheet has a newer design than the score sheets of the late 90s.

I spoke with the administrator of the Facebook group who said he pulled the image from the depths of the Internet and was never able to trace its original publisher. Gary Berger, one of the three original scorers, eventually responded to my requests for comment on the score sheet.

“All I know is that’s not my handwriting,” he said.

Based on what I had reported on the buck previously, I believe that it’s a replica of the original, reprinted on the modern B&C score sheet template.

The Rompola Buck Backstory

Mitch had been hunting this particular buck for three years. He saw it on a number of occasions and took several photos of it during that time. Rompola’s first opportunity to kill the whitetail failed when his arrow was deflected. But 10 days later, he was able to arrow the deer.

Rompola had been sharing the story about the big buck he was after with many of his friends. When he finally tagged the deer, he showed it to as many of them as possible. One of the people who saw and inspected the impressive whitetail was veteran tribal conservation officer Bill Bailey from Honor, Michigan. Bailey is a big buck hunter in his own right and he brought some relatives with him to see the buck. Several other folks were there to see the deer as well.

I spoke to Bailey about the Mitch Rompola Buck and there was no doubt in his mind about the legitimacy of the whitetail and its rack. 

“I’m convinced the deer and the antlers are real,” he told me. “I’ve seen them. How can anyone who hasn’t seen the deer claim otherwise?”

In almost any other situation, the word of a law enforcement officer would be enough to verify the authenticity of a deer. On top of that, the trio of experienced measurers who officially scored the antlers, spending hours inspecting and measuring the rack, all vouched for the deer.

The head of the buck was partially mounted when it was measured during late March, but the back of the mount was still open, so the CBM officials could inspect the skull plate and the base of the antlers. Nothing fishy was observed. In spite of the steadfast testimony of those who went over the antlers as meticulously as anyone could, there are still many detractors. Many insist that northern Michigan isn’t capable of producing a whitetail of that caliber. They say the buck must have been shot from behind a high fence, or the deer was shot illegally. They say that the fact that Mitch didn’t enter the deer in any records proves that it is fake.

Big Bucks of Northern Michigan

I think it’s foolish to believe that this area of Michigan simply couldn’t produce a world-record buck. Grand Traverse County may not be the best county in Michigan for record book bucks, but other high scoring whitetails have been grown there besides those Rompola has taken. On Oct. 2, 2022, Tim Bannen nailed a 15-point nontypical with palmated antlers from the county that had a green score of 182 4⁄8. During the 1976 gun season, Jim Thomson shot a 12-point bruiser in the county that netted 174 6⁄8.

If more bucks lived to be 7 ½ years old like the one Mitch tagged in 1998, the county would certainly produce more record-book bucks. Not all portions of Grand Traverse County are open to deer hunting and some whitetails are able to grow old in those sanctuaries. Mitch told me about a buck he was pursuing in 2004 that spent 70 percent of its time in areas that were closed to hunting. He never did kill that whitetail, but the information about that deer confirms that Rompola was targeting some deer along the fringes of sanctuaries that other hunters were avoiding.

The Recovery Video

Besides the supporting testimony of everyone who saw the big buck Mitch shot in 1998, Rompola himself did something to document the authenticity of the kill. After arrowing the deer, he went home to let his girlfriend know what happened, ate something, and got his cameras before recovering the deer. He recorded a 20-minute video of the recovery, starting from the treestand where he shot it and progressing to where the buck fell. I’m one of the few people who has seen that entire video, and there’s no doubt in my mind that the level of excitement in Mitch’s voice was authentic. When he reached the fallen deer it was the culmination of three years of an incredible hunting effort. The arrow was still in the whitetail and the animal was shown from different angles. The footage appeared totally legitimate. 

Rompola shared this video with a local news station, which edited it down into a short clip for the outdoors segment of their program. I visited the station and viewed the full, unedited video there in the editing room. But this was nearly 25 years ago, and the full film has since been lost to time. 

Why Didn’t Rompola Enter the Buck in the Record Books? 

