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City limits buck has got some MASS!
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Lookit that BEAST! Heavy-horned, palmated main beam, pointy ol’ brow tines — that’ll work! Crazy that Clark Campbell arrowed this trophy inside the Oklahoma City limits [!!] on a 9-acre piece of land. Buckmasters caught up with him:
> He had lots of incentive to go there…namely a mature buck he’d nicknamed “Big Heavy.” He’d even collected a few daytime trail camera photographs of the deer just 500 yards off a noisy major highway.
> “You can hear car horns honking and sirens blaring. You hear trucks running down the highway. But you don’t often get to hear the actual sounds of God’s creations, like birds singing, squirrels scratching or deer making scrapes. Even after 3 years, I haven’t gotten used to it.”
But he could hear okay sometimes:
> 3 hours into his afternoon excursion, Clark watched a 3-year-old 8-pointer…. After it had gone and there was a lull in the nearby highway traffic, he heard something approaching….
> “When the buck appeared, I let it walk straight into a small opening in the brush. It was heading toward more brush and could disappear, so I quickly picked the spot, a trail I had done some manicuring on.
> “I drew a deep breath. My knees went weak, but, fortunately, I had on my harness. When my arrow hit, the buck made the standard jump and kick, and then it looped toward the bedding area.”
The deer dropped dead within 20 yards — glad it didn’t make it to the highway! Hasn’t been scored yet, what do ya think he’ll go?
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How ’bout a big buck by boat!
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Usually it takes something different to get where the big ones are and hunters aren’t. NA Whitetail related this story of TN’s Mike Odom doing exactly that for the muzzleloader opener and it paid off big-time:
> “…not many places you can walk into this property [Center Hill Reservoir]. The boats allow us to get to places where we seldom see other hunters.
> “I found this spot 7 years ago…there’s a highway of trails through there along with rubs and scrapes. I have been hunting it hard for the past 4 years.”
> On Nov 9…Mike pushed his boat off shore in the predawn darkness with plans to sit all day in his favorite spot.
> At 8:55 he saw a buck with a big rack coming toward him. The buck walked with a purpose in his step, but when he presented a good shot, Mike sent the ball on its way and the buck fell in a heap.
> “I was talking so crazy [after calling his wife] she thought I’d gotten hurt or something. When I got up to the buck, I was all to pieces. It was an unreal feeling to put my hands on a buck like that.”
So cool — props Mike!
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Check out this TX brush fight!
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“…Friday or Saturday when the team would leave or go stay at the hotel, I’d go deer-hunting.”
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Not sure where this is from, but maybe there’s a graffiti dude out there somewhere who hunts?
Prolly not but cool art….
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News
1. We lost deer brother Kurt Surber.
Was involved with the Archery Hall of Fame & Museum since it opened at Bass Pro Shops in MO and other archery deer efforts in MO. Tragic accident:
> …the MO State Highway Patrol says 61-year-old Kurt Surber was stuck and killed by his own vehicle while either trying to launch his boat Wed at Stockton Lake or pull it out of the water.
God bless, brother.
2. Will Covid get more people hunting?
> …all of these additional licenses sales could be a blip. Once folks return to work, perhaps we’ll lose all the extra hunters we gained this spring. So what’s most important…is how our ranks endure over time.
> Perhaps prodigal hunters are remembering how much fun hunting is. And perhaps it’ll be the shove toward self-reliance that non-hunters needed to finally learn to hunt.
3. WY keeps May 1 shed season start despite Covid.
> “The Commission decided with the governor’s order possibly expiring on Apr 30, it is premature to do anything with the horn-hunting season at this time. If something were to change, then we can come back and reevaluate our situation.”
4. P&Y sounds alarm on wildlife being managed by ballot.
> “The attempt to adequately manage our wildlife and their habitats, through ballot initiatives is dangerous and irresponsible. Ballot box biology is neither productive nor successful.”
5. TN: Landowners suing DNR for putting trailcams on private land.
> The suit claims that officers from the TN Wildlife Resources Agency are known to enter private land and search for potential hunting violations. They don’t have probable cause to believe a crime is being committed, and they don’t ask permission from either property owners or a court.
6. MS considering new deer regs for 2020-21.
Including reducing harvest because of flooding.
7. NC deer harvest up about 7%.
> Hunters across the state reported harvesting 161,940 deer…51.1% were antlered bucks, 4.5% were button bucks and 44.4% were does.
8. CO big game tag apps up big-time.
> [DNR] received 624,104 applications for its annual big game draw. That’s up from last year’s 609,366.
9. IA deer tag applications open May 2.
DNR gave tips ^ to make sure you’re prepared when it opens.
10. QDMA offering “Deer Steward” online course.
> …Infused with the latest in deer research and management advice, filmed by the award-winning producers of Heartland Bowhunter television.
