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Iowa buck growage?? Rare NH beast! Pawnshop bow trophy!

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Most of us have experienced “ground shrinkage” on a deer, but hardly ever do they actually look bigger! That happened to Cody Kelley, who shot that heavy horned, symmetrical buck with a muzzleloader on a trip to IA.

Earlier in the day he glassed the buck and judged him to be a 150-class 8-point. A respectable deer, but when they finally were able to put their hands on him, whoa. Realtree with the deets:

> “With his mass and tine length…I had never experienced misjudging a deer that bad. He had so many points that it looked like his beams were short.

> “But [when] I shot him and walked out there, everything was bigger. The beams were longer. It was one of those rare occasions that he had ground growage.”

Ended up scoring 164″ and was a 5.5-yr-old deer – congrats Cody!

Guess this is a reminder we don’t really NEED the latest, greatest, most expensive stuff to take a dream buck – but it does make it more fun tho 😁. Check out this story Buckmasters had about Jim Hohensee and his pawn shop bow:

> “None of them convinced me to try [archery] hunting until my nephew Josh made it his mission. He was one of the worst ones. Just kept telling me I needed to hunt during the rut and experience deer up close.

> “I told him I’d try hunting with a bow, if he’d find me a bow. And I told him I didn’t want to spend a lot of money.” That same day he got a call from his nephew, who had purchased a compound bow at a pawnshop for $65. “I did buy 6 arrows,” Jim said, “and a release, and an archery target.”

> He was soon comfortable shooting at 20 yards, and as he practiced found himself wanting to shoot the bow more and more.

> On Nov 4 that year, Jim climbed into a treestand with a bow for the first time…. He chose a favorite bottleneck beside a river. “About a half-hour after daylight, I saw deer and grunted, and an 8-pointer came right to me. I got drawn and stopped the deer with a grunt, but I missed. Shot right under him.

> “I had just barely sat back down when I saw antlers coming through the brush. I remembered from shows on TV…they always say not to look at the antlers, so I made myself not look, and that wasn’t easy.

> “I knew I made a good shot. It just made a little circle, and then it crashed within sight. Oh, my nerves. I sat down. I really thought I was going to pass out. I sat there for a long time.”

> “I never claimed to be a good shot. It never hurts to have the good Lord looking after you and getting lucky.”

Some folks are like: 👇

Very cool idea. If you’ve got an old Buck, you know it’s a treasure and still does its job. Well, if you’re afraid of losing it or wanna pass down your own knife, here’s a chance to do that – some of Buck’s most iconic and popular blades got updated/upgraded with premium, great-looking materials:

> 124 Frontiersman – With roots dating back to the 1960s, this highly-revered Buck classic is crafted with Crelicam genuine ebony handles. The rich woodgrains found in natural ebony make each handle unique – no 2 are alike. The famous straight-back bowie blade is 420HC steel, while the guard and pommel are aluminum.

> 401 Kalinga – This 401 features a satin finish S35VN blade with a brown burlap Micarta handle and a classic brass guard. Includes a brown distressed leather USA-made sheath.

> 898 Impact – The blade is premium S35VN steel, instantly opened with a copper launch button. The safety slide is also copper, and the handle is twill Carbon Fiber. The belt clip and fasteners are black Cerakote-coated stainless steel.

> 110 Folding Hunter – The blade is S45VN stainless steel boasting dual black Cerakote-coated thumb studs. The handle sides are gray anodized aluminum screwed together with marbled carbon fiber inlays. This modernized version weighs only 4.8 oz while the standard 110 weighs 7.2 oz.

> The 55 – Customized with modern materials, the blade is S30V stainless steel with a nickel-silver handle featuring marbled carbon fiber inlays.

All made in the USA! 🇺🇸 Like all Bucks, they’ll last forever too….

1. UT bill would prohibit trailcams during hunting season?

Believe that’s what this says – props to GoHunt for being on top of this stuff:

> …it is unlawful for a person to place, maintain or use a trail camera or similar device: (a) at any time during the period beginning Aug 1 and ending Dec 31 of each year; (b) at any time during the period beginning Jul 1 and ending Dec 31 of each year if the trail camera or similar device wirelessly transmits or is capable of wirelessly transmitting images, videos, or location data of wildlife; or (c) at any time, if the placement, maintenance, or use of the trail camera or similar device prevents wildlife from accessing, or alters the manner in which wildlife accesses, a spring, water source, or artificial basin that collects water or is designed and constructed to collect water.

2. OH: Most deer taken since 2012-13.

197,735 deer.

3. IL: 2nd straight bowhunting record.

Sounds like crossbows was 1 reason:

> For the 2nd straight year, IL bowhunters set a record for deer harvest: 75,544 compared to 67,743 in the 2019-20 season. More significant, archery harvest nearly matched the harvest during the 2 firearm seasons (76,579).

> “Based on our preliminary data, the harvest breakdown by bow type was a virtual tie this year between compound bows at approximately 49.5% and crossbows at 49.3%. For the 2019-2020 archery season, that split was closer to 54.1/44.8.”

