Is Wisconsin the Best State for Trophy Deer Hunting? | Outdoor Life

by Alex Robinson

Sorry Iowa, Texas and Kansas, Wisconsin is now the best state for trophy deer hunting, at least according to the Boone & Crockett club. The club recently issued a press release stating that the number of trophy deer taken in the Badger State has risen by 857 percent over the last 30 years. And during the last five years (excluding 2011) Wisconsin hunters entered 383 bucks into the book. That’s higher than any other state.  Click Link Below For Full Story!

via Is Wisconsin the Best State for Trophy Deer Hunting? | Outdoor Life.

Birmingham deer hunter finds spirit in the hunt, taking huge buck | al.com

By Jeff Dute

By his own account, most of 2011 will not stand out as a stellar year for Birmingham’s Adam Burt.Laid off and unemployed for nearly five months, Burt landed a new job around the first part of October.Still, hamstrung financially and mentally by the long search for work, Burt was also concerned getting on with a different company would limit the amount of time he’d have to make the 90-minute drive to his hunting club near Haleyville in northwest Alabama.  So it was on Dec. 29 that Burt climbed into his stand to enjoy a little Zen time and maybe take a fat doe if the opportunity arose.Euphoric would best describe how he felt leaving those woods a couple of hours later. Riding to camp with a massive 14-point buck on the back of your ATV has a way of doing that.Burt’s stand was set up overlooking a hardwood bottom that ran uphill and through a thick transition zone before it ran into a stand of planted pines.Earlier scouting had revealed that a buck under the spell of an early breeding urge had left behind several scrapes and rubs along the thick area between hardwoods and pines.Hoping to lure the buck within shooting distance of his rifle, Burt walked in that day with some Top Secret Hot Mama.  Click Link Below For Full story!

via Birmingham deer hunter finds spirit in the hunt, taking huge buck | al.com.

Kentucky Afield Outdoors: Women Post Big Year For Trophy Deer During 2009 Season

By Hayley Lynch

FRANKFORT, Ky. – Every year, during production of Kentucky’s annual hunting and trapping regulation guide, I get to peruse photos, letters and official scoring sheets from hunters who took Kentucky’s largest deer the previous season. I always enjoy seeing these incredible animals, all of them evidence of a healthy and thriving deer herd. These deer and the hunters who spend months or even years pursuing them put Kentucky in the top five states in the country for deer considered trophies under the Boone and Crockett Club scoring system. But this year, something else stood out.All of our previous trophy deer lists had one thing in common – the hunters were almost always male. In fact, in five years of producing our guide I had received only one trophy deer taken by a female hunter. But this year was different. Four of the 40 deer currently on the list were taken by women. Even more impressively, three of those women are teenagers. Andrea Davis, a 19-year-old hunter from Ohio County, took a 14-point buck with typical antlers that scored 165 1/8 in the Boone and Crockett Club’s official scoring system. She thinks this year’s results are part of an overall trend. She says more girls and women are hunting deer.“I’m seeing a lot of kids going hunting with their dads,” Davis said. “I think women are seeing what’s out there, what they can bring home.”Davis herself was hunting with her father Thanksgiving morning in Muhlenberg County when they heard antlers crashing near the edge of a Conservation Reserve Program field. They were on their way to a tree stand, but the sound of nearby deer changed their plans.“We just sat down right there,” Davis said. “We saw two does, but they busted us. Then we saw a 9-pointer. I was getting ready to shoot him, but decided to wait.”The wait paid off when the trophy 14-pointer stepped out of the woods. “All I could say was, ‘Horns!’” Davis remembered. “My dad told me, ‘Please don’t look at the horns.’ I braced my gun on a little sapling and took a shot.”The deer ran only 40 yards after the 20-yard shot from Davis’s .30-06.Sixteen-year-old Deirdre Bryant of Meade County shot her first buck on opening day of the 2009 season. The 22-point deer with non-typical antlers scored 196 6/8.“I’ve always wanted to get a buck because of my dad and my uncle,” Bryant said. “It’s always been in my family. And I’m not going to stop.”Two more female hunters round out this unprecedented year. Spencer County’s Michaella “Mikie” Monroe was just 14 years old when she shot the biggest deer taken in Kentucky for the 2009-10 season. The buck scored an incredible 219 5/8, putting it in the top 30 deer with non-typical antlers ever taken in Kentucky. Mitzi Mobley of Berea shot a 160 4/8 typical buck in Madison County.I hope these four women are a sign of even better things to come for Kentucky hunting. More women in the field may be one of our best chances to turn around a decline in hunter numbers. And with deer like these, it’s easy to see what’s in it for the hunters themselves.“I’ve hunted since I was 12 and the only bucks I’ve gotten have been spikes,” Davis said. “So anything can happen at any time.”The 2010-11 Kentucky Hunting and Trapping Guide, available in early July, will include a complete list of trophy deer from the 2009-10 season, as well as several photographs of the deer and their hunters. The guide will be available online at fw.ky.gov and wherever hunting licenses are sold.

via Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources – Kentucky Afield Outdoors: Women Post Big Year For Trophy Deer During 2009 Season.

Boone and Crockett Club Reacts to Critics of New World Record Elk | Travel & Outdoors | New West Network

The Spider Bull was not “pen-raised,” was shot on public land, and at least 55 other hunters had a chance to bag the trophy.

By Bill Schnei

Denny Austan of Ammon, Idaho, and the

Denny Austan of Ammon, Idaho, and the “spider bull.” Photo courtesy of the Boone and Crocket Club.

