Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2019 i Deer & Deer Hunting

The baiting article that appears on Page 46 of this issue addresses a topic that’s sure to elicit arguments in deer camps everywhere. Bryan Hendricks addresses it from a Southern perspective, but we believe this is a topic that deserves national attention. For starters, take what’s happening in Michigan. Will the state’s new baiting ban affect the number of gun-hunters who buy licenses? If history is an indicator, yes, it seems as though this deer-rich state is headed for further declines in participation and harvest rates. It’s not just Michigan, and it’s not just about baiting. Participation and harvest rates have been on a steady decline nearly everywhere over the past 20 years. There are many contributing factors, including cost, demographics and access to hunting land. Michigan has already seen…

A CLOSER LOOK AT KENTUCKY’S INCREDIBLE ‘SLINGSHOT’ BUCK When Ohio resident Riley Emery was hunting the early 2019 season in Kentucky, he was hoping for a chance at one of the mature bucks hunters are talking about more and more from the Bluegrass State. Emery had tried other Kentucky outfitters with disappointing results, but Luke Carswell, owner of 7 Bar, assured Emery he takes only four hunters per week to minimize the pressure on the deer he hunts. Even with an outfitter, deer hunting has no guarantees, but Emery felt that this hunt was going to be different. While surveying the photos Carswell posted on Facebook, Emery noticed a one-of-a-kind buck Carswell named “Slingshot.” He had a mature body, but what was most impressive was that the buck had only…

The instincts and senses of white-tailed deer have been honed for eons to make them the cagiest animals in the woods. Wherever they live, they’ve learned to survive the predators that threaten them every day. The wolves of Canada’s North, the cougars of the American West, the pythons of Florida’s Everglades, and the monster coyotes of the Northeast take a toll on whitetails, yet they remain prolific and adaptable deer. For most of history, deer have had little to do with humans and everything to do with wild, hungry, quadruped predators that savor delicious venison. 1. NATIVE AMERICANS & DEER As humans began to infiltrate this diverse continent, deer were critical to their survival. Deer hunting would eventually become a sport, but it was never a sport to New York’s…

INGREDIENTS: • 3- to 4-pound deer roast• ¼ cup dark brown sugar• 1 teaspoon thyme• 1 teaspoon dried rosemary pepper• 1 teaspoon onion salt1 jar beef gravy (or mix 2 cups beef broth and ¼ cup flour and bring to a boil while whisking) DIRECTIONS Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Combine all ingredients (except flour and gravy) and rub on roast. Place venison roast on rack in roasting pan and place — uncovered — in oven. Immediately lower the temperature to 325 degrees. Bake for 2 hours, or until cooked to your desired doneness. Remove the venison roast from the oven and allow to “rest” for at least 10 minutes. This will help maintain moisture. Serve with baked potatoes and gravy. Enjoy!…

There is no doubt that many hunters question a buck’s decreased desire to breed in December in the North, especially when magazines tout the virtues of the so-called “second rut.” A buck’s ability to keep up the rutting chase in the post-rut moon is possible, but in most cases highly unlikely. Why? Research shows that a buck’s sperm count in December is about half what it was in November. So, physically, the drive isn’t there. As a result, bucks are calmer, more collected animals when the post-rut moon arrives. Because survival is now his main objective, a buck becomes a different creature in December and early January. Oh, he will still breed, and often does, but generally he isn’t out looking for does the way he was in October and…

I just finished enjoying the excellent September 2019 issue of Deer & Deer Hunting. I have a comment for two articles in that issue. Keri Butt’s “Genetic Realities” was not only very well-written, it was eye-opening and thought-provoking. She obviously researched the evidence cited and made quite the case for the material presented. How many times have most of us seen TV personalities on or hunting videos “take out a cull to help improve the herd quality.” This article should help any reader re-think those old theories! On the Roger Page “Expanding The Process” article, I must take exception to the tone of the article — that of practically shaming a hunter who doesn’t butcher his or her own deer. I am just the opposite of him in that I…

The premise is simple: Buck-to-doe ratios are so woefully out of whack there’s no way all the does can be bred during peak breeding. It’s also understood that does not impregnated cycle back into estrus 23 to 30 days later. So if you wait the number of days in the does’ cycle past peek breeding, you’ve nailed the timing for the second rut. That apparently provides hunters with a basic grasp of math a tremendous advantage. After all, because at least some does were bred the first go-around, there should be about the same number of bucks chasing fewer does. Therefore, bucks must search harder to find does and fight off even more bucks to win the right to breed. At first glance, that seems logical. In fact, it sounds…

With quality food sources dwindling, the few remaining prime food sources can really attract deer during winter. These spots can let you take advantage of a buck’s shift to winter survival mode and desire to take advantage of breeding opportunities. Most late-season hunters realize that a blast of nasty weather gives Mr. Big incentive to get to a food source early. Nasty weather requires an increase in calories to maintain body heat, and late afternoon is comparatively warmer than the colder late night and pre-dawn. Feeding during late afternoon lets Mr. Big conserve heat and energy by bedding during colder time periods. Meanwhile, where do does and fawns concentrate during the last hour or two of shooting light? Most often, at a food source. That makes food sources the best spots…

Every hunter should own a gun that gives them the confidence to make any shot count. There are several firearms in my safe that I reach for without hesitation. Two are my “confidence rifles,” as they are dead-on accurate and have always harvested animals when my crosshair was placed on their vitals. Everyone needs a confidence rifle, and the only way to have one is to shoot enough to know the firearm intimately. Shouldering the gun, finding the target, and making the perfect shot needs to be second nature. My confidence guns have some of the best optics I own. One is topped with a ZEISS and the other with Sig Optics. When I dialed the rifles in at the range, they produced three-shot groups that were touching at 100…

