Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2023 i Deer & Deer Hunting

It appears Minnesota will join the modern deer hunting world by allowing crossbow usage in its general archery season. First blush is “good for them” for realizing we are all in this together and that crossbow hunting is just another way to keep people interested in enjoying outdoors recreation while at the same time helping managing our whitetail resource. A lot of folks who haven’t been paying attention to crossbow hunting in America are casting misplaced blame (and in some cases hurling insults) on crossbows and crossbow hunters. Here are the Top 3 arguments I’ve heard on the topic, and the resulting facts to disprove them: 1. ‘MORE HUNTERS IN THE WOODS’ It’s simply not true that crossobws lead to a massive increase in the number of people in the…

As time marches on and we gain knowledge, we often find that things we once believed to be true are, in fact, not. A graphic example were the once-inviolate beliefs that the world was flat, or that the sun revolved around the earth. While perhaps not as earth shattering, a generation ago the dogma was that when you hit a deer or other big-game animal with an arrow, you were to wait a specified amount of time before taking up the trail – especially if the shot was thought to be outside the vitals. We know now that if you hit an animal in a large muscle group, your best chance of recovery is to, in fact, immediately take up the trail and force the animal to keep moving and…

The timing of the whitetail breeding season is set by shortening days in autumn; in other words, changing photoperiod. Hence, whitetails are considered “short-day breeders” in that a decreasing ratio of daylight to darkness in autumn causes their glands to secrete hormones that start their reproductive cycle and trigger sharp changes in their behavior. Clearly, timing of the whitetail rut is highly adaptive in that it assures the majority of does give birth during spring when food and cover conditions are most favorable for rearing young. North of about 36 degrees latitude, most whitetails breed between mid-October and mid-December, with peak breeding occurring during November. When conception records of individual does are graphed, some biologists say the data should follow a normal, or “bell-shaped” curve, if the given population is…

Venison round steaks are what happens when someone with a band saw takes a hindquarter and cuts it—bone, roasts, and all—perpendicular to the leg. The end result is 1- to 1-1/2-inch-thick bone-in steaks containing slices of all hindquarter roasts and everything in-between. Unless you personally own a band saw, this is something you will have to request from your processor. This recipe, however, and its methods, will apply to any venison steak you cook. The only difference: Round steaks come with a ring of sinew and/or fat around the edges. When they cook over high heat, this ring will act as a rubber band and tighten, causing the meat to curl and not make direct contact with the cooking surface. For this reason—and this logic applies to ANY steak, including…

To this day, it was one of the most fun sits I’ve ever had. I was hunting Illinois, during a late-season, epic blizzard. For five days straight, I watched deer literally bounding through the deep snows, racing to get to the soybeans each late afternoon. In the five-day hunt, I literally watched the deer destroy a couple acre soybean plot that had appeared hardly touched, up until the first afternoon after the blizzard dumped somewhere over two feet of fresh snow. If there’s a secret left to deer hunting, it’s how great late season can be for hunting. The catch is it can be equally horrific, if not in the right spot. As most that understand the “secret” fully realize, it’s most often the food or absence of it that…

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I fully understand the threat anti-hunters and animal firsters pose, and I’ll do what I can to keep from giving them opportunities to point their sanctimonious or self righteous or outraged fingers at me and the hunting sports I enjoy so much. I also am fully aware that the simple fact that I hunt and like to hunt is reason enough for them to scream and point and rush to their legislatures with yet another attempt to outlaw hunting or meat eating, or both. Or, in the most extreme instances, attempts to equate animals equal to people, and with the same legal rights. I respect all animal life and love my pets, but I am, first of all, a meat eater, a carnivore … and it is perfectly alright to…

