Got this from a hunter, the giant was shot by a close friend of his: Not the best picture…green scored 202" non-typical, stud. Tremendous rack with beautiful tines and amazing palmation, this buck is destined to be one of America’s top 2015 archery deer. We will be seeing and hearing a lot more, and I hope to have a full hunt report at some point. The sight of that giant ought to get us all fired up for the next weeks, the best weeks!
Mike: I've read about an October “mini rut,” and I'm a believer. I've always had good luck seeing bucks on either side of Oct 15. A few years ago on October 11th, bucks were chasing everything that came into a field. A nice 3-year-old got in on the action. He actually did a lip curl for several minutes where one of the does had stopped to pee. Later, a second buck came along, trailing that same doe's path and stopping at the same spot for several minutes before continuing on the scent trail. Makes one wonder if maybe a few does do cycle a month early. Are you aware of any proof of this? Bob from WI Bob: Yes, every scientific rut chart/bar graph you’ll see will show that some [...]
From this QDMA report: Dr. David Stallknecht of the Southeast Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study (SCWDS) at the University of Georgia, which tests samples from sick deer in a number of states around the nation, said his agency is aware of localized outbreaks of EHD in Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina and Florida, with isolated cases reported in a number of other states…In other words, an average year. “No one is screaming that all the deer are dying, but there are some animals out there (positive with EHD),” Stallknecht said. Although some great bucks like the "Missouri Freak" above succumbed to EHD this summer, and that is a shame, it is unlikely a severe outbreak of the disease will occur this late in the [...]
On an all-new episode of BIG DEER TV tonight, I spot and stalk for mule deer in a remote section of Montana. That leads to this product review: I have been using Yeti Tundra coolers in deer camps and hunting rigs for years. Simple fact: no other cooler can match the one-piece, roto-molded polyethylene Tundra for durability and ice retention for your supplies and, once you shoot a deer, your quartered or boned-out venison. The Tundra has become incredibly popular with hunters. When I show up in a camp anywhere in North America, it’s 50/50 that the locals will already have a Yeti or two sitting aside the fire pit. Nearly 100 percent of Texas deer camps have them, [...]
Excellent field report from longtime Big Deer blogger Derek: Hi Mike: Last year I got my buck while still in velvet on the first hunt of the year. This year it took me a few more weeks. I started getting trail cam pics of a really nice buck out in one of our CRP fields. For the first month I got pictures of this buck only, with no other bucks and no does and fawns, he was a real bachelor. I figured he was bedding in some cattail sloughs and making his way to the neighbor’s bean field. We have one lone bush along the fence line in this CRP field, so I set up and brushed in a blind [...]