Between 1979 and 2001, I did my whitetail hunting on acreage I owned in Webb County. For 20 Years before that, I leased hunting rights like most other Texas deer hunters. I sold the property in 2000 and suddenly found myself without a place to hunt. This didn't trouble me for the first season, and my wife and I got nice invitations from ranch-owning friends, so we didn't go without venison.

We spotted the nyati early, before the sun had begun to clang like a blacksmith's hammer on the anvil of southern Africa. They were not the first of the safari–you couldn't travel very far in Mozambique in the early '70s without seeing thousands of Cape buffalo–but those had been mere background for the intoxicating realization that we were, at long last, in Africa. It was the first safari for both my companion, Jack Carter, and me. We'd flipped a coin, agreeing to alternate shooting opportunities as they came, regardless of species... except for two.

As a deer hunter, you're in the mainstream of American history, a contributor, a steward of the resource, on the cutting edge of wildlife management, an instrument of conservation, and a conduit of honorable tradition. Be Proud.

The Author shares his innermost musings about hunting whitetails...and a certain Great Buck!

Some find it as hard to imagine a time when there was no such thing as a manufactured tree stand, tripod or portable blind as they do accepting that a majority of deer hunters might ever have scorned the use of scopes.

A conversation over Mule Deer vs Whitetail Deer by John Wootters and Bob Milek in which they discuss the pros and cons of both animals and their take on hunting the two.

Some pretty unforgettable sounds have fallen on these old gunfire-deafened ears of mine, but a shriek that shattered the evening hush at our Sandy Creek hunting camp 45 years ago still rings in them even now! Never, before or since, have I heard anything like it. With no warning, it welled up out of the silent woods and froze me in my tracks.

At dusk in an enchanted alpine meadow, 10,000 feet high in Wyoming's great Washakie wilderness, I knelt alone beside the last bull elk I shall ever kill. As the sky darkened, a full moon floated over my shoulder like a yellow-gold balloon, bright enough for me to admire the wide, solid six-point rack and burly body out of which, at last light, I had let the life. Paying reverent last respects, I felt a strong sense of gratitude to this animal, for having been what he was and where he was.

Reprinted for Houston Safari Club Hunter's Horn; Fall 2021 - In the virgin forests of northern Manitoba dwell the kind of black bears dreams are made of. If bears’ eyes are so lousy, why was this one peering up at me in my tree stand, from a distance of 20 yards, as though reading my dog tags? The question rattled through my skull as I instinctively tried...

Anticipating a buck's moves, then altering your methods to confuse him can put venison in the freezer. All it takes is a little imagination and the ability to... "Think like a deer!"