Deer Hunting Archives - Page 157 of 196

16 08, 2017

Can Twin Deer Fawns Be Sired By Two Bucks?

admin2020-06-10T09:16:11-04:00August 16th, 2017|Big Deer Stories, Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Hunting, Deer Management|4 Comments

Mike: I’ve heard that twin whitetail fawns can have more than one daddy. Is that right? Dave, Alabama Dave: Yes, and that occurs more than you might imagine! A Texas A&M-Kingsville study found that 16 of 23 sets of twins had 2 different sires, typically one mature buck and another buck 2½ years or younger. Researchers suggest the younger bucks are opportunistic little devils, sneaking in to breed the doe just before or after the mature buck does. And get this: Scientists at Auburn University reported 3 different buck sires for a set of triplets one time! This is yet another reason the whitetail is such a fascinating creature…and why trying to manage a herd’s genetics is so unpredictable. BTW, [...]

14 08, 2017

Why Deer Love Mineral Licks After a Rain

admin2020-06-10T09:16:11-04:00August 14th, 2017|Big Deer Stories, BigDeer, Deer Hunting, Deer Management|4 Comments

The smart deer hunter is always observing: Why do most of the bucks travel E-W in a patch of woods…why do does and fawns like a particular corner of a plot…why do deer flock to mineral licks after a heavy rain? We’ve had a lot of heavy rain this summer, and an hour or so after each rain ends (no matter the time of day) my Spartan Camera app blows up with images of deer with their heads stuck in water-filled mineral holes. Must be something to it, so I reached out to biologists and mineral experts, most of whom had observed the same thing. While we’re not sure why this occurs, we theorize that heavy rain roils a mineral [...]

11 08, 2017

#1 Late-Summer Spot for a Trail Camera

admin2020-06-10T09:16:11-04:00August 11th, 2017|Big Deer Stories, Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Hunting, Deer Management|1 Comment

My sketch of the top spot to set your camera this weekend is very rudimentary, so let me explain. In this case there are two cornfields (might be soybeans or alfalfa where you hunt) with a row of trees and brush about 20 yards wide, splitting and separating the fields. Within that row of trees is a flat, grassy gap where the farmer will drive his tractor between the fields in a month or so. On an old gate post in the gap is the top spot to set a camera now, while the corn is still tall and uncut. We have 9 cameras running on the Virginia farm where this gap is located, with some cams situated on field [...]

9 08, 2017

Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD): Rules for Transporting Deer Across State Lines

admin2020-06-10T09:16:11-04:00August 9th, 2017|Big Deer Stories, Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Hunting, Deer Management, Deer Science, Mule Deer|1 Comment

I recently attended the National Deer Summit and was struck by the dire reports of CWD that came from the country’s top deer scientists. Map Source: Tennessee WRA To a man and woman, all the experts agreed that CWD is the most serious threat to our deer herds and hunting that we’ve faced in decades, and possibly ever. To a person they said the thing we must do to stop the spread of CWD is to immediately monitor and restrict the movement of deer and deer parts across state lines. First is to immediately stop the interstate transport of live deer to penned facilities, something that does not affect the 99.9% of us that hunt wild deer. Second is to [...]

6 08, 2017

Legendary Whitetails: The Iowa Knife-Handle Buck

admin2020-06-10T09:16:11-04:00August 6th, 2017|Big Deer Stories, BigDeer, Deer Hunting|3 Comments

Some bucks and stories are legendary. This is one of them: Back in the early 1970s out in Iowa, a man stopped and asked a farmer for permission to fish and trap turtles in his ponds. As they talked, the guy noticed a huge pile of sheds inside a nearby barn. The farmer told the man he could have them all, except for the one side of a gigantic rack with 8 long points. The farmer was saving that one for a friend who used deer tines to make knife handles. At this point in the story, accounts vary. Some say the turtle trapper picked up both sides from the pile, and found them to be nearly identical. Others [...]