Our friend Adam Wogsland of Iola, Wis., brought this dandy 4.5-year-old buck to our offices yesterday. He arrowed the 150-inch 10-pointer the previous evening while hunting a patch of oak woods.

"I got set up in my tree stand around 5:15 p.m.," Adam said.  "At 5:30, I grunted three long grunts followed by a series of three short grunts.  Around 5:50 p.m., he came down a trail behind me, and I was able to stop him at about 6 yards and made a solid double lung shot.  He went around 75 yards and piled up.  I was about 30 yards off of a third-crop hayfield and 20 yards from a corn field.  He was traveling through an area that splits the two fields and has a couple of crab apple trees and a bunch of sumac trees."

Congrats to Adam on one mighty fine early season whitetail!

Note: Adam’s Cuddeback photo is of the same buck from last year. The photos below show a right-side shed found earlier this year and gives you a good idea of how much larger this year's antler was by comparison.

Here’s a huge buck that is reportedly living within the city limits safe zone of Sioux Falls, SD. Former D&DH associate editor Andrew Johnson lives in nearby Dell Rapids and reports hearing rumors about the big non-typical.

“I wouldn’t doubt it,” Johnson said. “The biggest bucks in the state are within the city limits or in the park area between Brandon and Sioux Falls.” Municipalities are some of the best big buck hideouts in the country. If you can score permission on nearby hunting land, you can have a real shot at a trophy when the bucks begin to chase does in November.

Our bow season is already a week old here in Wisconsin, and it has been very
slow. Our temperatures have been consistently in the mid- to upper 70s, and
night-time lows have only dipped into the 50s. My deer sightings on stand
have been sparse. However, I did manage to take the early season edge off by
harvesting a plump 2.5-year-old doe on Saturday. This is the first year I
have shot an expandable broadhead in more than six years. On this hunt, I am
glad I did. I was using a 2-blade Rage that I had honed its blades to a
razor-sharp edge before the hunt. The doe only went 80 yards before expiring
... testament to the sharp broadhead and its 2+ inch cutting diameter.

Dan Schmidt, D&DH Editor

Jon Lacorte of Nikon Optics,  second from left, was part of a hunting crew that enjoyed an incredible week of bow-hunting in western Kentucky last week. The camp went five-for-five on Pope-and-Young-class bucks during their early season hunt.

I have seen some weird photos come across my desk over the years, but this
one ranks up there with the best, or should I say "oddest," of them.

The photo was captured by a trail camera set out by faithful D&DH reader
Greg Mariani. Greg writes, "We have been getting this same doe rooming our
property in central Wisconsin  since December 2007.  Can you by looking at
the photos let us know what you think the deer may have?  Could it be just a
parasite or mange?"

We are not 100 percent positive on this one, but it does appear that the doe
has some type of mange. This is rare with whitetails, but cases have been
documented sporadically across deer country. Parasite infestation can also
cause these types of hair loss and skin lesions. In many cases, the
parasites are transferred at baiting and feeding stations.

Dan Schmidt, D&DH Editor

Here is our feel-good story for today. Forrest Haunschild, 12, bagged his
first deer while bow-hunting on Saturday. He took the big doe shortly after
daylight while hunting a small strip of woods that borders a 3,000-acre
cattail marsh in east-central Wisconsin. Forrest was shooting a BowTech
Raptor set at 55 pounds, and was using a Carbon Express arrow tipped with a 75-grain Muzzy MX-3.

Loyal D&DH reader Howard Helgenberg of east-central Missouri sent us this photo of a dandy buck he captured on a scouting camera. We're not sure what's got us more excited about this deer: the mass of its antlers, the velvet or those drop-tines.