Tabla de contenidos para December 2021 en Deer & Deer Hunting

The buck showed up just like that. I mean BAM! There he was, right in front of me, standing within bow-range, head up and strutting like a home run champion. I really didn’t have time to think about how big this buck was. I just snatched my bow off the nearby hook, came to full draw, kind of centered my fluorescent-green sight pin on his chest and touched the release. “Thunk!” Nothing but dirt. The arrow missed him by a good foot-and-a-half. The buck merely glanced up at me, as if to say, “Umm, OK,” and then went about his business as if nothing had happened. That task involved dogging a near-estrous doe. He was chasing her up, down, over and around the steep, wooded hillside I was bowhunting. Both…

Humans habitually underestimate other humans. That’s why underdogs can be winners and that’s why people with disabilities often surprise us. Christopher Reichart of Berks County, Pennsylvania, is an enthusiastic 26-year-old white-tailed deer hunter. As a young man with Down syndrome, he’s an underdog. But he’s also an overcomer. I first met Chris in 2019 when I spoke at a sportsman’s dinner in Birdsboro, Pennsylvania, at High Point Baptist Chapel. The broad smile on his cherubic face says he is full of joy and eager to talk about things that make him happy. Deer hunting is one of those things. It’s natural for a kid to want to be like his father, and Chris’s father Steven Reichart is an avid hunter. Most kids attend a hunter safety class, then buy a…

It was Election Day 2004, and as always, I took the day off to do my civic duty and vote. It’s tough giving up a premium rut-phase morning hunt, but I do it every two years because I believe nobody has the right to complain about politics if they don’t vote. From my home in northern Michigan, I had a 2½-hour drive to where I wanted to hunt in the southern part of the state. My plan was to vote as soon as the polls opened and then hunt midday and evening down south. My hunting location was a 50-yard-wide pinch point consisting of excellent transition security cover on high ground that dropped down to the north and south into two large bedding areas. The tree I planned to hunt…

A great venison sandwich rarely gets the credit it deserves. Such a concept is overshadowed by grilled backstrap or smoked inner loins, perhaps even homemade jerky. But if you’re the kind of sandwich connoisseur who would travel great distances for a quality deli sub before you’d ever darken the doors of a Jimmy John’s or Subway, this one is for you. Additionally, below I share the roast-and-reverse-sear method for venison roasts. Your best roasts for this recipe (and most recipes, in general) come from the hindquarters (e.g., the top round, bottom round, sirloin tip). So if you don’t want to turn venison roasts into sandwiches, you can put this technique to use for something as simple as “Roast of Venison.” In regard to equipment, it’s easier to slice meat into…

Brandon Wikman began hunting at the age of 12, which at the time, was the legal age limit in Wisconsin. The older he got, the more he enjoyed hunting. Like many whitetail enthusiasts, he quickly warmed to bowhunting, and that became his true passion. Eventually, it led to a career as a television host for “Bass Pros Next Generation” on the Outdoor Channel. Today, he’s a real estate agent with Realtree United Country, and focuses on premiere hunting land in the Midwest. Despite the career change, he still spends a lot of time hunting each season. Last year, he road-tripped to Fleming County, Kentucky, and hunted with his friend Luke Carswell, who owns 7 Bar Outfitters (www.facebook.com/SevenBarOutfitters). His operation is known for producing top-end bucks. “I have been hunting with…

@NATELQ: I shot a doe at 63 yards years ago. Lucky shot and she died in sight. Thirty-five seems to be a stretch nowadays with heavier arrow setup. @MVICTORINO: Too many things can happen past 40 yards … so that’s my limit. @STUCZYNSKIBOBBY: Farthest I have ever shot at one is 40. That is my maximum range. I do aim at heart to account for any string jump. It has always worked out for me. @MGOBLUE85: I practiced out to 60 and 70 yards, but 42 yards is the longest I’ve ever shot while hunting. @BUCKTAGS My farthest shot has been 53 yards. But I practice out to 60 yards, which is about the extent of my confident shot range. @BUZZATC I practice to 60, will shoot 40 or less.…

