White-tailed Deer
Photos courtesy of the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources
Posted September 29, 2009
By Art Lander Jr.
OutdoorsKentucky.Com
Buck Disappearing Act
Why do mature bucks seem to disappear in September, just as weather conditions improve for early season bow hunting?
“Once they lose their velvet, older bucks won’t tolerate each other’s presence,” said Bill Winke, an Iowa landowner, columnist for Petersen’s Bowhunting magazine, and host of MidwestWhitetail.Com. “Bachelor groups break up, and older bucks abandon open fields during daylight hours.”
Bucks that can be observed and filmed feeding in fields on almost any given afternoon, suddenly go into hiding.
Well, not exactly, but they can relocate miles away, or go nocturnal, staying put, hunkering down in heavy cover until it gets dark.
“Bucks have seasonal ranges. They disperse,” said Winke.
Whitetail experts agree that only a small percentage of older bucks stay in the same range nearly all year. “It’s very puzzling. Most big deer we film during late July and August, we never see during hunting season,”
Winke uses trail cameras to monitor bucks as they move into their fall ranges. Here are a few of his suggestions on trail camera use:
Place a trail camera where you think a buck is entering a field to feed at night. If a tree isn’t available, mount the trail camera on a metal fence post. Don’t risk jumping deer by placing cameras in the woods.
You should be able to drive to camera sites. Farm deer are used to the sound of tractors or pickup trucks driving through fields.
When checking the camera, retrieve the memory card, and replace it with an empty one. Upload images to your computer, then erase the images off the memory card. That way you’ll have a fresh supply of memory cards to use in your cameras.
Where legal, use bait (shelled corn), to lure deer into camera range for two or three weeks prior to the opening of hunting season. Keep cameras operating throughout bow season, to obtain the latest information on a buck’s location.
Posted December 26, 2009
By Art Lander Jr.
OutdoorsKentucky.Com
The First Eight Years of the New Millennium --
The Era of the Big Buck in Kentucky
When observers of natural history look back at the first decade of the New Millennium in Kentucky, they may say it’s the era of the big buck. Take a few minutes to browse Kentucky’s record books for deer and you’ll probably agree.
The listing of the top 100 typical and non-typical white-tailed deer taken in the Commonwealth is the center spread of the Kentucky Afield Outdoor Calendar for 2010, published by the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources.
Compared to other states in the Midwest, Kentucky has had huntable populations of deer for a relatively short time. Records date back to the 1950s, but a statewide huntable herd wasn’t established until the 1980s. In fact. Perry County continued to receive stockings of deer until the mid-1990s.
The most amazing statistic is that 50 percent of the record typical deer on the list have been taken since the year 2000. Kentucky’s record typical was killed by Robert Smith in Pendleton County during the 2000 season and scored 204 2/8. The North American record for a typical white-tailed deer is 213 5/8.
Incredibly, all 100 of the deer on Kentucky’s record typical list scored high enough to easily qualify for the Boone & Crockett Club Records of North America (minimum 170 points). In fact, the 100th deer on Kentucky’s record typical list scored 175 0/8.
Lewis County, a northeastern county along the Ohio River, has produced the most record typical deer on the list -- seven. In fact, four of the top 13 typical deer on the list were taken in Lewis County.
Casey, Edmonson and Ohio counties each produced four deer on the typical list. Sixty-nine percent of the typicals on the list were taken since 1990.
The non-typical list is equally impressive, with the state record scoring 271 7/8, a set of antlers found in 2004 by Chris Crawford in Henry County. The North American non-typical white-tailed deer record is 333 7/8, a head found in Missouri in 1981. All 100 deer on Kentucky’s non-typical list easily qualify for the Boone & Crockett Records of North America (minimum 195 points).
Thirty-seven percent of the non-typicals on Kentucky’s Top 100 record list were taken since 2000, including seven of the top 10.
