 |
|
Some HOSSES killed this week, whoa! Hope you’re out there and seein’ a few!
_____
Welcome to the DeerBlaster! If you’re receiving this, we hope you’re a deer hunter! If not, just please hit the UNSUBSCRIBE link above ^, and either way please forward this to any other diehard deer hunters you know, thank you!
The DeerBlaster culls the best of the whitetail interwebz every week for DIEHARD whitetail nerds…cuz it’s fun! And important…and educational…. Then it “blasts” into your inbox. Thx for reading and please let us know how we’re doing!
(If you’re NOT a whitetail nut, just click unsubscribe on the link above ^.)
If you’re getting the DeerBlaster for the first time it’s probably because a deer-crazed buddy signed you up!
Today’s Top 5
|
|
How ’bout this (probly) OK state record bow buck!
|
|
Deer nerds freaked out over this 16-point typical STUD taken by 18-yr-old Guner Womack, an OSU student — his first-ever bow deer!!??
Lots of wonderin’ whether it might beat the Hanson Buck, the B&C world record typical deer that scored 213 5/8″ (12 points). But the the OKDWC green-scored Guner’s monster at 209 6/8″ gross and a net green score of 192 6/8″.
Even after the 60-day drying period seems like this toad’ll be the new OK record and will be in the top 10 bow bucks in the world.
NA Whitetail got the story:
> “I didn’t quite get it at the time I got the buck, just how big he really was…. But when my buddies…came over to help me…they were like, ‘Holy cow! That might be a new state record!’
> “Honestly that never crossed my mind until then. I was just ecstatic to be able to see a buck like that in my lifetime and to have a chance to kill him.
> “We had him on camera the last 3 years. He was a 6×6 the first year, a 6×8 last year, and an 8×8 this year. Dad actually saw him last year and had a shot at him, but he passed on him. He was really broken up, plus,we knew what he could become. He really sprouted up over the last year.
> “…it’s been a crazy, hectic couple of days. I woke up the next morning with 200 or 300 new friend requests on Facebook, and it just kept rising from there. I’ve been hearing from random people all over the country sending me their congrats and showing me their own big deer pictures. I’m just trying to take it slow and have fun with it.”
Get this: one main beam is 26+ inches and the other is 24+! Even Iron Man was impressed:
|
|
|
|
WI 13-yr-old drops the buck of a lifetime!
|
|
X-bow hunter Ethan H whacked this heavy brute in the big-deer stronghold of Buffalo County, WI. Scored 192 4/8″. As Realtree tells it, it was the opening evening of archery season, and Ethan climbed into a treestand with his dad:
> About 30 mins before dark, the giant buck stepped out. The 2 hunters watched the deer for a few minutes…Ethan collected himself and readied the crossbow. The buck eventually walked…stopped at 25 yards, and Ethan squeezed the trigger.
> “I hit the buck a little high. It looked [like a good shot] but there ended up not being much blood. We…started tracking him. He ran about 150 yards. It took us forever to pick up [blood] since he ran on a dirt trail.”
> But once they hit the trail, the Hulburts found the buck almost at once. “I was jumping up and down, and just super excited. I was [planning] to hunt every weekend and get out as much as possible to try and shoot a nice buck.”
Big congrats Ethan! We’re sure he has a proud dad too….
|
|
|
|
Will banning bait run off hunters?
|
|
Baiting deer’s gotta be in the “Top 10 Most Controversial Hunting Topics,” and it seems like most people’s views have to do with where they’re raised. In the mountain West, any human-placed attractant is considered a violation of fair chase. But in other places, where baiting is a long-standing tradition, 50-lb sacks of deer corn can be found just about anywhere in town.
Whether you love or hate it, here’s the question for today: Will banning baiting run off hunters? D&DH’s Daniel Schmidt looks at the new statewide ban in MI, and makes a good case that banning bait will hurt hunter numbers everywhere:
> Deer hunting participation and harvest rates have been on a steady decline nearly everywhere over the past 25 years…many contributing factors, including cost, demographics and access to quality hunting land…. However, MI has already seen a 19.9% decline in hunter participation since 1999, and a 38.1% [decline] in deer harvest [gun deer only].
