A word to the wise: If you poach a whitetail, don't brag about it in the local newspaper.

Chris James, of Horton, Mich., shot a 24-point buck on Oct. 25, 2007. Problem was, he didn't buy a license until after retrieving the animal the next morning.

http://www.mlive.com/outdoors/index.ssf/2008/01/man_who_killed_24point_buck_di.html

This news story is making it's way around the internet. The real question is: What was the woman doing with a deer on a leash?

http://www.wxii12.com/news/15157181/detail.html?rss=gws&psp=news

Steve Nelson, of Hector Min., e-mailed this neat picture of a buck in his lawn. Looks like Steve has a sportsman's paradise out his back door!

With a 5 to 3 vote, the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission has legalized the use of a magnifying riflescope during the December muzzleloader deer season. The decision came after the Board of Commissioners listened to public input on the issue during its meeting on January 17 in Lincoln.

According to a Nebraska Game and Parks official, the meeting was well represented by muzzleloading hunters. Some were there to support the regulation enforced up until now, which prohibited the use of a magnifying riflescope during the late muzzleloader deer season. Others were there to demand change, claiming that the open sights or non-magnifying "Red Dot" or 1x scope that had been legal were inadequate for precise shot placement.

NORTH AMERICAN MUZZLELOADER HUNTING ASSOCIATION

What a difference a few days can make...especially during the Southern rut. Just four days after Dan, Charlie and Chris left near-80-degree temperatures in Alabama, I traveled down and was greeted with outstanding cool weather.

Gun Digest Editor Brian Lovett, Whitetail News Editor Bart Landsverk and NAHC Editor Gordy Krahn, were also hunting with our good friends from
Whitetail Institute, Wilson and Steve Scott.  They manage a pretty good
chunk of land and even though the deer are not as large here as their
Northern cousins, you get to see a lot of them, and normally have a
chance to shoot a mature deer in just a few days.

Weather was perfect.  Average temps in the morning were in the mid 30s with high temps in the low 50s.  Deer would be definitely on the move with the peak of the rut yet ahead.  

I was fortunate enough to shoot a 4.5 year old buck on the second
night of the hunt.  I was sitting over a 6-acre destination plot and
right at prime time he came out into the field at around 225 yards.  We
were fortunate to have a large group of does right next to the stand and
the buck slowly worked his way towards the stand.  I took the shot when
he was right around 100 yards away and dropped him right in his tracks.

It was a great way to end the hunting season. Best of all, D&DH-TV Producer Chris Hermans captured the entire hunt on film. This will be included in a 2008 episode of the show, which will begin airing again during the second quarter on Outdoor Channel.

--Brad Rucks
D&DH Publisher

I just returned from a whirlwind tour of southern Alabama and the 2008 Archery Trade Show in Indianapolis.

In Alabama, D&DH TV Producer Chris Hermans and I had the great fortune to hunt with DDH Northern Field Editor Charles Alsheimer and Steve Scott, Wilson Scott, Wade Atchley and Justin Moore of the Whitetail Institute of North America.

As many of you might know, Alabama's landscape, and latitude, causes the state to have rutting activity all over the board. While Jake Edson was seeing great rutting activity in the western part of the state, the rut had barely started where we were hunting south of Montgomery.

The temps were WARM. We had daytime highs pushing 80 and, hence, we saw few bucks. We did see large numbers of does, however, which allowed us to help the Scotts with their doe management program. In fact, Charlie and Chris got a great doe hunt on film that will be included in our new round of TV shows on Outdoor Channel later this year.

I had the opportunity to hunt several food plots that were planted with lush Pure Attraction, which is a new blend that Whitetail Institute just unveiled for the public last week. The blend is actually a fall forage that provides rapid growth, attraction and abundant food for both the early and late season. The biggest attractants in this blend are a special strain of forage oats and winter peas. I hunted these plots almost exclusively during my trip, and I saw on average 12 deer per sit. I shot this dandy 6-pointer one evening when he came to the plot which was already filled with does and fawns.

We will include more information on this forage blend and all the other great new products from the ATA Show (and SHOT Show) in our upcoming June issue and the Deer Hunters Equipment Annual. The June issue hits newsstands at the end of March.

Our next trip is the the Shooting, Hunting & Outdoor Trade Show, which will be held in Las Vegas over Super Bowl weekend.

--Dan Schmidt
D&DH Editor

The bucks are chasing and hunting is great -- if you can get there

The southern rut is on! I just returned from the P Arrow Plantation in Livingston, Ala. as a guest of Remington's Eddie Stevenson and Linda Powell on an early January hunt to field test Remington's new Accutip slugs and ShurShot 870 slug guns.

The trip itself nearly fell apart due to airport delays that cost me a day of hunting. However, the writers in camp before me reported seeing bucks running does on the first morning and I decided to reschedule the flight and try again.

I was glad I did. Stevenson reported that he and head guide Wes Hurt watched a wide-racked buck chase a doe onto the neighbor's property on their way back from a morning hunt.

I didn't reach P Arrow until 4 p.m., but Hurt insisted I had time to make an evening stand if we hurried. Twenty-minutes later, we were creeping up to a shooting blind along a green field not far from the lodge.

We settled in, and within 15 minutes a doe popped out of the woods -- followed by the wide-racked buck Hurt and Stevenson had watched run onto the neighbor's property that morning.

The buck was running the doe, but Hurt was able to stop the buck for a broadside shot at less than 50 yards using a bleat.



The 385-grain polymer-tipped slug dropped the buck in it's tracks. Later, we found the new Accutip had retained 93 percent of it's mass (96 percent if you don't count the polymer tip -- which Stevenson said fragments on impact, leaving an impressive entry wound).

Despite the 70-degree highs, all of the hunters in camp saw mature bucks and rutting activity. On Wed., the final morning, Stevenson connected on a nice buck that lifted a doe off the ground with its nose as it tried to "convince" the doe to breed.

We all had plenty of chances to harvest does with new slugs and all connected on shots ranging from 60 to more than 100 yards. I was also impressed with the new SureShot stocks teamed with Remington's new SuperCell recoil pads. The new combination was a pleasure to shoot, even with the heavy slugs and their high-velocity loads. Check them out at http://www.remington.com/products/2008_new_products/.

If you are interested in the P Arrow and it's abundant deer and quail you can find them online at www.parrow.net. Owners Drayton and Zina Pruitt are sensational hosts and the plantation is a spectacular property.

Jake Edson
Deer & Deer Hunting Associate Editor

This photo came in with the tag line “happens in Wisconsin.” However, this mule deer buck is likely watching a cat in a more western location.

Here’s the latest buck making the internet circuit. The only information we have so far is that it was reportedly shot in Minnesota during the late archery season.

Check out that killer drop tine!