Some hunters have a hard time believing anyone who killed such a massive buck would not enter it in the record books to claim the title of having taken a world-record whitetail. Mitch Rompola is not like everyone else, however. The fact that he consistently puts himself in position to take trophy whitetails with his bow sets him apart. He is also not a people person.

Yes—like most any other hunter would be, he was ecstatic about taking a world-class buck on Nov. 13, 1998. He tried to share his good fortune with the world, starting with family and friends, and then doing numerous interviews for newspapers, magazines, and television shows. He had a hard time understanding why people didn’t believe his story and doubted the authenticity of the buck.

He knew what he accomplished and that was good enough for him. What had been a highlight of his hunting career was turning into a soap opera, with Rompola painted as the villain by those who never saw the deer or the antlers and didn’t know much, if anything, about it. Rompola didn’t feel he had to prove anything to anybody. He got tired of dealing with false claims and negative comments about the deer and his own character, and said, “The hell with it!”

Although the antlers from the Mitch Rompola Buck from 1998 were clearly of world record size, he never referred to the whitetail as a world record. This was because he knew he would have to enter the deer in Boone & Crockett or Pope & Young records to achieve that status. He never planned on doing either. The buck didn’t qualify for Pope & Young Records because he killed the whitetail with a compound bow that had greater than a 65 percent let-off at full draw and the club’s rules prohibited such entries at the time. Their rules have changed since then.

That deer was the third to Rompola’s credit with antlers large enough to qualify for all-time listing in Boone & Crockett. When Rompola was 13, he arrowed a 16-point nontypical that scored 208 6⁄8 in his home state of Missouri. Then in 1985, he tagged the 12-point in Michigan that was a state record for many years and netted 181 7⁄8. Mitch didn’t enter either of those deer in B&C. So he was being consistent by not entering his 1998 buck either. There are, of course, plenty of other hunters who have shot B&C-caliber bucks who have chosen not to enter them.

But why didn’t Rompola enter the whitetail in state records after it was panel scored? All he had to do was sign the score sheet to finalize the entry. He chose not to sign the sheet to avoid bringing CBM into the controversy. If he did enter the rack into CBM records and CBM deemed the Mitch Rompola Buck the official Michigan state record, it would have created an incredible amount of undue controversy and criticism for the relatively small organization. 

“People are adamantly insisting that I must do certain things to get the buck entered in the record books,” Rompola wrote in an article in Buck Fax. “Well, I’m not interested in the record books, but I’m still fascinated by the antler measurements for comparison with my personal racks. The record books used to be important to me, but they are not anymore.

“Although I’ve shot a good number of trophy bucks in recent years, I haven’t entered any of them since 1988. For now, don’t expect this one to be treated any differently. It may be entered someday, or it may not.”

Why Did Rompola Sign the Agreement with Hanson?

The fact that Mitch didn’t plan on entering the deer in B&C is the reason he didn’t have any qualms about signing a legal agreement drafted by representatives of Milo Hanson’s existing world record. The agreement stated that Rompola would not enter the deer and would not claim that his deer was a world record. Doing so would devalue the Hanson buck, hence the agreement. 

Some people continue to claim that Rompola’s signing of that agreement proves that there was a problem with the deer, but that’s false just like all of the other rumors, speculation, and lies that have been spread about the whitetail and the hunter who killed it.

In reality, the company that took the time, effort, and expense to draft the agreement Mitch signed would not have done so if they didn’t feel the buck was legitimate. The bottom line is that in spite of all of the rumors, myths, and speculation about the Rompola Buck being fake or an illegal kill, no proof to that effect has surfaced over the past 25 years. The obvious reason for that is because the buck is real, so there is no proof of it being a fraud. 

Where Did the Rumors Start? 

One of the people who started rumors about the Rompola Buck being fake is Craig Calderone from Jackson, Michigan. It’s important to know that Calderone may have had an axe to grind. In the fall of 1986, Calderone killed a 14-point typical with a bow in Jackson County that scored more than the top deer for that category at the time. The current record holder in the category was Rompola, with the buck he bagged the year before. 