> Why would baiting bans reduce hunter participation? That’s easy. In states with such high hunter densities, like MI, hundreds of thousands of participants do their hunting on public land and micro-private properties.
> It is not uncommon…for a hunter to place a ground blind or treestand on properties as small as 5, 10 or 15 acres and harvest deer with the aid of a few gallons of shelled corn, apples, carrots, beets….
Dan compared a couple pro-baiting states (TX and AL) to anti-baiting states (MI, WI, PA) and found that the number of gun hunters and harvests were stable in the pro-bait states while the other states showed a significant decline. So:
> There’s strength in numbers, and hunting’s community needs those numbers now more than ever. I’ve heard all of the arguments against baiting — none of which, by the way, are rooted in sound science. And none of them cancel out the fact that without baiting, thousands of hunters can, will and do quit hunting.
> Don’t believe me? Just watch happens in MI.
Of course we hope it’s not true but it’s hard to argue with facts….
|
|
|
|
NY dad and kids harass/cuss legal deer hunter.
|
|
Ugh — as the NY Post reported:
> Dominick Lobifaro, 30, was confronted Sunday by an Oakdale man and an animal-loving youngster who weren’t happy to see him scoping out a nearby wooded area of state-owned land apparently too close to their home, according to a clip of the heated encounter.
> “Hey, the kids wanna know — why you wanna kill deer?” the unidentified man asked Lobifaro as he sat in his truck.
> “Cuz I eat them,” Lobifaro, of Brooklyn, replied, prompting the boy with a hockey stick in his hand to quickly cut him off.
> Lobifaro warned the pair that he was recording the escalating squabble, which erupted in front of several other kids on scooters and bikes, video shows.
> The standoff ended only when Lobifaro called the state Dept of Environmental Conservation and an officer responded who confirmed that he was there “100% legally” with all his necessary permits.
Seems to us that our hunting brother did everything right: kept calm, documented the whole deal and called a game warden. Good job Dominick! Looks like NY has a hunter harassment law — hope they use it in this case.
Even tho hunters are just plain more likely to get this stuff — including rudeness — in suburban NY, seems like a good idea for us all to come up with a calm and rational gameplan if this happened to you.
|
|
|
|
Ever seen a mount like this?
|
|
Looks kinda cool for a piebald, not sure if it’d look as good if it was all brown? @tag.and.bag_outdoors shot:
|
|
News
1. AR hunter passed on, punctured by the buck he shot.
> Alexander shot the buck using a muzzleloader, Keith Stephens, a spokesperson for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, told Fox News. “He apparently went over to the buck and it got up and attacked him,” Stephens said.
> It wasn’t clear whether Alexander died from the deer attack, or due to other medical problems, like a heart attack, but hospital officials said he did have puncture wounds when he was admitted.
Hate to hear it. Bless you deer brother.
2. MN: 20K youth season licenses sold first youth season!
Freakin’ GREAT news for the future of deer hunting there:
> …21,211 youth licenses were bought…a 50% increase compared to the same time last year. Since the start of the season, the amount of youth licenses sold has risen to 27,960. Nearly 7,900 of the licenses bought during the youth season were for first-time license holders.
Nice!
3. VT’s youth season helps deer biologists.
> “Examining deer during the youth deer hunting weekend is our best opportunity to assess the deer herd because youth hunters are allowed to harvest any deer, including spike bucks.”
4. WI: No plans to change the x-bow season.
> In Jan, when Fred Prehn, chairman of the Natural Resources Board, suggested the board might propose a rule to reduce the x-bow season, no one should have been surprised when it produced a strong and passionate response.
> The potential restriction not only came out of left field, it was aimed at the fastest growing segment of WI deer hunting. Hunters reacted as if they had been told the local Packers broadcast was going to be blacked out.
5. PA Sunday hunting bill still getting tweaked.
Just pass the bill already! LOL
6. ME had its first open mentor hunt this year.
Only 9 folks but here’s what 1 of them said:
> “It was the most meaningful thing I have done in a long time.”
7. WY deer biologists want their collars back.
> “You can still harvest an animal that is wearing a collar. We just need the collars returned so we can use them again and know the animal we were tracking was harvested.”
