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New #1 x-bow world record was recovered 2 MONTHS later! 👀
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“I’m no deer hunting pro, that’s for sure. I’m just a lucky guy who managed to somehow shoot a decent deer.”
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Decent?? Here’s what Billy Johnson’s 2021 IN deer, nicknamed “Hoss,” measured:
> …the new crossbow record keeping organization known as the Bolt & Quarrel Club…final net score of 204 4/8″.
> In the B&C Club record keeping system – which allows for pick-up entries like Johnson’s buck – the final net non-typical score is 204 6/8″, which is also the final number in the Hoosier Record Buck Program maintained by the IN Deer Hunter’s Assn.
> In the Buckmasters Irregular category, the antlers…measure out at 206.625….
> …”Hoss” because of his outsized antlers, mesmerized the…deer hunter back in 2019. “My cousin actually went in there with me one time…he said to me, ‘Billy, I just saw the biggest buck I’ve ever seen on the hoof and he’s got to be close to 200 inches.”
> Then the buck disappeared and Johnson was left to wonder for several months whether or not he had seen a whitetail ghost. “I finally got pictures of him coming through on Oct 10th last year.
> “I shared the photos with a few friends and deer hunting buddies. A few days later, a contractor friend of mine was trying to convince me to get in the woods. He said ‘Dude, I’m looking at (Drury Outdoors’) Deer Cast right now, and it’s showing a 4 out of 5…. You’ve got to go hunting!'”
> So Johnson decided to do just that on Fri, Oct 16, 2020…”got there really early, about an hour before daylight.
> “I look up and see a 6-pointer walking. He came out of nowhere and I decided to video him with my phone. He was coming from my left and veering away from me and right when he got near me, I saw another deer. All I could see was a huge rack and drop tines!”
> Johnson grabbed his CenterPoint Sniper 370 crossbow and looked for a shot opportunity through the trees. “He was trailing the 6-pointer, almost as if saying ‘Go ahead kid, you go first and then I’ll follow.”
> At 22 yards, Johnson had the huge buck in his crossbow sight’s crosshairs…. “I ‘murffed’ at him to get him to stop, had him in a window of about 18 inches, and that’s when I shot.” …the Carbon Express bolt and G5 Montec broadhead whistled downrange and into the buck’s boiler room.
> “…thought I had made a perfect shot and I went into town and got something to eat. I even bought a deer cart to help haul Hoss up out of the woods and was calling everyone to tell them about this great deer I had just shot.”
> His initial search found a good blood trail, but that quickly petered out and he was scratching his head about what to do next. A friend suggested calling in an acquaintance with a tracking dog…. “We looked for about an hour and found nothing else. I was confused and devastated when I didn’t find him like I thought I would.”
> Fast forward to early December…. “I took a buddy of mine…and we headed for the woods that Saturday on Dec 5, 2020. When we got there, the landscaper’s yellow truck was already there. I apologized to Todd and said, ‘Let’s go down into the woods anyway and I’ll show you where Hoss was.’ So, we walked down to the creek and took a look around, even though I had already searched that area multiple times.”
> “…almost quit walking in that direction. But I went another 20 feet or so, and suddenly, it was him.” Apparently, the mortally wounded buck had gone and bedded up under the canopy of hardwoods and pine trees before coyotes had then discovered the carcass.
> “IN is a 1-buck state and I had already filled my tag on another buck (after thinking that Hoss was lost).” …a subsequent conversation with the IN DNR and Johnson had a salvage tag and could now legally possess the antlers of Hoss.
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MS “doe hunter” got a 185 gross deer!
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When Charles Harris went hunting Dec 19, “I was just hoping to get another doe,” he said. “I’m not a trophy hunter. I just try to fill the freezer up.” Well, he got that done and killed a state record book buck. Here’s the story from the Clarion-Ledger:
> “When it got light I could see a deer in the corner of the food plot. I guess he was trailing a doe because he had his head almost on the ground.”
> “I had started getting nervous. I hadn’t gotten the shakes yet but I could feel it coming.
> “I had stuck my gun out of the right side of the blind and lined it up with where I thought he was going to walk, and the first thing that came into view was the horns. I immediately took the scope off the horns, lined up and shot because I didn’t want to get nervous.”
> “He didn’t immediately go down. I tracked him until I got down to specks of blood.” Harris got a dog on the trail and…the deer was down only 30 yards from where Harris stopped tracking it.
> As a non-typical, it grossed 185 1/8″ and netted 175 1/8″. The main beams measured 28 1/4″ and 25″ with an inside spread of 19 3/4″. Once the antlers have met the 60-day drying period and are officially scored, they will be well above the 155″ minimum for a non-typical to make into MIS’s record book….
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10-point GA buck grosses in the low 180s!
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Bill Willis shot that amazing deer (18 total points) on his family farm – with his opposite hand! Here’s the story from GA Outdoor News:
> …showed up on his game camera on Nov 12. “We had no idea that there was a big buck like that around here. We had never seen that buck before.” Suddenly, the big buck started appearing on the game cameras quite regularly.
