Hunting News and Information

	Carry your quarry out Carrying a raccoon or two out of the swamp is not as easy as placing the animal in the pocket of your game vest. MORE ...

	Raccoon-hunting equipment, modern and old school David MacCallum uses a GPS tracking collar to keep tabs on his dog’s progress during a raccoon hunt. MORE ...

	Don’t get swamped Raccoon hunters must contend with dense swamp vegetation, wet ground, ditches and creeks. They wear cloth-faced hip boots to help deflect briars and enable them to walk through shallow water. MORE ...

	Beagles and bunnies: Good dogs, good land and good hunters usually means lots of cottontails in the bag After deer season ends, lots of private land becomes available for hunters to turn loose their packs of beagles.Meanwhile, a group of nine hunters, dressed warmly against the early morning chill, listened intently. About 10 minutes earlier, they’d pulled their vehicles off a paved road and parked at a wide shoulder next to the woods, well out of harm’s way. They’d loosed a dozen beagles that, after first taking care of the usual round of business, had struck out through the woods with two hunters trailing them. MORE ...

	Start young to train beagles As in the training of any hunting dog, nothing helps a beagle become an effective chaser of rabbits more than opportunities to chase rabbits alongside veteran hunting dogs. MORE ...

	Many game lands offer rabbit hunting A major problem for North Carolina rabbit hunters is gaining access to suitable private land, although interfering with deer hunters usually isn’t a concern with deer season ending Jan. 1. MORE ...

	Special tags, baiting may be in works for bear hunters The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission’s Jan. 16 Big Game Committee meeting discussing the state’s expanding bear population produced agreement among diverse user groups, according to David Cobb, director of the agency’s Wildlife Management Division, but no new proposals were adopted. “The discussions covered a broad spectrum of ideas, all the way to leaving things the way they are now to allowing more-liberalized take of bears over bait,” Cobb said. “But we didn’t make any decisions or proposals.” MORE ...

	A big-bore revolver hog hunt I was sitting on an East Texas pipeline, cradling my 7 1/2-inch Ruger Super Redhawk in my lap, watching a pile of corn that had been scattered about the area and trampled with hundreds of hog tracks. My hand cannon was stuffed with 335-grain hard-cast bullets in .454 Casull, a potent enough load in itself, but this went the extra step. These rounds were manufactured by Cor-Bon — a company that found its niche in the ammunition market by producing ammo that pushed the envelope. MORE ...

	December Bag-A-Buck winner goes to hunter’s first buck NorthCarolinaSportsman.com user “dharper0413” wasted little time entering the magazine’s Bag-A-Buck contest presented by Leupold and Barnes Precision Machinery after he killed the first buck of his hunting career on Dec. 3. On New Year’s Day, he got a second dose of good luck when his entry was drawn as the winner of the December contest. “dharper0413” will receive a $25 gift certificate to the Sportsman Outdoor Store and a year’s subscription to North Carolina Sportsman. MORE ...

	Aging is key to managing The end of another deer season is upon us, but unfinished business remains on the “to-do list” for groups and individuals aspiring towards quality deer management. Harvest records from the season will not be complete until the jawbones from deer killed have been studied and aged effectively. If you spent the season filling your freezer and sending a trophy or two to the taxidermist, it’s time to devote time to determine the age of deer killed. MORE ...

	Pond Management: Develop schedule for the year January is the dormant season for most pond activity. While the past few months have provided time for bank and shallow region reconstruction, a year of pond-management tasks will begin in shortly. Pond owners need to determine what parts of their regime need attention. MORE ...

	Buck with third ‘beam’ protruding from middle of skull killed in Edgecombe County Rusty Owens of Stantonsburg succeeded in a season-long pursuit of what he calls the “Unicorn Buck” in the last few minutes of the 2012 deer hunting season. Owens first became acquainted the main-frame 8-pointer in July after setting trail cameras on hunt-club land in Edgecombe County. His cameras continued to catch the deer throughout the summer, and Owens noticed an extra “brow tine” that appeared to sprout forward from the base of the left beam. Then, as quickly as the deer appeared, he vanished just as archery season opened in September. MORE ...