BigDeer Archives - Big Deer

4 04, 2025

Deer Hunters Spend $23 Billion Each Year

Clay Hanback2025-03-30T11:56:34-04:00April 4th, 2025|Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Hunting, Hunting News|0 Comments

According to a report from the Sportsman’s Alliance, we deer hunters spent more than $23 billion a year, producing $2.5 billion in state taxes and $3.8 billion in federal taxes. “The economic impact of hunting and sport shooting to local, state and the federal economy cannot be overstated,” said Rob Southwick, president of Southwick Associates, which did the research for the report. “If hunting and shooting were a company, the jobs it supports would place it as the third largest private-sector employer, and $65 billion, the retail sales it generates, would place it at fifty-second on the Fortune 500 list.” Economic stats at a glace: Americans spend more than $23.7 billion on retail hunting-related purchases. Over $16 billion is spent [...]

30 03, 2025

Indiana: Giant Helbert Non-Typical Buck, 181 5/8”

Clay Hanback2025-03-30T11:37:32-04:00March 30th, 2025|Big Deer Stories, Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Guns & Loads, Deer Hunting, sportsman channel, whitetail deer|0 Comments

Today's blog on Don Helbert's buck of a lifetime is from Big Deer reporter Dean Weimer. Cool story and testament to two things: To get a 180-buck takes perseverance and creative thinking.--M.H. In the summer of 2023, a very cool 6x4 buck showed up on Don Helbert’s trail cameras, and while Don pegged the deer to be only 3 years old, he had the Indiana hunter’s attention. “I was on the fence about shooting him,” he says. That year the early October archery season proved uneventful. But on Oct. 23, Helbert got another, and better, look at the mystery buck. He was on his way home after work and caught the buck chasing a doe in his headlights. [...]

25 03, 2025

New Moon Phase Means Hot Deer Rut

Clay Hanback2025-03-17T11:39:07-04:00March 25th, 2025|Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Hunting, Deer Rut, sportsman channel, trijicon, whitetail deer|0 Comments

Here on the blog last August, I wrote: In all my years of chasing whitetails across North America, I’ve noticed the tendency for the animals to move most in twilight is magnified during a new (dark) moon that overlaps the seeking phase of the rut, as it does this year. I went on to predict that the new moon week of November 2 through 6 would be five of the best days to hunt in 2024. Not coincidentally, we planned our annual Virginia deer camp to start on November 2, in the middle of archery season and during the first week of muzzleloader. This is typically when what I call the “hard pre-rut” occurs in the Virginia Piedmont. Weeks earlier, [...]

20 03, 2025

Turnip Food Plots for Deer

Clay Hanback2025-03-17T11:25:52-04:00March 20th, 2025|Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Hunting, Deer Management, whitetail deer|0 Comments

Last December 14 in central Indiana, I climbed into a box blind on a two-acre turnip plot, ready to smoke a buck with my muzzleloader. I was in the midst of a brutal 17-Day, three-state stretch during which time I had not seen a mature shooter buck, much less shoot one. I was ready to change my luck. At 4 p.m. does started filtering into the turnips, followed by several small bucks. For an hour I watched deer pull up and eat the brassicas, gnawing the roots as the wilted green leaf tops dangled comically from their mouths. A little after 5 p.m., two more does entered the plot from the west, followed by a 7-point, and then a stout [...]

17 03, 2025

Ghost Bucks and Broken Racks

Clay Hanback2025-03-17T10:59:27-04:00March 17th, 2025|Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Hunting, whitetail deer|1 Comment

I headed to northeast Oklahoma the day after last Thanksgiving, full or fire. I’ve had some of my best hunts of the last decade in this region during the first week of the December post-rut. My friend Corey Corson, who runs the hunting on Liberty Ranch outside Pawhuska, showed me cam images of three old 8-point target bucks. Corey said that nobody had hunted those bucks all season. As I climbed into my stand near a corn feeder in the chilly predawn the first morning, my only concern was that I would kill out the first hour of this six-day hunt. As I climbed out of my blind at dark on day three, I was getting concerned. I’d seen several [...]