Big Deer Blog

      In March 2013 researchers at Penn State captured a buck on a state forest, and slapped a GPS collar and ear tags on him. They tracked Buck 8917 for 2 years and found out: Most of the year, outside the November rut, he moved less 1 square mile. (I have been saying this on TV and blogging it for a long time—most bucks have much smaller home ranges than hunters imagine.) One day during 2013 rut, he traveled 2.7 miles, crossed 4 ridges for a total of 3,200 feet in elevation change and visited 3 locations in a 6-hour period. Then he turned around, came back and ended up right where he started 6 hours later! Another 2.5 miles in those 6 hours and another 2,600 feet [...]

  You need to read and share this. We all want to shoot a big deer every season, and there’s certainly nothing wrong that, but we all need a dose of perspective occasionally. Thanks to Zach and Maren for giving us that today: Mike: I am not going to lie, after finding our big deer dead in August, I wasn’t as excited about the upcoming deer season. I was so consumed with the pursuit of one deer over the last couple years that I forgot to have fun while I was out hunting. And having fun is why I started hunting in the first place. My wife was able to remind me again of why we hunt this past weekend. [...]

Field report from Alaska from my friend John Fink of Remington Arms: Mike: Attached are pics from a recent interior grizzly bear hunt in Alaska. The only one that requires any explanation is the mauled caribou.  We found this bull on the river bank one morning that a bear was likely in the process of killing.  The noise of the boat coming probably caused the bear to break things off and get back into the brush. The image is a little blurry due to being in a rapids in a bouncing boat.  We motored on and hoped the bear came back quickly to finish what it had started. The hunting area was west of Anchorage and north-east of Dillingham about 180 [...]

On page 86 of Giant Whitetails, a book I edited and helped write years ago with my friends Mark and Terry Drury, Terry said: There’s something magical and mystical about bowhunting on Oct.31. I don’t know if it’s the deer gods, or the spirits, or what. But Halloween has been good to both Mark and me.” It’s an enchanting time because bucks are prowling and scraping and venting pent-up sexual energy, but most does are still a week or longer from estrus. Next to the peak of the rut, it’s my second favorite time of the year. Definitely hunt tomorrow, because under the influence of this waning full moon, I expect some good bucks to move in daylight, especially in the midmorning [...]

Every year hot-shot hunter Mark Drury and I put together a guide to help you hunt the rut well during the various moon phases. If you missed our 2015 guide, click here to read it all. But for today's blog, let’s focus on the full moon, which hangs big and bright in the sky right now. While Mark and I both prefer a full moon that occurs in early November because it exposes the seeking phase of the rut, we’ll take this one, even though it’s early. For years Mark and I have texted back and forth from tree stands across America, talking about the rut action and what we’re seeing. Our best moon theory keeps building momentum each year: In the rut, mature bucks move [...]