www.deerhuntingbigbucks.com

I have always wanted to pay to hunt with a deer hunting outfitter. I just have never done it for one reason or another. You see all those great places on television where the boys at Team Realtree or Primos and many others go deer hunting.

There are so many outfitters out there finding a good one shouldn’t be a problem. The internet has made a big difference in the hunting industry. You can go online and research many different places to go and the different deer hunting outfitters, and find the best one for your desires.

Whether it be a bow hunt , or a rifle hunt for a world class whitetail, or a 130 class buck you can pick the hunt of your dreams. All you need, is to save your money.

Before I would book a hunt, I would check references, of people that have hunted with the outfitter you are thinking about hunting with.

I found a great link to deer hunting outfitters that you can see here.

Do you have a favorite outfitter? Let me know, I am thinking about going on a pay hunt sometime in the near future. I want to hunt big trophy whitetails in all these great places you see on television. Oh, if I could win that lottery tonight.

Where do you get your deer hunting information? Whether it be on television, or magazines or the internet, there are some great resources out there, packed with lots of great deer hunting information.

I wanted to talk about some of my favorite hunting magazines. There are some really good ones out there.

My local favorite hunting magazine is Georgia Outdoor news. It is a great publication on hunting and fishing and any other outdoor stuff you can think of. They have fishing and hunting reports, classified ads, a scrapbook, my favorite is the Spy Cam, they have an outdoor kids scrapbook, articles on local hunting and fishing hotspots, and many other great interesting things. They also have a website that you can check out a http://gon.com/. If you are a hunter or fisherman from Georgia this magazine is for you. Of course you probably already know about it if you are.

One of my other local favorites is Georgia Sportsman. I have been reading it for as long as I can remember. I remember when I first started getting into the great outdoors and hunting, I would read every article that Georgia Sportsman put out. That is how I learned to hunt. That and my dad.

They too have great local stories and articles on deer hunting information.

My favorite deer hunting magazine is North American Whitetail. It is for the serious Whitetail trophy hunter. It has a lot of great information and tips on hunting big mature bucks. It also has a lot of great ads that pertain to deer hunting big bucks. They too have a great website you can visit at this link  http://www.northamericanwhitetail.com. They feature some of the biggest bucks taken every year. And they have a great television show also. They are my favorite big buck resource. If you are into big Whitetails North American Whitetail is for you.

I recently joined the National Rifle Association. When I did I received a subscription to American Hunter. It is a great publication as well. It has a lot of hunting information as well as firearms for hunting information, and equipment for hunting too.

Also they keep you up to date on any thing that pertains our Second Amendment Right to Keep and Bear Arms. It is a all around wonderful magazine that I would recommend to any one that hunts or cares about our Second Amendment Right to Keep and Bear Arms. Any thing that helps preserve out hunting heritage and our Second Amendment is all right with me.

There are a lot more great hunting magazines out there, these are just a few of my favorites. Some of my other favorites are, Deer & Deer Hunting, OutdoorLife, Field and Stream, Buckmasters, Peterson’s Bowhunting, and many more that you can see here.

There are a lot of different resources to get your deer hunting information, hunting magazines have always been one of my favorite resources.

What about you? What are some of your favorites? Maybe there are some good one’s I don’t know about, that I need to check out.

I know this is a deer hunting blog, but I just have to blog about a man who was a inspiration to me when I was growing up, that has a new book out today. Herschel Walker has revealed he has a dissociative identity disorder. You can read the story here.

When I was thirteen years old my stepfather and my mom took me to my first college football game, it just so happens that it was Herschel Walkers first home game as a Georgia Bulldog. It was September 13, 1980 in Athens Georgia, and it was a muggy 86 degrees.

I remember driving into Athens early that morning I couldn’t believe all the Georgia fans. Then when we parked and started tail-gaiting the atmosphere was electric, the smell of the fall air and the grills, throwing the football, and the people decked out in red and black, barking and having a ball, the band playing (Glory- Glory), Munson and Loran on the radio, it is just something that someone can’t possibly imagine without experiencing it for your self.

The weekend before, the much anticipated debut of the highly recruited freshmen from Wrightsville in Johnson County in Georgia, was a very successful performance against a Tennessee Volunteer team that was favored. Larry Munson said it best ,“My God a freshmen!”. Georgia had a thrilling come from behind win, largely in part to Herschel’s magnificent debut.

His first game in Athens Herschel ran for 142 yards and Georgia beat Texas A&M 42-0. I fell in love with Georgia Bulldog football that day, and it was mostly because of Herschel Walker.

I remember following that team that year all the way to an undefeated season, with a once in a lifetime play against Florida, capped off by a win over the Irish in the Sugar Bowl, and a National Championship.

Herschel Walker was absolutely incredible the whole season. He was a superstar and I think he was the greatest college football running back of all time. If you look at his stats they are at the top, and if he would have not left early for the USFL, I believe he would be the all time leading running back ever. Look at his stats they are so impressive. Bo Jackson was great, but compare his stats to Herschel Walker, and Herschel was better. If you don’t believe me check for your self. Even though he was a superstar, he never took the credit, he always gave the credit to his teammates. Vince Dooly once said he was a coaches dream.

