 |
|
Hope y’all and families are healthy during this time, and thanks for reading!
_____
|
|
2 shots, 2 booners, 1 season.
|
|
Bowhunter Gordy Weiss has had a tough road — brain cancer, which has caused declining strength and eyesight. So…as a diehard deer dude, he decided to switch to an x-bow! AND he shot TWO B&C deer last season! NA Whitetail:
> Although several other impressive bucks were known to be roaming the family’s [MN] hunting properties, Gordy would focus on 1…the monster non-typical that was a trail-camera regular.
> Family members had estimated the non-typical would push 200″….
> Amazingly, Gordy was so set on harvesting [a] huge buck that he passed up a 6.5-yr-old 160-class 8-pointer a couple evenings before he encountered his target deer.
> “[He saw] a 4.5-yr-old deer…around 140 inches. Right next to it, I spotted a 2nd buck. I thought to myself, That’s the one!
> “The smaller buck actually got ornery…. Fortunately that younger buck actually pushed the bigger one my way.
> Gordy tried to mouth-grunt the huge deer…when it was about 35 yards out, but the buck continued…. The hunter then looked ahead to his next shooting lane. By the time the buck entered it at a range of about 25 yards, he’d slowed down so much Gordy…simply took the shot.
> “The shot felt good, and the hit sounded solid. I found the bolt when I got down, but there wasn’t much blood on it. …we decided to wait until the next morning to trail the buck.”
> …only gone roughly 150 yards…. The broadhead had taken out both lungs.
Ended up being a 4.5-yr-old deer that scored 233″ with 25 scorable points!! Amazing buck, but Gordy wasn’t done! He took his x-bow to WI and:
> “Dad shot another giant buck that grossed 185 inches. My brother and I knew the buck was hitting a pond at about 3:30 pm. He’d done it 2 days in a row. Dad and I got into the stand at about 2:30 pm, and the buck came walking in at about 4:00. We both thought he was going to pass by at about 25 yards, but he turned and came directly at us.
> “He was about 10 yards away, and he looked right up at us. I whispered to Dad, ‘Shoot!’ …he hadn’t flipped the safety off. The buck took off on a trot, and I reached down and flipped the safety off for Dad.”
> When the great whitetail paused at about 30 yards, Gordy touched off his 2nd arrow…a double-lung shot….
Wowza! That’s 418″ in 1 season!! Props Gordie and bless you deer brother.
|
|
|
|
Lil roundup of TX’s Muy Grande deer winners.
|
|
There’s some of the winners in this year’s Muy Grande Deer Contest. Muy Grande is a combination gas station/convenience store, feed store and “whitetail temple” (lol) in Freer, TX, the heart of south TX deer hunting:
> [The contest] was founded by Leonel “Muy” Garza in 1965 and was once called the “the little filling station deer contest.” Today, in its 53rd year of existence, the contest is world-renowned and is considered the granddaddy of all deer hunting competitions.
> …is the oldest deer contest in the world, it has been honored at the TX State Capitol numerous times….
Yep plenty of high-fence bucks in it, but they also have a low-fence division — which still has a ton of HOSS bucks. South TX!!!!
|
|
|
How ’bout these heavy horns!
|
|
Wow! Lotsa character and lotsa mass in these sheds found by Sydney Boehm. Bet she’s already planned her hunting strategy for the fall. Funny line from her:
> Not sure whether these are chocolate or vanilla. I’m just gonna call them vanilla mocha latte. Basic enough for y’all?
Works for us lol! Looking forward to seeing her with that deer on the ground!
|
|
|
3 tips for hunting public land.
|
|
Public land can get pounded pretty good. But what if you can make all that hunting pressure work for you? Daniel Schmidt at Deer & Deer Hunting has a few smart tips:
> Getting to a spot early in the morning for me is crucial when hunting public land especially. And when I say early, I mean a lot early. An hour and a half before first light.
> …if other hunters are in there, normally they’re gonna show up 15-20 minutes before first light, and chances are they can push those deer to me.
