Summer is coming to an end, and that means the start of an even bigger season is about here, deer season!
The largest whitetail on record weighed in at over 550lbs!
Now, I’m sad to report that I haven’t been hunting since before I was a teenager. I’ve always believed that the best hunter knows as much as he can about his target. Here is a short list of the most interesting facts I’ve found about the whitetails I hope to score this season:
- The Whitetail Deer is the most abundant Big Game animal in North America.
- Deer swim well and at a good pace. They have been clocked at speeds up to 13 miles per hour.
- About 40 percent of the young does may breed in their first autumn so that they give birth when they are one year old.
- Antler growth is usually complete by the end of August.
- Whitetails have an average life span of 8 to 11 years.
- A Whitetail buck will shed his antlers every year, usually sometime in late December through February.
- A whitetail buck usually weighs 130 to 220 pounds, but have been recorded at well over 350 pounds.
- Deer do not have a gall bladder on their livers. This allows them to eat vegetation that would kill domestic animals.
- Deer need 10 to 12 pounds of food per day to satisfy their needs.
- Recent Estimates put the Deer Population in the United States at around 30 million animals.
