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 […]
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Feed your whitetail passion and broaden your knowledge with the insights, advice, tips, tactics and honest commentary from white-tailed deer expert, D&DH Editor-in-Chief Dan Schmidt.
Category: Dan Schmidt Deer Blog – Whitetail Wisdom
Subscribe to the Whitetail Wisdom RSS feed
Feed your whitetail passion and broaden your knowledge with the insights, advice, tips, tactics and honest commentary from white-tailed deer expert, D&DH Editor-in-Chief Dan Schmidt.
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 […]
He Invented the Antler Scoring System
The buck of your dreams is in your sights. His symmetrical 12-point rack is tall and wide. Later that night back at camp, when trying to quantify just how big that buck was, you stutter, “He was a Booner!” Here’s a fun fact for you: If the man who invented that scoring system was given […]
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 […]
3 Myths of Crossbow Inclusion
So, it appears Minnesota will join the modern deer hunting world by allowing crossbow usage in its general archery season. First blush is “good for them” for realizing we are all in this together and that crossbow hunting is just another way to keep people interested in enjoying outdoors recreation while at the same time […]
This is Why We Shoot Deer
“Why did you shoot that deer?” “What did it ever do to you?” “How could you go and kill an innocent deer?” “You don’t need to hunt and kill animals — you can buy meat from the store!” And so on, and so forth. Such are the comments from parts of our culture who are […]
The 5 Earliest Deer Seasons in America
We bet you will be surprised at the states where guys and gals are already drawing down on deer and releasing arrows! Here’s our Top 5 list.
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. […]
Which State Has the Most Deer?
We bet you will be surprised by some of these numbers! Deer & Deer Hunting has meticulously documented each state’s deer population and annual deer harvest every year since 1992. This wasn’t an easy job. It required weeks of phone calls and email phone tag with biologists from each of the 42 states with reportable […]