Any way with his new book coming out, I wanted to take this opportunity and let Herschel know that we care about him and wish him nothing but the best in the future. I have never heard one single teammate or coach have one negative thing to say about Herschel. He has always been an inspiration to me.

Some of the things that are in his book are hard to believe. But at least Herschel is man enough to face his problems head on and not hide from them. I know I speak for the Bulldog Nation when I say, “we love you Herschel Walker!”

  There are a lot of great places that I would love to deer hunt. I have seen them in the Team Realtree videos or some of the great hunting shows on television. Whether it be the Milk River in Montana, or the brush country of south Texas, or Ohio, or Iowa. There are so many great places to go deer hunting, but there’s one place that I would like to go more than any other in the United states, and it’s Pike County, Illinois. It seems like heaven right here on earth to me. With the big bucks that you consistently see taken from there, it just seems like the place I would love to be able to hunt the most. Year after year, you hear about trophy bucks being harvested there.

Pike County, Illinois is located in West Central Illinois, and is the largest county in the state. It consist of over a half a million acres, and is 849 square miles. It is bordered by the Illinois River on the east, and the Mississippi River on the west.

Over half of the county is pasture and cropland which are planted in wheat, corn, soybeans , and alfalfa. Which are not very big compared to some of the other mid-west states crop fields. And a lot of them are separated by creek bottoms, and brushy timber lots and overgrown fields, it’s prime big buck habitat. Plenty of food and water, and plenty of cover. A lot of the land is Conservation Reserve Program (CRP).

With a buck to doe ratio of about 4 to 1 it is a great place to see a lot of mature bucks rutting and chasing does during the rut. It is not uncommon to see three or four bucks chasing one doe. It makes for some great trophy hunting.Rattling, grunting, and using scents, and decoys are very effective ways of taking big mature trophy whitetails in Pike County, Illinois. There is a lot of heavy rutting that takes place during the rut there. So you can use these different tools to your advantage to score on a big boy, if you use them at the right time.

Some people say that the increased hunting pressure has taken a toll on the number of big bucks being taken there, but it is not true, the number of big bucks being harvested there has increased, and is very impressive. Every year there are a number of very large bucks harvested there.

If you still have your doubts how good the hunting is there check this great article here on Outdoor Life’s Big Buck Zone blog.

Although I have never been deer hunting in Illinois you can bet that it  is on my wish list of places that I hope to visit and hunt someday. Hopefully, in the very near future. I am looking at going on a bow hunt there soon.

You can go to this link here to find out more information on hunting in Illinois.

I love to find a big buck rub when I’m deer hunting. Seeing a big one really gets me fired up. When you first see one, usually you make a b-line straight to it, to check it out, then you start scanning the immediate area for more rubs or scrapes.

A lot of times when you find rubs you will find scrapes also. If you find an area that has a high concentration of big buck rubs, and or scrapes, or a rub line, you should hang a stand downwind of this area and hunt it.

Late in the summer to early fall the bucks begin to rub to remove velvet from their antlers. At this time they are usually in bachelor groups. Then as fall approaches their testosterone levels increase, they separate and get more aggressive. They strengthen their neck muscles by rubbing and sparring with other bucks. They leave their scent when they make rubs. They have forehead scent glands, and when a dominant whitetail buck leaves his scent on a rub, it let’s the other deer know that he is way up the social ladder. A buck that is out looking for love during the rut can scent check a rub and usually tell if there is a more dominant buck in the area.

Rubs can help you determine which direction a buck was traveling. If the scarred side of the tree is facing the feeding area, usually that would be when he exited his bedroom in the evening to go feed. If the scarred side is facing the bedding area, that would be when he is returning to his bedroom early in the morning.

When I was sixteen, I went deer hunting at my uncles house in Madison county in Georgia. It was the day before Thanksgiving and I had discovered my first rub line on a hardwood ridge, that was beautiful. I was so excited to hunt the spot I drove over an hour by myself early that morning. When I got there it was starting to break daylight. I had just enough time to get my portable Baker tree stand on the tree, and get up the tree.

I was now overlooking the first rub line I had ever hunted over. It was a cold frosty morning and I could hear the buck making his way towards me down the ridge. I shot him at about forty yards. I didn’t realize it at the time but the rub line was leading from the feeding area to the bucks bedding area. I was an inexperienced deer hunter back then, but I knew this spot was special when I saw those rubs leading the way down that ridge. It was the first racked buck I had ever taken. And man I was proud. I had to drag that big boy out all by my self. When I called my dad to tell him I got it, I think I made it seem a lot bigger than it actually was. I was excited. I’ll never forget that day. It all probably wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t found those big buck rubs. 

If you are trying to find a place to harvest trophy whitetail deer, public land deer hunting may be the way to go for you. Some places are not hunted that much, and have some very large bucks roaming around on them. If you do your homework, you can find some great places to find a big boy, that nobody else hunts.