“My locally owned hunting/outfitters store has suffered greatly this fall here in Michigan. I have noticed that there are no hunters in places teeming with game. Restaurants, gas stations, and local bars are all feeling the lack of business because of the bait ban.” — John Bordach, Facebook “The Michigan bait ban is just a small step toward ending hunters and hunting. We used to hunt the cornfields after harvest. There was always quite a few ears that ended up on the ground, and the deer and rabbits and quail would come out to feed on it. What a mess this country has become. Too many people trying to force others to live according to their personal ‘feelings’ and philosophies. Mind your own damn business is a smart philosophy. Keep…

I’ll never forget the net 174 2/8ths inch buck. Over late summer and the first 2 weeks of bow season, he was all over a late planted soybean plot, having seen him all three times I hunted the plot, during that window. Then, he shifted, only to be arrowed by the outfitter I was consulting for’s client. I begin this piece with that painful remembrance, as it illustrates what will be the point of this piece. I’d literally had it drilled into my head that it’s a horrible mistake to hunt a stand more than once every 5 days and I followed that widely held belief. Because of that, I only got 3 hunts in, before he shifted. I have no clue if I’d have tagged him, if I’d hunted…

Each generation of deer hunters has its own golden rules. Perhaps your dad or grandpa handed some unwritten codes of contact to you. Mine sure did. Here are a few of the gun-hunting rules I’ve lived by for many deer seasons. 1. YOU CAN’T HIT THEM IF YOU DON’T SHOOT. This really needs no explanation. I have never bought a lottery ticket so there is no chance of me winning. While this shooting rule certainly applies to deer hunting or any hunting, it is most evident to me when hunting ruffed grouse. If a grouse hunter waits for the perfect shot at a flushed grouse, chances are he won’t shoot. I think that I have trained my shotgun because it usually goes off about two seconds after the flush whether…

More than 70 percent of Farm Belt fawns can enter estrus during their first year. This strip of latitude typically offers a surplus of nutrition, comparatively mild winters and sufficiently low deer numbers to keep social stress at a minimum. Those factors help fawns achieve puberty their first year. The obvious result of 70 percent or more doe fawns entering estrus is a much longer breeding season. In fact, the steady trickle of fawns can stretch breeding out well into January. Though pockets of anomalies exist, that percentage decreases as you head north. In fact, during particularly bad years, no doe fawns enter estrus. However, during good years, that number can range from 5 to 20 percent, even for Northern fawns.…

For deer hunters, the rut links as closely to autumn as Christmas links to winter, and it encapsulates all of the excitement that we love about the sport. The rut is, of course, the height of the breeding season for white-tailed deer. The dates vary across the South by about six weeks, but Dixie deer hunters generally associate the rut with — appropriately — Thanksgiving. Ralph Meeker, the deer program coordinator for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, said that the amount of daylight, or photoperiod, triggers breeding activity in whitetails. In Arkansas, Meeker said, the rut occurs in a descending gradient from northwest to southeast. The average peak of the rut in Arkansas is Nov. 11, he added, which is why Arkansas always opens modern gun deer season on…

To this day, it was one of the most thrilling hunts I’ve ever enjoyed. With Custom Robotic Wildlife’s standing buck and their bedded doe decoys sitting outside the elevated, enclosed box blind, I knew what to do upon seeing the wide giant step out into the field. Somewhere north of 400 yards away, the only questions were if he’d hear the rattling and if the decoy pair would be enough to entice him to cut the distance to 100 or less yards. It worked to perfection. Smashing the antlers as hard as I could got his attention, and the decoy pair brought him across the entire field, as if being pulled on a string. He even paused broadside, right at 100 yards, to survey the decoy pair. Armed with a…

I didn’t cut my whitetail teeth early in my bowhunting career. Living in the heart of the West, I figured my time would be better served chasing elk, mule deer and pronghorn. Plus, I wasn’t super keen to the idea of hanging 20 feet up a tree. I figured one day I’d go, kill a mature buck and call it good. I stayed up on my education, reading every piece of whitetail literature I could get my hands on. I learned about hunting scrapes, setting up on waterways, the significance of a good rub line — of scents and masking scents — of avoiding bumping a mature buck from his bed. My first trip to the Midwest was to Illinois. I was hunting the famed Richardson Farms. It was November,…

A question that is often asked about deer processing is whether carcasses should be washed following field dressing. My answer to that is, yes, as long as it is understood why and how the washing is done. Let’s start with an intact animal and consider what happens during and after harvest and field dressing. Initially, muscles and organs of a healthy animal are essentially sterile, but they become easily contaminated with stomach and intestinal contents, hair, dirt, leaves and a variety of other things as a result of shot placement as well as during and after field dressing. Each of those contaminants will contribute a variety of bacteria to the carcass. AVOID THIS AT ALL COSTS Shot placement that disrupts the stomach or intestines obviously results in significant bacterial contamination,…

When mechanical SEVR broadheads first appeared last year, I was, of course, skeptical of them. They boasted they flew like field points (have we not heard that before?), penetrate anything and everything, and cut massive wound channels without fail. So, I thought, maybe I should give them a try. But before I took them afield, I needed to shoot them at home. A lot. To paraphrase Donald Sutherland’s character, Vernon Pinkley, who said while he was impersonating a general and inspecting the troops in the classic 1967 movie, “The Dirty Dozen,” said: “Very pretty, colonel, very pretty. But can they fight?” I asked the same thing about SEVR broadheads. Do they fly? Will they penetrate deeply and cut a big hole? Will they hold up to serious abuse? First off,…