Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2022 i Deer & Deer Hunting

If you’ve read or watched any “news” reports on hunting over the past 20+ years, you have been conditioned to believe that hunting in America is on the decline. Here’s a newsflash based in facts: Hunting is not on the decline. In fact, it is more robust today, especially for state coffers, than it has ever been. According to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, more than 15.2 million people bought a hunting license of some sort this past hunting season. That compares to 14.96 million hunters in 2004. That is correct — those are the actual hunters, per the USFW. In 2021, there were 38.59 million hunting licenses, tags, permits and stamps in the U.S. — more than twice the number of total hunters (all species, big and small…

As a predator — humans are predators, make no mistake about it — our eyes are set in front of our skulls to allow for binocular, or stereoscopic vision, which allos us to see and judge depth of field. Thus, the eyes are our number one source of information when hunting. A close second, however, is our hearing. The sound of a distant turkey gobbling or elk bugling helps us locate game. So does the telltale crunch of a deer walking on leaves, the clack of antlers during a fight or against a tree, the distinctive grunt of a buck trailing a doe. Those who can hear and identify those sounds, and hundreds of others, are at a distinct advantage in the woods. I couldn’t hear any of them for…

Researchers routinely capture and mark newborn fawns for study. Well-meaning individuals also sometimes handle newborn fawns, thinking they’re abandoned. Both cases involve certain questions and risks. For example, will such meddling contribute to abandonment and increased fawn mortality? Do marking devices (radio collars and ear tags) and frequent human observation of the marked young attract predators and lead to increased mortality? Research-induced fawn mortality has been well documented. In fact, similar studies have also been done on beavers, waterfowl, sea otters, black bears, polar bears, small mammals and upland game birds. How significant is marking-induced mortality among newborn white tailed fawns? And, most importantly, do such studies yield false, inflated newborn fawn mortality rates from natural causes? A REVIEW OF THE RESEARCH Fawn-mortality concerns led researcher Kent Livezey to review…

Fire is good. It’s helped mankind achieve many things it otherwise wouldn’t without it. In some ways, that’s also true for wildlife management. Once regarded as completely unsafe for land management implementation, prescribed fire has been led by a headwind the past few decades. Once again, it’s being used to manage wildlife habitat. But ironically, it isn’t a new thing, as the Native Americans used it in this manner, too. Controlled burns aren’t for everyone, though. Some should use them, and others shouldn’t. Furthermore, frequency is a very big topic to consider, too. We’ll cover that and then some below. PRESCRIBED FIRE: WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? Those who don’t quite understand prescribed fire should understand that this is used for numerous reasons. First, it’s primary purpose is to reset…

America was really coming of age by the time the calendar flipped to November in 1958. As a test, Bank of America mailed 60,000 California residents a small plastic “credit” card with a $500 limit. The experiment was successful. “An Evening with Fred Astaire,” the first TV show recorded on color videotape, was broadcast on NBC. President Dwight D Eisenhower uttered his famous quote: “What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight – it’s the size of the fight in the dog.” And American sportsmen were eagerly buying new guns, ammo, and clothing in anticipation of relatively new activity — a deer-specific hunting season. Not just “big game,” but deer — namely white-tailed deer. It sounds far-fetched to imagine modern deer hunting is only 65-ish…

When it comes to wild animals there is friendly debate as to which animal ranks as North America’s most athletic. Some argue that squirrels, big cats or mountain sheep are the best all-around when it comes to athleticism. Others say antelope, bears, or birds of prey top the list. There is no question that some animals can run faster, jump farther and see better than white-tailed deer. No matter how hard you try, you’ll be hard pressed to find one that can offer the whole physical package like the white-tailed deer. Few animals can live with man and beast and still survive. The whitetail can. In short, it can outmaneuver, outjump, outrun and out survive anything walking the continent – including man. ULTIMATE SURVIVAL MACHINE In nature there are no…

I never gave archery targets much thought until I began shooting broadheads almost exclusively. When you shoot as much as I do, you quickly realize that you need a top-notch target that can take a lot of hits with a replaceable-blade broadhead. Yet, you would prefer to not require the strength of Hercules to remove your arrows. Like most archers, I do my initial paper tuning with field points. And if it is months before hunting season, I will practice with the field tips using a standard bag-type target. However, when hunting seasons are a couple months away, I tune the bow again using the same broadheads I will be hunting with. After I get it perfect, I reset the sight pins and start shooting broadheads exclusively. Thirty years ago,…

Not everyone controls their own hunting grounds, but even many in that group can effectively create and realize the benefits of sanctuaries. I do it on public grounds most every year. Hopefully, what follows will take any mystery out of sanctuaries and reveal how they can used to our advantage. SANCTUARY DEFINITIONS To me, sanctuaries are NOT places I never enter. I merely time the trips and limit them to what’s needed to accomplish my goals. Sanctuaries are mostly made up of deer cover, though they certainly can contain farm fields, food plots and, hopefully, a bunch of natural browse and mast. As one told me years ago, you can divide you hunting property into two types: areas you hunt and areas deer live. The more land one hunts the…

It’s 4a.m. at Deer Camp Way back in 1991, Deer & Deer Hunting co-founder Jack Brauer commissioned artist Frederick A. Schmidt to paint a series of hunting-camp scenes. The first print, “4 A.M.” depicted the original Stump Sitters hunting camp. Among the painting’s details: • A grizzled camp cook, prepping the morning’s fire … while wearing a belt over his long johns, complete with a scabbard and hunting knife. • Wool socks and heart-emblazoned briefs hanging above the coffee pot. • An 8-point buck mount with cobwebs and flies buzzing around it. • A Deer & Deer Hunting Whitetail Calendar® featuring a big buck on the November date pad. • The Stump Sitters Hunting Camp sign above the door. This is a scaled-down version of the real sign that hung…