> “There’s a creek on the property line of our 800-acre family farm and does are always coming across that creek. We have a stand there, and I decided to hunt that stand. That’s where we got the night photo of the big buck.
> “The stand is really just a ladder strapped to a tree, and it’s only 5 feet off the ground. It doesn’t even have a gun rest or anything.
> “The place has a lot of longleaf pines and you can see up under them. There are hundreds of scrapes in there. I’ve seen does and some bucks in there every time I went, but I never saw anything shootable.
> “I got in the stand at about 7am and at about 7:25 I saw a buck about 80 yards away. I knew it was him because was so much bigger than anything I had ever seen before. I’m left-handed and he came out on the wrong side. I knew I would have to shoot right-handed if I wanted a shot.
> “He was behind an oak tree. I got my .308 up. He would have to step into a small opening…. I held that gun up for 5 minutes…. He finally stepped into the opening and looked right at me and alerted. I knew it would be now or never. I shot. He whirled and ran into the bottom. I thought I had made a bad shot.”
> When he got to where the buck had been standing, he was devastated. Instead of a whole deer, he found hair, stomach contents and very little blood. Bill called his son…decided to wait 4 hours before they began their search.
> All they found then was more stomach contents. They would later discover that the bullet had entered behind the shoulder and ripped open the deer’s belly…. “I was sick. There was no way this buck was going to make it.”
Long story short, they called a buddy with a tracking dog and found the buck.
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Is this the craziest rack of the season?? 🤯
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> Date night on Oct 15th looked a little different as the husband and wife duo hit the woods. Tyrell was waiting on the right wind and it was his second sit of the year. He was chasing after a gnarly looking 167 7/8″ buck he’d been watching the last few years. This buck was a frequent visitor to his turnip food plot – all he needed was an opportunity.
> Tyrell got set, his wife behind the camera, and out stepped his target buck. Pin settled at a close 15 yards and he let it fly. Pandemonium set in the stand, but 30 minutes later they shifted gears when a bruiser of a 152″ heavy horned stud came stomping out in food plot.
> Karlyn traded the camera for her bow and focused on her shot. The buck presented her an opportunity and Karlyn had her biggest buck to date down all on film. Talk about a date night to remember forever!
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What happens when you feed a buck too much??
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> …preliminary total deer harvest for the season of 293,670. Of the deer harvested, 143,049 were antlered bucks, 26,599 were button bucks, and 124,022 were does.
> This is a slight jump from 2019-2020 which had a total deer harvest of 285,873, which means 2021 had an increase of 10,794….
> …killed 117,638 deer this past season, short of last season’s record total of 126,290.
> “That is kind of what we expected with most people being back to work….”
> …KY deer hunters harvested 132,302 deer. It’s the lowest deer harvest total since 2012, when hunters bagged 131,395. This season’s total is down 23,432 from the all-time high of 155,734 in 2015. Since then, this is the 3rd time the season total has dipped below 140,000.
Now they’re free:
> “The $12 fee will go to the department’s newly established ME Deer Management Fund.”
Seasons and proposed rule changes.
…in House and Senate.
> “P&Y was proud to work with the CO Bowhunter’s Assn to prevent unnecessary restrictions on bowhunters in their state. In a textbook example of teamwork, the proposal was defeated.”
> This is proof your opinion matters. You do have a voice with the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commissioners.
> “Hunting is under constant attack and it’s not a full-frontal assault. They chip away at us piece by piece.”
> If a farmer believes deer are causing too much damage to their fields, the PA Game Commission can provide solutions, including offering red plastic tags that can be awarded to hunters for antlerless deer.
> The Game Commission is set to review some changes and efficiencies of the program at their Jan. 28-29 board meeting. If approved, hunters would be allowed to have 4 permits and be able to keep all the deer they harvested. Current regulations involve just 1 deer per person. The program would also be shorter. It would run Feb 1 to April 15 and Aug 1 to Sept 15.
> This decline has also led to a precipitous drop in deer hunting – 68% fewer hunters head into the [north GA] woods now compared with…1979. And today, 75% of hunters leave the woods without a deer.
> Increasing activities such as timber harvesting and prescribed burns could not only improve the habitat for deer and other species…but it would better align the national forest with the full range of opportunities it could offer.
> Following the bill’s introduction, environmental groups and animal rights groups pledged support, while hunting and trapping organizations panned it.
> [Backcountry Hunters and Anglers] said the legislation “is not guided by science” and “would chip away at the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation, a model that BHA strongly supports.
- Houston – Aug 5-7 – NGR Center
- Dallas – Aug 12-14 – Kay Baily Hutchison Convention Center
- San Antonio – Aug 19-21 – Freeman Coliseum Expo Hall
> …at least one state legislator wants to make it easier for hunters and landowners to kill wild hogs. CA Sen. Bill Dodd (D-Napa) introduced legislation on Jan 19 that aims to help control the state’s rapidly growing wild pig population. The bill has already garnered wide support from wildlife officials, farmers, and others in the state.
