30 05, 2023

How I Helped Crush an Absurd Deer Hunting Competition

2023-05-30T09:28:28-04:00May 30th, 2023|Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Hunting, Hunting News, whitetail deer|0 Comments

Back in the early 2000s, a group called the World Hunting Association (WHA) launched with a mission that promised “to take hunting to a new level by creating a competitive tour that showcases the sport’s finest hunters competing for hundreds of thousands of dollars in prize money.” For the first event, 5 celebrity hunters were to be turned loose in a 1,200-acre pen with bow or gun to see who could shoot the biggest buck with, I kid you not, “patent-pending, non-fatal tranquilizing technique that will allow for a thrilling tournament experience.” A PR guy from WHA emailed me and wrote: “It’s both a bow and gun hunt, but with a patented tranq technology. There are veterinarians on site to [...]

25 05, 2023

Illegal ATV Use on Public Lands

2023-05-25T11:32:06-04:00May 25th, 2023|Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Hunting, Hunting News|0 Comments

I recently read that the illegal use of ATVs has supplanted garbage dumping as the No. 1 law-enforcement problem on our national forest lands and other public areas. I knew it was going on, I just didn’t realize the magnitude of the problem. Apparently, fools are flying up and down roads on their bikes behind locked Forest Service gates, cutting illegal trails around the gates, racing though the timber, and doing doughnuts in meadows and fields. They are littering trash, shooting up signs and basically raising all kinds of hell. They are ruining it for law-abiding people like us who hike, hunt and use ATVs responsibly. The U.S. Forest Service welcomes responsible ATV use in designated areas. I’m pro-ATV and [...]

12 04, 2023

Post-COVID Hunting License Sales Down 3.1%

2023-04-12T12:59:34-04:00April 12th, 2023|Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Hunting, Hunting News|0 Comments

One of the only good things to come out of the pandemic was an increase in outdoors sports and hunting in particular. Studies documented a 4.9% increase in hunting license sales from 2019 to 2020 in what was known as the “COVID Bump.” Unfortunately, that bump that I and other bloggers cheered seems to be over. A study last year by the Council to Advance Hunting and the Shooting Sports showed a 1.9% decrease in hunting license sales from 2020 to 2021. The latest study just released by the Council indicates license sales decreased by approximately 3.1% in 2022 compared to 2021. “Our results indicate that the impacts of COVID on getting people outdoors may be waning,” said the Council’s [...]

5 04, 2023

Pennsylvania Crossbow Buck (228 3/8-inch Net) New Number 2 Non-Typical in State 

2023-04-18T00:49:37-04:00April 5th, 2023|Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Bowhunting, Deer Hunting, Hunting News, whitetail deer|0 Comments

    Go Erie reports that on October 15, 2022, Anthony Faus of East Berlin Pa. shot a giant buck with a crossbow that netted 228 3/8-inch, the second largest non-typical whitetail ever recorded in the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s big game records. “It’s one of the most impressive deer racks I’ve seen as part of scoring in my 15 years of being an official scorer,” said Bob D’Angelo, coordinator for the state's Big Game Scoring Program. The 22-pointer had an outside spread of 26 7/8 inches. In this day and age of social media, most people who kill a world-class deer go online to brag about it, and to potentially get fame and fortune from a bow company, camo maker, [...]

31 03, 2023

13 Facts from the 2023 Deer Report

2023-04-02T08:34:30-04:00March 31st, 2023|Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Hunting, Deer Management, Hunting News, whitetail deer|0 Comments

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 [...]

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