Author: Ryan Fair

Photos by Wess Brown When I hear the word, “sacrifice,” the first thing that pops into my head is our veterans. They sacrifice so much to protect our country’s freedoms. Those include the freedom to enjoy the great outdoors. When I set out to find a company that gives back, I knew I would have to look no further than Trophyline. Trophyline is doing great things not only in the saddle hunting community, given all their great products, but they are also sponsoring veteran-guided hunts. When I reached out to Wess Brown at Trophyline asking if he had a story…

There are several different ideas about how to hunt bucks during the rut. Everyone advises, “hunt the pinch points,” or, “you need to be in a rut funnel.” While these tactics work, If you don’t have these terrain features on your land, then what? There are several different tactics people use to try to tag a buck during the rut. I have tried about every one of them. Most haven’t brought me success, whether that’s  because of a terrain feature or the bucks just weren’t responsive to that tactic in my area. There are a few tactics I have found…

We have all been there. You’re checking trail cameras and it never fails: Somewhere in the middle of all the photos of squirrels and does, you see a photo of a great buck. It also never fails that this picture is occurring well after the legal shooting light. If you’re anything like me, you hunt small properties no bigger than 50 acres. This means more than likely that buck is spending his daylight hours somewhere other than on your property. But that’s something we can change. You need to make your property the place where deer want to spend more…

I think Ohio has one of the longest bow seasons. It starts the last weekend in September and continues through the first weekend in February. This provides plenty of time to key in on a certain buck and capitalize in the late season. I find that the pressure around me usually subsides after a weeklong gun season during the week after Thanksgiving. After this is when I go to work, if I haven’t filled my buck tag yet. The first thing I do is locate the late-season food sources in my area. Deer are slaves to their stomachs at this…

Technology and hunting: who would have ever thought those two things would be used in the same article? One thing every hunter has on them most of the time these days is a cell phone. They are great for keeping us entertained in the stand when we get bored, or handy to call that buddy for help in recovery of an animal. But did you know that cell phones can be a valuable scouting tool, a great tracking tool, or even an animal movement predictor? I use my phone for looking at satellite maps, discovering property owners, and even the…

Every year I think about what I can do hold more deer on my property. I have tried mock scrapes, mineral sites, deer attractants, and more. Do they work? The short answer is yes. Mineral sites will hold deer in the spring while mock scrapes will funnel deer your way in the fall, mostly after dark. But neither one of these is ideal for when I can hunt. So, when I ran across some data about food plots, I was overwhelmed at how much information is out there on this topic, and the many different ways to plant one. So,…

Here are some Key Reasons Spring is a magical time in the outdoors, with many fun things to do. If you are anything like me, you’ll be spending a lot of time in the woods chasing those long beards, looking for morels, or in a boat fishing for crappie or spawning bass. But now is not the time to forget about Whitetail deer. Now is the time to get your mineral sites out. Here are a few reasons why I think every Whitetail enthusiast should have at least one mineral site in the woods starting in April. In Spring, mineral…