15. 2A stuff.
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> …6mm Creedmoor, 6.5 PRC and the 7mm Rem Mag. The new 7mm Rem Mag-chambered Lupo will be available in May, followed by the 6mm Creedmoor in June along with the 6.5 PRC in July.
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> “The Divide rifle is appropriately named because it fills the divide between a lightweight hunting rifle and a dedicated long range rifle. The divide is built with the best components our team has to offer and comes fitted with Bergara’s new Cure Carbon Fiber Barrel.”
> The Bergara Premier action is a two-lug system that features a separate floating bolt head to ensure contact with the lug abutments in the action. It also features a cone-shaped bolt nose for smooth feeding of the cartridge, and a spring-loaded sliding plate extractor located in the front of the lower locking lug.
Available in 6.5 Creedmoor, 6.5 PRC, .308 Win and .300 Win-Mag, weighs 7.2-7.4 lbs with a 22-24″ barrel. MSRP: $2,499:
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Crimson Trace 4-16×50 6.5 Creedmoor:
> Crimson Trace has introduced a long-range riflescope in their Brushline Pro line that comes with a reticle made to work specifically with the 6.5 Creedmoor. This riflescope has a 1-inch tube and a magnification range from 4X to 16X, with a 50mm objective. …reticle is set in the second focal plane, and it features 4 diamond-shaped aiming points that allow for 8 down-range holds.
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> I recently had an opportunity to test the new bullet in the field using a .270 Savage rifle that delivered 0.5″ groups at 100 yards.
> …budget-friendly yet feature-rich models that fire at velocities of up to 430 fps, include silent cranking and come as sleek as 8″ wide axle-to-axle.
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> The engineers at Buck Knives have refined the 110/112 Slim Pro models, bringing you the changes you’ve wanted in the new Slim Pro TRXs. The TRX models now have a redesigned clip that sits deeper in your pocket, reducing the bulk. Additionally, we have applied modern screw-together construction giving you the ability to disassemble, tweak, tune, clean, or whatever….
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$169.99 or $219.99 depending on the size:
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> Many well-intentioned deer managers are doing themselves and deer a huge disservice with the willy-nilly “sanctuary” label they are slapping on any old section of woods they elect to neglect.
> The signs may include an obvious browse line, an understory (if there is one) consisting of non-native, invasive plants, and hillsides composed entirely of red cedar. These areas are marginal deer habitat at best, and we shouldn’t be encouraging deer to use them.
> Most hunters would define a sanctuary as “a section of hunting land set aside for deer to escape hunting pressure, which we refuse to enter” – usually with the added clause “unless we are trailing a wounded deer.” This definition is outdated and careless!
> …propose that we redefine a deer sanctuary as: “A section of hunting land actively managed in a manner conducive to minimizing stress on deer during critical times of the year, especially hunting season through late winter.”
> If we are trying to minimize stress, why is it we continue to designate poor quality habitat for them to escape to when times get tough? We should be using all of the same management techniques and effort we use on the rest of the land within our sanctuaries.
> Deer sanctuaries are not sacred pieces of ground. …do your best to stay out of sanctuaries from a month before the season opener all the way through the season’s close. Think about how much time that gives you to manage these locations to maximize their effectiveness and holding power.
> The reason for the one-month rule is simple: It generally gives the deer enough time to begin figuring out that they are safe there.
> Where to place deer sanctuaries…in locations that are notoriously difficult to hunt. If you have exhausted all reasonable approaches to hunting this section of property to no avail, consider making that a sanctuary. Turn that “unhuntable” ground into an asset for your hunting strategy.
> …it is important to try to include south and southwest facing slopes within your sanctuary. In the far north, yarding areas would also be good to include.
> …the fear of bumping a few deer out of the sanctuary should never deter you from making such improvements. You don’t need to be planting food plots or filling corn feeders within your sanctuary! Simply getting sunlight to the forest floor will do wonders for both nutrition and cover.
> Even your skittish target buck will not go re-establish a new home range on your neighbor’s property simply because you were in the sanctuary running a chainsaw for a few days.
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“Don’t be deceived by the fact that you’re not finding CWD-killed deer scattered throughout the woods.”
> CWD is neither harmless nor the doom of deer. There is an active fight against it, and the mission of hunters is to slow the spread of CWD in order to buy time for ongoing scientific research to find solutions.
Jay’s 2c: Yes, “don’t be deceived.” So healthy skepticism is good! Healthy skepticism of governmental agencies, including DNRs, is good…and healthy. More info, more education and more transparency about the CWD test and testing is needed – for hunters. We should all be able to understand it, not just have it proclaimed to us. Let’s see what happens.
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Only info posted by @whitetailspradise: This buck was hit by a vehicle in IL. Hate to hear that and wonder what happened to the vehicle – that’s a big dude!
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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!
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