Not long after Calderone’s buck was entered in state records, a ticket and violation surfaced, which Craig had received years earlier for spotlighting deer. According to CBM bylaws, the Calderone Buck was suspended for three years. It could have been re-entered after that time, but Craig chose not to go through the entry process again. That deer is listed in B&C Records with a score of 193 2⁄8.

Rompola was the previous record holder and a CBM official at the time this all went down. Calderone blamed Rompola for his rack being dropped from state records. But Rompola had nothing to do with the decision about the Calderone Buck. He even excluded himself from deliberations due to potential conflict of interest. 

When Rompola killed his giant buck in 1998, Calderone didn’t waste any time calling it fake after seeing photos of the deer. Calderone claimed the coloration of the antlers was typical of fabricated racks and the buck’s droopy ears proved the antlers were altered.

Calderone went so far as to publicly offer to give $10,000 to a charity of Rompola’s choosing if he  would have the antlers X-rayed. He did this knowing Rompola probably wouldn’t take him up on the offer. (To this day, many people mistakenly think Calderone offered to give Rompola $10,000 directly, if he would’ve had the rack X-rayed.)

The Story Continues

Rompola is still alive and well, living in Michigan and keeping to himself. It’s been years since I’ve corresponded with him through letters. Even so, I’m still hopeful that more details and facts about the buck will come to light.

I like to think it was Rompola or one of his friends who finally released those numbers in the score sheet and we might be seeing and hearing more about that deer in the not too distant future.
The Mitch Rompola buck is still being written about and talked about in podcasts today. If you want to read more about Rompola’s big buck success with a bow, refer to books one, three, and four of my series, Great Michigan Deer Tales. There are now eight books in the series, which focuses on the biggest bucks bagged by hunters in the state.

Update: This story has been updated after Gary Berger responded to an interview request.

The post Mitch Rompola Buck: The True Backstory on Why the Deer Was Never Entered as a World Record appeared first on Outdoor Life.

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This is a story in our This Happened to Me series, which is based on our long-standing adventure comic first published in 1940.

I HAD ALL the primal cuts spread out on the table and countertop. I was only a few sips into my first can of beer. My knife was still shaving-sharp as I sliced away silver skin from a backstrap. What a nice way to spend an afternoon.

Then I heard a knock on the door of my tiny Brooklyn apartment. 

Surprised, and a little annoyed by the disruption, I wiped deer meat from my hands. I cracked the door open until it hit the chain lock and saw a short, middle-aged man standing in the hallway.

“What’s up?” I asked, doing my best impersonation of an indignant New Yorker.

“Have you seen Wilson today?” he asked. “I’m Wilson’s friend.”

Wilson was an older man with a potbelly and a wispy white beard. If he were more jovial, he could have worked as Santa at a Christmastime mall. But Wilson was a shy man who liked books, and he lived in the apartment above mine. Beyond that, I knew nothing about him.

“No, I haven’t seen him. Sorry,” I said and began to close the door. But before I could close it, the man cut in.

“I think something’s happened to him. Can you help me?”

Damn it, I thought as I looked around my apartment: drip-drying deer quarters, a still-bloody cooler, a few knives scattered across the counter, butcher’s paper ready to be unrolled, and an open case of beer.

I slid the chain lock off the door. 

A Deer Hunter in the City

For a few years in my late 20s, I lived in a 230-square-foot apartment with my girlfriend (who is now my wife). For reference, a Game Changer Redneck box blind has a 48-square-foot footprint. Our apartment was so small that if we wanted to bring home a new item, like, say, a blender, then something had to go—perhaps the toaster (when’s the last time we even made toast?). Every item had a place, and every place had an item. My one large luxury item was a chest freezer that doubled as counter space. But the apartment was relatively affordable and located in a cool neighborhood. Plus the minimalist lifestyle made me prioritize the stuff I actually cared about, which is a good exercise for someone in his 20s. 

