Tabla de contenidos para June 2023 en Deer & Deer Hunting

Of all the predators out to get whitetails, which one kills the most annually? The answer isn’t cut and dried, but for the most part, coyotes take down the most deer annually in the U.S. There are more than 5 million coyotes in the continental U.S., although they primarily prey upon rodents and other small-game animals, they can wreak havoc on deer herds. The Southeast is particularly overrun with coyotes, and in some areas they feed heavily upon deer. In those areas (Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, et al.), adult deer can account for 40% of a coyote’s annual diet. In other areas, coyotes can and do kill up to 65% of all newborn whitetail fawns. There are 16 subspecies of coyotes in North America. Hunters, trappers and government agencies kill about…

The Southeast Deer Study Group (https://www.sedsg.msstate.edu), formed as a subcommittee of the Forest Game Committee of the Southeastern Section of The Wildlife Society, is perhaps the nation’s foremost annual gathering of biologists and researchers who focus their efforts on white-tailed deer. Their February 2023 meeting produced some important research findings in the fight against chronic wasting disease (CWD). The good news is that new testing methods show promise in the detection of CWD without the need for deer carcasses – although the testing of deer harvested by hunters and wildlife agency professionals still remains a key component of the process. As first reported by Lindsay Thomas Jr. of the National Deer Association (https://deerassociation.com), Miranda Huang of the Mississippi State University Deer Lab collected soil samples from scrapes and the tips…

On the first Saturday in October 2022, opening day for Texas archery whitetail, I skipped the morning hours hoping for better chances in the afternoon. The forecast called for a steady, cool east wind. I had landed a reservation for a public-land hunt, and I was excited. That afternoon, I quietly threaded my way along a hidden trail and fended off a gauntlet of prickly cedar branches slapping me as I pushed through. I reached the zone of darkness that my loppers had carved out of a cedar thicket. My view was straight downhill at my feeder and a trace mineral block 30 yards north. A roll of Vanish camo burlap stretched tightly from top to bottom and side to side fronted my ground blind. Black nylon crochet thread kept…

Join us every week for a comprehensive audio and video podcast where the white-tailed deer is the star of the show. Expert guests join the virtual deer camp each week to discuss everything from deer behavior, biology and scientific research to herd and land management, hunting ethics, newsworthy events, and hunting tips, tactics and strategies. Hosted by Daniel Schmidt, DEER TALK NOW is your virtual deer camp where no topic is off-limits. Listen on most of your favorite podcast apps, or watch online!…

Have you ever traveled through western Kansas? It’s a bountiful area that produces wheat, corn and beef cattle that feed thousands of people around the world. In its own way, western Kansas is quite beautiful, that is, of course, unless you like a lot of trees. Western Kansas is also flat, and when I say flat, I don’t mean kind of flat. I’m talking smashed with a giant skillet flat. If you were looking for good descriptive words, vast and expansive would come to mind. If you stand in the middle of Highway 400 just west of Dodge City and look out at the horizon, you can get a good understanding of why people once thought the Earth was flat. After all, it sure looks that way. Of course, we…

Those of us working in the meat science profession are constantly harping on the mantra of “Keep it clean, keep it cold” when working with meat and meat products, and that certainly applies to wildharvested venison. The widely variable conditions, environment and temperatures that are common for wildharvested venison provide ample opportunity for a generous amount of bacterial contamination. If conditions allow growth of contaminating bacteria, the most obvious result is meat spoilage. In fact, the discoloration and off-odors that occur as meat spoils are an obvious warning that excess bacterial growth has occurred, and discourages consumption as a result. However, there is another concern for bacterial growth that can have a major impact on human health, and that is the growth of diseasecausing (pathogenic) bacteria. These microorganisms typically do…

1 PRIME ARCHERY REVEX COMPOUND BOW Prime Archery, by G5 Outdoors, introduces the all-new 2023 Prime REVEX. It is available in 32-, 34-, and 36-inch axle-to-axle configurations, providing shooters with compact and forgiving options. Prime’s exclusive center-gripped riser design is still a primary feature of the bow, giving the REVEX superior stability. Prime’s new CORE Cam System features draw length specific mods that allow the REVEX to reach maximum efficiency at every draw length. These mods are available in draw lengths ranging from 26 to 31.5 inches. The new Core Cam still features Prime’s cam balancing technology that brings the strings and cables in line with each other. This creates a balanced cam throughout the entire draw cycle. In addition, the REVEX also incorporates two new accessories designed specifically to…

The whitetail rut is a crazy time for deer and deer hunters. Bucks run wild and can show up anywhere, anytime. A hunter’s mind runs wild with anticipation and dreams. My focus was not on work, and no matter how hard I tried to block deer out of my mind, it did not work. There was only one thing to do — sneak out of work early, race home, get into my hunting duds, and drive out for an evening deer hunt. It only took three seconds to convince myself, and the door wasn’t even closed behind me when my truck started. Strategy ran through my mind like a manual of plays in the football locker room. Mental checks were made of the wind, recent trail camera photos, and deer…

