October 2015 Archives - Page 2 of 6

Despite their ease of operation and availability, only 40 percent of hunters use safety harnesses when hunting from elevated stands.

Wear a harness!

Even with the market flooded with easy-to-wear safety harnesses and many models from which to choose, only 40 percent of hunters wear one when hunting from an elevated stand. […]

If a flounder is coming to the boat but isn’t hooked well, a second upward pull of the rod tip can often seal the deal.

Looking for a better hookup

Phillip Gentry

Guide Justin Carter doesn’t get caught up in counting, waiting or pausing before setting the hook when he’s targeting flounder. […]

October deer tactics

Craig Holt

Deer hunters across North Carolina carry a variety of weapons into the woods in October. Archery season is the ticket in the northwestern corner of the state and throughout the Piedmont. […]

Tight-lining with multiple rods in shallow water, especially around grass, is not an easy technique, but Whitey Outlaw said it will put fall slabs in the boat.

Three steps to finding crappie around brush

Terry Madewell

Guide Buster Rush uses a three-step process to find crappie around brush piles in Lake Marion. The process goes from the most common in October to the most snag-prone last step. […]

A shot through the heart-lung area will be almost always fatal to a deer, but because a deer shot through his boiler room will not expire immediately, finding and following a blood trail is a hunter’s responsibility.

Every time a hunter leaves home to go after some venison, freezer, he or she should always expect that the hunt is going to be successful, and they had better be prepared to track their quarry under any conditions. […]

Big, slab crappie bite as consistently during the fall on Lake Marion as they do during the spring spawn.

Deep-water crappie tools

Terry Madewell

Both Whitey Outlaw and Buster Rush rely on electronics to help them target crappie holding around cover in deep water. […]

Coastal piers offer great king mackerel fishing

Jerry Dilsaver

Fishermen try their luck for king mackerel from almost every pier along the North Carolina coast. On Oak Island, the meat of the pier king season runs from roughly the first of May to the end of October. […]

The author shows off the kind of king mackerel that fishermen expect to catch off Oak Island in the fall.

Fall kings make U.S. Open wide open

Jerry Dilsaver

North Carolina has two migratory groups of king mackerel, scomberomorus cavalla, one considered an offshore group that moves to the warm waters near the beach in spring, summer and fall and then retreats to warmer offshore waters near the Gulf Stream during the winter, and the coastal migrators that migrate up an down the coast, from Florida to Virginia related to water temperature and abundance and absence of forage fish for food. […]

Gunsmith Mark Sloan examines a powder measure, a tool that has largely been replaced by cylindrical powder pellets.

Modern tools of an old trade

Phillip Gentry

Black-powder hunters used to be burdened with carrying all types of gear into the field for the inevitable misfire and cleaning. […]

Roger Metz and his daughter, Jordan, got revenge on this Chester County buck with a flintlock muzzleloader in 2005 after it rammed his brother, Paul.

Adventures in black powder

Phillip Gentry

Among his many talents, Roger Metz is a great storyteller. He tells this story of a black-powder 2005 deer hunt in Chester County. It has a happy ending for everyone except the deer — and Metz’s brother, Paul. […]