OUR SPECIALTY - BIG ARCHERY BUCKS
We love everything about archery hunting for big mature whitetails. From the early season patterning of extended summer feeding routines to the late season corn and soybean last-light dinners, the deer have to eat to stay alive and well. From the start of the archery season to the pre-rut, peak rut, lock-down phase, post-rut, and wintering phase, the deer will move between bedding, food, in funnels that pinch and/or have water. Sounds quite simple, doesn't it?
Us bowhunters know all too well how difficult it is to kill a mature whitetail buck. There are only so many factors that we can control, and yet, it's still a challenge to kill just one brute. That's not to mention the use of archery equipment keeping shots under 60 yards. The challenge is what continues to spark the interest year after year for bowhunters like us. The surprise factor is what keeps us on alert from sun-up to sun-down on all of these stand sits. The trophy and the experience is the icing on the cake. We get it.
We have established a plan on how to hunt these mature whitetails in southern Iowa to the best of our abilities. We look at the archery season as having four different sections. Each section (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta) has its own unique hunting strategy that we feel is best for increasing the odds of seeing and killing one of these brutes during the: (A) early season, (B) pre & peak rut, (C) lock-down and post-rut, and (D) late season. These are the four date-sections that you have to choose from when booking an archery hunt with us in southern Iowa.
After choosing such, we need to choose what type of farm we will be hunting on: standard or trophy. There is a whole lot of difference between the two types of farms, but then again, they're not so different. The main deciding factor in what we label the farm type as has to do with the known deer genetics, score-wise, of local bucks and new bucks that we have seen on the farm up until we assign hunters to their farms in late August or September. After the genetic potential is calculated, we look at how hunt-able the farm is, the quality of the neighborhood and neighbors, the size of the farm, the crop rotation, judgement on food source(s), and we make our final judgement on the farm, labeling it either a standard farm or trophy farm. Now, we should remind you that southern Iowa can produce giants anywhere at anytime, but it's just not that simple of a thought process on the matter. Some farms as just better than others, which is why we offer a slightly lower hunt cost on standard farms. If we did not separate them like such, we would charge the trophy farm rates on all of our farms. We just don't think that is 100% fair. You can still kill a record-book whitetail on a standard farm. It's free-range hunting, and the whitetails do not know the property lines, how much is invested by hunters to kill them, or just how special a farm is compared to another.
When you start hunting, you become our most current scouting source. It is extremely important for you to communicate with us. Such info may cause us to want to change stands or even farms. Communication is the key to success more times than not! All stand sites have been selected based off of experience and purpose. We start the hunts in an almost 'zone defense' before breaking off to attack a certain area until we kill a specific buck or two. Then, we go back to the zone defense until we find a new target, and then we press/blitz them again, and repeating until we are done. It is actually a conservative yet timely & aggressive move that helps us kill big deer every year. If it's not broke, don't fix it, right? Yet, we are always learning about these deer and adjusting our strategies and theories on them. That is our commitment to our clients who trust us with their hunt, time, money, and effort. We can't guarantee a shot opportunity on a monster buck within bow range, but we can guarantee that we are going to try our absolute hardest to make it happen. Thanks for reading!