I had never wanted to move from my Midwestern homeland to New York. But years ago, if you wanted to be an editor at a national magazine like Outdoor Life, off to the city you went. So I made the most of it. I kept my hunting gear locked in the trunk of my car, which stayed parked on the street. I ate at cheap restaurants and drank at cheap bars and met lots of interesting people at both.

Working for OL, I got the opportunity to travel across the continent for hunts, which made me feel less trapped in my city life. In fact, the only time I ever truly felt cramped was while riding the subway at rush hour and while trying to butcher game.

Butchering a deer should feel like a celebration. You need room to spread out and the time to work thoughtfully, carefully. You need the freedom to crank Led Zeppelin without the neighbors banging on the wall for you to keep it down. With each wrapped cut of meat you should get to relive the hunt and all the wonderful things about it.

I was trying to capture at least some of this feeling that fall afternoon in Brooklyn. But the celebration would prove to be fleeting.

Close Quarters 

I now opened the door just enough to slip through it. I closed it tight behind me and took stock of the man before me. He did look worried, distraught even. He also seemed earnest.

“I called Wilson yesterday, and he didn’t call me back,” the man said. “He always calls me back. I knocked on his door and he didn’t answer. It’s unlocked but I can’t push the door open. Something heavy is blocking it. I think something happened to him.”

“Oh man, well, what do you want to do?” I asked, now fully transitioned from New York standoffishness back to Midwest nice.

“Can we go through your apartment onto the fire escape to look into Wilson’s apartment?”

This seemed like a logical plan, except for the fact that I had a dismembered deer strewn about the place.

“OK, but let me explain something first,” I told the man. “I am a deer hunter. I shot a deer the other day and now I’m butchering it. So don’t be alarmed by all the meat. I mean, it’s not like it’s really bloody or anything.…” 

The more I talked, the more perturbed the man looked, so I just kind of trailed off.

“As long as you’re not cutting up Wilson in there, I don’t care what you’re doing,” the man replied. Good enough for me. I shrugged and let him in. 

The man looked around the apartment quickly while I opened the window to access the fire escape. He had the same look on his face that I’d seen strike subway passengers right after another rider vomits: a mix of disgust and revulsion, masked by a deep resignation to not run away screaming.

I very badly wanted to explain the situation more thoroughly. 

The thing is, this meat is actually better for you than the stuff you get in the grocery store, I wanted to tell him. I wanted to explain how I’d learned to butcher deer from my dad when I was a kid growing up in Wisconsin. I would have gone on to talk about how deer hunters in New York help manage the state’s deer herd from booming out of control and how our license dollars fund habitat conservation …  

But there was no time for that. So I just muttered “sorry for the mess” like that subway vomiter who must sit there quietly, in embarrassment, until the next stop. 

Breaking and Entering

We climbed out onto the fire escape and then went up a level to Wilson’s window. We peered into a dark apartment. We did not see any sign of Wilson. What we did see was books—lots of them. There were books stacked from floor to ceiling making little hallways that Wilson must have had to turn sideways to walk through. A full library of books crammed into a tiny one-bedroom apartment. 

The man knocked on the window and hollered, “Wilson! Are you in there?”

Nothing. 

We climbed down the fire escape, back through my apartment and then into the hallway. 

“So, do you eat it?” the man asked.

“Yeah, I eat it,” I replied, not knowing what else to say.

I followed the man up to Wilson’s door and then watched him bang on it and holler again, “Wilson! You in there?”

He turned the knob and sure enough, the door was unlocked. He tried to shove the door open, but something was blocking it. He lowered his shoulder and rammed the door, opening it maybe just a quarter of an inch.

“Wilson!” He yelled, more frantically this time, and rammed the door again.

At this point I was struck by the thought that I did not know this man—or Wilson—at all. What if Wilson was on the other side of the door waiting with a baseball bat, ready to club the two maniacs trying to break into his apartment?

