From The Journal Times:

John J. Longo ate the deer he took from the side of the road in February 2008.

He asked a friend — a Caledonia police officer and taxidermist — to mount its head. [ Read Full Post ]

Mike Leggett of the Austin American-Statesman sat down with 81-year-old veteran gun writer and whitetail deer authority John Wootters to talk guns, deer, and the future of hunting. As always, Wootters had something interesting to say. Here are a few excerpts:

On deer: "I love deer," he said. "I never loved their scores. I'm not a record-book hunter. I'm not sure I even approve of record books. I think they've resulted in a lot of abuse of the resource” [ Read Full Post ]

In 2006 12.5 million people who were at least 16 years old said they enjoyed hunting in America. They hunted a combined 220 million days that year and took 185 million trips, spending a whopping $22.9 billion.

For our amigos down south, it’s a completely different story. It’s tough to get a gun, let alone hunt. Only 7,000 to 8,000 weapons are sold legally in Mexico each year and that includes sales to private security firms. [ Read Full Post ]

If you’re like me, you probably get pretty tired of lugging sets of real or synthetic antlers into the woods so you can hopefully rattle in a buck. Rattling antlers not only take up too much space in your hunting pack, but they also tend to clack and clank together as you walk, alerting any self-respecting buck in the area that something isn’t right.

So, I got one of these Pack Racks in the mail from Knight & Hale the other day. At first glance, I was thinking, Yeah right, this will work. But you know what? It does. I haven’t tried it in deer season yet, but this thing sounds incredibly realistic. All it is, is two pieces of plastic, different consistencies, tethered together with a piece of rope. It carries as one unit, so it’s silent (and compact) in your pack. And when you want to use it, simply pull the two pieces apart, flip them around, and start turning them in different directions. You can change the tone with more or less pressure, and it really does sound like two bucks fighting. $24.95. www/knightandhale.com - Jay Cassell
[ Read Full Post ]

From the Auburn Journal:

Loomis [Calif.] resident Georgia Kern encountered Placer County’s surging deer population head on — with the front of her Subaru.

“The deer just shot out from the right-hand side of road,” Kern recalled of the night a couple of months ago, when she was driving past Sierra College in Rocklin. “If it was a full-grown buck I could have been seriously injured or it could have gone through the windshield.” [ Read Full Post ]

From the Redding Record-Searchlight:

A rural stretch of Highway 3 in Siskiyou County [in northern California] is about to go high-tech in an effort to keep deer, mountain lions, bears and elk out of the path of oncoming traffic.

This summer, highway crews will begin work installing a series of cameras, radar sensors and signs over a one-mile stretch of the highway near Fort Jones. [ Read Full Post ]

In the past few months I’ve shot a number of very different and exceedingly good guns that I don’t have space to write about in the magazine. This, therefore, is the first in a series.

Cooper Firearms of Montana is probably best known for its  gorgeous .22 rimfire bolt-actions, but the firm also makes varmint rifles and big game rifles, of which the Model 52 is the largest, and is chambered for most popular cartridges of .30/06 size. The Custom Classic (above) is the high-end version of the Model 52, and is a rifle filled with surprises, starting with size and weight. [ Read Full Post ]

Last month I posted a pic of a fawn I’d found while enjoying a turkey hunting northern Wisconsin’s “big woods” region. In that post I mentioned the gauntlet of predators that young whitetail would have to run in order to survive to adulthood. Bears, bobcats, coyotes, even fishers are known to kill fawns. [ Read Full Post ]

From a New Jersey Division of Fish & Wildlife press release:

On Tuesday, June 16, the New Jersey Fish and Game Council voted on adopting proposed amendments to the 2009 – 2012 Game Code.  . . .

The most significant amendment adopted expands the definition of "bow" by removing the prohibition on all draw locking and draw holding devices and by including crossbows in the definition. This allows the use of crossbows in any bow and arrow hunting season and other hunting seasons for all species where the use of bow and arrow is allowed. . . .

[ Read Full Post ]

From GoErie.com:

A brother and sister were sentenced to life in prison Tuesday for the slaying of the sister's estranged husband at the victim's home near the Allegheny National Forest on Dec. 5. . . .
State police said [Cory] Altman and Susan Yeager conspired to kill Shawn Yeager and make it look like a hunting accident. . . . [ Read Full Post ]

What’s your idea of a fun gun?

The question came up last week when I gathered five testers for the annual Best of the Best shotgun test. One of the entries was Rossi’s new Tuffy, their version of the .410 Snake Charmer single shot. It weighs three pounds, has an 18.5 inch barrel and a very short thumbhole stock that holds extra shells. It has practical applications as a backpacking, truck or boat gun, I guess, but my bet is, most people buy them because they’re cute, inexpensive, and they look like fun. During the test, we tried a round of skeet with the Tuffy. [ Read Full Post ]

In my mind, trail cameras are popular because they mirror hunting itself. Sure you stick out a camera hoping to get a “shot” at a big buck, but if that’s the only thing that trips your trigger, you’re not paying attention. Last winter I had multiple pics of a cottontail rabbit that visited a mock scrape on a nightly basis, and my favorite photo of the summer was of a button buck I nicknamed “White Sox.” Sporting four perfect little white bands above his hooves, and a chalk-white circle around each eye, he was quite possibly the prettiest whitetail deer I have ever seen.

[ Read Full Post ]