> When dealing with a lot of pressure, you have to be persistent. If the deer are telling you that they’re in that area, if you’re persistent and you stay to that course of action, chances are it’s going to pay off at some point during the season.
> The 3rd thing…I keep it a secret. Not only where you’re hunting, but how you’re getting to and from those spots where you’re hunting.
> I don’t park anywhere near where I’m gonna be hunting. …it’s helped me when I hunt public land because the second you broadcast it, you might as well tell everybody.
|
|
|
|
500 yards on target with a PSE!!
|
|
Sweet trick shot by bow brother John Dudley, owner of Nock On and a Team PSE pro. John custom-built a PSE bow for the Dude Perfect guys who are known for their sick trick shots with pretty much anything.
Before John shipped them the bow, he decided to try to hurl an arrow FIVE HUNNERT YARDS [mind blown emoji] and hit a flatbed trailer that’s maybe 4×8. Didn’t even know you could SHOOT an arrow that far, let alone hit anything on purpose. Bow’s 83-lb draw weight probly helps.
What went down, in John’s words:
> “We were hoping for a calm morning but there’s like 20mph winds. This is really sucking right now.”
On the video you can hear the wind as John lets an arrow fly, aimed waaaay up:
Bet you’ve never done that before lol. The spotter never saw the arrow land, but it didn’t hit the target. 2nd arrow:
> Spotter: “You’re about 3 inches in front of the paper but you’re on the trailer.”
> John: “YES!! The second shot!!”
Even with the wind, his first shot looks less than 10′ away from the second:
Crazy part is how long it takes to get to the target — not walking, riding!
|
|
Deer Disease News
Regs still in place but the stuff seems hard to find:
> …making it unlawful for hunters to use or possess those scents or lures that contain natural deer urine or other (deer) bodily fluids not tested using real-time quaking induced conversion (RT-QuIC) and “certified that no detectable levels of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) are present….” This regulation was in effect for the 2019-2020 deer hunting season….
> “If there was any of that urine that was available for sale in LA that had been properly tested, I didn’t see any signs of it. It wasn’t labeled as such in the stores that I frequent, and there were retail merchants and clerks that thought they had properly tested urine (on the shelves) and told their customers that.”
> These new findings bring the total number of CWD cases in the state to 162. Conservation agents tested more than 137,000 deer since the first cases of CWD were found in free-ranging deer in MO in 2012.
> …13 deer with the degenerative disease were taken in Frederick County, 5 in Shenandoah County, 2 in Clark County and 1 in Fauquier County.
> “…higher than expected, but still well below rates found in southeast WY where the disease has been present for many more years.”
|
Gear of the Week
Weatherby Mark V Backcountry in 6.5 RPM.
Seems like all of the cool cartridges are 6.5 these days, right? Now Weatherby’s pushing its new 6.5 RPM, which stands for “Rebated Precision Magnum.” Gun dude Wayne Van Zwoll talked about the new round and the gun that fires it:
https://gunsmagazine.com/discover/weatherby-mark-v-backcountry-6-5-rpm/
> Adam Weatherby: “We set out to develop a cartridge that would fit in our slim 6-lug Mark V action, but take full advantage of every bit of space. Our engineers came up with a flat-shooting 6.5 that sends a 127-grain bullet at over 3,200 fps and a 140 at over 3,000. The 6.5 RPM enabled us to build magnum reach and power into an agile, lightweight rifle.”
> He’s used the cartridge on hunts already, in a Weatherby Backcountry Ti — a 6-lug Mark V tipping the scale an oz shy of 5 lbs. A careful 425-yard shot with a 140-grain AccuBond dropped a MT black bear during the 2019 spring season. Come fall, Adam used the rifle and 6.5 RPM load to tag a mule deer buck in WY.
> The wand-like feel of the Backcountry I wrung out at the range last week was due as much to its stock as to the trim receiver and slender barrel. Not a Ti model, this rifle weighs 5.4 lbs.