4. WV: Harvest up from ’19-20, down on average.

> …preliminary data collected by the WV Div of Natural Resources, hunters in the Mountain State harvested 106,861 whitetail deer during the 2020-21 fall and winter seasons. The harvest was 7.5% higher than the 2019 harvest of 99,437 deer and 6% below the 5-year average of 113,444.

5. AL: More and bigger deer taken this year?

> “…definitely seems that a lot more really good bucks were taken this year. Our Game Check numbers show that people are reporting way more deer than they ever have. They’re killing more deer, and a percentage of bucks reported have been really good deer.”

6. MI has $100K for UP deer habitat.

Grant money, click here to apply.

7. MT bill about hunting tribal lands might cause problems.

> House Bill 241, introduced by Rep. Joe Read of Ronan, would give non-tribal members who own inholdings on MT reservations the ability to hunt big game on their property, thereby bypassing the decades of collaborative management and mutual respect between the State of MT and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.

> Should this bill pass, it will inevitably provoke the end of the MT CSKT Fishing and Bird Hunting Agreement as well as litigation by the CSKT, who will justifiably fight for their right to manage wildlife within the boundaries of the reservation.

8. WI program collects 31 TONS of deer carcasses.

> In the past, carcasses could be found on dead-end roads, in the woods, on forest roadways and other places where an illegal dump would likely not be spotted, said Oconto County DNR conservation warden Paul Hartrick.

9. NY: Remington will start producing guns again.

FFL is approved and the legendary 870 pump shotgun will be up first.

10. Bass Pro Shops is buying Sportsman’s Warehouse.

11. Check out the spring Bergara catalog (pdf).

12. MO: New state NDA deer specialist Karlin Dawson.

13. TX: Rotary club treats vets to a deer hunt.

Love it! 👊

14. 2A stuff.

Sounds like microstamping won’t do anything except increase ammo and gun costs?

Deer Disease News

1. WY commish says he was booted for opposing CWD plan.

> “You could shoot holes through all of it. In talking to the experts…we were asking a bunch of questions, and 70% of their answers were, ‘We don’t know. We’re not sure yet. We need more research.’

> “My point to the commission was, How do we develop a management plan when the experts give us 70% ‘we don’t know’?”

2. ND: Are CWD cases rising?

> 18 deer from last fall’s hunt tested positive…up from 12 the previous year. The total number of cases since CWD was initially discovered in ND in 2009 is 44, and 30 of those cases have occurred in the last 2 years.

3. MI: Deer farmer charged with violating CWD requirements.

4. MD scraps CWD testing due to COVID.

Some smart touches from the engineers at Browning to build this purpose-specific deer slug gun:

> With a 22″ long, thick-walled, rifled barrel and an attached, cantilevered Weaver-style sight rail, the Rifled Deer offers all the accuracy features necessary for a day in the deer woods.

> …a Lightening Trigger offers pull designed to exhibit minimal overtravel. It’s action cycle up to 3″ shotshells utilizing a Power Drive Gas system.

> …the Maxus II Rifled Deer boasts a stock with a straight-heel buttstock, that allows for customizing the length of pull by either adding spacers or trimming the stock.

> The 1.5″-thick Inflex recoil pad features directional deflection and is coupled with the a SoftFlex cheekpad, both of which are designed to soften recoil against the shoulder and face.

MSRP is $1,739.99 – kinda pricey for a slug gun, even though for a lot of woodlot hunters where shots are < 100 yds shotguns still make a lot of sense, especially when paired with high performance slug loads. Nothing stops like a 12ga hunk o’ lead!

Would you eat a yuck deer?

Ever shot a real nasty-lookin’ deer? Like with an abscess or other gnarly wound? Buckmasters looks at whether the venison is safe to eat:

> According to Michigan DNR, “Abscesses are circumscribed collections of purulent material (pus) found in several species of animals in a variety of locations. This purulent inflammation is usually caused by one of 4 pyogenic (pus-producing) bacteria: Trueperella, Pseudomonas, Streptococcus and Staphylococcus.”

> They can be caused by chemical or physical damage, like gunshot wounds, fighting wounds or possibly car-deer collisions.

> Generally, if the abscessed area is removed, it is safe to consume the remaining meat. If, however, the abscessed area is widespread, has an offensive odor, or is aesthetically displeasing, it may be better to refrain from consuming the affected meat.

Uh yep! Or we mean:

What’s the DB and who does it?

The DeerBlaster is a weekly roundup of the best, funniest, newest and most important stuff about whitetail deer hunting – culled from around the interwebz for DIEHARD whitetail hunters and blasted into your inbox.

The DB is put together by some deer nerds 😁 – Ted, Jay, others – from around the country. We excerpt content (and credit EVERYONE!), comment on content, do some original content…because we can’t get enough deer hunting – bet you’re wired the same!

The DeerBlaster’s a work in progress, just like we are. 😂 Any issues, suggestions, whatever, just hit Reply to this email and we’ll get it. Thank you for reading!