Big Deer Blog

30 03, 2015

Deer Hunting: How to Deal With Pressure

2020-06-10T09:19:38-04:00March 30th, 2015|BigDeer|1 Comment

Bob L. shot this 16-pointer (164 2/8”) a few years back in Sumner County, Tennessee. The 4½-year-old animal is a great buck anywhere, and a true giant for the area. As such, the tall-racked buck had seen at least 9 times by local hunters that fall. “I knew of at least  12 stands that had been erected prior to the season by people trying to get the big old buck,” Bob said. Takeaway lesson: You might have heard me say it on TV, or read it here on the blog: Pressure is the #1 factor in hunting big deer. The less of it the better. Anytime you can hunt unpressured land, your odds of shooting a mature buck on natural movement [...]

27 03, 2015

Coastal Blacktail Longbow Buck

2020-06-10T09:19:38-04:00March 27th, 2015|BigDeer, Deer Hunting|3 Comments

Guest blog from my young friend and adventurer Austin Manelick. A "ghost of the coast" with a longbow and cedar shaft is a great accomplishment:  There's something special about the Oregon blacktail deer, one of Fred Bear's favorite species to hunt. Roaming the coastal forests of the Cascades with stick and string chasing the ghost of the coast is a soul-cleansing experience. I found this buck while running through the woods back to my vehicle.  I was in a hurry to get back to my car and had let my guard down completely. The chunk of national forest I was hunting paralleled a busy back road adjacent to the Pacific Ocean.  Out of nowhere a buck sprung from his bed and [...]

26 03, 2015

Alberta: New World Record Bighorn Sheep

2020-06-10T09:19:38-04:00March 26th, 2015|BigDeer|4 Comments

A bighorn sheep killed in a highway collision in Alberta has the largest horns ever recorded for the species. Boone and Crockett Club measurers recently certified it as the new world record. The horns’ final score of 209 4/8 B&C edged out the previous record, another ram from Alberta that scored 208 3/8. That animal was shot by hunter Guinn Crousen in 2000. The new #1 ram was hit by a vehicle on a highway west of Longview, Alberta. A local rancher who knew of the ram and found the animal on his property obtained a possession permit from Alberta Fish & Wildlife. He said, “This ram and a younger ram had lived on the ranch where I worked since 2009. [...]

25 03, 2015

Hunting TV: Why I Air No-Kill Episodes

2020-06-10T09:19:38-04:00March 25th, 2015|Big Deer TV, BigDeer|7 Comments

In the last couple of seasons of BIG DEER TV, we have aired episodes from Wisconsin, New York, Montana and other places where we hunted hard, had fun and did not shoot a buck. Those "no kill" shows were some of our most popular and highly rated episodes. One good trend in hunting TV is that more and more viewers want to see and hear the real story, whether it ends with a buck or not, and more and more producers and network executives are getting that, albeit slowly. Every time somebody questions me on whether we ought to air a no-kill episode or not, I point them to this letter I got one time from a viewer: Mike: I want to tell [...]

24 03, 2015

New Science: Deer Eat Eggs, Baby Birds

2020-06-10T09:19:38-04:00March 24th, 2015|BigDeer, Deer Science, Predator Hunting|1 Comment

For years here in VA we have been blaming critters like raccoons, skunks and opossums for for preying on quail nests and contributing to the decline of wild birds here, but could another nest predator be to blame? Whitetail deer! Nola.com: Pam Pietz, a wildlife biologist at the U.S. Geological Survey's Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center in North Dakota, set up miniature video cameras that ran 24 hours a day to document the fate of grassland songbird nests. She was surprised to find deer raided as many nests as badgers, and more than weasels or red foxes. I can see a deer munching songbird or quail eggs if it happens across them, but Pietz’s research found they will also eat tiny unborn birds in a nest! Biologists [...]

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