Serious whitetail hunters who find consistent success in the deer woods do so because they continually learn about the quarry they’re chasing. These deer hunters take lessons learned and apply them to their hunting efforts. Fortunately, wildlife biologists have radio collars, and now GPS devices, to study deer movements and behaviors. “We know so much more today about daily movement patterns,” said Kip Adams, wildlife biologist and chief conservation officer for the National Deer Association (NDA). “We’ve had GPS collars on deer from all corners of the whitetail’s range. We have so many daily locations, and we know a lot about how they move and how much they move each day during any month of the year. That gives us information on season and annual home ranges, as well as…

1. NOT PROVIDING enough calcium and phosphorus. Deer get these minerals naturally, but as they consume native species containing the trace minerals, less of it is available. That’s why it is important that your mineral supplementation plan accounts for 0.6% calcium and 0.3% phosphorus and that it is provided in a ratio of 2:1. 2. LETTING UP on protein supplementation during the fall hunting season. Fall is the time for all of your hard work to pay off. During fall, energy is critical for deer, and digestible protein helps them get ready for winter. 3. NOT HAVING a plan. It doesn’t have to be complicated, but the plan should include a consistent supply of minerals for winter, spring and summer, and a protein plan for fall. This helps reduce gaps…

Editor’s note: This D&DH exclusive was one of the first articles published on antler asymmetry in whitetails. The research was conducted by Stephen Ditchkoff and his colleagues at Oklahoma State University. Ditchkoff would later go on to achieve his doctorate at OSU and become a distinguished professor at Auburn University. Although no two antlers are ever exactly alike, even on the same animal, their similarities from side to side are often striking. When a buck’s antlers are well balanced, we refer to them as having “bilateral symmetry,” or of “typical” form when measured for trophy status. When a buck has one antler that does not closely mirror the other, we say the antlers exhibit “asymmetry.” In such cases, one antler might possess more tines than the other, its branches might be…

Elgie (EL-gee) was an interesting guy to hunt with, to be in deer camp with and to visit with at home. He was 40 years older than me, but that didn’t matter. He was the only deer hunter I knew who wrote poetry. He took things seriously when he had to, of course, but he also liked to liven things up when he could. At a bunco (a dice game played with partners) party one Saturday night at my parents’ house, he asked my mother if she wanted to split a piece of cake with him for dessert. “Sure,” she said, expecting half the piece. She got half alright—the bottom half. Elgie turned his knife flat and sliced the piece horizontally, keeping the half with all the chocolate frosting. “I…

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I’ll never forget watching the thrilling hunt from a TV celebrity that had killed a great buck with the outfitter I consulted for. I was literally blown away by the news that he’d been tracking this buck for several years and had him nailed down to knowing exactly where he bedded. With that, he merely set up a stand between the buck’s food and bed, scoring on his first trip in. According to his words on TV, it was his nailing down the buck’s bedding area that had been key to the grip-and-grin hero shot at the end. The only pesky issues with that story were that the night before the hunt was the first time the TV celebrity had ever been in the tri-county area, I set up the…

It was nearly 23 years ago when my phone rang with the news that two central Wisconsin men literally stumbled upon the find of all finds. They were heading out for some pre-season scouting when they stepped into a familiar alfalfa field and saw two record-class whitetails. Unfortunately, the bow season was 11 days away, and the bucks of their dreams were already dead. The cause of death? A single lightning bolt. The bucks — a 140-class 12-pointer and a 160-class 11-pointer — were found by Lee Larson, a Waupaca County, Wisconsin, dairy farmer who was preparing to make hay four days after a storm. After realizing how big the bucks were, he contacted two of his friends who are avid deer hunters. Matt Sullivan was one of the first…

Quietly, I inched my way along a narrow brush-choked roadway that led to one of our farm’s food plots. When I was close enough to see into the field, I spotted a doe nursing her newborn fawn. I watched through my binoculars as the doe licked and groomed the fawn while the tiny deer frantically waved its tail back and forth as it nursed. As the fawn yanked on the doe’s udder, its mother came to full alert, staring toward the end of the field. Within seconds she bolted from the fawn and stopped near the center of the food plot. She glanced at the fawn, then began snorting loudly. She then ran back and forth in the center of the field, and finally bounded into an overgrown orchard. Any…

PURSUIT CHANNEL WELCOMES ALAN PROBST Pursuit Media, LLC, is pleased to announce a broadcast agreement with Alan Probst that will bring his new series, “North American Trapper’s Set in the Past,” to Pursuit Channel viewers beginning in second quarter, 2023. Alan Probst grew up in the outdoors with a deep family tradition that traces back to his greatgrandfather, who was a hunter, trapper and lure maker. With a deep love and respect for hunting of all kinds, it was trapping he was drawn to the most. The precision and near perfection required to lure an animal into a 1-or 2-inch spot captured his interest above all else. Probst caught the “fever” at just 7 years old after trapping his first muskrat, and it is the same fever that drives his…

Have you ever eaten roadkill? I mean, seriously. I have. In fact, I started eating roadkill long before it was cool. It all began as a semi-starving college student in the mid-1970s, when I was trying to make ends meet while carrying a more-than-full class load, working two part-time jobs, and playing ball for a school, Sacramento State, that at the time did not give athletic scholarships. In what spare time I had you’d find me out hunting or fishing on a shoestring, hoping to add some inexpensive protein to the larder. My then-girlfriend still tells stories of my trying to poison her with squirrels and rabbits, along with some waterfowl and pheasants, rainbow trout and river king salmon. So, one day, as I was speeding down a dusty farm…