A Guide's Guide to the Rut

Every year, turkey hunters across America tag some really unusual gobblers with colors that just don't match the local flock. Are these birds mutants, escapees from a the local turkey farm or some kind of hybrid between domestic and wild turkeys? A new project called WildturkeyDNA, spearheaded by the National Wild Turkey Federation and its partners, aims to find out — and turkey hunters get to participate in the science!

Love them or hate them, crossbows are occupying an ever-larger space on the bowhunting landscape. What does that mean for the future of our sport? Brad Fenson, a highly successful hunter and author of our new crossbow column, joins us for a fascinating discussion about the changing bowhunting landscape. 

KUIU's Justin Shaffer is an extreme mountain hunter who chases everything from sheep and goats in Alaska to high-country elk and mule deerin the Rockies to ibex in Mongolia. Your 2025 bowhunts might not be that rugged, but that doesn't mean you won't benefit from getting in shape for your adventures. Jared talks about his approach to bowhunting fitness and how taking care of your body will make you a more effective predator in the field.

Prime Archery's new-for-2025 Form is the first aluminum-carbon hybrid bow in history. Prime's Brian Anderson joins us to discuss why the company was willing to try something completely different to bring bowhunters a rig that not only looks unlike anything you've ever seen but offers some significant performance advantages.

Deer season may be winding down, but that means gear season is heating up! Colorado bowhunter Jace Bauserman joins us to recap a pair of successful, DIY rut hunts and discuss some of the recently released new-for-2025 archery gear.

Regardless of how your season has been, you should be thankful to be a bowhunter. With the Thanksgiving season upon us, Editor Christian Berg and contributor Eddie Claypool reflect on their many blessings and the privilege of enjoying the great outdoors.

The late archery season can be a great time to tag a mature whitetail buck — if you have the right conditions and know how to approach the hunt. KUIU's Micah Sirek and Thomas Krick join us to discuss the keys to late-season success and also highlight KUIU's new Super Down Haven line of cold-weather hunting apparel.

Like most bowhunters, Michigan's Jim Bouchard knows the challenge of hunting highly pressured whitetails. He owns no hunting ground, has no food plots and competes with many other hunters on every property he hunts. Yet, in spite of the challenges, Bouchard is highly successful and filled both his 2024 buck tags in October. Bouchard details his proven, out-of-the-box tactics for locating and hunting mature bucks that have become masters of survival.  

All bowhunters get excited for the whitetail rut, but sometimes Mother Nature can throw you curveballs with warm weather and other challenges. Jake Shaffer, owner of Branded Outdoors guide service in Maryland, shares his top rut-hunting tips for mid-November, including how to adapt to hot weather, tactics he’s learned from hunting the flatlands of the Eastern Shore and what to do when the deer seem to disappear.

Would you pay $180 to shoot a 170? Well, that's essentially what Nebraska bowhunter Zeke Pipher recently did, tagging a 174 7/8-inch monster on a 25-acre conservation property where he made a $180 donation for hunting rights. This week, as the rut heats up, sit back and listen to Pipher's amazing story about why you should always expect the unexpected when hunting mature whitetail bucks.