Bowhunting Archives - Page 38 of 65

26 02, 2019

5 Massive Deadhead Bucks

admin2020-06-10T09:15:25-04:00February 26th, 2019|Big Deer Stories, BigDeer, Bowhunting, Deer Hunting, Shed Hunting|1 Comment

Some shed hunters that roam the woods from now till early spring will find “deadheads,” or the skulls and antlers of bucks that died months earlier. A deadhead might have perished of any number of causes: hit by a car, lost by a bowhunter the previous season, winterkill, predators or natural causes. Most deadhead finds are small to medium-size, but each year a few people stumble upon massive skulls, like these 5. This first picture popped up on my Twitter feed yesterday and is the first mega-deadhead of the 2019 shed season. It was found in southwest Ohio. The top skull of 2018 also showed up [...]

19 02, 2019

Top 10 Deer Bowhunting States

admin2020-06-10T09:15:25-04:00February 19th, 2019|Big Deer Stories, Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Bowhunting, Deer Hunting|2 Comments

The QDMA’s 2019 Whitetail Report points out that bowhunting for whitetails has never been more popular. In 2002 only 15 percent of the total whitetail harvest in America was taken with archery tackle; that percentage rose to 23 percent in 2017. Check out these numbers from 2019 report: The 5 states with the most bowhunters are: 1) Pennsylvania (339,600 bowhunters); 2) Michigan (311,000); 3) Wisconsin (246,211); 4) New York (231,000); 5 Missouri (222,717). The 6 states with the most bowhunters per square mile are: Pennsylvania (7.6 bowhunters PSM; 2) New Jersey (5.9); 3 Michigan (5.5); 4) New York (4.9): 5) Ohio (4.5); 6) Wisconsin (4.5). The top 5 states with the highest percentage of annual deer harvest with archery tackle: [...]

6 02, 2019

Are Crossbow Hunters Killing Too Many Bucks?

admin2020-06-10T09:15:25-04:00February 6th, 2019|Big Deer Stories, Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Bowhunting, Deer Hunting, Hunting News|9 Comments

Back in 2014, I blogged that Wisconsin was the latest major whitetail state to permit the use of the crossbow during the regular archery season. Since then, the crossbow season in the state has run concurrently with the archery season, typically mid-September through December. One of the original complaints from traditionalists and vertical bowhunters at the time was that crossbow hunters would kill too many bucks. There is no denying that it is easier (and takes less practice) to kill a deer with a crossbow than with a compound or recurve. Well, 5 years later, with crossbow technology having increased tenfold, turns out those fears might have been warranted. WKOW in Madison reports that at a recent Wisconsin Natural Resources [...]

30 01, 2019

Saskatchewan Bowhunter Kills World-Record Mule Deer

admin2020-06-10T09:15:26-04:00January 30th, 2019|Big Deer Stories, Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Bowhunting, Deer Hunting, Mule Deer|Comments Off on Saskatchewan Bowhunter Kills World-Record Mule Deer

On October 1, 2018, Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation member Dennis Bennett arrowed the deer of a lifetime in the Arm River area of Saskatchewan. This non-typical mule deer was panel measured by official Henry Kelsey measurers and scored 293 6/8. It has been declared a Henry Kelsey provincial record, meeting the minimum score of 200, surpassing the previous provincial HK record of 290 taken back in the 1920s. . Henry Kelsey and Pope & Young both use the Boone & Crockett scoring technique, with the difference being that Henry Kelsey uses the green score, whereas P&Y and B&C require a 60-day drying period. Pope & Young, which records animals taken by archery only, has declared Bennett’s deer a P&Y world record with a final [...]

16 01, 2019

Illinois Late-Season Bow Buck

admin2020-06-10T09:15:26-04:00January 16th, 2019|Big Deer Stories, BigDeer, Bowhunting, Deer Hunting|2 Comments

Today’s guest post from Flatlander, longtime friend of BIG DEER: Hey Mike, reporting in on the last week of the Illinois archery season. We’ve had 10 inches of snow dumped upon us, and the deer are still a slave to their stomachs. I’ve been playing cat and mouse with a buck we’ve called “Captain Hook” for his unique brow tines. He was elusive during the pre-rut and disappeared for almost 6 weeks. Most recent trail cams at Christmas revealed he was alive and back, moving among our food plots. Cold temps and flooded low ground had deer on their feet on the warmest part of the day, when I had a close encounter with Captain Hook on New Year’s Eve. [...]