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6 06, 2014

Is this Rack the Minnesota Monarch?

admin2020-06-10T09:22:49-04:00June 6th, 2014|Big Deer Stories, BigDeer|2 Comments

Dan posted this enormous rack on Facebook yesterday and asked: Has the mystery of the Minnesota Monarch been solved? The Minnesota Monarch was a legendary buck that roamed the remote woods of northern Minnesota in the late 1980s and early 1990s. A man picked up his fresh sheds (picture below) in 1990; they had 39 points and net-scored around 334 inches. If somebody had shot this deer in the fall of 1989 it would have been the highest-scoring wild buck ever killed by a hunter. Those antlers still rank #1 in the shed record book. But then the Monarch vanished. There is no evidence that a hunter ever shot him. People speculate that the deer died of old age…or was eaten by wolves…or [...]

5 06, 2014

How to Choose a Deer Taxidermist

admin2020-06-10T09:22:49-04:00June 5th, 2014|BigDeer, Deer Hunting, Deer Management|8 Comments

Right now, a lot of hunters are getting their 2013 bucks back from the taxidermist. From the pictures of the shoulder mounts I have seen, most of the work has been good, but a few of the bucks have been average at best. Since you’ll pay $500 and up to mount that big 10-pointer you’ll kill this fall (think positive) you’ll want the taxidermy work to be in the good to excellent category. Long-time BIG DEER blogger and great hunter Matt “Flatlander” Cheever says that now is the time to lay the groundwork and find a taxidermy shop. Flat sent us this list of things to look for 4 years ago, and it’s still great, solid advice: Start looking around [...]

4 06, 2014

Fawns Dropping in Roads!

admin2020-06-10T09:22:49-04:00June 4th, 2014|BigDeer, Deer Science|3 Comments

Louis from Wisconsin posted this on Facebook: Yesterday this little guy (picture) was lying in the road as mom (doe) watched in the ditch. I got out of the car and gave him a nudge on the butt and he got up and went into the ditch by his mom. Mom just stayed there looking at me as I helped the little fawn out. As we drove off they wondered back in the woods and trotted off together. Here in Virginia Saturday, my friend Ray was driving out his long gravel driveway through the woods. A doe jumped across the road and a tiny fawn “literally fell out of her onto the shoulder of the driveway,” Ray said. The thing was tiny, [...]

3 06, 2014

Pope & Young to Allow Lighted Arrow Nocks

admin2020-06-10T09:22:49-04:00June 3rd, 2014|BigDeer, Bowhunting, Hunting News|12 Comments

For some reason that I always found odd, the Pope and Young Club never allowed animals killed with an arrow with a lighted nock to be entered into their archery record book. The thinking was that a lighted nock somehow gave the hunter an "unfair electronic advantage" over the deer. How, by maybe helping a hunter to make a better and more lethal shot in low legal shooting light? To my mind, a lighted nock can help a hunter to know more precisely where he or she hit a deer, and in many cases that helps in the recovery of that animal. All good. Well, P&Y has finally come into the 21st century of archery hunting. Beginning August 1, 2014, the club [...]

2 06, 2014

Anybody Want to Hunt Africa?

admin2020-06-10T09:22:49-04:00June 2nd, 2014|BigDeer|14 Comments

I was talking with a colleague the other day and he asked, “So Hanback, when’s your next trip over my man?” “Over where?” ”To Africa man!” he roared. I explained that I had never been on safari and had never really wanted to go all that much. He looked at me like I was the village idiot. “Ah, there is nothing like it,” he opined, a touch of British high-brow creeping into his voice. “I was bitten by the bug several years ago and I hardly want to hunt anywhere else.” The guy is not alone. Have you noticed all the safari stories in magazines and African hunts on TV lately? Facebook and the Internet are packed with pictures/posts of hunters with African game [...]

Big Deer Blog

Is this Rack the Minnesota Monarch?

How to Choose a Deer Taxidermist

Fawns Dropping in Roads!

Pope & Young to Allow Lighted Arrow Nocks

Anybody Want to Hunt Africa?