Rumor is they’ve hired this guy to track down the hunters:
8. NC: Owners might be sued for trespassing deer dogs.
9. TX should have a great whitetail rifle season.
> With more than 800,000 hunters, the deer-hunting season is a financial force to be reckoned with, reportedly accounting for between $1 and $2 bil worth of TX’s multi-billion dollar hunting and fishing industry.
10. MS reminds hunters of new regs this year.
Most are about bag limits and antler restrictions but:
> The discovery of CWD and the Yazoo backwater flooding have contributed to deer management changes that could affect a large number of hunters….
11. TX: Hunters help gun ranges too.
By sighting in their rifles this time of year.
12. NY looking to ban drones for hunting.
Sure dang hope so: #nobrainer
> The measure, however, has been proposed for several years and the bill memo concedes that the evidence of drones being used for hunting is anecdotal. And it’s frowned upon by hunters as well as animal-rights supporters.
|
Gear of the Week
Bushnell Prime 1700 rangefinder.
Jim Shepherd from the Outdoor Wire took a look:
> Last week, a Bushnell Prime 1700 rangefinder unexpectedly showed up at my front door. It has been a long time since I’ve seen new product from Bushnell.
> Bushnell’s new rangefinder had hit the glaring hole in my shooting: a lightweight rangefinder for longer distances. Everything I’ve used before has been either too heavy or too expensive.
> …required some setup, but once I plowed through the menus with the help of the online manual, I had a rangefinder that was field-ready.
> It’s bright. As in how-do-they-get-that-kind-of-light-transmission-bright. According to Matt Rice at Bushnell, it’s because these new rangefinders use an all-glass optical system with an enhanced LCD display and 40% larger objective lenses to allow more light in.
> I hung [a test target] from a neighbor’s fence at a range of 64.5 yards and waited for the sun to drop. Since the target was hung to the west of me, it wasn’t just behind heavy brush, it was backlit….
> When I looked through the 6x24mm lens, what I saw wasn’t just sharp, it was bright. In fact, I used one of my telephoto lenses as a comparison and the difference was obvious. The rangefinder was brighter.
> These new rangefinders also come with Bushnell’s Angle Range Compensation (ARC) system, compensating for the up or downhill angles frequently encountered in shooting.
The Prime weighs in at just 5.9 oz and has a decent MSRP of $199.99.
|
Tip of the Week
Aim small, miss small.
You’ve probably heard that before and believe you know what it means — doesn’t really sound like rocket science. But here’s some details from Buckmasters that might get you to really think about it:
> Legendary golf instructor Harvey Penick coined the phrase back in the 1930s. American snipers have adopted it…. This means when you focus on a tiny spot, if you miss, your golf ball, arrow or bullet will be closer to the target than if you had aimed for a general area.
> At first we practiced with standard targets such as life-sized foam deer with printed vital areas, and block targets with fist-sized dots. But as we honed our skills, we needed something more challenging and began to use smaller targets.
> We began to notice this intense focus made our groups tighter and misses smaller. If we couldn’t pull a 3-arrow group from a target with one hand, it wasn’t a satisfactory group. This practice carried over into the field, and our bowhunting success reflected it.
> Pick a tuft of hair on the vital area of the next deer you shoot at, not the vital area in general. Whether your weapon is a bow or a firearm, if you miss that spot, your arrow or bullet will still be solidly in the kill zone.
Since some of us like hunting birds too, this reminds us of focusing on a PART of the bird, not the whole bird to hit ’em….
|
|
|
Quote of the Week
“I heard the bluejays going nuts earlier in the morning down by the bedding area.”
– NY pastor Joel Aubrey talkin’ ’bout how his morning started, then this happened:
NICE 11-pointer, lookin’ pretty beefy too. NYup.com shot ^
|
Shots of the Week
Guess it’s 2 shots: 1 typ + 1 non-typ = 2 trophies in 2 days?? Both hosses were dropped by Drew Martin in Logan County, IL in — yep — back to back days. Not sure if we could pick just one, but if we had to we’d probably take the typ…tho a lotta love for drop tines. What about you?
Posted on @shedaddiction
|
|
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!
|
|
|
|
|
|