I told the man that I had to go—he didn’t seem to notice amid his door ramming and hollering—and retreated back to my apartment, locking the door.

About 15 minutes later I heard more voices in the hallway. I could also hear the crackle of radios and surmised that the authorities had been called.

“Yeah, we got in there,” I heard one man say loudly on the radio. “He’s dead.”

“We’re going to need more guys up here. He’s a fuckin’ hoarder. There’s books everywhere.” 

The idea of cops and firefighters pouring into my apartment building suddenly made me very nervous. Butchering a deer in New York City is not illegal, but it’s the kind of thing that might take some explaining if for some reason the police wanted to talk to me. 

I could imagine one of the cops in the hallway shouting into his radio: “The guy says he’s a fuckin’ deer hunter. There’s bloody meat everywhere.”

I stashed the quarters back in the cooler, washed my knives and my hands, and did a quick sweep of the place. It looked totally normal, definitely not like a murder scene. I threw on a jacket and slipped into the hallway. I walked down the stairs, past a few firefighters, to the street, where I saw Wilson’s friend talking to a cop. Tears were streaming down the man’s face. He never looked up at me.

Not sure what to do, I headed to a nearby bar to hang out for a while. If nothing else, I would finish the beer drinking I had started.

The next day, I finally did get to butchering that deer. And as I trimmed and cut, I blasted “Stairway to Heaven” as loud as it would go. Maybe even loud enough for Wilson to hear it.

Read more OL+ stories.

• This Happened to Me: I Almost Froze to Death on a Solo Bighorn Hunt
• This Happened to Me: I Flew a Plane with Zero Training

The post This Happened to Me: I Butchered a Deer in My Brooklyn Apartment and the Cops Came appeared first on Outdoor Life.

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Editor’s Note: This is Part 2 of a two-part series on first deer hunts. We partnered with the National Deer Association’s Field to Fork program to mentor two of our gear editors last fall. Read Part 1 here.

Failure is ingrained in hunting. If you’ve ever had an unsuccessful day afield, you’ve probably heard the overused quote: “That’s why they call it hunting and not shooting.” While I appreciate the experience of being in nature and getting close to wildlife, fresh meat is the real motivator for me as a new hunter. This makes success important. 

For my first deer hunt, I left behind a blizzard of fresh snow in Salt Lake City to fly to my hometown of St. Louis. Staff writer Laura Lancaster and I were invited by OL senior deputy editor Natalie Krebs to attend the National Deer Association’s mentored, antlerless whitetail hunt. I wasn’t just there to visit family for the holidays and wander the woods for a doe. I wanted to kill a deer, fill a cooler full of venison, and bring home a euro mount.

But first, I had a lot to learn about deer hunting. Having never shot a deer, or hunted big game, I was as eager to learn as I was to harvest. Krebs took Lancaster and I on some practice scouting trips, where we located rubs, scat, prints, and even a scrape and licking branch. We spent time at the range, sighting in our borrowed rifles and firing some practice groups. NDA’s deer school curriculum covered the history, biology, and how to hunt our quarry. We left the course with fresh camo packs full of gear.

By the time we donned our blaze orange, I was giddy. My mentor and NDA deer outreach specialist, Karli Gill, and I climbed into an elevated blind at the edge of a cornfield around 2 p.m. We slowly settled in as a flock of turkeys milled about at the edge of the woods.

After an hour and a half of hushed conversation and birdwatching, I produced a cold slice of pizza from a folded paper towel in my bag. “Do you want a piece of pizza?” I whispered to Gill. She looked at me like I was insane and let out some amused scoffs. But then she shrugged, momentarily shuttering our blind’s windows, and joined the pizza party.

After we were done eating, quietly cackling, and chatting, we opened the windows again and let in the evening chill. Just before dusk, three does appeared on the outskirts of the field. They wandered along a lane of chopped corn stalks, weaving in between each other with their eyes darting everywhere. Stacked and suspicious, they moved steadily closer toward the creaking window where my rifle barrel rested. Just 20 yards away, one doe turned into the perfect position. I inhaled and applied a hint of pressure with my trigger finger, but then my sight was suddenly filled with three fleeing tufts of white fur.

