Big Deer Blog

I had not hunted the great state of Kansas for a few years. Several recent trips out there had been a bust. I had hunted lands leased by outfitters, and those places were badly overhunted, as are many outfitter lands across the Midwest. Anytime you hunt a property where dozens or even hundreds of people have hunted before you that season (with either bow or gun) your odds of killing a big deer are low, and astronomically low when you are trying to film a TV show. With all that human pressure (movement, scent and shooting) the big bucks not killed or pushed off a property go completely nocturnal. You might get lucky, but... Remember that and do your homework before [...]

Hey Mike: I read your post a couple of weeks ago about the best dates to hunt in November. You hit the nail on the head! Thought I would send you this pic to prove your theory was right. I killed this deer on November 8. As you can see I got to share it with a some very special people. My dad, my 6-year-old son, Briar, and some close family friends, which are not pictured, helped me track him. We lost blood at one point and Briar was the one to put 4 grown men back on track—it doesn't get any better than that!  Keep up the good work Mike and good luck with the rest of your season.--Nathan “Necbone” Crain Great buck Bone, [...]

Mike, at our hunt club we gut our deer out in the woods, bring them into the skinning shed and weigh them before processing. We obviously know the dressed weight, but are always guessing the live weight of those deer. Is there a good way to calculate that?—Thanks, John from VA John, to get a good estimate of a buck’s or a doe’s live weight, hoist your gutted deer and weigh it on a scale. Then pull out your Smartphone, open the calculator and multiply the field-dressed weight by 1.28. For example, a gutted buck that goes 140 on a scale would have weighed about 179 on the hoof in the woods. A mature 10-pointer that dressed out at 170 [...]

This from my friend John Fink, who is the director of product management for Remington rifles: Mike, attached is a deer I killed in observance of Veteran’s Day on Nov. 11 with the new Model 700 Ultimate Muzzleloader here in NC.  Pretty sure he is a buck I passed three times last season. Hard to tell from the pic, but his left brow is over 9”.  The buck I passed last year on the same ridge also had a long left brow but no mass last year. The shot distance was approximately 120 yards. I was shooting the Premier 250-grain AccuTip with 200 grains of Triple Seven (4 50-grain pellets).  That load has been accurate for me and dropped this buck in his [...]

Hunt Hidden: Watch the brushy edges and draws of small, out-the-way pine cedar or honeysuckle thickets. Bucks sneak along those edges between bedding and feeding areas, moving in little places where they haven’t been spooked earlier in the season. And look for hidden “buck holes”: A beaver swamp near a gravel road…an old hog lot grown over behind a farmer’s barn…you get the idea. Check for a buck hiding out in a spot you and other hunters missed earlier. Keep Doe Watching: One December in Kansas, my friend Jim Riley spotted a doe being dogged by three bucks, but the brush was too thick for a shot. Jim returned to the tree stand the next morning. The doe came back, followed [...]