By: Nick Pinizzotto

Nick Pinizzotto is NDA’s President and CEO. He has been a member of the NDA team for eight years starting with the former National Deer Alliance. He is a Level II Deer Steward and active wildlife habitat manager on his Pennsylvania property. His more than 25 year professional career has been dedicated to fish and wildlife conservation. He earned a bachelor’s degree in environmental geography and a master’s degree in psychology.

Two Does, One Lesson: The Value of CWD Testing

Dec 1, 2025 Nick Pinizzotto

It was one of those evenings when you just feel like something good is about to happen. While I would have obviously taken a shot opportunity on a mature buck if presented, my focus was…

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No Stand Needed: The Art and Advantages of Ground Setups for Whitetails

Sep 10, 2025 Nick Pinizzotto

Opening morning finally arrived, and I had my ambush spot picked out well in advance due to my thorough scouting efforts. I had been watching a bachelor group of five bucks consistently using a heavily…

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What You Need to Know to Film Your Own Deer Hunts

Aug 19, 2025 Nick Pinizzotto

Self-filming hunts has become uber popular in recent years as the price of quality equipment has come down and getting footage uploaded to platforms like YouTube has never been easier. As an avid YouTube watcher,…

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The Deer Hunting Fail That Put Me On a Path to Physical and Mental Fitness

Apr 16, 2025 Nick Pinizzotto

The unseasonably warm start to the 2013 Ohio archery deer season made it difficult for me to get motivated, and it didn’t help that I had lost my mental focus. After making more than enough…

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The Risks and Rewards of Targeting a Single Deer

Sep 4, 2024 Nick Pinizzotto

The weather was brutal. After an unseasonably warm and rainy stretch to kick off the Pennsylvania firearms season, I was reminded how quickly Mother Nature’s mood can change in December. I don’t prefer hunting with…

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Targeting Mature Bucks Can Be a Lonely Road

Apr 17, 2024 Nick Pinizzotto

I looked at my watch and saw it was 10 a.m. and time to start climbing down from my saddle setup and meet up with my friend and hunting partner, Ron Haas. It was December…

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Prepare These 20 Pieces of Deer Gear Now for Success Next Fall

Feb 14, 2024 Nick Pinizzotto

I’m a tinkerer, particularly when it comes to my hunting gear. Sometimes I think I like tinkering with my gear as much as the act of hunting itself. As a fly fisherman, I also enjoy…

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5 Valuable Lessons From a 10-Point Buck Someone Else Tagged

Nov 15, 2023 Nick Pinizzotto

For the second time, I watched helplessly as my target buck, a 4½-year-old main-frame 10-point with a cool kicker off his right beam, fed just out of shooting range in my food plot. He was…

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5 Reasons Deer Are Not Touching Your Food Plots

Jun 21, 2023 Nick Pinizzotto

I was bursting with anticipation as I settled into my stand overlooking an interior food plot I had planted for the first time a couple months earlier. A year prior, the old natural gas well…

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I Bought Deer Hunting Land in a CWD Zone. It Was a Good Decision.

Jun 15, 2022 Nick Pinizzotto

When I heard the news that a new chronic wasting disease (CWD) Disease Management Area was being established near the area I grew up hunting as a kid in Pennsylvania, I got an immediate knot…

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