BigDeer Archives - Page 148 of 342

4 04, 2018

What Are The Odds of Shooting A Record-Book Whitetail Buck?

admin2020-06-10T09:15:54-04:00April 4th, 2018|Big Deer Stories, Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Hunting|4 Comments

How likely are you to shoot a buck that qualifies for the Boone and Crockett record book in your lifetime? It varies depending on where you live and hunt of course, but according to B&C your overall odds are approximately 1 in 20,000. Some 10 million deer hunters enter about 500 whitetails a year into the B&C records. Keep hunting and keep the faith. While your odds of shooting a book buck aren’t great, they are a lot better than your chances of winning Mega Millions!

2 04, 2018

Deer Management How-To: Build A Mineral Site

admin2020-06-10T09:15:54-04:00April 2nd, 2018|Big Deer Stories, Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Hunting, Deer Management, Gear Reviews|Comments Off on Deer Management How-To: Build A Mineral Site

Now is time to build new mineral sites (or start recharging old ones) on your hunting land. “Licks” are easy and relatively inexpensive to build and maintain, and they serve 2 purposes: 1) provide trace minerals and vitamins for all deer, from bucks growing new antlers to does getting ready to drop fawns; and 2) they are top spots for you set trail cameras and monitor growing antlers all summer as you prepare your 2018 game plan. Scientists note that whitetails use mineral sites most heavily from late summer until the first frost next fall. From personal experience and observation here in Virginia, bucks start hitting minerals whenever we set them out in early spring through the first 2 weeks [...]

29 03, 2018

Weird: When Legs Grow Out A Deer’s Body!

admin2020-06-10T09:15:54-04:00March 29th, 2018|Big Deer Stories, Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Hunting, Deer Science|Comments Off on Weird: When Legs Grow Out A Deer’s Body!

A guy emailed this picture of a deer with legs growing and flopping out its back. Don’t know when or where it was shot. I’ve seen it before, so it was a few years ago. Photoshop? Looks legit to me. From the scant research I could find on this type of genetic abnormality, scientists say on the very rare occasion when legs grow out of a deer's body, they were likely those of a twin that didn’t form all the way. According to this QDMA post this is most likely a case of a “parasitic twin.” Twin fawns probably began to develop inside a doe, but the twin embryos did not completely separate and one of them stopped developing normally. [...]

26 03, 2018

Why Are Fewer People Hunting in 2018?

admin2020-06-10T09:15:54-04:00March 26th, 2018|Big Deer Stories, Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Bowhunting, Deer Guns & Loads, Deer Hunting, Deer Management|2 Comments

A survey by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reveals that only 5% of Americans age 16 and up hunt. That's half of what it was 50 years ago. The number of licensed hunters, most of them deer hunters, dropped from 14.2 million in 1991 to 11.5 million in 2016. Most disturbing, the decline is expected to accelerate over the next decades. Why fewer of us? I have my suspicions and government agencies and wildlife organizations have their theories, but I wanted information from real-life hard-core hunters, so I did a little Twitter/social survey. It’s far from scientific, but pretty darn representative I believe. Loss of Access By far the number one reason fewer people are hunting, especially east of [...]

22 03, 2018

Pennsylvania Bill: Increase Penalties for Trail-Camera Thieves

admin2020-06-10T09:15:54-04:00March 22nd, 2018|Big Deer Stories, Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Hunting, Deer Management|1 Comment

Lancaster Online reports that State Representative Neal Goodman (D-Schuylkill County) recently introduced House Bill 484, which would increase penalties for any low-life who would steal another hunter’s trail camera. Under the proposed bill the theft of a cam would be added as a specific crime within Pennsylvania’s Game and Wildlife Code. Moving trail cameras to the wildlife code would allow a hunter to report the theft of one to state a wildlife conservation officer, who could then investigate the crime. Currently, the theft of a cam in Pennsylvania (and most other states I assume) must be reported to local or state law enforcement, who as Lancaster Online rightly points out “certainly have lots of more pressing issues to deal with.” [...]