Deer Science Archives - Page 35 of 38

19 06, 2013

“Titanic” 8-Point Buck Scored 154!

admin2020-06-10T09:23:34-04:00June 19th, 2013|Big Deer Stories, BigDeer, Bowhunting, Deer Management, Deer Science, Shed Hunting|108 Comments

Today’s post from blogger Jon, who hunts up in Minnesota/Wisconsin: Mike: I have any update from a post last year. I sent you the velvet picture of Titanic last August, and we had a lot of people guess at the score. Well, in early November 2012 I had a great encounter with this buck. I was sitting a cut corn field with a buck decoy out when the bruiser came in chasing does at last light. I didn’t know it was Titanic, but I knew it was one of the 3 big shooters we had on camera. He locked up at 35 yards, but was facing directly at me, staring at the decoy. I waited at full draw for what [...]

18 06, 2013

Buck Science: How Many Big Deer Do You See?

admin2020-06-10T09:23:34-04:00June 18th, 2013|BigDeer, Deer Hunting, Deer Management, Deer Science|7 Comments

I’ve got a segment on my TV show called “Buck Science” where I talk about some aspect of the deer behavior in the area I’m hunting each week. Let’s make it a weekly segment here on the blog as well, since the more we know and learn about mature bucks, the better we hunt. I dug this first one out of my research files. Tennessee deer researcher Bryan Kinkel says: Reviewing the many trail-camera/observation data sets I have gotten from serious deer hunters and land managers, I have come to the conclusion that it's common for hunters to see 90% of the yearling bucks that regularly use their property. That sighting percentage declines to about 70% for 2 1/2-year-old bucks [...]

6 06, 2013

The Color of Deer Antlers

admin2020-06-10T09:23:35-04:00June 6th, 2013|BigDeer, Deer Science|10 Comments

Mike: Why do some bucks have chocolate antlers and others white racks? Seems like dark antlers are slightly more common on bigger bucks, am I right?—Tim from MN Whitetail biologist Mickey Hellickson told me in an email one time: Antler coloration is determined by several things, including: (1) buck age (older, more dominant bucks make many more rubs on trees than younger bucks, therefore their antlers tend to be darker; (2) bark coloration of the predominant rubbing trees in a region; (3) genetics (some strains of bucks have light racks in their DNA while other have dark); (4) time of year (early in the fall “new” antlers are darker; later in the season antlers that have been exposed to sun and light [...]

31 05, 2013

Summer Deer Antlers

admin2020-06-10T09:23:35-04:00May 31st, 2013|BigDeer, Deer Science|5 Comments

Here are 4 facts about velvet antler growth I bet you didn’t know. I pulled them from Way of the Whitetail, a great reference book by Leonard Lee Rue III, a top deer researcher and photographer I’ve worked with some over the years: (1) Antlers are bone, consisting mostly of calcium, phosphorus, magnesium and other minerals. Although some of the minerals are taken from food, most of them are sucked from the buck’s skeleton, causing him to develop osteoporosis during the summer. (2) Because the velvet is rich with blood vessels, growing antlers are hot to touch. (3) Tiny hairs on the velvet stick straight out and make the antlers look bigger than they are. The hairs also act as [...]

23 05, 2013

Whitetail Fawns: Who’s Their Daddy?

admin2020-06-10T09:23:36-04:00May 23rd, 2013|BigDeer, Deer Science|2 Comments

While we’re talking about fawns, here’s something I bet you didn't know: Studies show that about 1 in 4 sets of twin or triplet fawns (22% to 25%) had 2 fathers. From a story by QDMA biologist Kip Adams: There are several explanations for joint siring. Remember, bucks will repeatedly breed does during the 24 to 36 hours they are in estrous. It is plausible that a buck breeds a receptive doe and then gets displaced or run off by a larger, older or more aggressive buck while the doe is still receptive. The larger/older/more aggressive buck then breeds the doe, and the doe can have fawns sired by each of the bucks. The initial breeder may have been a [...]