There are many great opportunities in just about every state, to harvest a trophy buck, I found a great article on public land deer hunting that is very informative and it tells a little about the different opportunities for taking a mature trophy whitetail buck, in a lot of different states. You can read it here.

I have hunted a few public lands in Georgia, and have harvested a very nice buck, and came close to getting a big monster whitetail buck, but he saw me before I saw him. That was on BF Grant Wildlife Management Area. It is a great place to hunt. My grandmother grew up very close to BF Grant in a little town called Godfrey, and one day I hope to harvest a big buck there close to where my grandmother grew up.

I harvested a big 9-pointer that hangs in my living room on Flint River Wildlife Management Area. I did my homework, and got drawn for a quota hunt, and did the scouting, and harvested my biggest buck of my 27 years of hunting. Some of the places are hard to get drawn for, but may well be worth the wait. It took me three years to be drawn for the hunt on Flint River Wildlife Management Area. But I am so glad that I was patient, and persistent, and eventually got drawn. What a great place to hunt big bodied, big racked whitetails.

I have had the chance to hunt different whitetail habitats and see a lot of different parts of the state of Georgia, thanks to public land deer hunting. Without these places, I wouldn’t have been able to hunt along the Flint River in south Georgia. Or the Piedmont region with the rolling hardwood ridges, without paying a pretty penny to do so.

I am facing the possibility of transferring out of my home state with my job, and you can bet if I do, I will definitely checkout some of the different opportunities to hunt big bucks on the states different areas open to the public.

I recently saw an article in my Georgia Outdoors News, where a guy from Georgia and some of his buddies went to Kansas and he took a 300 pound eighteen pointer that scored 199 7/8. And he will be listed in the B&C and P&Y record book. Now that is something that any serious trophy hunter dreams about. And where do you think he took this trophy whitetail? Public land!

Now I am not going to sit here and tell you that some times hunting these places can’t be frustrating, I have had other hunters all around me while hunting certain places. But you just have to try to get off of the beaten path, and be willing to get where other hunters are not willing to go. If you do your homework and are willing to do some hard work, you can score that trophy buck of a lifetime on land that is open to the public.

Well I just got on the internet and saw that a great American has died. Charlton Heston has passed away at age 84. He was a wonderful actor, and family man, and past President of the National Rifle Association.

He was a great american and will be missed by many.Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends. You can see his obituary here.

There are some really cool deer hunting videos out there. I like to watch them on YouTube and Huntvids.com. I have always liked  the Team Realtree Monster Bucks videos. The places that they hunt are awesome. The quality of trophy whitetail deer that they show on the videos is unbelievable.I also like the Primos The Truth series videos. They are great to watch and get you fired up for deer season.I grew up watching deer hunting videos, they help me make it through the year until deer season starts in the fall. I could watch them for hours. I only like the one’s that are fair chase. And the whitetail videos are what I like. Nothing does it for me quite like whitetails. I guess because I grew up hunting them. And they are my passion.I probably have over a hundred videos, and I never get tired of watching them.I have always dreamed of having a job that I loved. And filming deer hunts would be a job that I would love.Bill Jordan and the guys,and Will Primos and his crew all do a great job of bringing us some awesome footage. I love sitting by the fire in late winter watching one of my favorite deer hunting videos.There are some awesome hunting shows on television these days. It is amazing some of the great trophy whitetails that are harvested on videoYou can find a great selection of deer hunting videos here.

Today I was looking at Bass Pro Shops website and I saw a very interesting news release, that if you like deer hunting big bucks you will like this. You can read it here. It’s about hunting tv shows, and videos, and  the way that they are filmed.

I also found another story that gave me chill bumps when I read it. Someone was deer hunting and shot through a house and the shot went through a girls pillow. Luckily she had gotten out of bed before it happened. You can read the full story here.

The big bucks are shedding their antlers now. And I went shed hunting last week, but I didn’t have any luck. Some of the guys in our club went and found quite a few.

I put out a trail camera and hopefully I will get some good shots soon. I did get an email of some trail camera photos taken on our deer hunting property. And the biggest buck that we know of on our property has shed his antlers, and I thought it would be cool to show you some before and after trail camera photographs.

That’s pretty cool isn’t it. Were thinking his antlers may be regressing this year. The age factor probably will start to catch up with him. It sure will be interesting to see. We have seen him on camera for several years now, but he is just to smart, he didn’t get that big being dumb. We think he may have been seen once or twice during deer season, but not really sure.

It is so neat to see the big bucks grow their antlers throughout the year. Technology is a wonderful thing isn’t it? Hopefully, I will be able to get some good shots of some deer growing their antlers this year. I’ll put them on here if I do.

Also I received an IMPORTANT email from the NRA, and I saw this: Georgia: Most Important Right-to-Carry Reform Bill in Over 20 Years Needs Your Help! You can click on this link here for more information on this. If you are from Georgia please check this out. It is a very critical, to gun owners in Georgia.