The concept of deer camp goes back generations and is so often associated with history, heritage, and looking back at the past. But for photographer, Austin Thomas, and his best friends Taylor Cook and Gunnar Lovekamp, it’s all about living in the present.
For career farmer and rancher, Alex Templeton, there isn’t a distinct point where farming ends and whitetail hunting begins. It’s all part of the same holistic life, and it all connects to the land she spends her life working.
The challenge with capturing great harvest photos is focusing on the story around the animal, not necessarily the animal itself. I love to see the emotion from the hunter in a way that helps me feel the image, capturing those raw moments that we can’t get back.
The following is a collection of stories from our Ambassadors recalling the coldest hunts they’ve ever been on.
I’m John Dudley and I’m a whitetail fanatic. People told me admitting that is the first step to helping increase my addiction, so I’m all in! If you share my obsession with putting big whitetails on the ground, then read on.
Comfort can play a vital role in the hunt. Not in the sense that being comfortable makes the hunt easy, more that it allows us to shift focus from the challenges of the hunt to the task at hand. When we bring our bodies and minds to a state of comfort, we become more effective, more efficient, and more durable to the conditions. Comfort becomes a tool.
The brush of a shoulder against a tree. The zip of a zipper. The rub of a sleeve reaching for a rangefinder. The draw of a bow. Factor in sound-dampening snow. Negative temperatures. Zero wind. Add a mature whitetail tuned to hear every out-of-place noise in the woods. These considerations hatched the new Fanatic: the quietest jacket, bib and pack system ever made by SITKA. Designed by experts; informed by the most advanced science on how deer hear.
Beneath a clear blue sky, Alex Templeton maneuvers her tractor, harrowing pastures to improve grass growth and production for the 500 cattle she raises with her father. A third-generation farmer in Polo, MO, Templeton spends the majority of her time outside: helping with calving during the spring, fixing fences, distributing hay and feed and keeping tabs on the herd from the cab of her trusty pickup truck.
In the deep winter freeze of the Alberta Bowzone, where late November temps can reach -40F, there are two considerations legendary whitetail outfitter and SITKA Athlete Jim Hole, Jr. prioritizes: keeping warm and completely silent to mimic the stealth and patience of an owl perched in a tree.
The primary needs for a whitetail: food, water, shelter, and communication - often come together in places that are commonly referred to as funnels. Funnels are also known as transition areas, travel corridors, bottlenecks, and pinch points. By using maps and applying real-world experience through scouting, you can pinpoint these funnels by identifying the following terrain.
If you are up for the effort, you can chase a whitetail into some of the roughest and most rugged and unforgiving country imaginable — places where humans have seldom tread and with good reason. The dense and swampy wilderness of South Florida is just such a place.
As humans, we are at a genetic and physiological disadvantage to survive in wild places. Yet we’re instinctively drawn to test our mettle against species who have adapted for millennia to thrive in these challenging environments. At SITKA, we build systems to level the playing field with wild animals in their domain; giving hunters the ability to adapt to the rapidly-changing conditions encountered in the wild.
Mon–Fri 7AM - 7PM MST