Big Deer Stories Archives - Page 14 of 113

5 06, 2019

How To Build Summer Mineral Licks For Deer

admin2020-06-10T09:15:19-04:00June 5th, 2019|Big Deer Stories, Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Hunting, Deer Science|1 Comment

Mineral sites or “licks” provide hubs for your trail cameras and allow you to gain critical intel on bucks for months. You take pictures and watch them grow all summer, which is fun, and you start to pattern and narrow their movements as bow season approaches later toward fall. On one of the farms I hunt in Virginia, my friend Jack and I have 8 licks scattered across 800 acres of woods. About 1 strategically placed mineral site for every 100 acres is about right. We normally begin lining these sites with minerals sometime in May, and the deer visit them immediately. The bucks on this farm know where the licks are and have been hitting them regularly for years. [...]

3 06, 2019

10 Fun Facts About Whitetail Fawns

admin2020-06-10T09:15:19-04:00June 3rd, 2019|Big Deer Stories, Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Hunting, Deer Science|Comments Off on 10 Fun Facts About Whitetail Fawns

We celebrate the beautiful little creatures being born right now! --A fawn weighs 4 to 8 pounds at birth; its weight doubles in 2 weeks. --A fawn has a unique smell that the mother recognizes. --A fawn can walk hours after birth. --A newborn fawn spends its first weeks mostly alone and in hiding; it interacts with the mother doe only twice a day and nurses 2 or 3 times. --A healthy fawn can outrun you when it’s only days old, but it takes 3 to 6 weeks before it can elude most predators. --A fawn has about 300 white spots. --25% of twin fawns have different fathers. --"Multiple paternity" was found in triplet fawns at Auburn University. Three fawns [...]

22 05, 2019

Deer Hunting: Signpost Buck Rubs

admin2020-06-10T09:15:19-04:00May 22nd, 2019|Big Deer Stories, Big Deer TV, Deer Hunting|Comments Off on Deer Hunting: Signpost Buck Rubs

Good-sized trees with scars that have healed and thickened over the years, and upon which current bucks rub their antlers each fall, are “sign-posts.” Some biologists believe these trees are rubbed mostly by older bucks (3½ years and up). One theory is that mature bucks deposit pheromones on the rubs, and this plays an important role in the dominance and subordination process in a herd. Does and all sizes of bucks have been observed interacting with sign-posts—they often nuzzle and smell them—but generally only mature bucks rub them hard. Sign-posts are typically blazed in areas with high deer traffic, often near trails and scrapes, and should be markers for your strategy. While you won’t hunt over a sign-post per se, [...]

20 05, 2019

4 Top Trail Camera Tips

admin2020-06-10T09:15:19-04:00May 20th, 2019|Big Deer Stories, Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Hunting|1 Comment

Dave Skinner, pro-staff for Spartan Camera and Go Cam, offers some great tips for setting and positioning your cameras: I like to position my cameras approximately waist high, or about eye level for deer, for the best photo quality and the best angle for judging their age, and antler score. For the absolute best photo quality, you want to set the camera 15’ or so from the target, about waist high pointing north or south so the camera is not looking directly into the rising or setting sun. A nice wall of vegetation behind the target will reflect the infrared flash and result in better quality photos. If it’s a trail set, angle the camera up or down the trail [...]

17 05, 2019

Here’s What Happens When A Buck Injures A Velvet Antler

admin2020-06-10T09:15:19-04:00May 17th, 2019|Big Deer Stories, Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Hunting|Comments Off on Here’s What Happens When A Buck Injures A Velvet Antler

Spring through September the antler-growing cycle for whitetails is approximately 170 days. This gives a buck many opportunities to catch a velvet antler on a fence, smash it against a tree as he flees danger, etc. Antlers grow fast—up to an inch per day in the summer! They have a complex system of blood vessels that carry nutrients through the velvet and down into the core. When a growing antler is broken, it bleeds profusely, and blood can pool and fill the inside of the velvet. When the hardening of the bone process occurs in September the pooled blood can create a heavy, swollen, club-like antler. If the injury is to the pedicle (the base of an antler) then the [...]