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August 27, 2026

Orchards filled with fruit-bearing trees like apples can attract plenty of deer during the early part of deer season.

Fruit orchards can be deer magnets

Robert Johnson said often-overlooked food sources that will draw deer are fruit orchards, with apples and pears being excellent. These crops are not always easy to hunt, but they can provide excellent hunting. Small clusters of fruit trees can be heavily hit by deer. […]

Know the breakdown of the nitrogen mixture in your fertilizer if you’re dealing with acidic soils.

Be selective in fertilizer choices for acidic soils

Jeff Burleson

Much of the South is covered in acidic soils, because much of the available hunting land is covered in evergreen forests and high-organic soils. But hunters can still plant good food plots and attract wildlife by using the right plants and the right nutrient plan. […]

Find staging areas outside of fields

Terry Madewell

Matt Willis said successfully hunting agricultural crops depends on knowing routes deer take from habitat beyond the borders to the edges of the field. […]

Jeff Kirkley’s 122-inch piebald buck, killed last fall in South Carolina, is an unusually large specimen of a whitetail deer with coloration that is a genetic anomaly.

Mature piebald bucks have Ph.D’s

Jeff Burleson

Piebald and albino deer are unique in any environment. Few hunters taken a white deer, and even fewer a big, piebald buck. […]

Tyler Campbell of Mebane, N.C., took this huge archery buck in October 2015 after discovering the buck’s core area.

Finding buck’s core area led to tagging 2015 trophy

Craig Holt

Tyler Campbell of Mebane, N.C., killed one of North Carolina’s top archery bucks on Oct. 25, 2015, when he sent a broadhead through an Alamance County 11-pointer that scored 1562/8 net Boone and Crockett Club points. […]

Timing South Carolina’s deer rut

Phillip Gentry

Deer biologists would love to be able to say that on Oct. 1, the rut will peak in 23 days, but it’s not that simple. Biologists often examine fetuses and can pinpoint very accurately the date of conception, but not every doe enters estrus on the same day. […]

Hunters with access to kayaks or canoes can float rivers or streams during the Oct. 5-8 season, and they’ll often wind up with a mixed bag of wood ducks and green-winged teal.

North Carolina’s early duck particulars

Dusty Wilson

• The first general duck season in North Carolina runs from Oct. 5-8, statewide. The daily bag limit is six, but only three may be wood ducks. Teal are commonly taken during the short, October season, and all six ducks in your daily limit can be teal, or teal can be combined with woodies. […]

Bull redfish hold on hardbottom areas, like shells or rocks, while they migrate out of sounds toward the ocean in the fall.

For big drum with live or chunk bait, go with a Lupton rig. Here’s how to tie one.

Phillip Gentry

Regulations between states vary, but according to guide Dan Utley, South Carolina anglers have taken the lead from the North Carolina requirement when fishing for bull redfish in the inlets around Hilton Head. […]

Speckled trout are caught along Masonboro Inlet’s rock jetties when the falling tide pulls baitfish and shrimp toward the ocean.

Seine Masonboro Inlet’s jetties for specks

Jerry Dilsaver

The jetties at Masonboro Inlet are oddities along the North Carolina coast, where most inlets aren’t lined with the stone structures. […]

Speckled trout can tolerate waters with a wide range of salinities as long as food is readily available.

Speckled trout biology

Jerry Dilsaver

Spotted seatrout, aka speckled trout, are members of the sciaenidae family, which includes drums, croakers and weakfish. They are prized as gamefish by recreational anglers throughout their range, from the Chesapeake Bay to Laguna Madre in south Texas, and have been occasionally caught as far north as New York and as far south as Mexico. […]