FacebookTwitterYouTubeInstagram
5 06, 2019

How To Build Summer Mineral Licks For Deer

2019-10-11T13:21:38-04:00June 5th, 2019|Big Deer Stories, Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Hunting, Deer Science|1 Comment

Mineral sites or “licks” provide hubs for your trail cameras and allow you to gain critical intel on bucks for months. You take pictures and watch them grow all summer, which is fun, and you start to pattern and narrow their movements as bow season approaches later toward fall. On one of the farms I hunt in Virginia, my friend Jack and I have 8 licks scattered across 800 acres of woods. About 1 strategically placed mineral site for every 100 acres is about right. We normally begin lining these sites with minerals sometime in May, and the deer visit them immediately. The bucks on this farm know where the licks are and have been hitting them regularly for years. [...]

Read More
3 06, 2019

10 Fun Facts About Whitetail Fawns

2019-10-11T13:21:38-04:00June 3rd, 2019|Big Deer Stories, Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Hunting, Deer Science|Comments Off on 10 Fun Facts About Whitetail Fawns

We celebrate the beautiful little creatures being born right now! --A fawn weighs 4 to 8 pounds at birth; its weight doubles in 2 weeks. --A fawn has a unique smell that the mother recognizes. --A fawn can walk hours after birth. --A newborn fawn spends its first weeks mostly alone and in hiding; it interacts with the mother doe only twice a day and nurses 2 or 3 times. --A healthy fawn can outrun you when it’s only days old, but it takes 3 to 6 weeks before it can elude most predators. --A fawn has about 300 white spots. --25% of twin fawns have different fathers. --"Multiple paternity" was found in triplet fawns at Auburn University. Three fawns [...]

Read More
28 05, 2019

Will The 2019 Storms And Record Flooding Kill Whitetail Fawns?

2019-10-11T13:21:38-04:00May 28th, 2019|Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Hunting, Deer Management, Deer Science|Comments Off on Will The 2019 Storms And Record Flooding Kill Whitetail Fawns?

Will the storms and subsequent record flooding in Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Mississippi and other central and south-central states kill fawns that are dropping right now and into June? Biologists note that pregnant does are good mothers, and they sense when to move out of a flood zone. The primary concern for deer populations is for stressed does that are dropping or dropped fawns in areas of rising water levels, and the fawns were too young to move to higher ground. This is surely the case in some flood-ravaged areas. "We know it's going to have a negative impact," said William McKinley, Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks Deer Program coordinator. "Let's just say that up front.” But fawn survival [...]

Read More
13 05, 2019

Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) 2019 Update

2019-08-05T14:22:47-04:00May 13th, 2019|Big Deer Stories, BigDeer, Deer Hunting, Deer Science|6 Comments

On this just released CWD tracking map focus on the light-gray blocks, which show the current confirmation of the disease in wild populations of deer. Cases in north Mississippi and west Tennessee are relatively new, as is the gray block in north-central Virginia (Culpeper County), 20 miles from where I hunt. There are CWD deniers in the hunting industry, but I am not one of them. The scientists and organizations I work with and believe in regard CWD as a real threat with the real potential to disrupt if not decimate deer populations and hunting in the future. Every year that I look at an updated CWD map, I see the expansion of the nasty disease, and we all must [...]

Read More
26 04, 2019

What Is The Lifespan of Whitetail Deer?

2019-08-05T14:19:40-04:00April 26th, 2019|Big Deer Stories, BigDeer, Deer Hunting, Deer Science|2 Comments

Two of the most amazing facts from the 2018 deer season: A young hunter in Vermont shot a wild doe that, according to a tooth-wear analysis, was 20 years old! And another hunter in Vermont killed a 12-year-old buck! Which begs the question: How long do deer live? In captivity, whitetail does have been documented to live 18 to 25 years, and bucks 14 years. In the wild, where hunters consider a 5-year-old buck to be an old one, deer have the capability to live longer than you think. A doe in Louisiana was aged at 21 1/2 years. Recent data from Pennsylvania confirms 3 wild does to be at least 13.5 years old. Interestingly, other does from Vermont in [...]

Read More