Deer & Deer Hunting is written and edited for serious, year-round hunting enthusiasts, focusing on hunting techniques, deer biology and behavior, deer management, habitat requirements, the natural history of deer and hunting ethics
Our deer hunting community has evolved greatly over the past decade. More hunters have taken up bowhunting and, lately, crossbow hunting is here to stay throughout the country. Between technology and a keener understanding of wildlife management, we’re a nation of citizen scientists. We manage the habitat and harvest the sustainable yield of whitetail protein with the utmost precision. One constant that will never change, however, is the call of gun season. It’s something ingrained in our collective psyche. It very well could be its own season ... like summer or autumn. Gun season. The mere utterance of those two words conjures emotions and stimuli that simply must be experienced to understand. For Northern hunters, the transformation begins in late October as November’s chill and winds replace the pleasant pumpkin-patch…
My son just received his first issue of Deer & Deer Hunting. I found it sitting on the corner of the kitchen counter where I often find his hunting magazines. See, in our house, I will not allow him to read these until I have paged through them and have removed “inappropriate” ads. I was extremely and pleasantly surprised that your magazine had nothing I needed to remove. I just wanted to take a moment and thank you for your integrity regarding the type of advertisements you place in your magazine. God bless. — Amy, via email I truly enjoy your magazine and the information series Grow ’em Big on www.DeerAndDeerHunting.com. I tried to find Steve Bartylla’s contact information to ask this question, but failed to secure it. My question…
Deer & Deer Hunting-TV delivers some top-notch shows as deer season hits full stride in the South and is winding down up North. Upcoming shows include Keeping the Ladies Happy, What Drives Mr. Big, Under Pressure, Pattern Without Getting Patterned and even a special episode about hunting mule deer. Join DDH-TV hosts Dan Schmidt, Gordy Krahn, Steve Barytlla and Mark Kayser for the show’s 11th season each Monday night at 8:30 ET on NBC Sports Outdoors. Kudos for Destination Whitetail Destination Whitetail , with host Brittney Leigh Glaze, was among the shows highlighted in a multichannel.com story, “Outdoors TV is a Woman’s World,” about the increasing participation of women in hunting and the outdoors, and how networks including Outdoor Channel, Sportsman Channel and Pursuit are tapping into…
The importance of deer habitat and its role in providing healthy and thriving deer populations is well recognized. But habitat is a complex concept and not easily managed or manipulated. There are even challenges in the monitoring of habitat and how it can change over time and space. Agriculture, fire, logging and a variety of other factors can improve deer habitat at both the local and at a landscape scale, but these same activities can also be detrimental. Interestingly, insect infestations can also have a profound impact on the quality of deer habitat. Sometimes the effects and benefits to deer from insects are short-lived, but there are instances where the impacts can be felt for years. The insects that have the greatest impact on deer habitat tend to be defoliators…
Owning and managing land to provide habitat for deer and other wildlife, as well as improved hunting opportunities, is often a labor of love, but even so, it can still take a lot of time, effort and money. For those who have woodlands, insects and the damage they can inflict can be a major headache. Fortunately, help is often readily available. Many government and other agencies provide extension services — often at little or no cost — to help ensure landowners apply appropriate strategies and tactics to achieve the objectives desired for the forest. Simple things such as scheduling tree logging activities so they don’t conflict with ongoing or imminent insect plagues, such as gypsy moth, can often easily be done based largely on models and field data that is…
It was early August, but I was already pumped for late season. I love shooting does. Don’t get me wrong. I find buck hunting extremely rewarding. It drives me to invest ridiculous amounts of time and effort, all just for the chance to kill mature bucks. The satisfaction of scoring on a heavily hunted public ground buck or both helping to grow and then kill a monster on the grounds I’m contracted to manage are both experiences that give me the ultimate in hunting satisfaction. However, culling does with stick and string is just plain fun. Frankly, it’s almost a cathartic break from the constantly on edge approach one must take to be most successful when buck hunting. At the same time, there’s an excitement factor that’s missing from the…
