Big Deer Blog

30 10, 2016

Deer Hunting Gear: Little Stuff For Your Pack

2020-06-10T09:16:32-04:00October 30th, 2016|BigDeer|Comments Off on Deer Hunting Gear: Little Stuff For Your Pack

You can buy all this stuff for less than $100 total. It won’t take up much space in your day pack. It’s must carry hunting gear. --The best bow holder I’ve ever used is the long EZ Hanger. The tapered, self-tapping screw makes it easy to fairly drive into a hard tree. (I say "fairly" because all trees are different.) Adjust the hanger’s elbow up to 180 degrees to position your bow precisely where you want it. Later in the season, screwed into a tree at just the right height and angle, it doubles as a convenient gun rest if you need to fire at a deer off to the side and slightly behind you. --Buy a few rubber-coated hardware [...]

28 10, 2016

Montana: Summer Strommen’s First Buck

2020-06-10T09:16:32-04:00October 28th, 2016|Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Guns & Loads, Deer Hunting|7 Comments

Friend and longtime Big Deer blogger Luke Strommen writes: So proud of this young lady! Summer, who turned 10 two days earlier, was so excited to go hunt for her first buck. It was 25 degrees and really foggy on opening morning of the two-day youth hunt. After setting up in a blind on edge of a wheat field, I told Summer that we would try to tag the first buck that gave us an ethical opportunity, if we saw one. She was hunting with a .308 and low-recoil 125-grain loads. The bullet really drops after 300 yards, but I won't let my girls shoot that far anyway. Our rule right now is to keep it under 100. This buck [...]

26 10, 2016

Iowa: One Smashed Truck and One Great Buck

2020-06-10T09:16:32-04:00October 26th, 2016|BigDeer|5 Comments

Today’s guest blog from Iowa hunter Marianne Kooker: Hi Mike: My husband, Joe, and I had been planning the October 15th weekend as "our hunting weekend." We lease some land with 2 other families about 1 1/2 hours from our hometown in Iowa, so we decided to rent a cabin down there and hunt Saturday night and Sunday morning. We headed down about 2 p.m and were in our stands by 4:00. Joe's stand is about 600 yards from mine, so he drops me off on the 4-wheeler first and up I go. It was a very warm evening and I guess I really didn't expect to see much, which I didn't, not even a squirrel. I had prayed several [...]

24 10, 2016

Virginia: 21-Point Cold-Front Giant!

2020-06-10T09:16:32-04:00October 24th, 2016|Big Deer Stories, Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Bowhunting, Deer Hunting|1 Comment

I posted Friday that with the weekend beginning on October 21, the best hunting of the year was about to heat up: Historical “rut curves” assembled by biologists over decades show that bucks really begin to rev up their scraping around October 20…the data show that 5 to 7 percent of a herd’s does are bred by bucks around October 21… With the cooler weather…that will occur in the Eastern U.S. (last) weekend, I predict the buck movement and hunting will get better… after (last) week of 80-plus Indian Summer days here in Virginia, a cold front will blow through later this afternoon, and the low tomorrow morning will be 44. …the next couple of days should be good. Virginia [...]

21 10, 2016

October 21: The Best Hunting Starts This Weekend

2020-06-10T09:16:32-04:00October 21st, 2016|Big Deer Stories, Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Bowhunting, Deer Hunting, Deer Management|Comments Off on October 21: The Best Hunting Starts This Weekend

After lazy weeks of fattening up on grain and acorns in summer and early fall, whitetail bucks get antsy and start to move around more in mid-October. Historical “rut curves” assembled by biologists over decades show that bucks really begin to rev up their scraping right now, around October 20. Better yet, the data show that 5 to 7 percent of a herd’s does are bred by bucks around October 21, give or take a few days. That’s not a whole lot, but good things happen when bucks start to rip more scrapes and prowl for the first estrus does. The more they are on their feet, the better your chances of seeing and shooting one. Bonus: There’s little hunting [...]

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