How To Bag The Biggest Buck Of Your Life

Larry Benoit's legendary How To Bag The Biggest Buck of Your Life is the commonsense guide to hunting whitetailed deer. Whether for the novice seeking real-life advice, or the experienced hunter looking for new challenges, this classic is full of expert insight into the advent...

If learning how to read deer sign more effectively, understanding the nuances of following a big-buck track, or honing your stalking and general deer-hunting skills are important to you, then this book will become a treasured reference in your deer-hunting library.

Using Topographic Maps to Find Deer Topographic maps and aerial photos can lead you right to the biggest bucks you've ever seen. You just have to know how to use them. Brad Herndon takes the mystery out of finding deer with maps. Through years of dedicated hunting and careful study of maps and photos, Herndon has perfected the use of maps to find the routes deer travel. And once you know where the deer will be headed you can establish the perfect ambush site. Maps are often the forgotten link in scouting prime deer habitat. Yet because they show you all the hills, gullies, rivers and ridges, you can learn the lay of the land without walking mile after unproductive mile. Maps won't eliminate the need to get in the woods, but they will tell the best places to start your search for the buck of your dreams. Herndon also shows hunters how to use the latest Internet and computer technology to personalize any map. Mark your stand locations, the locations of deer sign, even note the best possible wind direction to make your hunt a success. If you hunt deer, let Mapping Trophy Bucks lead you right to where the big boys hide. The rest is up to you.

Denning shares his knowledge of mule deer hunting and techniques that have been refined by trial and error, observation, and faithful persistence.

Dina von Zweck (1933-2012) was a prolific award-winning writer and painter who left a large trove of poetry. Lyrical, graceful, and eminently beguiling, their often dazzlingly concise, cryptic stanzas open larger realms and vistas. Each poem is a portal—like a window with Venetian blinds suddenly opening and revealing startling sights, then closing again. Dina’s immediately engaging poetry also serves as a portal for the rest of her voluminous literary legacy—five novels, several novella, twenty-three stage plays, numerous screen scripts, libretti, operas, and essays. Poets always have something unexpected up their sleeves, being able to perceive and materialize what otherwise eludes our imaginations, to make unlikely and confounding connections. Silly Putty non sequiturs and fractured metaphors juxtaposed with an illumined madcap juggle of tropes create whimsical fissions of logic that can suddenly make more sense than sense.

A dedicated deer hunter “writes with humor and insight” about his adventures—and misadventures—in the wild (Orlando Sentinel). Every autumn, millions of men and women across the country don their camo, stock up on doe urine, and undertake a quintessential American tradition—deer hunting. The pinnacle of a hunter’s quest is killing a buck with antlers that “score” highly enough to qualify for the Boone and Crockett record book. But in all his seasons on the trail, Pete Bodo, an avid outdoorsman and student of the hunt, had never reached that milestone. Sadly, he had to admit it: He was a nimrod. Whitetail Nation is the uproarious story of the season Pete Bodo set out to kill the big buck. From the rolling hills of upstate New York to the vast and unforgiving land of the Big Sky to the Texas ranches that feature high fences, deer feeders, and money-back guarantees, Bodo traverses deep into the heart of a lively, growing subculture that draws powerfully on durable American values: the love of the frontier, the importance of self-reliance, the camaraderie of men in adventure, the quest for sustained youth, and yes, the capitalist’s right to amass every high tech hunting gadget this industry’s exploding commerce has to offer. Gradually, Bodo closes in on his target—that elusive monster buck—and with each day spent perched in a deer stand or crawling stealthily in high grass (praying the rattlesnakes are gone), or shivering through the night in a drafty cabin (flannel, polar fleece, and whiskey be damned), readers are treated to an unforgettable tour through a landscape that ranges from the exalted to the absurd. Along the way Bodo deftly captures the spirit and passion of this rich American pursuit, tracing its history back to the days of Lewis and Clark and examining that age old question: “Why do men hunt?”

A young hunter must confront the value of life as he faces the loss of his grandfather. For John Borne's family, hunting has nothing to do with sport or manliness. It's a matter of survival. Every fall John and his grandfather go off into the woods to shoot the deer that puts meat on the table over the long Minnesota winter. But this year John's grandfather is dying, and John must hunt alone. John tracks a doe for two days, but as he closes in on his prey, he realizes he cannot shoot her. For John, the hunt is no longer about killing, but about life.

Learn how to scout and prepare sites while leaving minimal evidence of human presence, and how to read deer sign to find the most productive places to hunt. Comprehensive coverage of scent control, including the use of odor-eliminating clothing.

25 detailed stories and the lessons learned from tracking whitetail bucks through the big woods.