MikeHanback.com

Go to Hanback's New BIG DEER Blog!

If you are still coming to this old blog, please click here and be directed to my new and expanded blog and website! We will leave this site up for a year because it has so much valuable content, and so many great user-generated comments and posts by hard-core hunters like you--more than 5,000 of them! We will also be tying these archives in with the new website. Let's blog soon at the new www.mikehanback.com.

Open Thread Weekend: How's the Hunting?

Now most all the archery seasons are open. Going out Saturday or Sunday? What did you see? Shoot a doe or buck? I will be monitoring progress all weekend, so check in here and let me know, or ask a question. Good luck, shoot straight.

Open Thread: Who's Hunting This Weekend?

Where? What did you see? Get one?

New BIG DEER Blog is Coming Soon!

My new and expanded blog/website will launch in a couple of weeks. What do you think of the design (current blog entries will fill the white space)? It is undergoing a few tweaks, but I really like it and think you will too. The blog will be the cornerstone of course, but there will be more opportunities for us to interact and discuss all sorts of stuff in the Big Deer Forum all year. And I’m pumped about the Rut Report, which should rock daily from October thru January; click on your region on the map, tell us what the bucks are doing (trolling, chasing…), tell us what you saw (shot) today, post your pictures of scrapes, the buck you just killed, your best trail-cam shot, etc.

To that end I need your help quickly. Please comment below on the deer behavior you’re seeing as you hunt or scout right now. How many bucks are you spotting? How is the rack year looking, big or small? All the deer have shed, right? How many are still in bachelor groups? What are they feeding on? Seen any bucks sparring yet? Found any big rubs? We want to start posting this in the Rut Report so that when the new site launches we will have a live, running timeline of how the 2008 season is going. Be sure to tell us your state/region/area. Thanks for your help and support.

Big Deer Hunters: Who We Are

Ran across some numbers from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s database on deer hunters in North America :

• 10 to 11 million people hunt deer, mostly whitetails.
• One in every 20 Americans hunt deer
• 90% of us are male; 1 million are women
• 50% of us are age 35-54
• 41% of us have a high school education; 45% have some college
• 40% of us earn 40K to 99K a year
• 71% live in the Midwest and Southeast
• 61% of us (6.3 million) use a rifle or shotgun; 15% bowhunt; 10% use blackpowder
• 77% of us hunt on private land; 23% on public; 9% lease land
• Hunters average 18 to 20 days in the woods each fall

So how do you fit in?

BIG DEER Blogger Survives Hurricane Ike

Just got this from long-time blogger Rodger from Houston, TX:

Survived 100 mph winds and a tree didn't hit us. I'm as well prepared as any outdoorsman is for living without power but I don't think anyone was prepared for this. We are so much better off than people who lived on the coast. Towns are gone. 4 days without power. We're ok, though. Regards, Rodger

Please join me in wishing Rodger and his family good luck and Godspeed in the recovery.

Fleecing of Sportsmen: Sex, Drugs & Rock and Roll at Interior

Breaking from AOL and other news sources:

U.S. government officials handling billions of dollars in oil royalties improperly engaged in sex with employees of energy companies they were dealing with and received numerous gifts from them, federal investigators said Wednesday. The alleged transgressions involve 13 former and current Interior Department employees in Denver and Washington. Their alleged improprieties include rigging contracts, working part-time as private oil consultants, and having sexual relationships with - and accepting golf and ski trips and dinners from - oil company employees, according to three reports released Wednesday by the Interior Department's inspector general. The investigations reveal a "culture of substance abuse and promiscuity" by a small group of individuals "wholly lacking in acceptance of or adherence to government ethical standards," wrote Inspector General Earl E. Devaney.

In other words, there was a frat party going on, employees running around with lampshades on their heads, snorting coke, drinking, having sex and God only knows what else, all on your and my dime. And get this. The IG spent more than $5 million just on the investigation--ludicrous! Why couldn’t they just haul in a few witnesses, put some heat on them (“you’re gonna get your ass fired from this cushy job if you don’t fess up”), corroborate their stories and prosecute the offenders--dum, dum--like McCoy does on Law & Order? That would have saved us, oh, about $4.8 million give or take 50 grand.

I am so p----- because this is the department that administers the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which never has enough funds to do its job of smart and progressive conservation and land use that ensures more recreational opportunities for hunters and fishers. While you were out burning up $3.50 gas looking for one last spot to maybe hunt a buck this fall, a group of Interior rogues was partying down, again on your and my dime, thin as it is these days.

McCain and Obama are running all over chanting "change.” Here’s change for ya. Make an example out of those party-hardy nitwits. Throw them out and, if convicted of a crime, throw their asses in jail. Then maybe they will grow up. Enough is enough!

I'd better go back to blogging hunting before I blow a gasket :)

Monster Video WI Buck: New World-Record Typical?

The emails piled up while I was out hunting my butt off last week. I'll catch up and post as much as I can as fast as I can before my next trip in 2 weeks. Tough gig, but somebody...

The breaking news was Field & Stream's exclusive video of what some believe could be the new world-record typical walking around in Buffalo Co. WI. Some people think it'll gross 230 or even 240 and could possibly net 214 clean. Er, I don't think so when the velvet is gone and when you factor in deductions. No drop tine, but I think I'd shoot him, lol. A lot of you have seen the video; those who haven't click here. Then tell me what you think, is the Hanson Buck in trouble or not? BTW, wonder how many guys are gonna try to kill this giant and get rich and famous now that the video is out? Publicity on a buck this size can make people do crazy things.
 

BIG DEER in Africa

Earlier this summer my friends Lindsay and Cole hunted South Africa, where Cole shot the first animal ever in BIG DEER gear. Lindsay filed this report:

Here's the picture that the PH took of Cole and me with the kudu he shot in Africa. It was a 54.5" SCI Rowland Ward bull, taken with a .270 at 100 yards. We were in the Limpopo Province of South Africa, which is in the northern bushveld of the country near the Botswana border. Cole shot it on the last morning of a 3-day hunt, and since he had been searching for the perfect one the whole trip, it must've been the good luck of your shirt that he was wearing that helped him get it! He passed up several younger bulls and 50" ones, so it ended up being a good thing that he held out for the big one! They estimate that the bull was about 10 1/2 years old, and was at the end of his prime, which we know partially because his teeth were so worn down. Also making this bull a pretty special one was the fact that his tips point outwards, a very rare occurrence among kudu. The country that we hunted was very thick, much more so than it would be hunting in Texas, even though we were there during the winter. Our guide was a professional hunter named Christo Carstens, who owns the outfit Amber African Adventures. Overall, it was a great experience, and though Cole also took a bushbuck and an impala, the kudu was the true prize!

Yes, must’ve been the shirt, one of which I will also wear under my camo for good drop-tine luck this fall :)

What the Bible Says About Hunting

Thanks to Matt (aka Flatlander) for this. It is an excerpt from a paper he put together for his sportsmen's club to help combat anti-hunters. "We hand it out all the time and have converted a lot of folks who weren’t in favor of hunting," Flatlander says:

Genesis 27:3  "Take your bow and a quiver full of arrows out into the open country, and hunt some wild game..."

Genesis 9:2,3    "All the wild animals large and small and the birds and fish will be afraid of you.  I have placed them in your power.  I have given them to you for food..."

Genesis 3:21     "And the Lord God made clothing from animal skins for Adam and his wife."