Tabla de contenidos para February 2022 en Deer & Deer Hunting

What you’re seeing is not a hoax. It is the weirdest whitetail malady I’ve seen in my 27 years of working here at D&DH. I first reported on this bizarre fawn in the late 1990s. Even back then, some of the weirdest things I had seen were a doe that had five fawns; a deer that was born without ears; and a Texas buck that managed to live several years with a base-ballsized rock wedged firmly in its lower jaw. Yes, those were truly bizarre discoveries, but the one you’re looking at right now surely tops them all. I received this photo from Officer Brad Stoner of the LaCrosse Police Department (WI). Stoner’s co-worker, Lt. Bob Lawrence, took the photos of this bizarre eight-legged fawn while investigating a car-deer collision…

Walt Disney took countless liberties in tailoring the story of Bambi to a children’s audience. In Disney’s animated rendition, all the animals gather to greet Bambi at his birth and congratulate his mother. The owl is not only wise, he protects small animals rather than prey on them. Skunks hibernate. All animals mate in the springtime — birds, skunks, rabbits, even deer. The owl explains how they become “twitterpated,” overcome by human-like romantic feelings. Bambi’s wears his first antlers in the springtime. Hunters invade the woods as winter turns to spring and the green grasses emerge. That’s when Bambi’s mother is shot and killed. Poachers are not differentiated from hunters and man is indiscriminate in what he shoots. Even worse, heartless hunters ignite raging forest fires and destroy wildlife habitat.…

Two outdoor writers received high honors recently for articles they wrote for Deer & Deer Hunting Magazine. STEVE SORENSEN, popular speaker, outdoor columnist and Deer & Deer Hunting Field Contributor recently won “Excellence in Craft” awards from the Pennsylvania Outdoor Writers Association (POWA) and the Mason-Dixon Outdoor Writers Association (MDOWA). Both of Sorensen’s first-place articles appeared in Deer & Deer Hunting magazine. “Buck Fever—How a Youngster Can Beat It” (September, 2020) was the top article in the Youth in the Hunting/Shooting Sports category from the Pennsylvania Outdoor Writers Association. “8 Reasons Why We Hit Deer” (February, 2020) won the Herb Blackwell Memorial Award from M-DOWA for the best magazine article. In addition to his two top honors, Sorensen won a Third Place award from M-DOWA in the Outdoor Blog Category…

Public-land deer hunting is vogue now. That wasn’t always the case, mind you. It was oftentimes regarded as a second-rate option for hunters who couldn’t afford to own or lease land. Everyone wanted to hunt posh pieces of private, and if you didn’t, some hunters looked down on you. Today, the script is flipped, and public land is finally having its day. Hunters across the nation are excited about hunting ground that’s open to all, and they aren’t afraid to tell everyone. Many of these hunters will say those who hunt private land have it easier. For starters, regardless of whether you’re a private or public land hunter (or both), don’t bash the other side. Neither public nor private land hunting is easy. And most importantly, we’re all in this…

Every deer on your property requires at least one to two tons of nutritional food a year to meet their needs. If you don’t provide it for them, they will go elsewhere. For this reason, a minimum of 5% of a property should consist of good food plots, both feeding and hunting. The difference between the two is that feeding food plots are larger, so they provide the tonnage deer need to thrive and stay on the property. Hunting food plots are smaller and located in thick cover, between the bedding/sanctuary and large feeding area. Hunting food plots should be narrow, irregularly shaped, and less than 1/2 acre in size so that bow shots can be taken across them. The beauty of hunting food plots is that they provide deer…

A finished hunting arrow is completed with many components – arrow point insert and broadhead on the front end, nock and fletches on the back end. Each adds weight, which affects the position of the shaft’s balance point. With arrows, you want a higher percentage of weight in the front end. Where the balance point lies is called FOC, or Front of Center, balance. And this is important why? Simply stated, the FOC position on the arrow shaft is a key factor in determining the shape of the arrow’s trajectory and accuracy potential. The right FOC is especially important in long-range shooting. An arrow shaft with a FOC that is too high can fly like a laser beam, but will tend to nose-dive at distance. Conversely, an arrow with a…

How did you become a deer hunter? Raising or creating a deer hunter has never been harder. Or easier. On the one hand, life has gotten crazier and busier for every one of every age. Funny how technology has given us less free time and made it harder to truly get away for some of the most important matters in life, like deer hunting. We work harder and longer than ever. We slow down less, and we play shorter when we do. It’s hard to find the time to hunt for ourselves sometimes, let alone take a new hunter out to the field and introduce them to the joys of deer hunting … and create a future license buyer and wildlife conservationist in the process. And we all know how…

