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So far Clay Hanback has created 580 blog entries.
21 05, 2021

How Important Are Acorns For Deer?

2021-05-21T13:55:13-04:00May 21st, 2021|Big Deer TV, Bowhunting, Deer Hunting, sportsman channel, whitetail deer|Comments Off on How Important Are Acorns For Deer?

Pennsylvania biologist Jeannine Fleegle notes that while the list of foods for whitetails is long and varied and includes crops, browse, forbs, grasses, fungi and mast, “It is no secret that acorns are a favorite on the list. If they are available, acorns dominate their diet in fall and winter.” Fleegle points to experiments that show when acorns are available, whitetails eat about 1.5 pounds of nuts daily per hundred pounds of body weight. “Deer can sustain a maximum of 30% weight loss during (the rut and into) winter,” she says. “More than that and they die of malnutrition.” It’s easy to see why acorns are so important not only to the deer, but to your hunt strategy. This summer, walk [...]

19 05, 2021

History of the .30-30 For Deer Hunting

2021-05-16T15:32:35-04:00May 19th, 2021|Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Guns & Loads, Deer Hunting, Remington, whitetail deer|Comments Off on History of the .30-30 For Deer Hunting

Introduced by Winchester Repeating Arms in 1895 as the main chambering for their Model 1894 rifle, the .30-30 was the first sporting cartridge loaded with smokeless powder. The original .30-30 Winchester load featured a 160-grain bullet driven at almost 2,000 feet per second, a huge step up in performance as compared to the black powder cartridges of the day. It didn’t take long for hunters across America to fall in love with this revolutionary rifle/cartridge combo, which shot flat and hit and dropped game hard. The .30-30 quickly became the go-to for deer and bear at short to moderate range. In the 20th Century, Marlin Firearms began chambering lever-action rifles in .30-30, and in 1948 the gunmaker introduced the venerable [...]

17 05, 2021

Can A Whitetail Doe Have Two Buck Fawns?

2021-05-17T09:20:00-04:00May 17th, 2021|Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Hunting, whitetail deer|Comments Off on Can A Whitetail Doe Have Two Buck Fawns?

Hey Mike, I have always heard that when a set of deer twins is born, the sex is always split---never are they both male or female. Is that true? Doug from Illinois Doug, thanks for the question. Whitetail biologists say that as for the sex of all fawns born each year across the country, it averages out to be about 50-50 buck/doe. To the heart of your question: No, it is not unheard of for a doe to have 2 buck or 2 doe fawns. But at the end of the day, in a herd anywhere, it averages out to about 50-50 buck/doe fawns. More about deer fawns: Top whitetail scientist Dr. Grant Woods says that in a normal herd, [...]

13 05, 2021

Alabama Turkey Hunter Kills 400th (and 401st) Gobbler

2021-05-12T14:27:47-04:00May 13th, 2021|Big Deer TV, sportsman channel|Comments Off on Alabama Turkey Hunter Kills 400th (and 401st) Gobbler

Reprinted with permission of the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources; story by David Rainer For someone who got a late start chasing turkeys, Ray Jones of Huntsville has spent the last 60 years catching up. Jones, 86, reached and surpassed a milestone this season by bagging the 400th and 401st turkeys of his career. The reason he got off to such a slow start was because he lived in far north Alabama where turkeys were scarce for most of his life. “We really didn’t have any turkeys north of Birmingham when I was a young boy,” Jones said. “They had all been killed during the Depression. We hunted squirrels. We didn’t even have any deer.” During the middle of the [...]

12 05, 2021

Mature Whitetail Buck Harvest Highest Ever Reported in U.S.

2021-05-12T11:08:33-04:00May 12th, 2021|Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Hunting, whitetail deer|Comments Off on Mature Whitetail Buck Harvest Highest Ever Reported in U.S.

If it’s brown it’s down! A lot of us started out deer hunting that way decades ago, but those days are finally over. According to the National Deer Association’s 2021 Whitetail Report, hunters killed more mature bucks in the 2019-20 season than ever reported. Out of a harvest of 2.9 million bucks, a record 39% of those animals were estimated to be 3½ years of age or older. “Hunters now shoot far more bucks that are at least 3½ years old than 1½ years,” said Kip Adams, NDA’s Chief Conservation Officer. “That’s a monumental shift in attitude from two decades ago. “Hunters are clearly reaping the benefits of more naturally balanced age structure in herds across the whitetail’s range.” Interestingly, [...]

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