Deer Hunting Archives - Page 33 of 197

31 03, 2023

13 Facts from the 2023 Deer Report

Clay Hanback2023-04-02T08:34:30-04:00March 31st, 2023|Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Hunting, Deer Management, Hunting News, whitetail deer|Comments Off on 13 Facts from the 2023 Deer Report

The National Deer Association’s 2023 Deer Report is hot off the press, and it’s jam-packed with interesting information for us whitetail nuts, like these 13 gems. Hunters in the Northeast, Southeast and Midwest regions combined killed 2,969,596 whitetail bucks during the 2021-22 season, the fourth highest buck kill in the past 10 seasons. The data shows that an impressive 40% of those were 3½ years of age or older. Hunters in the Southeast get the gold star for passing yearlings and shooting more mature deer; 84% of the bucks tagged in Dixie in 2021-22 were 2½ years or older. Top 5 states for buck harvest: Texas (447,972 bucks); Michigan (223,476); Wisconsin (153,112); Pennsylvania (145,320); Missouri (143,815). Top 3 states for [...]

29 03, 2023

How to Plant Tiny Food Plots for Bowhunting

Clay Hanback2023-03-26T13:46:31-04:00March 29th, 2023|Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Bowhunting, Deer Hunting, Deer Management, whitetail deer|Comments Off on How to Plant Tiny Food Plots for Bowhunting

My friend Grant Woods, one of the top whitetail biologists in America and a hard-core bowhunter to boot, has designed, built and planted every size and shape of food plot that you could imagine. One of his favorite things to do right now is to scout a property and find 3 or 4 out-of-the-way spots where he can plant and hunt micro food plots later this summer. Think Tiny Scout a property and look for a 20- to 40-yard strip of old road bed, or maybe a 30 x 30-foot opening in a staging thicket near an ag field. Any hidden, remote spot where other people would never dream of planting, but where your gut says you might entice a [...]

20 03, 2023

Thoughts on High-Fence Deer Hunting from a Low-Fence Hunter

Clay Hanback2023-03-18T14:16:15-04:00March 20th, 2023|Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Hunting, whitetail deer|Comments Off on Thoughts on High-Fence Deer Hunting from a Low-Fence Hunter

Got this email from long-time reader Mitch and it got me to thinking about the always controversial high-fence hunting debate: Mike: Last year for the first time I hunted a high fence ranch in Texas. I did not pay even half of the $10,000 or $20,000 that I keep reading about. I did not see any 170-class bucks. I did not see a 150 buck. The deer I saw were very alert and skittish. I had the time of my life. Not just seeing a lot of deer, but as most hunters can relate too, I just had a good time doing all the things associated with a hunt. I killed a buck I was happy with, but it would [...]

16 03, 2023

BIG BREAKING NEWS: Kansas Bans Trail Cameras on Public Land

Clay Hanback2023-03-16T09:57:08-04:00March 16th, 2023|Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Hunting, Hunting News, whitetail deer|Comments Off on BIG BREAKING NEWS: Kansas Bans Trail Cameras on Public Land

A year ago to the day I penned an article for Realtree.com titled: Is a Trail Camera Ban Coming to a State Near You? I wrote: Earlier in 2022 Utah joined Arizona and Nevada in banning the use of all trail cameras for hunting. Montana prohibits the use of cellular cams during hunting season. I then asked: Could similar restrictions move eastward to states where millions of us chase whitetails, and where millions of us use trail cams extensively for scouting and hunting? It did not surprise me that those western states banned cameras. Most of the western elk and deer hunters I know, especially the die-hard “trad” bowhunters, are fervently anti-technology and very vocal about it. If the game [...]

14 03, 2023

Here’s What Deer Hunting Will Look Like in 2030

Clay Hanback2023-03-14T08:41:17-04:00March 14th, 2023|Big Deer TV, BigDeer, CWD, Deer Hunting, Deer Science, whitetail deer|3 Comments

When I moved on from squirrels to birds to hunting deer with my dad in the 1970s, there were about 200,000 whitetails in Virginia. Today, we’ve got almost 5 times that many. In the 1980s and 90s, we went from “if it’s brown it’s down” to the “horn porn” era. Whitetail management was in its infancy, and many people mistakenly took working to improve the health of a deer herd for engineering the growth of gigantic antlers. All you saw in hunting magazines and on videos, which were exploding in popularity then, were images of pen-raised bucks with enormous, protein-loaded 190- to 250-inch-plus racks. If the average hunter dared drag a forkie or 6-point back to camp, he was ridiculed [...]