Matt is the co-host of "Red Rising", an outdoor lifestyle hunting series that follows four friends (Matt Bullins, Chris Ward, Jason Bowers and Eric Hale) as they travel the country in pursuit of whitetails. Matt says he is particularly well versed in hunting the mountain bucks of the East Coast. Big timber plots and rugged mountainous terrain make the hunting in the eastern part of the country very challenging. Matt notes that for those reasons it can be very difficult to hone in on bucks and pattern them as they don't do the same typical things that bucks in the Midwest do. While many whitetail enthusiasts center their attention on the consistent big buck producing Midwestern states, Matt says he enjoys hunting outside the box. Hunters should be looking for new and different opportunities. It's easy to get complacent, to find a niche, find a few locations that work for you and then stick to those same strategies, Matt says. In the end what happens is that hunters see a lot of the same things over and again, and don't ever try anything new. For Matt, disrupting the norm is something he welcomes and so he has his sights set on hunting Maryland whitetails in 2021. Maryland is a sleeper state, he says, with tremendous big buck potential. With plans in place to spend some time on the Eastern Shore in Maryland this fall, Matt briefly hashes out the pros and cons of the region. While it's not steep terrain, Matt says, it is very swamp like. It's thick, wet, marshy, there are tons of bugs and a lot of heat, however it produces some of the biggest whitetails you'll see anywhere on the East Coast. The availability and affordability of tags makes Maryland a state to consider as well. Matt notes that tags are available over the counter and they are relatively cheap compared to tag prices in the Midwest. Plus, Maryland is a two buck state with a very liberal antlerless harvest limit as well, so out-of-state hunters can make the most of a trip to the East Coast and have the potential to bag a lot of venison. The bucks coming out of Maryland are top tier, something that all whitetail hunters should be paying attention to.
Listen in as Matt Bullins joins The Revolution this week to talk about the East Coast whitetail sleeper state of Maryland. Plus, he'll talk about the advantages of using cellular trail cameras and the importance of working with other landowners and hunters to manage, grow and hold big whitetails on private property. Be sure to catch "Red Rising", Tuesdays at 8:00 p.m. ET on Sportsman Channel. You can also catch up on previous seasons and episodes by streaming anytime with MyOutdoorTV.
Trav