My friend and good hunter Will Brantley says he has eaten some really fine deer meat, and some really bad, tough, gamey deer meat. In this post he outlines 12 mistakes that can turn good venison bad in a hurry. It’s great advice as most hunting seasons kick off across the country. BTW, do you cut up and process the deer you kill, or take them to a butcher?
Last October 19, Brad Duke fell 20 feet when a strap on the top section of his tree stand ladder steps broke. Brad lay unconscious for 2½ hours, then stumbled to his truck and drove home. His wife drove him to the hospital, where x-rays revealed he had a cracked vertebrae and 3 broken ribs. Doctors told Brad surgery was a possibility, but he’d have none of that. He signed himself out of the emergency room 45 minutes later and went home, spent 3 weeks in bed and “then got in the gym and started lifting weights.” Fully healed, Brad was back in a tree stand in Granville County on Saturday, September 13. As fate would have it, the same [...]
A buddy sent me this cam pic awhile back w/the message: Out of velvet, it's go time! This is a great, mature buck for our part of the country (hell, any part of the country) and I hope my friend gets a crack at him. Also on the eve of the archery opener, would like to wish all my fellow Virginia hunters a safe and successful year. Of course I wish the same thing for all you other guys, but gotta give some special props to my boys all over the Commonwealth. Hunting will be good to great in most areas of the state. We've got acorns this year (none in 2013) so the bucks will be fat, though not as visible in numbers as last [...]
2014 moon phases for whitetail hunters: new (dark) October 23…first quarter October 30…full November 6…last quarter November 14 I checked with my friends Mark and Terry Drury, like I do this time every year. We put our heads together and came up with some predictions for hunting the upcoming rut and moon phases. We like this year’s moon setup because it should enhance the seeking phase of the late pre-rut leading into the full moon. Halloween week is good for bowhunting every year, especially later in the week toward October 30 and 31. With the first-quarter moon waxing toward full this week this year, deer movement near food sources in the afternoons should be on fire, and it should stay that way [...]
Today’s blog is from Jacob “Dirty” Goodwin from Arkansas, who has hung with me on the blog for 7 years, from Day 1 when I started it. Thanks man for your support: Mike: Jamie Graves and I met here on the Big Deer Blog 7 years ago. We became great friends and hunting partners. I've killed a lot of game with him over the years, and have introduced a lot of my friends and family from back home to Jamie’s great hunting area in beautiful northern Missouri. This year on our trip up there, in the early bow season, luck struck for a gentleman named Stacy Barron, a dear friend of mine. On the first sit of our hunt he [...]