By Scott Bestul

Well, the Norwegian Mafia has left the building, meaning the 5-day
season allotted to them by the Minnesota DNR to kill a gobbler is now
over. I did not manage to put a male turkey within range of my father’s
870, but we had a wonderful hunt together (ignoring the rainy/windy
portion that marked the final two days). Below you will find a photo of
my Uncle Al and his bird, a fine 24-pound slob that played the game
nicely. As I focused the camera I asked Al to smile, to which he
replied “I am smiling.” I have learned better than to press Norwegian
hit men to manufacture emotion. He is Al Bestul, not Pacino, and I
couldn’t love him any more if he could produce a 200-watt grin on
command…

Anyway, off of turkeys and back to deer. I appreciated all the comments
sent in from the “I want to be a producer” post -- especially those of
you new to hunting that expressed a desire to learn fundamental
knowledge. I would love to address some of these issues, and I plan to
talk to our web-gurus about producing some sort of survey of your
hunting experience and what areas you would like to learn about. In the
meantime, please keep in mind that Field & Stream magazine does publish quite a bit
of fundamental deer info, especially in a special section marked
“Whitetail Handbook.” Handbooks are found in the back 2/3 of the
magazine and contain a lot of short, focused instructional stories that
can benefit deer hunters of all skill levels. Please check out these
articles, which will begin appearing in the August issue.

In the meantime, I’d like you to answer a question that was brought to
my attention by a friend in the outdoor industry. He owns a company
that produces a deer hunting product and my buddy noted in a recent
conversation that “85 % of our customers say that they never leave
their home state to deer hunt.” The comment struck me immediately and,
of course, made me think of BuckTracker readers. Do you fit the market
profile of the stay-at-home deer hunter? Or do you travel across state
lines? If so, how often? I’d love to catch a snapshot of our audience
here…and I won’t even ask you to smile!

By Scott Bestul

Wisconsin Approves 35 Earn-A-Buck Zones for 2008
www.startribune.com

South Carolina Bill Would Toughen Rules On Deer Contraception
www.beaufortgazette.com

Accused “Serial” Deer Poacher Is A Vegetarian
www.shortnews.com

Minnesota Deer Crashes The Chapel
www.duluthnewstribune.com

By Scott Bestul

Well, I missed my normal Tuesday morning blog post because I’ve been kidnapped by the mafia. As in the Norwegian mafia. This is the nickname I’ve bestowed on my father and uncle, both kind and gentle souls for much of the year, but certified hit men for about two weeks of the spring turkey season. The three of us have a simple agreement: I get them on good turkey ground and yelp at resident gobblers; they kill any bearded infidels that appear. They’re much more effective at their jobs than I am at mine, but I am family so they give me a pass.

Anyway, Uncle Al wrote the first death certificate Monday morning, but I will wait to post his harvest photo until dad finishes his contract, then I will post them together. In the meantime, I am doing my best to keep up with these 70-something ridge runners in their quest to race down any gobble heard in the hill country of southeastern Minnesota. Most outdoorsmen reserve their retirement for idle pastimes like bass fishing or sitting in tower blinds. The Mafioso has devoted itself to physical conditioning of a caliber that would make Jack LaLane weep. I’d wisecrack about them making run-n-gun turkey hunting a sort of geriatric Olympic event, but I’m afraid they’d knee-cap me.

But I digress. This is a deer hunting blog, and I need to write about deer. So here is a photo of what a scoring buddy calls a “Medusa” buck. Freaky non-typicals like these are not even taken for entry in Boone & Crockett, because they never shed their velvet and apparently keep growing antlers year-round. And, it should be noted, they are usually missing at least one testicle. Given my current state of sleep and oxygen deprivation, I’m not even going to comment on that physical affliction. There has to be a joke in there somewhere, but it’s not in me right now. I gotta get rested up for tomorrow…

By Scott Bestul

From Oregon’s KATU News:

MILWAUKIE, Ore. - A couple of Milwaukie High School students made a bizarre discovery on the way to school Tuesday morning.

At first, they thought it was a little deer or maybe a small kangaroo but after making some calls, they found out it is actually a Patagonian Cavy, the world's fourth largest rodent.

Check out the great photos.