Big Deer Blog

Pick the winner and total number of points scored in the game. For example, if you think New England is going to put Deflagate behind them and win 24-14, vote Patriots 38. If you think Seattle will take it 30-27, vote Seahawks 57. Closest to total points with right team (over or under) wins. Winner to receive our best prize pack ever:  Box of Scent Killer elimination products and assortment of BIG DEER hats, stickers and Koozies. One vote per person, but your wife, girlfriend, kid, buddy can vote too. Spread the word. In case of a tie, we'll pull one or two winners out of the hat. Contest open till 3:00 PM ET Sunday. Good luck!  

Mike: I sent you this link about a pack of coyotes that attacked a horse here in Michigan. Kinda makes me think about all those times I've headed out of the woods after dark and heard more than one coyote howling, knowing they were chasing something…--Steve It’s a fact that growing populations of coyotes kill a lot of fawns and, to a lesser degree drag down some adult deer. The predators kill and eat newborn calves, chickens and even cats and small dogs. But kill a 1,000-pound horse? I’ve never heard of that before. According to the mlive.com story initial reports from law enforcement said: "Unfortunately they (multiple coyotes) ganged up on this mare and drug her down from the back…We just [...]

In this post yesterday I showed you the latest entry to our collection of whitetail deer with mysteriously swollen noses. Here’s a little more from Courtney Stanley, who shot the rutting buck in January 2015 near Furman, AL: Mike: I had him on a camera a few miles away. I was bleating and grunting and he came out by himself. He weighed 160, and only had a scar on his lip (although his nose was clearly swollen). I gave the head to my taxidermist and he is in close contact with QDMA; he sent the head over for them to examine, and I’ll let you know what we find out.—C.S.

For 6 years we’ve been building a databank of deer afflicted with mysteriously swollen snouts. We call them “big-nose” here on BIG DEER; they are also referred to as “Bullwinkle” in some circles. The first case we reported was a big-nose buck from Michigan. Subsequently we have documented whitetails with swollen snouts from Texas, South Carolina, Florida and Minnesota. Yesterday I got this picture from Courtney, who just shot this big-nose buck near Furman, Alabama. No doubt the biggest buck we’ve seen with a swollen nose! So what causes it? As this article from QDMA explains: “The swollen snouts of afflicted deer result from chronic (long-term) inflammation of the tissues of the nose, mouth and upper lip… How and where deer acquire the Bullwinkle bacteria [...]

Can you shoot an arrow through a mysterious vacuum of tissue and air beneath a buck’s spine and above the lungs, and have that deer run off to live another day? Or will a broadhead shot here most certainly clip the lungs and/or cut vital arteries and kill the deer, even if you never find it? If you’ve ever pulled a shot high—and who amongst us hasn’t?—you’ve agonized over this as you tracked on a sparse blood trail, looking for a “dead” deer that might never have materialized. Is this “no man’s land” conundrum for real, or a myth? Dr. Grant Woods, one of the nation’s top deer biologists and a hard-core bowhunter, told me one time:  "This is a frequent [...]