Antler Restriction Effects

Antler Restriction Effects

Q: I have been hunting whitetail deer more than 60 years and have a question about antler growth, genes and antler restrictions imposed in certain parts of Texas by the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department. I have had many conversations with game biologists, game...
Once A Spike Always A Spike?

Once A Spike Always A Spike?

Q. Larry, last week you wrote “Genetics determines shape and size of antlers. Genetic antler potential can only be attained with good daily nutrition and achieving maturity. But realize too, a smaller antlered buck bred to the ‘right’ doe could produce offspring with...
The Coues Deer; Very Small, But A Very Big Prize

The Coues Deer; Very Small, But A Very Big Prize

Frontier Army surgeon, naturalist and hunter, Dr. Elliott Coues, never actually collected a Coues deer. In 1874, Dr. Joseph Rothrock, another Army Surgeon, collected and saved two specimens from the Santa Rita Mountains near Tucson, Arizona. He stated correctly that...
ELLIOTT COUES: Surgeon, Naturalist, Hunter And His Deer

ELLIOTT COUES: Surgeon, Naturalist, Hunter And His Deer

Many of you may have heard Coues deer or the name Elliott Coues mispronounced as coos, cooz, cooeys or something else other than properly as “cows,” as in “wait ’til the cows come home.”  Here in Arizona, he is known as the namesake of the diminutive but highly prized...
Good News, Bad News & the Gray Ghost

Good News, Bad News & the Gray Ghost

It was 1998 and my wife’s uncle had received exclusive permission from a farmer’s widow to hunt a hundred or more acres of farmland bordered by swamp and hardwood forest in Duplin County, North Carolina.  He’d hunted the land since opening day, and for most of that...
An Excerpt From: In The Land Of The Lakota

An Excerpt From: In The Land Of The Lakota

Mike Jr. was going for a whitetail he’d been after for a couple of years. He was hoping to climb up a certain tree stand close to the buck’s travel corridor. But the shifting wind changed all that. “There was actually one deer in there that was bigger than that one,”...
Sand and Shinnery

Sand and Shinnery

I felt a slight nudge on my left elbow as I “worked the horns” in an attempt to draw in a whitetail buck out of the oak thicket. I turned ever so slowly, then followed Craig Archer’s pointing hand. “Buck, three-year old!” whispered he. The buck was charging in jumping...