Pulaski County produced five deer on the list, followed by Breckinridge, Hardin and Hart, with four each. Sixty-seven percent of the non-typicals on the list were taken since 1990.
These must surely be the “Good Old Days” of deer hunting in Kentucky, a decade that will be hard to top in the record books.
Michaella “Mikie” Monroe, shows off the mount of the 26-point buck she killed during the October, 2009 youth season.
The 14-year-old took the buck with a .243 rifle in Spencer County. It scored 219 5/8, which places it in the top 30 of Kentucky’s non-typical white-tailed deer record list.
Photo courtesy of Kentucky Fish and Wildlife Resources
Posted January 21, 2010
By Art Lander Jr.
OutdoorsKentucky.Com
Kentucky’s 2009-10 White-tailed Deer Season
Ends With Higher Than Usual Percentage of Bucks in the Harvest
Kentucky’s 2009-10 white-tailed deer season ended Monday, and there were some surprising numbers in the final harvest tally.
Hunters telechecked 113,580 deer, a decline of 7,030 from the 2008-09 season, and 11,172 deer below the state’s record kill in 2004-05.
But most notable was the higher than usual percentage of bucks in the harvest – 57.4 percent. During the nine previous deer seasons of the decade, the average percentage of bucks in the harvest was 50.3 percent.
“Gun season opened during the chase phase of the rut,” said David Yancy, a wildlife biologist with the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources who works in the deer program. “We had hunters tell us they were seeing antlered deer on opening weekend, but not many does.”
Yancy speculated that because fewer does than normal were taken (48,434, or 42.6 percent of the total harvest), there could be an uptick in reproduction this spring.
Kentucky’s deer herd now numbers about one million, and there are an estimated 255,000 deer hunters.
During the first half of the decade, deer harvest steadily climbed to a record 124,752 during the 2004-05 season, but since then the numbers have seesawed up and down. “That’s indicative of a stable deer herd,” said Yancy. “What you don’t want to see are wild swings in the harvest total, sharp declines or a steady upward trend.”
During the 2009-10 season archers checked in 14,663 deer, modern firearms hunters 81,663, and muzzleloader hunters 16,160
Posted February 9, 2010
By Art Lander Jr.
OutdoorsKentucky.Com
Kentucky Archers Placed 47 High-Scoring
Bucks in Pope & Young Club Records Since 2000
During the first nine seasons of the decade (2000-2008), Kentucky archers placed hundreds of bucks in the Pope & Young Club record books, including 47 from Kentucky’s top 50 list of archery kills for deer with typical and non-typical antlers.
Founded in 1961, the Pope & Young Club is a 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization devoted to fair chase bow hunting, conservation, and the wise use of natural resources. Their scoring and records program are patterned after the Boone & Crockett Club.
In all, Kentucky archers have entered a total of 899 deer (830 typicals and 69 non-typicals) in the Pope & Young Club record books.
Kentucky’s number one typical buck scored 188 2/8, and is 33rd on the Pope & Young Club all-time list. The buck was killed by Tim Raikes in Marion County in 1996. Twenty-two typical bucks on Kentucky’s top 50 list have been taken since 2000.
Kentucky’s number one non-typical buck scored 215 0/8, and is 114th on the Pope & Young Club all-time list. The buck was killed by C,J, Brummett in Caldwell County in 1998. Twenty-five non-typical bucks on Kentucky’s top 50 list have been taken since 2000.
By comparison, through the 2008 season, bow hunters in Illinois have entered 5,968 typical bucks and 643 non-typical bucks, in Iowa, 3,407 typical bucks and 403 non-typical bucks, and in Kansas, 1,981 typical bucks and 297 non-typical bucks.
The archery organization is named in honor of pioneer bow hunters Dr. Saxon Pope and Arthur Young, whose exploits during the early 20th century drew national attention to hunting with bows and arrows.
Annual membership is $35.
For information, visit their website at: www.pope-young.org