Big Deer Blog

Kinessa Johnson served for 4 years in Afghanistan to protect our country. This week she arrived in Tanzania to fight a different enemy. Her new mission is, as she puts it, “We’re going over there to do some anti-poaching, kill some bad guys, and do some good.” In life after the US Army, Kinessa serves as an anti-poaching advisor with Veterans Empowered to Protect African Wildlife (VETPAW), a not-for-profit organization that employs US Veterans to help protect African wildlife from being poached and captured illegally. Kinessa and her cohorts are doing important work. According to VETPAW, nearly 100 African elephants are slaughtered every day for their tusks. Without action, this fabulous species, and others, will be gone from the wild within a decade. The poaching crisis affects [...]

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 [...]

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. [...]