“Ultimate Guide to DIY Bucks”
Ultimate Guide to DIY Bucks is authored by long time deer hunters John Eberhart and Greg Godfrey and lays a detailed and easy to understand foundation for what is required to become successful at taking mature whitetail bucks. After 19 months and over 5,000 hours of researching and writing, this book came to fruition, and it was so detailed and long that it had to be published in 3 volumes.
Within Ultimate Guide to DIY Bucks, John and Greg explain: hunting in hill country, big timber and southern pine flats, rural agricultural areas, swamps, western plains states, hunting small parcels, reality of hunting pressure, hunting access, advantages of post season scouting, pre and in-season scouting, importance of security cover, what to look for when scouting, proper location preparation, proper entry and exit routes, seasonal and daily timing for each location, pre-season speed tours for early season hunting, motion cameras, hunting in foul weather, swirling winds and thermal drafts and what causes them and how mature bucks use them, scent control, scrape areas and runway scrapes, mock scrapes, mature buck rub identification, rut staging areas, hunting the early season, lull, pre, peak, and post rut phases and late season, DIY-freelance hunting, hunting standing corn, hunting interiors of bedding areas, preferred natural mast and fruit trees, preferred browse, transition corridors, funnels and pinch points, isolated water sources, why mature bucks become nocturnal and when and how they break that routine, fake tactics such as sparring, rattling, calls, scents, and decoys and when, where, and how to use them, saddle hunting and its advantages, lightweight saddles and accessories, how to set up for using a saddle, what to take hunting, hunting from the ground, travel hunting and what states are the best, OnX, e-scouting, suburban hunting, open to everyone public lands, free walk-on properties, hunting amongst many other hunters you don’t know, recovering wounded deer, fitness, art of layering clothing, the reality of waterproof/breathable suits, solid state by state statistics on hunter densities and Pope & Young entry ratio’s, the hard reality of most TV and YouTube shows, and there are hundreds of detailed subtopics.
Any experienced deer hunter can testify to the frustrations of hunting pressured deer. Picking up where ordinary hunting manuals leave off, Ultimate Guide to DIY Bucks 3 volume book series leaves no stone unturned in covering every topic in detail on what you need to know to take mature bucks in areas where hunting pressure has increased their wariness and ability to evade hunters.
If you’re looking for a book full of generic and oftentimes misleading rhetoric information written by a hunting personality that hunts on ultra managed for big bucks properties against minimal to zero competition, or on pay-to-hunt ranches as commonly seen on many TV and YouTube videos, and read in print media by hunters that hunt the same types of properties, this book is likely not for you. In those types of scenarios, bucks have been allowed to grow to maturity without consequence, there are many mature bucks on the properties, and kill opportunities will happen no matter the hunter’s skill level because the bucks have learned to accept hunter interactions and intrusions while being allowed to grow to maturity. Under the normal hunting conditions that most hunters hunt in, mature bucks simply don’t move in open vulnerable areas during daylight hours, if they did, as seen or read on most high-profile media platforms, they would have never become mature bucks.
The focus of this 3-volume book series is to help hunters take whitetail deer with the primary emphasis being on hunting in natural environments, on natural movement patterns, at natural feeding areas, and under normal hunting conditions.
Author John Eberhart is a Michigan bowhunter with 58 seasons of experience, and he has exclusively hunted public land and free permission properties. John has been hunting from a saddle since 1981 and has bowhunted in 6 states and has 55 record book bucks with 35 of them being taken in Michigan with one having been a state record. John also created and runs the Eberhart Outdoors YouTube channel and has been interviewed on dozens of podcasts.
Co-author Greg Godfrey resides in Georgia and has 30 seasons of experience and has hunted in 16 states and has hunted from a saddle since 2002. Greg is also co-owner of Tethrd with Ernie and Val Power and created and runs the G2 Outdoors YouTube channel.
With 88 combined years of experience in so many states, they speak from direct experience when explaining the stark differences between hunting in lightly hunted big buck regions, and pressured areas.
Along with John and Greg, Mark Kenyon, Garrett Prahl, Andy May, and Ernie Power contributed condensed kill stories and there will be 84 of them along with kill photos and each story will have information that lends credibility to the information within the chapter they are in.
Ultimate Guide to DIY Bucks was inked for bowhunters that want to take their game to the next level and beyond and make no mistake, this may require a complete change in how you currently hunt and will require a work ethic and patience beyond that of your local hunting competition. The cool thing is that the methods within these 3 volumes of books work on pressured mature bucks and will therefore work even better in lightly hunted and managed areas, or wherever you may travel to hunt. These 3 volumes of books will be available in paperback, hardcover, e-book, and audio book versions.
