Venado Grande (Big Deer)! This 30-inch-wide monster was shot at El Puerto Ranch in Mexico, old mature buck of a lifetime. A more impressive whitetail you will never see. Very few whitetails grow a rack this wide--what is your widest rack ever?
Hello Mike: Kieran Weed here, big fan of your show. Got this monster opening morning 11/21/15 at about 9:30 am in Fond Du Lac County WI. Jumped him out of a patch of grass in the middle of a 300-acre bean stubble field. 3 shots with my .300 WSM and he was down. 18 scorable points, green scores 183 5/8. Awesome buck Kieran, way to go man! As the season winds down, everybody send more big-deer photos and stories for me to post and share.
TWILIGHT: the soft, scattered light that illuminates the sky when the sun is just below the horizon, either from daybreak to sunrise or from sunset to nightfall. In the afternoon when the sun reaches 18 degrees below the horizon the twilight's brightness is nearly zero and night begins. When the sun again reaches 18 degrees below the horizon the following daybreak, night ends and morning twilight begins. In either of the twilight periods, the first and last minutes of legal shooting time, light is flat and gray; trees and other objects are silhouetted against the bright skyline, and there are no shadows in the woods. While either twilight is prime time for bucks to move, it is a tricky time for hunters. [...]
I’m not a big fan of rubber boots--I’d rather wear lighter and less bulky leather ones and spray them with Scent Killer—but a week ago I hunted Anticosti Island in northern Quebec, where the ground cover is more than 70% peat and bogs. If you don’t wear rubbers in that watery habitat, you just can’t go. Each day I slogged a minimum of 8 miles through boot-sucking bogs, and splashed across omnipresent streams and beaver ponds. I was pleasantly surprised with the Instinct Whitetail Rubber Boots I wore. They were comfortable and easy to walk in. Not bulky and clumsy like other rubber boots I’ve worn in the past. Favorite feature: The breathable, water-repellent and quiet fabric uppers, which look good in Outfitter camo. [...]
Mike: I've read about an October “mini rut,” and I'm a believer. I've always had good luck seeing bucks on either side of Oct 15. A few years ago on October 11th, bucks were chasing everything that came into a field. A nice 3-year-old got in on the action. He actually did a lip curl for several minutes where one of the does had stopped to pee. Later, a second buck came along, trailing that same doe's path and stopping at the same spot for several minutes before continuing on the scent trail. Makes one wonder if maybe a few does do cycle a month early. Are you aware of any proof of this? Bob from WI Bob: Yes, every scientific rut chart/bar graph you’ll see will show that some [...]