By Bill Heavey

Two months into the season, hunting more days than I care to divulge, I finally have a buck on the ground. He came in about 8:30 a.m. to some doe urine and the small amount of bait Michigan allows hunters to use. When I saw him he was already staring at the little pop-up blind I was sitting in. But I froze, tried to ignore my pounding heart, waited him out, and fi nally got my rifle up when he passed behind a big hemlock. He stopped quartering away at 50 yards, and I double-lunged him. He was big and buff, with brow tines that carried a film of sticky alder bark and sap.

Yes, it was over bait. Yes, the blind had been placed there for some time. Yes, as the guest of some guys with a big lease in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, all I had to do was sit there and pull the trigger.

And yet, I cannot deny that  it feels awfully good finally to have my tag on a buck.

Don't be deceived by Colby Lysne's photo.... [ Read Full Post ]

By Scott Bestul

Neither Rain, Nor Sleet . . . Nor Deer Season
Opening day of deer season didn’t shut down [Michigan’s] state government, but caused some mail to state agencies to be late today.

That’s because someone at the main Lansing U.S. post office set aside several hundred pieces of mail with a note saying the state was closed for the deer holiday, and the bundle couldn’t be delivered.
There is [of course] no state holiday for deer season . . . .

Buck Can’t Bear Pittsburgh Zoo
A buck put up a gallant fight against polar bears Friday at Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium.
It wasn't enough, however.

The young deer, weighing about 100 to 125 pounds, jumped into the polar bear exhibit's pool, where bears Koda Rogers and Nuka McFeely, weighing about 650 pounds each, were playing. . . .

"It really wasn't the brightest deer," [zoo President Barbara] Baker said.

Other News:
Missouri Man Bags 9-Point Doe
Buck Gets Too Friendly With Springer Spaniel [ Read Full Post ]

By Scott Bestul

It’s mid-November, the rut is on, and great photos keep finding their way to my computer. I can’t imagine the pictures we’ll get to see in the weeks to come, since the firearms season has yet to open in many top whitetail states. Stay tuned!

Every year I think the number of great bucks being shot will level off, but each fall it seems more record-class whitetails are tagged than the year before. So here’s a poser for you Buck Tracker folk: What’s causing this amazing run? Are more folks practicing the QDM principle of letting small bucks walk? Have habitat and nutrition improved markedly over the past? Are hunters simply shooting more deer now, thus elevating the statistical probability of B&C and P&Y candidates? Or has it always been this way, but modern technology (email, blogs, magazines, etc.) just has helped us find out about bucks that would have previously gone unnoticed? I’m interested to hear your thoughts!

Today’s great buck comes to us from Tim Walmsley, a whitetail expert who enjoys hunting with his wife on their property in west-central Illinois. The buck below is a trophy that Tim had seen on two other occasions before the deer offered him... [ Read Full Post ]

By Scott Bestul

Hunter Uses Knife To Cut Buck Attack Short
Greg Vincent thought he was kidding when he told his 13-year-old son and a nephew that he could use his hunting knife to handle a snorting buck that was about to charge them.
It turned out to be no joke.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gxk4-YBtzluyQ_47arPRyBJXxX6gD8SOEQJ01

Colorado Hunter Gored By Wounded Buck
http://cbs4denver.com/topstories/local_story_309140922.html

Should Michigan Legislators Get Deer Season Off?
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071107/NEWS06/711070309/1001

Venison-For-Tobacco Plot Goes Up in Smoke
http://www.seacoastonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071107/NEWS/711070387

Deer Crashes Funeral Home—And Dies
http://www.thetandd.com/articles/2007/11/07/news/12812909.txt [ Read Full Post ]

By Scott Bestul

Before I left for an Iowa bowhunt last week, my friend and host Sam called to tell me how perfectly I’d timed my visit. “Things are just popping now,” he said. “When bucks are behaving like this, you could tag a big one in three or four days.” Unfortunately, Sam doesn’t realize the dramatic cool-down effect I can have on a hot rut, and of course I remained true to form. Saw a giant deer chasing a doe the first afternoon, and then…nothing but small bucks for the better part of 5 days.

Despite my black-cloud persona, I remain totally jazzed about this deer season. I’m in the process of tracking down several good deer stories, which I hope to post in a day or two. In the meantime, here’s some eye candy: This live-buck photo was sent to me by a deer expert whose identity will remain a secret, largely because this amazing whitetail is still walking. And, my expert (a B&C scorer who’s measured thousands of whitetail racks) feels that, if this buck is shot this fall, it would likely break the world record for a hunter-harvested, non-typical whitetail.

The natural assumption is that this is a pen-raised deer, but... [ Read Full Post ]

By Bill Heavey

On Wednesday, the deer that will make or break my year were formally introduced. Both he and the doe he was dogging appeared under my stand without so much as a crunched leaf, the kind of physical impossibility at which whitetails excel. They came, of course, from behind me and downwind. So either I was well and truly scent-proofed or they were just too focused on each other to care.

He was probably a big eight. I knew he was just outside the ears and heavy, but it was over too fast to count points. I remember the instant of contact and my brain registering "Shooter." I remember his body, which either was or seemed huge. Above all else, I remember the way he moved. Like a linebacker. Big yet compressed. A swollen neck and an abundance of muscle not meant for show. Every ounce of his form focused and available to his will. Facts of which he was fully aware. He was, in short, the Man.

I tried to swing on him and found, as in a bad dream, that I couldn't. It was my harness tether. I'd had to guess which side of the tree when turning to... [ Read Full Post ]