Tecomate Tips
Tecomate Tips tips and info from some of the finest Whitetail authors in the country. Including David Morris, Gary Schwartz, Mali Vujanic, Blaine Burley, Mickey Hellickson, Duncan Dobie and many others.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Keys to Planting & Growing Quality Food Plots
Food plots are like many other things in life – you get out of them what you put into them. True, you can haphazardly scratch out a food plot and attract a few deer, but for really good plots, the kind that both attracts deer and provides nutrition, you’ve got to do it right. To help with that, we offer “8 Keys To Quality Food Plots.”
{read more}
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Management as Hunting Season Approaches
As hunting season quickly approaches or has already approached under some programs, deer hunting clothes come out of their storage containers, temperatures finally begin to drop, trigger fingers itch, and bowhunters polish their skills. With the excitement of deer season, it’s also time to hone our management skills. We need to know which deer are ripe for the taking. Assigning an age to deer isn’t an exact science, requiring a keen eye, a good set of optics, and knowledge of what to look for to be accurate. With the dry summer that plagued many parts of the U.S., the antlers on the bucks you’ve been letting walk for the past couple of years may be deceiving. Decreased antler size and poor body condition can challenge a hunter’s ability to accurately age deer.
{read more}
Posted by Cody Zabransky on 10/19 at 04:24 PM
Tecomate Tips •
(0)
Comments •
Permalink
Monday, October 10, 2011
TRAIL CAMERAS: A 15-Year Journey Reveals the Leading Trail Camera
Only a year like this could force me to think so intensively about my addiction to trail cameras over the years. My earliest experiences with trail cameras date back to the 90s while working on a whitetail research project in Mississippi. My employers, a graduate student and a wildlife professor, were determined to fine-tune a new technique of employing trail cameras to census deer herds. My “job” was to refresh the bait piles, batteries and rolls of film. I’ve been working with trail cameras now for 15 years. This year is like no other!
{read more}
Saturday, October 01, 2011
Ground Blind Magic
There’s something magical about hunting whitetails on the ground. I’ve always enjoyed still-hunting and hunting out of ground blinds – either makeshift brush blinds or a commercial pop-up. In fact, after several decades of hunting whitetails, I’ve only killed a few bucks out of a tree stand or an elevated box blind. Hunting on the ground level gets you up close and personal, and particularly for close shots with a bow or muzzleloader, there is nothing more exciting or challenging.
I started hunting out of homemade “brush” blinds years ago in the early ’80s for both deer and turkeys. Generally speaking these blinds are made out of whatever material is available. This might include anything from hiding in the limbs of a fallen tree to building a “Texas-style” brush blind out of shrubs, branches, cut limbs, sticks and small logs, high grass, leafy limbs from trees, or any other natural material that can hide you.
{read more}
Monday, September 12, 2011
Data & Censusing
Ok, you’re sold on deer management. You’ve taken stock of what you’ve got to work with, set your goals and laid out a strategy. Now, you need good data to establish your baseline, guide your decisions and monitor your progress. Let’s now take a look at the data you need and how to get it.
Deer data can be divided two ways – harvest data and herd data. Data taken from harvested deer tell us about deer size and condition by age class and sex and is essential in monitoring herd quality. Key data from harvested deer include sex, age (somebody needs to be able to age harvested deer by tooth wear and replacement), weight (live and dressed), the gross B&C score of bucks (or some other standard means of measuring antler size and dimensions) and, of course, the total number of each sex taken. When and where deer were harvested and who took them is also important. I like to keep notes on injuries, parasite loads and other pertinent observations. Some managers also keep records on the weather conditions and hunting circumstances to help determine movement patterns and hunting trends.
{read more}
Thursday, September 08, 2011
Age and Aging
Most folks know biologists can age deer after the harvest by examining the lower jaw for tooth wear and replacement. But, many hunters don’t realize that they also need to be able to age deer – and not just dead ones, but live ones in the field! You see, aging before pulling the trigger is critical to making good harvest decisions.
While aging harvested or live deer takes practice, managers and hunters alike need to learn to how. As for aging by tooth wear and replacement, there are many good go-bys that will illustrate how to go about it. We’re not going to go into that here, but we will take a look at aging in the field.
Every hunter needs to be fairly good at field-aging 1.5 to 3.5-year-old bucks. Serious managers need to be reasonably accurate through 6.5 and pretty decent at aging does. All this takes familiarity with the local herd, a basic knowledge of the year-classes and practice.
{read more}
Posted by
David Morris on 09/08 at 12:47 AM
Tecomate Tips •
Permalink
Monday, August 01, 2011
Shed Hunting Adventures
The popularity of shed hunting during the off-season has absolutely gone off the charts in recent years. Today, a high a percentage of modern-day hunters and deer managers make at least some attempt to look for the shed antlers from the bucks they’ve been hunting and admiring. Some have gotten passionate and even obsessive about finding sheds. Numerous hunters and non-hunters alike now spend a considerable amount of time each spring searching for those elusive treasures. I know dozens of avid hunters who regularly find 20 to 30 sheds a year. I also know a number of “fanatical” shed hunters who, having been bitten by the incurable shed hunting bug, regularly find up to several hundred sheds a year!
{read more}
Posted by
Duncan Dobie on 08/01 at 01:51 AM
Tecomate Tips •
Permalink
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Six Helpful Trail Camera Tips
It is summertime and buck pictures are to flooding the Internet forums. Beam and tine length are now at the front of discussions and some are even throwing out score predictions already. As the pictures pour in, it inspires others to get out their cameras and take to the woods. Running trail cameras during the off season has become extremely popular and for lack of a better word, it is addictive! Some are running one or two cameras while others are running 10+ cameras. And as technology moves forward with advancements, cameras are becoming smaller, more affordable and more interesting. Therefore, guys are adding more cameras to their arsenal at an alarming rate. So as the trail camera season begins to unfold, here are some important and valuable trail camera tips that will help you prepare for a better, safer trail camera season.
{read more}
Posted by
Mali Vujanic on 07/23 at 07:34 PM
Tecomate Tips •
(0)
Comments •
Permalink
