Let the hate mail begin! Half-kidding, of course, but the Eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana) is one species that landowners across the country love to hate. If you’re an orchard guy like me, you probably lean toward prejudice. That’s because the red cedar is an alternate host of cedar-apple rust, a destructive and disfiguring disease […]
Tag: Deer
Wolves Occupy 63% of This State’s Landscape
Stunning new findings from a nonpartisan citizen group indicate gray wolves are roaming nearly two-thirds of a state that was once considered marginal home range for North America’s apex predator. In data released today, Wisconsin Citizen Wolf Count documents wolf sightings in 45 of the state’s 72 counties. Of these sightings, sets of data have […]
Frigid Temps Not Affecting Deer … Yet
Despite below-zero temperatures for most of the past two weeks, this winter is shaping up to be a nonfactor for white-tailed deer. And, while it’s true below-zero temps force deer to conserve energy, the lack of snow depth has made this winter’s first month a walk on the beach for deer across cold-country. As of […]
What Causes Big Balls in Deer?
It might look painful, but what you’re seeing in this photo is not rare in the whitetail world. And, no, the buck not as endowed as one might think. Conversely, he is suffering from what researchers call a scotia hernia. The enlarged appearance of his scrotum might cause difficulty in his daily activities, but at […]
25 Ways to Handle a Gut-Shot Deer
Do you agree or disagree with the following rules for gut-shot deer? What would you add? Allow me to preface this conversation by saying this blog post is written mostly for bowhunters — compound, recurve and crossbow — but the general tenants apply to all deer hunters. Who am I to provide these rules? Nobody, […]
50 Years of the Original Stump Sitters!
It takes guts to give up everything you know to start over. But it takes something else — vision, imagination, creativity, inventiveness, among other things — to kickstart an industry. That’s exactly what the founders of this magazine had … in spades. The first issue of Deer & Deer Hunting appeared 49 years ago, but […]
What State is the Hardest to Hunt Deer?
Let’s preface this: We should really call this the 7 toughest states to harvest a whitetail. This has nothing to do with tough terrain, strict regulations, trophy-size bucks or any other arbitrary quantification. For this exercise, we are simply going by how many hunters are trying each year … and how many are actually successful. […]
CWD Not Affecting Human Health: Study
U.S. health researchers have reviewed 30 years of data from over 2 million hunters in Colorado and Wyoming, including thousands who hunted in CWD outbreak areas. According to a recent, excellent article by Lindsay Thomas Jr., the researchers saw no patterns of prion diseases (namely Creutzfeld-Jakob) above the normal background level in all Americans — […]
Deer Baiting Now Legal in These Areas
Thousands of deer hunters in two big deer hunting states will be allowed to hunt over corn, apples, carrots, pumpkins and other bait beginning this fall. Michigan was the most recent state to rescind some of its baiting regulations when it announced earlier this summer that hunter in the Upper Peninsula will be allowed to […]
Deer Browse: Black Medic
If you’re a public land deer hunter or simply want to better understand the native ground you hunt, it’s wise to learn about plants deer prefer. So much attention is given to food plots these days, but it’s the native and non-native plant families that can put you on deer faster in situations where good, […]