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When Jim Kempf of Scorpyd Crossbows filed his patent application for the reverse-draw crossbow back in September, 2004, I wonder if he knew just how this design would revolutionize crossbow hunting? His may not have been the first – there are some unsubstantiated sources that claim Leonardo DaVinci developed a reverse-draw crossbow in the 16th century – but there’s no question that reverse-draw crossbow technology offers tangible performance benefits over the traditional design. “While sales of reverse-draw crossbows are growing annually, they still represent a relatively small portion of the market,” said Keith Arnold of TenPoint Crossbows. “Consumers look at reverse-draw crossbows and think, they look different. Some consumers worry that if they have a string or limb failure, that a failing part could go in the direction of the…

When it comes to managing the standing stock of whitetails in one’s area, hunting in a low-impact, high-odds manner is highly advised. That sounds great and all, but how does one do that? What follows is why and how to identify them. WHAT IS A STAGING AREA? Right out the gate, staging areas are merely where deer, most often bucks, burn daylight in an area they feel safe, before transitioning to a more open, dangerous area, most often to feed. A truly classic example is a small opening in the woods, back off the main food source 10 to 50 yards, but that’s merely the most classic example. A staging area that many of us can create pretty easily is merely to screen off a back section of a clear-cut…

For a hunter, short of laying your hands on the antlers of the buck you’ve been chasing, few things bring as much joy as an SD card or app update full of photos of deer. Big bucks, bucks with potential, doe groups, it doesn’t matter really. Seeing deer using your property and showing up on your cameras is one of the great victories of hunters and land managers. Conversely, pulling a card and finding the vast majority of photos are blank, with no deer in them at all makes the entire process seem pointless. Have a few card pulls like this in a row and you might start wondering why you bother at all. If you use cellular trail cameras, you may be having to pay for a bigger transmission…

Every species has a dispersal phase in its life cycle, wherein the young tend to leave their birth range and establish a new adult home range. Among whitetails, yearling bucks are more likely to disperse, and travel greater distances, as compared to young females. More importantly, for intensively managed whitetail populations, understanding dispersal traits is critical if managers expect to manipulate deer population densities, sex ratios and age structures, and curb the spread of diseases such as bovine tuberculosis and chronic wasting disease. As explained by researcher Jonathan Shaw and his colleagues from North Carolina State University, emigration (outward movement) and immigration (inward movement) are difficult to measure and are typically assumed constant and equal in population analysis. However, when emigration and immigration are dynamic and not equal, decreased accuracy…

My father, a man of good sense and few words, was the first one to relay to me long ago the importance of a sharp knife to the deer hunter’s and home butcher’s kit. “It gets the job done better and easier,” he told me as we would work on our knives the evening before opening day, or before cutting up a whitetail a couple days later. “And it’s safer, too.” Of course he was right. Whether you are field dressing an animal, skinning out the carcass, removing meat from the bones or trimming up cuts, a sharp knife gets work done more efficiently and effectively with less effort. That means you stay safer, too: Struggling with a dull knife is a formula for cuts, gashes and other injuries. But…

Many hunting rifles have a few upgrades that make them better for long-range shooting without radically new styling, and one of those is the new Browning X-Bolt Hunter Long Range, a turn-bolt rifle that includes a wood stock with an adjustable comb and a heavy-contour barrel with a muzzle brake. Minus the comb, the Hunter Long Range looks very much like the standard wood-stocked X-Bolt Hunter with a heavier barrel, and with the thread cap in place, even the most die-hard traditionalists will like the look of this gun. Also new this year is Winchester’s XPR Stealth, an affordable push-feed bolt-action rifle that incorporates a short (16.5-inch) sporter-profile barrel with a threaded cap, and it comes with a top rail for mounting optics. Weighing in at 6.5 pounds, the XPR…