Author: Scott Haugen

“Let’s try it right here,” whispered Larry Warren, owner and operator of Tuchodi River Outfitters in northern British Columbia. I thought he was joking, until he reached for his cow call. Out of reaction, I grabbed for mine, too. “Go ahead, give it a try,” he smiled, tucking his call back into a shirt pocket. Gently biting down on the open-read call, I let out a seductive cow mew. Not sure if it was loud enough to penetrate the alders or carry across the big canyon, I wasn’t optimistic about hearing any reply, especially since we’d only left camp 10…

In early May, two days before my highly anticipated brown bear hunt in Alaska, I got a phone call. It was the outfitter asking if I would reschedule the hunt. His reasoning was simple. He’d been with two hunters for 10 days and hadn’t seen a single bear. Plus, temperatures were in the 80s, which was unheard of this time of year. We were planning on filming the action for a TV show I hosted at the time, “The Hunt,” which was to air on three major networks, including Netflix. My schedule was full for the next two years. The…

Glassing from the edge of an expansive meadow, we searched for any sign of deer movement. “It won’t be long and they’ll start moving,” encouraged our guide, Pat Fisher, the owner of Hawaii Safaris. Pat had warned us about getting afield too early, for he knew exactly when the deer would start moving. He also knew we were excited to be hunting in this magical land. Three of us had traveled from different parts of the country in hopes of taking highly prized axis deer. First up was Tom Munson, then the director of sales and marketing for Trijicon in…

The anticipation regarding a Wyoming Whitetail deer hunt began a year earlier,  after filling a mule deer tag in the same area. Once the mule deer hunt came to a close earlier than planned, I had the pleasure of exploring the land there and what I saw left me wanting more. When I think  of exceptional Whitetail deer destinations, the northeast corner of Wyoming doesn’t initially come to mind. But what I saw after taking a double drop-tine mule deer in the area left an impression that I would not be able to shake until the next time I hunted…

Sitting in a ground blind, bow ready, I was confident that my September 1st deer hunt would end within the first two hours of opening day. As the clock hit 11 a.m. however, I hadn’t even seen a buck. The mercury neared 100 degrees, and I was sweating and thirsty. It was time for Plan B. The big blacktail buck I’d been tracking all summer on trail camera failed to show up. I knew there were no predators in the area that would cause a shift in its pattern. That left only one logical explanation…the buck had stripped its velvet.…

When we opened the tent to three feet of fresh snow, my buddies insisted we get off the mountain. It was mid-October, the third day of the Rocky Mountain elk rifle season, we’d yet to see a single elk, and the snow was coming down hard. Packing up camp, we traveled 18 miles on horseback, reaching the trailhead moments before dark. We later learned that seven feet of snow fell in that storm. Our August scouting mission into this secluded paradise, at 9,000 feet in the Rocky Mountains, had revealed loads of elk. However, the early storms forced them from…