Small Wonders

Tiny tracts can give up giant bucks—and have advantages big acreages don’t. Follow this fourstep plan for hunting one

- Scott Bestul

In the fall of 2014, Mike Chamberlain killed one of the largest bucks tagged during the Minnesota season. The rack of the behemoth whitetail stood in stark contrast to the size of Chamberlain’s hunting property: The buck scored 198 B&C, yet Chamberlain arrowed the giant on a 5-acre chunk of timber that bordered his backyard.

Whitetail aficionados share a common fantasy—hunting a massive farm crammed with prime habitat, abundant food, and giant deer. Reality paints a different picture for many of us. Due to a number of factors (urban sprawl, rural development, a challenging farm economy, etc.), the large acreages that once dominated rural America are now parceled up. More and more of us are forced to hunt small, or not at all.