11. Buck Knives offering up to 50% discount to all front line health workers.
Love to hear this.
12. Vortex Optics giving medical personnel 40% off.
#strong
13. NRA Golden Bullseye award goes to Hornady 300 PRC.
> Tested and selected by the US Dept of Defense for its extended long-range sniping program, the 300 PRC launches heavy-for-caliber, high-performance bullets accurately and efficiently.
14. ElimiShield foam is also a hand sanitizer.
> This odor free, alcohol free, fast-acting foam kills 99.99 percent of germs and odor-causing bacteria, utilizing a proprietary nanotechnology that removes odor-causing bacteria at the cellular level….
15. PA DNR has a new podcast.
Will have some hunting celebs on soon….
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Deer Disease News
> The commission noted that providing food or supplement sources to cervids leads to an unnatural congregation of animals, amplifying both direct and indirect disease transmission.
Crockett, Gibson, and Lauderdale.
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Gear of the Week
Ruger American Predator 350 Legend.
Reviews of guns chambered in the new 350 Legend are starting to come in. The Legend is a straight-walled cartridge, designed for states that don’t allow bottlenecked rounds for deer hunting. AllOutdoor.com says Ruger’s American Predator is a pretty impressive lead-slinger for this bullet:
> When I unboxed this rifle it was everything I expected it to be. I was not foreign to the Ruger American stocks they utilize which are lightweight and streamline in their geometry. The bolt is incredibly smooth for how simple it is….
> I am not a big fan of the button mag release. I would prefer to see a paddle-style magazine release like those on some of the other Ruger American rifles.
> In regards to the muzzle brake, that is a beasty chunk of metal. I can only imagine that will help mitigate recoil tremendously once we hit the range…be deafening if we were not using hearing protection.
> The 2 flavors of ammo we used were Winchester USA Target .350 Legend 145-grain Full-Metal Jacket (FMJ), and some Winchester Super-X .350 Legend 180-grain Power Point. …this rifle exhibited lighter recoil than I anticipated. It was very pleasant to shoot for a cartridge that is .35 caliber and toting up to a 180-grain bullet.
> Most all of the 5-shot groups I achieved (decided on that number since it was my magazine size) ranged from 2-4″ at 100 yards. Nothing spectacular….
> …in my eyes it is still plenty accurate for hunting out to 200 yards and you are launching a projectile with more ft-lbs of energy than .30-30 Win, 300 Blackout and .223 Rem which are all very respectable cartridges in their own right. So whether it is medium-sized game like antelope, whitetail deer or wild pigs, the 350 Legend round is still a “meat-getter” in my mind.
Retails for about $550. Maybe not a bad option for a centerfire in straight-walled states?
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Tip of the Week
Less scope might be better.
Bigger is better, right? Sometimes, but not when it comes to scopes and magnification. American Hunter’s Phil Massaro has some thoughts on what works best on hunting rifles:
> I want the best scope I can afford, and I will happily sacrifice magnification range for quality. In other words, I’d be much happier with a 1x-6x or even a 4x of premium quality than a 2x-10x of lesser quality. Premium scopes hold their zero better, and (generally speaking) have a better quality of lens, with better light transmission and a crisper image.
> I also want the scope to be lightweight — to preserve the balance of the rifle — and to be capable of being mounted as low to the bore as possible. Most of our rifle stocks have a comb which is too low for many of the modern scopes, and that will drastically affect how the shooters’ face will sit on the stock.
> If you do most of your hunting at longer ranges, a scope with a bottom end of 3x or 4x isn’t a ridiculous prospect. Surely for the serious varmint rifle, the top end of 12x to 16x or even 20x can be useful, because you may be required to make a shot on a very small target at very long ranges, but I’ve seen a hunter blow an opportunity many times, simply by having the scope magnification turned up too high.
> I’ve also seen a strange phenomenon with high-magnification scopes…doesn’t happen all the time, but has happened enough to make it undeniable — some shooters shoot better at lower magnifications. Perhaps it is a subtle muscle twitch, trying to compensate for heartbeat in the scope at higher power, or perhaps it is a case of anxiety, but I’ve seen the same rifle and load have the group size cut in half when changing magnification from 15x or so down to 7x.
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Quote of the Week
“He could be smoking a cigarette and the biggest buck in the woods would step out in front of him.”
– David Ranier talkin’ about his friend Robert Lee Rivenbark, who passed away recently. He seemed like quite a character. Beginning of that quote:
> He was absolutely the luckiest deer hunter I have ever known. He could break all the rules and still be successful.
Beautiful tribute from one outdoorsman to another.
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Shot of the Week
Shout out to Hornhub for this different taxidermy job. Kinda cool, but not sure I could find a place for it in my house — and I’m POSITIVE my wife couldn’t lol:
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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!
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