Big Deer Blog

They have been talking about totally banning lead ammo for hunting in Cali for years, even decades, and now it looks like they are finally going to do it. The NSSF says: The California Fish and Game Commission…adopted regulations to implement a law that will ban the use of traditional lead-component ammunition for all hunting in the state by July 1, 2019. The implementation will involve multiple phases, beginning with the 2015 hunting season. What has started in California could become reality elsewhere as anti-hunting groups use the supposed harm caused by traditional ammunition as a wedge issue to further their ultimate political agenda of banning hunting across the country. Get the facts in this video. Nothing they do out [...]

What we do know is that this 28 pointer was shot in Noble County, Indiana last November. I got an email from a reliable source that said a taxidermist who had seen the buck (maybe the guy who is mounting it, but I don’t know that for sure) said the bases measure a hair over 10 inches. You would think that we’d know more about this giant by now, but other than a few Facebook posts with this picture and few others, no story that I have seen has come out in magazines, local newspapers or legit websites like BIG DEER. That has led some doubters to say this is a game farm deer. That may or may not be true—every [...]

The Iowa DNR maintains an impressive record book of the biggest bucks shot in in the state with both bows and guns. The 244 6/8” giant that Kelly Doyl shot in Buchanan Co. in 2010 still ranks #1 in the muzzleloader non-typical category. This buck first appeared on the blog in March 2011: Hi Mike: I enjoy watching your show and viewing your website. I especially enjoy seeing all the giant deer from around the country that end up on here. In October of 2010, during the early muzzle loader season here in Iowa, I harvested a buck that has 27 scoreable points. After the 60-day drying period, it taped out at 249 5/8 gross. Its official net is 244 6/8. At [...]

Take a shower every day? Some doctors say we are overdoing it. A Boston dermatologist says, “We over-bathe in this country.” She points out that showering too often can dry out and irritate skin, and wash away the good bacteria that naturally exist on your skin. This article suggests that "while your activity level and climate will affect how often you’ll want shower, you can probably skip the daily shower and take one every two to three days... If you’re so inclined, you can clean the grossest parts of your body with a soapy washcloth or cleansing towelette to remove odor-causing bacteria on non-shower days (face, underarms, genitals, and rear end…)" But even if you don’t shower every day, "you should put on [...]

If you shoot a 4- or 5-year-old deer you’ve tagged an old one, right? Well, that deer would be considered mature, but it could have lived longer, possibly a lot longer. In captivity, whitetail does have been documented to live 18 to 25 years, and bucks 14 years! But what about the wild whitetails that we hunt? Well, individual animals live much longer than you think. Recent data from Pennsylvania confirms 3 does to be at least 13.5 years old! One ear-tagged doe showed up on a trail camera; another was shot by a hunter in muzzleloader season; and a third has been spotted in a person’s backyard. Biologists captured, tagged, recorded and released all three back into the wild in 2003. That [...]