On January 6, I posted an article about the Boone and Crockett Club officially confirming a new world record elk shot by Denny Austan of Ammon, Idaho in the Fishlake National Forest in Utah. The comment section immediately lit up with heated criticism of the hunter, his outfitter, and of the Club for authorizing what some people thought was an unethical, if not illegal, hunt not in the spirit of the Fair Chase Doctrine.

Last week, I asked the Club to comment on all of this criticism and rumors. I know other outdoor writers who made similar requests, and today, the Club, in an unprecedented action, released its internal document on their investigation of the hunt for the so-called Spider Bull, named for its massive and unusual antler configuration.

“It’s been crazy. People across the country, including many non-hunters, are flooding the B&C headquarters with requests for more information about the new record elk, the habitat that produced it, the hunter’s role in conservation and our system of records keeping,” Tony Schoonen, chief of staff for the Club, said in today’s press release. “It’s an educational moment unlike anything we’ve seen in years,

“This background info was accumulated by Eldon Buckner, chairman of our Records of North American Big Game committee,” Schoonen said. “Eldon led the exhaustive due diligence process that our Club requires for all new World’s Records. We’ve never released this kind of internal document before but I think observers will enjoy a peek behind the scenes.”

Readers will discover, he added, that Buckner confirmed at least 55 other hunters were hunting the area where the record bull was taken, that local law enforcement personnel investigated but found no evidence that the bull was pen-raised or escaped from a pen, nor any evidence of illegal conduct, and that many hunter-based conservation groups contributed to the quality of the area’s habitat  Click Link Below for Full Story

via Boone and Crockett Club Reacts to Critics of New World Record Elk | Travel & Outdoors | New West Network.

Boone and Crockett Club Confirms New World’s Record Elk

MISSOULA, Mont.—Perhaps the largest elk ever produced in the wild—a Utah bull taken in 2008 by a hunter on public land—has been confirmed as a new World’s Record. The official declaration was made today by the Boone and Crockett Club.

A Special Judges Panel determined a final score of 478-5/8 Boone and Crockett non-typical points, an incredible 93 inches above the B&C minimum score of 385 for non-typical American elk and 13-plus inches larger than the previous World’s Record.

With official data dating back to 1830, at 499-3/8 inches it is the only elk on record with a gross score approaching the 500-inch mark.

The giant bull has 9 points on the left antler and 14 points on the right. The larger antler has a base circumference over nine inches.

The Boone and Crockett scoring system, long used to measure the success of wildlife conservation and management programs across North America, rewards antler size and symmetry, but also recognizes Nature’s imperfections with non-typical categories for most antlered game. The bull’s final score of 478-5/8 inches included an incredible 140 inches of abnormal points.

“Along with measurements that honor the quality of the animal, Boone and Crockett Club records also honor fair-chase hunting,” said Eldon Buckner, chairman of the Club’s Records of North American Big Game committee. “Through our entry process, signed affidavits and follow-up interviews with the hunter, his guides, and state and federal officials, we were satisfied that this bull was indeed a wild, free-ranging trophy and that the tenets of fair chase were used in the harvest.”

The hunter, Denny Austad of Ammon, Idaho, hunted the Monroe Mountain District in south-central Utah. Hunting with a self-designed rifle, Austad killed the bull on Sept. 30, 2008. He hunted for 13 days before connecting with the trophy, dubbed “spider bull” for its unique antler configuration.

On behalf of the Boone and Crockett Club, Buckner congratulated Austad and credited his new World’s Record to the tremendous management of habitat and wildlife by the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources and the Fishlake National Forest.

“Utah’s conservation professionals really deserve a pat on the back, as do the citizens of Utah for their support of their state’s wildlife programs,” said Buckner.

Across North America, ever-improving conservation practices have translated to flourishing big game populations, with balanced age-class and mature, trophy animals. Over the past 30 years, qualifying Boone and Crockett records book entries for American elk have increased 193 percent from a total of 14 in 1977 to 41 in 2007.

Across all categories of native North American big game the overall trend is even higher with 344 qualifiers in 1977 up to 1,151 in 2007–a 234 percent increase.

The previous World’s Record for non-typical American elk was 465-2/8 B&C points. That bull was found dead, frozen in Upper Arrow Lake, B.C., in 1994, and was entered into Boone and Crockett Club records by the B.C. Ministry of Environment on behalf of the citizens of British Columbia.

For hunter-taken non-typical American elk, the previous top bull scored 450-6/8 B&C points, taken in 1998 in Apache County, Ariz., by Alan Hamberlin.

Boone and Crockett Club also keeps records for Roosevelt’s and Tule elk. World’s Records for these categories are substantially smaller than those for American elk.

Press Release

About the Boone and Crockett Club

Founded by Theodore Roosevelt in 1887, the Boone and Crockett Club promotes guardianship and visionary management of big game and associated wildlife in North America. The Club maintains the highest standards of fair-chase sportsmanship and habitat stewardship, and is the universally recognized keeper of the records of native North American big game. Member accomplishments include protecting Yellowstone and establishing Glacier and Denali national parks, founding the National Forest Service, National Park Service and National Wildlife Refuge System, fostering the Pittman-Robertson and Lacey Acts, creating the Federal Duck Stamp program, and developing the cornerstones of modern game laws. The Boone and Crockett Club is headquartered in Missoula, Mont

via Boone and Crockett Club.