It was circa 2006 when I first began to understand the significance of Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) grasses that hold up to the harsh winters of the upper Midwest and provide critical cover to whitetails. I consider my Dad a thinker on many of the whitetail projects we’ve taken on at our family farm in Wisconsin, but none more so than the decision to enroll a large portion of our tillable ground into the CRP program. Thanks to my Dad, we’ve accomplished checklist items on our property well before they make it on YouTube as a new “whitetail strategy.” My Father isn’t the most hardcore hunter, but our whitetails, stream water quality, and soils are better off because of his forward thinking. I consider our property a juggernaut in our…

Winchester introduced the Model 70 bolt-action rifle to the American market in 1936 (when my dad was 1 year old). The Model 70 was based on the Model 54, and is today still highly regarded by shooters and is often called “The Rifleman’s Rifle.” In 1999, Shooting Times Magazine named the Model 70 the “Bolt-action Rifle of the Century.” The pre-1964 Model 70s were manufactured from 1936 through 1963, after which time significant changes in the design and manufacture of the rifles were made. Pre-1964 Model 70s bring a substantial price premium due to a public perception that they were better, as they had several desirable features (Mauser-type controlled round feed, cut checkering) that the post-1964 version did not. The best way to identify a pre-1964 Model 70 Winchester rifles…

ARE OLD CARTRIDGES SAFE? Generally, yes. If factory centerfire cartridges are stored in a dry, cool place with low humidity, preferably in an airtight container, they can have an amazingly long shelf life. Many ballistics experts report shooting 20-to 50-year-old ammo with no problems. Notice I said factory ammunition, which is manufactured using premium components and exacting specifications that extend the shelf life of cartridges. I do not advise shooting old reloads. If you can’t find new ammo and need to hunt with random rounds you have accumulated over time, chances are those cartridges are a few years to maybe 5 or 10 years old. If they have been properly stored, you should have no issues. AMMO CHECK Before shooting any old ammunition, take each cartridge out of the box…

THE WALK-OFF HUNT ENOUGH, AND YOU start to see some patterns develop, especially in the case of anxious gobblers. Chances are that you’ve had a tom that wouldn’t commit to your location, but gobbled immensely, eventually settled in a spot, gobbled his brains out, then walked off while gobbling over his shoulder. I’m guessing you know the type. He goes to where he thinks you two should meet up, announces his undying love, and hits the road barking the whole way. I’ve killed dozens of these birds in the past decade by employing a pretty specific trick when they first start to “walk-off.” If you know the area you hunt well, you’re at a distinct advantage, as the exact area these birds gobble-out becomes a kill zone of epic proportions. Your…

It has always taken words typed on a page to crystalize thoughts trying to get out of my heart and flow from my soul. When it comes to deer hunting, that premise rings as true as the noon whistle in town down the valley on a brisk November day. Maybe it’s time to climb down and warm up on a walk back to the farmhouse, get a little lunch, perhaps even take a little nap before an afternoon sit. There was a time when such a break from the hunt would not even cross my mind, let alone be acted upon. I gotta stay here, fight off these shakes and chills from sitting here since before dawn, wolf down a cold sandwich, pee in a bottle, fight to stay awake:…

Seed bag tags can throw you for a loop if you fail to pay attention to what they’re telling you, because they tell you everything that’s important about your bag of seed. When you look at a seed label, you’ll see numbers, many numbers. All those numbers are significant; the Federal Seed Act and all state seed laws require a seed label. In fact, the U.S. has some of the most stringent seed laws in the world. The seed label reflects those laws. Many people don’t even pay attention to bag tags. That is mistake. With food plots and other conservation practices, you need to know WHAT to plant, but maybe more important, HOW MUCH to plant. And you want to be sure the bag or bags don’t have seeds…

I could wax poetic and say all of the deer hunting clichés. Like how it was just good to be out there. Or how it sure beat working in the office on that particular day. Or the one I loathe the most: “That’s why they call it hunting.” Let’s put all of those on the table right now in a straight flush. It still won’t take away the sting of the deer that could’ve been. This hunt that now haunts happened a few years ago. I was in camp in my friends Jon Severson and Todd Seyfert of Feradyne Outdoors. They had graciously invited me to hunt some free-range (don’t know why I have to preface that, but there you go) axis deer in Texas. I’m nestled in a homemade…

SCOUT FROM HOME IT HAS NEVER BEEN easier or more productive to accomplish a good portion of your scouting from the comfort of the living room. Using smartphone apps like HuntStand and HuntStand Pro, OnX Hunt, BaseMap, Google Earth and others, as well as topographic maps, you can learn a lot about a property before ever setting foot there. With HuntStand Pro, you can access satellite images that have been updated monthly, giving you a real-time vision of the area, as well as the ability to go back in time, month by month, for several years, so that changes and trends can be seen. It’s the only app in the world currently offering this feature. You can also use many state game departments’ websites to learn all you can about…

MAXIMIZING LONG-RANGE EFFICIENCY WITH your shotgun and ammunition requires trial and error at the range. Ammunition and choke tubes are expensive, so combining efforts with fellow hunters is a good way to spend time learning about which setup works best for you. Three or four hunters chipping in, bringing chokes and ammo and spending a few hours patterning loads is paramount to discovering what works best so you’ll be comfortable in the woods. “At 40 or 50 steps, or any range for that matter, I want to get 10 hits in the kill zone of a life-size turkey head target with an even pattern that surrounds it,” said Brandon Wallace, a 33-year-old Alabama hunter and founder of Wallace Custom Calls. He’s chased turkeys for two decades. “It only takes one…