Big Deer Blog

From usnews.com: A day before President Barack Obama is scheduled to release Vice President Joe Biden's recommendations to curb gun violence in the United States, the National Rifle Association told U.S. News and World Report that they have seen membership grow by 250,000 in the month since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. "I would say that every time President Obama opens his mouth and Sen. [Dianne] Feinstein opens her mouth and they talk about gun bans and restricting the rights of law abiding Americans, people pay attention to that and sign up," says Andrew Arulanandam, the NRA's public affairs director. I worked for the NRA for a decade and am a Life Member. Are you a [...]

Mike: I hunt in North Florida and I have a cam picture of a whitetail doe with a large snout. I cannot find a lot of info on this subject except that it is believed to be a bacterial infection (that causes the nose swelling). Is the meat safe to eat? Does the deer need to be taken out of the herd? Thanks, Marcus I have posted on this weird topic several times; BIG DEER is amassing the best Internet database on big-nose deer. Here’s the best biological info we have to date, from Kevin Keel, a wildlife pathologist at at the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study in Athens, Georgia: Mike: I have a series of these cases from all over the country. The lesion that [...]

Thanks to Mike from Iowa for this great guest blog: On November 2, I drove to the new farm with my wife and spent the weekend hunting the small chunk of ground that our little cabin sits on. The previous hunting season had produced very few deer sightings, and over the course of the summer we hadn't gotten pictures of any bucks that I considered shooters. My confidence in this farm was low, but after doing a lot of TSI work and improving all the food plots over the off season, I had high hopes that things would change for the better. I am still trying to work things out on this property, and I bumped several deer on the way in to [...]

John Rogers sent me this on our Mike Hanback—BIG DEER Facebook page: “Another Hurricane Sandy buck. Killed Monday in Maine. Dressed 208 lbs. (my) third 200-plus buck in a row.” In Maine, it’s more about a buck’s maturity and body weight than it is about antlers, with 200-lbs. (dressed) being the benchmark, though I point out that John’s buck has a killer rack and brow tines for a North Woods buck. Great job buddy! The fact that this buck was kill during the East Coast super storm of 2012 is more impressive yet. Come to find out that when I hunted in Maine in November 2011, I was very close to John’s camp where he shot this giant. He said, [...]

From Zach: Mike, had to share this pic with you! I have my camera set on a two minute timer between shots, so it's pretty awesome that I caught the deer in this stance when I did! Cool man, great shot. See how the other deer have their necks stretched and are watching the “cat fight,” very typical and interesting.