Melanistic Whitetails: Here’s What We Know

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Each fall, deer hunters see or harvest albino or piebald whitetails and discuss what a rare occurrence that is. But an even greater rarity exists: melanistic whitetails. Melanistic whitetails are a true gem of whitetail color morphs. With very low odds for this genetic mutation and low reported harvest, viewing a wild melanistic whitetail is …

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The Mystery of the Tangled-Up Buck

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Last October a family friend encountered a buck on his property that had gotten tangled in a woven-wire fence. After being carefully freed from the fence, the deer stood around seemingly dazed and confused. At one point the buck even approached our friend, Neal, before dashing off into a nearby thicket (see the video below). …

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A Lesson From Deer Bones

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My deer season had been over for three weeks, and many managers were already using prescribed fire, an age-old practice of enhancing wildlife habitat. Several days of rainy weather gave way to a blue sky, so on a mid-January day I decided to take a stroll in the temporarily blackened deer woods. It was a …

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Pumba: Yet Another “Inferior” Buck That Wasn’t

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Can you name a fellow hunter who says that bucks with weird antlers should be “culled” for the benefit of the herd because they’re somehow “inferior”? Way too many of us can, so we should make sure our cull-happy friends get a good look at bucks like Pumba. Tom Mitchell, a QDMA member from Missouri, …

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