> For all its zap, the rifle is a pussycat in recoil, a credit to the 3D Hex [recoil pad] and to the shape of the comb. The rest of the stock impresses me less. The top of the wrist droops quickly, as if forced in a steep arc by the comb nose riding up over it. The nose is too far forward, fighting the heel of my big hand ahead of my thumb!
> My first 3-shot group fired from sandbags in variable breeze measured 1.4. Subsequent knots matched it closely. While I allowed a minute between shots, the barrel warmed quickly. The third 140-grain AccuBond often edged away from a tight pair. In my last trio, the first 2 holes touched. Surely this rifle will meet Weatherby’s sub-MOA mandate!
> The trigger yielded consistently, breaking like a tiny icicle. Feeding was smooth and certain, bolt travel delightfully slick and wobble-free.
“Breaking like a tiny icicle” — hahaha love that! Be interesting to see what kinda traction this 6.5 can get. Weatherby’s been sorta an outlier when it comes to cartridge development, but you can’t argue with performance.
|
Tip of the Week
Boating for bucks has advantages.
Somethin’ just cool about sliding a canoe (not our favorite safe watercraft) or kayak into pre-dawn water cuz you’re sneaking commando-style to kill a nice buck. Outdoor Life talked to a few boat-to-bucks experts about how they use skinny-water boats to tag out. Here’s Aaron Warbritton of the Hunting Public podcast:
> “You’re usually extremely quiet when approaching a spot via water, and you also leave minimal ground scent, especially if you end up hunting close to the bank. We’ve noticed over the years that bucks tend to bed and live close to water sources.
> “With the wind coming in from the land side, they rarely expect to see any danger coming from the water. We’ve paddled up to rutting bucks right on the bank in the middle of Nov. They just don’t know what you are.”
> Warbritton’s favorite way to float to and from a deer stand is to use 2 vehicles — 1 parked upstream and the other downriver. Launch your boat from the first parking area upstream and let the current carry you to your spot. When the hunt is over, get back in the water and float downstream to the 2nd vehicle.
> …scout the water beforehand for current speed, water level and hazards. …could be snags or dammed-up logs…plus rocks and rapids. Wear a life jacket [IMPORTANT!], and pack along a set of hip waders in case you need to get out of the boat and portage around obstacles.
When ya get y’alls buck:
> “You can get an inner tube, pull it behind you, strap the deer to it, and float him down the river. It gets a bit complicated if you’re dealing with any sort of current, but that’s one way to do it.”
|
|
|
Quote of the Week
“They’ll probably find me out in my deer blind some time when my time comes.”
– 92-yr-old Jack Gorden talkin’ — he’s still after ’em and has taken a deer on the same 400-acre farm for 60 years straight! Rock on Mr. Gorden!
|
Shot of the Week
Doose alert! A PA hunter dropped a Bullwinkle lol! How do you score that super-palmated deer-moose catcher’s-mitt lookin’ deal?? @pabuckmafia shot:
|
|
What’s the DB and who does it??
The DeerBlaster is a weekly roundup of the best, worst and funniest stuff about whitetail deer hunting culled from around the interwebz. We were kinda doing it already, just not the blastin’ it into your inbox part….
It’s put together by some deer nerds — Ted, Jay, Wade, couple more — from around the country. We excerpt content (and credit EVERYONE!), comment on content, do some original content — it’s an internet thing…. We do it because we can’t get enough deer hunting, hopefully you’re wired the same.
The DeerBlaster’s a work in progress, just like we are. Let us know what we can do better and thanks for readin’! Any issues, suggestions, whatever, just hit Reply to this email and we’ll get it. Thank you!
|
Sign up another deer nut!
If you’re forwarding the DeerBlaster to other deer crackheads, tx much! Or you can email us the addys and we’ll take care of it! We’ll never send spam, sell the list or anything else crazy…. And follow us on Facebook and Instagram at @deerblaster.official
|
Advertising info
If you’re interested in learning more about the DeerBlaster and how we do things, just respond to this email and we’ll get in touch — thank you!
|
|
|
|
|
|
