6 03, 2024

Highlights from the NDA’s 2024 Deer Report

2024-03-06T11:01:54-05:00March 6th, 2024|Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Hunting, sportsman channel, whitetail deer|0 Comments

The National Deer Association’s 2024 Deer Report is hot off the digital press, and let’s get right to the meat of it. Hunters across America are shooting more mature bucks than ever. In 2022-23, 42% of the bucks shot across North America were 3½ years or older. One out of every three bucks shot in the U.S. today is at least 3½! Mississippi hunters get the gold star for holding out for a big deer; a whopping 80% of bucks shot in the Magnolia State are 3.5 years or older. How many people kill a deer each year? The NDA crunched the numbers and found that 41% of hunters across the U.S. tagged at least one animal in 2022-23. The [...]

4 03, 2024

Deer Hunting Fact: Buck Movement is Wildly Unpredictable

2024-03-05T08:51:07-05:00March 4th, 2024|Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Hunting, sportsman channel, trijicon, whitetail deer|0 Comments

The bowhunting weather here in Virginia was excellent last October. Multiple days of cool, clear, high-pressure skies made for enjoyable sits morning and afternoon. Conditions were perfect, and spirits were high in pour camp. Around the 20th, we figured bucks would start scraping and prowling in the pre-rut any day now. I hunted every day for two weeks and never saw a shooter. I headed out to western Nebraska for rifle season. First evening, I glassed 40 deer coming to a milo field, the only major food source within two miles. Next afternoon from the same stand, with the same warm weather and west wind, I saw only 4 does. But then I shot a 6-year-old 10-pointer at sundown!   [...]

27 02, 2024

Shed Hunt Scouting Tip: Learn Deer Trails

2024-02-27T15:40:29-05:00February 27th, 2024|Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Hunting, Shed Hunting, whitetail deer|0 Comments

My friend Don Kisky, co-host of Whitetail Freaks TV Show on Outdoor Channel, uses his March shed antler hunts to do one thing: learn every main and secondary deer trail on his hunting property. On a shed hunt, he cuts every trail (new and old) and follows it to find where that path comes and goes; where it crisscrosses another trail; how and where a trail cuts through cover and bends around obstacles. Everything about a deer trail, Don learns it. That helps him kill giant bucks the next fall. For example, one November day as Don was sneaking into a stand, he  looked up and spotted a monster buck boring straight at him. He scanned the area and remembered [...]

26 02, 2024

How Do You Act When You Shoot a Buck?

2024-02-26T10:34:36-05:00February 26th, 2024|Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Hunting, sportsman channel, trijicon, whitetail deer|0 Comments

I have always tempered my killing with respect for the game pursued. —Fred Bear I am no Fred Bear, don’t claim to be. When it comes to bowhunting, I couldn’t carry the man’s jockstrap. But for the last 40 years, I have unabashedly hunted and killed deer according to Fred’s mantra. I suppose that is why I get uncomfortable and feel a bit ashamed when I witness an episode like this, either in person in the woods or on YouTube or TV: A fellow shoots a buck and watches it topple over. Grinning, he raises his arms high into the air, balls his fists and starts hollering, “He’s down, he’s down, hell yeah, he’s down!” This is sometimes accompanied with [...]

20 02, 2024

How to Build the Best Food Plots for Deer

2024-02-20T08:34:42-05:00February 20th, 2024|Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Bowhunting, Deer Hunting, Deer Management, sportsman channel, whitetail deer|0 Comments

This is a tutorial on how to create small and affordable food plots that whitetail deer will love, and which are actually easier to hunt than 2- to 4-acre green fields. The Plan Roll out an aerial photograph of your property, and pull up the Google Earth coordinates for a secondary source. Look closely for strips and openings where you might plant some clover, tucked away—and this is key—in areas where you don’t have to cut down many if any trees, or otherwise do extensive clearing and leveling. Look for easy-to-work spots that are part of the natural landscape and your herd’s habitat. Now think back to previous scouts and hunts on the property. Where are major deer trails and [...]

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