I was dumbfounded. I’d just overheard a well-known habitat consultant telling a potential client that he should be able to kill 160” bucks every year off his Central Wisconsin 40 acre property, and this was before the consultant even knew much more than the acreage. I quickly understood that the cookie cutter plans he pumped out on the spot for his paying clients wasn’t the only reason so many of his past clients had come for my consulting services, before I’d retied. He was also creating extremely unrealistic results, to lure the cash out of their pockets. There are a lot of challenges to hunting small properties. Frankly, the wiggle room for error typically just isn’t there and the opportunities can be few and very far between. Luckily, there are…

Five senses — smell, taste, hearing, sight and touch — are the physical assets a whitetail needs to survive. If any are lacking, a whitetail is doomed to perish before its time. Of the five, a deer’s sense of smell is arguably the most important for survival. Its acute sense of smell allows it to detect predators long before they can be seen or heard. And its ability to smell allows whitetails to detect preferred foods, even when that food is buried under a foot of snow. In short, the white-tailed deer’s sense of smell is amazing. Experience is the ultimate educator. I’ve seen uncountable examples of how a deer’s sense of smell allows it to be an incredible survivor. My first encounter with a deer’s ability to smell came…

It’s the symbol of a successful hunt, and a harbinger of great eating to come; a whitetail on the meatpole. Whether I’m hunting out of some farmhouse on the prairie, a Northwoods deer camp, a motel room in farm country or the familiar comfort of my own home, nothing warms my heart like stepping out into the starry night or my chilly garage and taking one more look at a whitetail I was lucky enough to bag that day. But questions always arise as I stroke the thick, pepper-gray fur of an autumn or winter whitetail: What are the benefits of waiting to cut up the meat, versus finishing the job as soon as possible? Why do these factors matter to meat quality? How long should l let this deer…

A Wisconsin man agreed to a plea deal in which he cannot hunt or fish for three years after admitting he shot a giant 218-inch buck out of season in November 2021. Douglas D. Meyers, 60, of Coon Valley, agreed to the deal following an investigation by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. The investigation was sparked by a call into the agency’s Violation Hotline, which is operational 24 hours a day. The call, from an anonymous citizen, reported hearing gun shots from Meyers’ property on Nov. 4, 2021. Conservation officers charged Meyers with hunting deer during a closed season. They said he admitted to shooting a buck with a rifle during archery season, and then claiming he shot it with a crossbow. The misdemeanor charge had a maximum fine…

The wealth gap in deer hunting is ever widening, and so are the qualities of deer hunting afforded to men and women on each end of that spectrum. It’s never been more difficult for an American to own, lease, or even gain permission to hunting land. And America’s public lands are overrun. Money is taking the deer hunting world by storm. It’s a runaway train with the brakes ripped out. Obviously, the reality of real-world whitetail hunting looks much different than it did 10, 20, or even 30 years ago. Inflation is raging. Dirt has never been pricier. And land-hungry people of wealth are gobbling up acreage. As such, more and more hunters are being forced into smaller and smaller corners of private land. Others are completely priced out of…

The rut was in full swing, and bucks were busy chasing does. With a front-row seat to the action, three bucks had whipped themselves into a frenzy chasing a hot doe. The action was insane as the deer chased through the forest. They would head over a ridge in one direction, only to appear back in my direction from a different draw. The ruckus of activity worked to my advantage by attracting a big mature Canadian whitetail that I had hunted all season. The old buck had heard the commotion and knew exactly what was happening. The big boy interrupted the party and took over the chase, and the younger bucks scurried to get out of the way. Tall antlers reached skyward, and I had to control myself from getting…

A whitetail’s range can be broken into three zones: feeding, bedding and the area in between, which I call the transition zone. If pressure isn’t severe, the transition zone is where I ambush the most bucks during the rut. There are five reasons for this: 1. Mature bucks seldom frequent prime feeding areas during daylight hours. 2. If they do, does are usually nearby and the scene can resemble a fire drill when the chasing begins. 3. With several deer in the feeding area, you have all kinds of eyes to contend with before the moment of truth arrives. 4. You must stay out of the bedding area to keep a mature buck from changing its habits. 5. The transition zone is where most rutting sign will be found and…