Busted. 

I couldn’t help but feel like they knew I was there from the start. Shooting light faded fast and I resigned myself to an early start the following morning. Startling game is a part of hunting, and so is waking up before the sun, so I told myself I was simply getting the full experience. 

A Second Chance

Sunrise approached quickly and found us in a new blind on a new field. As the sky’s deep indigo hue faded with the light, distant gunshots rang out from adjacent properties. I started to worry about my chances.

Did I fly home, force my family to celebrate Christmas early, and miss out on two feet of blower pow just to not shoot a deer? I’d like to say I spent the morning silently reflecting on all of the amazing moments I’d already had that weekend, deer or no deer. I had befriended hunters new and old, learned more about deer than I’d ever expected, bonded with previously video-chat confined coworkers, and indulged in hometown delicacies like gooey butter cake, beer over five percent alcohol content, and venison summer sausage.

But, you can’t bite into a quality experience like you can a piece of tender backstrap. So instead of focusing on fond memories, I worried that I might not actually get a deer. I might miss out on a key part of the experience and fail to achieve the hunting I was here for. My desperation grew deeper until I spotted two does peeking out of the trees at 12 o’clock. They were at the far edge of the field at about 50 yards. Gill asked how I felt about the distance. I was content with my accuracy at the gun range days earlier and the slender does deigned to move just a little closer. 

So I clicked off the safety and leaned into the 6.5 PRC Nosler M21 I had borrowed from Krebs. Gill’s voice murmured into my ear, “Put it right behind that shoulder when you get the chance.” 

The doe scraped under a licking branch for a few seconds. I pulled the trigger. The next thing I saw was her four hooves go skyward.

Enthusiastic giggling ensued. While failure is a part of hunting—and harvesting isn’t everything—man, does a perfect shot feel good. Field dressing, first blood, and tagging out on Missouri’s hunting app all felt like a reward. 

Making Meat

After the adrenaline dissipated, we said our goodbyes, and loaded up our harvests, however, I was faced with Bambi, full of blood, hanging upside down in a garage. The smell of dirt and rust started to make me queasy, as I traded my new neon green hunting blade for an electric hand saw. 

Cleaning a wild turkey feels like a mix between dissecting an animal in science class and chopping up a bird from the grocery store. Quartering the deer felt more gruesome. But as the deer transitioned from a bloody carcass into cuts of meat, the more comfortable I became. Eventually, I was sitting in the Krebs family kitchen listening to music, drinking beer, and labeling packaged cuts, feeling like a normal person again.

The butchering slumber party lasted well into the night as four of us worked to get a freeze on Lancaster’s deer before her early flight back to the West Coast. While I was hesitant to get my hands dirty again, I was set on a euro mount of my first deer (no, I don’t care that it’s a doe).

So, the following day, I started carving into the head. After all the gross parts were gone, I wrapped it in plastic and brought it to my grandmother’s Christmas dinner. While she didn’t care to see it, the rest of my family couldn’t have been prouder and my uncle took it home to send to his “beetle guy.” 

READ NEXT: The Heart & the Skull: A First Deer Hunt Brings You Closer to the Wild

I got a little taste of failure on this hunt, but not too much of it. I swelled with pride as I set my cooler of venison on the American Airlines’ scale with a satisfying clunk. Thanks to incredible mentors, my hunting journey leapt forward with indispensable knowledge and experience gleaned from a weekend dedicated to deer hunting. The support I had from start to finish on this hunt from new friends, family, and perfect strangers was unbelievable. And while the meat is delicious and my tag photo got a lot of likes, I know that when I see that antlerless skull sitting on my mantle, I’ll think of the amazing people who made it possible.

The post The Heart & the Skull: Sometimes a First Deer Hunt Requires a Punched Tag appeared first on Outdoor Life.

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