Getting Venison From Meat Pole To Table
Too often successful deer hunters never consider caring for a deer carcass till that triumphant moment they stand over it. Frequently, planning a deer hunt centers entirely on the hunt’s mechanics with little planning or thought given to processing a successful conclusion.
A deer becomes venison the moment a hunter’s bullet or arrow downs it. At […]
A Youth’s Rite Of Passage - The First Deer
First deer! Such an event is as much a “rite-of-passage” for a young man today as it was a life changing event for untold generations of young native Americans whose life histories stretch back in time to the last ice-age’s prehistoric migrations to North America - courtesy of a landlocked Bering Strait.
FIRST DEER:
He crouched below […]
Deer Stands, Drives And Still Hunting
When sixteen and knowing little or nothing about deer hunting (nor deer habits for that matter), I first stalked whitetails in 1955 along Carroll County Missouri’s Grand River shoreline. The only weapon I could finance then was a straight-limb bamboo bow armed with hickory shafts purchased through Montgomery Ward’s catalogue.
With that same bow five years […]
Private: Record Book “Shedding” Light On Phantom Whitetails
Some record shed-finds are the only physical evidence of the animals they came from. The animals themselves were never reported seen by human eyes. Even when they were found by farmers who, for all their lives, had lived on and worked the ground that grew them.
In Minnesota, a farmer photographed a non-typical whitetail buck at […]
The Whitetail Rut Is A Complicated Event
Jerry Martin, Director of Bass Pro’s Professional Hunting Team, with a 140+ class Pope & Young trophy whitetail. Martin took the record book deer in south Missouri.
Earth’s four seasons occur, in part, because it wobbles slightly on its axis. That influence on seasonal weather affected human cultures ranging from Stonehenge, to the Olmec and Maya […]
Phantom Bucks: Ghosts of the Whitetail Rut
At least ten of the top twenty Boone and Crockett “book heads” were “found.” They were not taken by hunters. The number one non-typical B&C whitetail found dying near a chain link fence in a crowded St. Louis suburb years ago is a good example. No one ever stepped forward to claim seeing it before […]
[more...]A Deer Hunting Master’s Fall From Grace
“Battling Bucks” is one of few deer hunting books printed out of hundreds (thousands?) since Jack O’Connor’s time that is uniquely authentic. At the same time it has been thoroughly discredited since its publication due to the author’s conviction for his alleged fragile ethics.
The book defines whitetail behavior in language that almost automatically puts venison […]
Trash The Book Firearms Deer Season II
It is now the second weekend of the annual firearms deer season. They are the object of a massive invasion. All their instincts are now geared to survival - the same trait that escorted them virtually unchanged from the last ice age till today. To hunt them successfully now, a hunter must crack their security […]
[more...]Trash The Book Firearms Deer Season I
When millions of deer hunters take to the woods on fire arms openers nationwide they severely alter daily wildlife routines. Most of what is written about normal daily deer behavior becomes virtually immaterial when the various state’s openers occur.
For me, hunter success on opening day usually depends on squatting over a travel route. When the […]