IT’S ABOUT DEER HUNTING This article isn’t about rooftop tents; it’s about deer hunting. You don’t subscribe to Deer & Deer Hunting because you’re curious about camping – you read this magazine because you want to learn about deer, their habitat, and how to hunt them successfully. Those are the same reasons I’ve been reading this publication since the early 90’s. Those, along with how Charlie Alsheimer’s photos snatched me from my Lazy Boy in Nebraska, put me in treestands in northern New York, and made me feel like I was about to release arrows on massive whitetails. We read Deer & Deer Hunting to learn about deer and deer hunting, and so this article about rooftop tents is merely another strategy, perhaps a new tool for your deer hunting…

There are different types of deer hunters in this world. Some are passive, and others are devout. Neither is right or wrong, but simply a matter of passion. As part of the latter crowd, Ryan Alexander is a hunting guide in Colorado, Texas, and is the owner of Urban Buckeye Outfitters in Ohio, which has been in business since 2011. “I started shooting a compound at 5 years old, shot my first deer at 8 years old, and I have been bowhunting for 22 years.” Alexander said. “My father got me into hunting. And being a guide is one of the best jobs in the world. As an owner and operator of an outfitting business, I live and breathe deer. It’s a year-round hobby, job, and lifestyle.” Given the nature…

1 MATHEWS V3X SYSTEM Equipped with new Bridge-Lock™ Sight Technology to enhance balance, patent-pending Stay Afield System (S.A.S™) to keep hunters in the field and built compatible with a completely redesigned line of LowPro™ Quivers, the V3X system elevates the performance of Mathews’ most popular hunting bow to date, the V3. Available in 29-inch or 33-inch axle-to-axle lengths, the V3X deploys a long riser to axle-to-axle ratio to maintain industry-leading accuracy. The V3X 29 has a 6-inch brace height and accommodates draw lengths from 25.5–30 inches. The V3X 33 has a 6.5-inch brace height with draw lengths ranging from 27–31.5 inches. Allows a dovetail sight to be mounted through the bow’s riser, eliminating the need for an external mounting bracket, for a streamlined profile, improved balance and reduced felt vibration.…

Maybe you imagine Bambi as a doe fawn, with big, friendly eyes, giant eyelashes, and beauty spots covering her adorable cartoon body. Maybe you’re familiar with Bambi’s little besties, a bunny named Thumper and a skunk called Flower. Maybe you thought Bambi was purely for children, a Disney creation that helped launch an entertainment empire of cartoon classics. Maybe you thought Bambi was a whitetail deer. And maybe you thought the author was a wonderful writer of children’s stories. BAMBI — MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE All of that would be wrong — all except for the beauty spots. Bambi was a buck, not a doe. Bambi, the cutest caricature of all forest friends, did talk to other woodland citizenry but Thumper and Flower were not among them. Absent from…

Bambi and baseball icon Babe Ruth had something in common. Ruth was nicknamed “The Bambino,” the Italian word for baby which evolved into “Babe.” Bambi is a shortened version of bambino. Bambi and The Bambino were contemporaries. Bambi was published in 1923 and translated into English in 1928, right in the middle of Ruth’s career which spanned 1914 to 1935. But the Sultan of Swat had no connection to the fictional fawn beyond the similar names. Felix Salten (1869-1945), the Austrian author of Bambi, was Jewish, born in Budapest, Hungary as Siegmund Salzmann and was the grandson of an Orthodox Jewish rabbi. He was a well-known political writer and social critic, so the Nazis had plenty of reason to be suspicious of his writing. He composed influential works both before…

Falling in love with a trail camera picture more often than not leads to heartbreak. A buck shows up on camera or while you’re glassing one August night. He works his way into your brain. You wake up at night thinking about this G2s. You envision how he got in front of your camera. You build a hypothesis about which neighbor he is bedding on. Slowly, you adopt a myopic focus on this one deer that is going to make your season a success. Four months later, you hunted 41 times, made 11 all-day sits and saw him exactly one time, almost a quarter mile away. He never showed up on your cameras again. You passed several deer you would have been happy with, if not for the ghost you’ve…

There’s an old quip that, “Can’t couldn’t do anything.” While this saying bares some truth, when it comes to shooting, cant can certainly make you miss. Cant is defined as, “Angular deviation from a vertical or horizontal surface or plane.” With our firearm’s sights or scope being mounted directly over the bore of our gun, it is that angular deviation from the vertical plane that we, as marksman, are most concerned with. How far off target this angular deviation or cant causes our bullet to strike is dependent upon several factors, among them are distance to the target and how high above the bore line our sights or scope are mounted. The greater the distance to the target, the larger the effects of cant error become. For long-range shooters, this…

Today, let’s starting talking antlers. Specifically, what tends to have the greatest impact on their development. “Let em go so they can grow,” is a real snappy catch phrase. Unfortunately, as we’ll eventually cover, it doesn’t play out that way an awful lot of times for a bunch of reasons. However, before we jump in, I must emphatically stress, none of this is meant to be a pro or anti QDM piece. What legal deer each of us chooses to shoot are personal choices and I personally find it extremely icky when others try to dictate our personal choices for us. They belong to us, as it is our hunt and passion, not anyone else’s, and I mean that incredibly sincerely. With that, let’s jump in. MAIN FACTORS As we…