We thought we had found the world’s oldest deer hunter last week, but we just discovered a new frontrunner. Mike Hanback posted about 100-year-old Clyde Roberts, who recently harvested this Virginia 8-pointer. Roberts took the buck from a treestand during muzzleloader season, and was recognized by Virginia Whitetails as their Buck of the Week winner.

Not too shabby for a guy who’s been around for a century.

With deer seasons wrapping up around the country, the old complaint mill has started to gin up. We’ve been hearing a whole lot grousing in the past couple of weeks about the length of the deer season. Granted, most of the complaints have come from my home state of New York, but we have received enough from other areas to make us think that there just might be something to it.

Here’s a cross section of comments: “We’ve been chasing deer since October 1 and it’s just too much. No wonder we haven’t seen a buck in 3 weeks.” Another weighed in with: “How do you expect these deer to get any age on them when the gun season runs for a solid month—everybody’s shell shocked, the deer and the landowners.”  More than a few are blaming extended seasons with declining deer numbers. “Everybody has a pocket full of tags and 2 months to fill them in. No wonder all the deer are gone”.

The view from 30,000 feet is pretty interesting. And boy is it ever a varied landscape. On the low side we have Illinois and Ohio each with 7-day gun season. They are part of the five Midwest states have gun seasons less than 10 days long. That generally means one weekend and a handful of weekdays. The average length of Midwest gun season for whitetails is 13 days and we all know what comes out of the Midwest.

On the other end of the spectrum, is the Southeast where the average length of the gun season is 68 days—Georgia and Alabama hunters enjoy more than 100 days to hunt deer. Now that’s a heck of a season. Seems as if long seasons were a problem they would have shortened them by now?

It’s tempting to look at Midwest deer hunting and conclude that short seasons mean big bucks. If it were only that simple?

So what’s the answer? Kip Adams, a QDMA spokesperson, believes there may be no right answer. He has spoken with deer and deer hunters in over 20 states and is quick to point out that deer seasons are not as simple as the number of days they run. As far as keeping populations in check, some states get the job done in 2 weeks while others need 2 months. Hunter density and hunter enthusiasm has a lot to do with it. As far as big bucks go, well, it’s pretty hard to beat the Midwest but there is more to growing big bucks than a short deer season.

So let’s see what our fellow Outdoor Life deer watchers think about season lengths. Are you happy with the length of your state’s deer season and why or why not? And while you are thinking about it, how would you change it?

With deer seasons wrapping up around the country, the old complaint mill has started to gin up. We’ve been hearing a whole lot grousing in the past couple of weeks about the length of the deer season. Granted, most of the complaints have come from my home state of New York, but we have received enough from other areas to make us think that there just might be something to it.

Here’s a cross section of comments: “We’ve been chasing deer since October 1 and it’s just too much. No wonder we haven’t seen a buck in 3 weeks.” Another weighed in with: “How do you expect these deer to get any age on them when the gun season runs for a solid month—everybody’s shell shocked, the deer and the landowners.”  More than a few are blaming extended seasons with declining deer numbers. “Everybody has a pocket full of tags and 2 months to fill them in. No wonder all the deer are gone”.

The view from 30,000 feet is pretty interesting. And boy is it ever a varied landscape. On the low side we have Illinois and Ohio each with 7-day gun season. They are part of the five Midwest states have gun seasons less than 10 days long. That generally means one weekend and a handful of weekdays. The average length of Midwest gun season for whitetails is 13 days and we all know what comes out of the Midwest.

On the other end of the spectrum, is the Southeast where the average length of the gun season is 68 days—Georgia and Alabama hunters enjoy more than 100 days to hunt deer. Now that’s a heck of a season. Seems as if long seasons were a problem they would have shortened them by now?

It’s tempting to look at Midwest deer hunting and conclude that short seasons mean big bucks. If it were only that simple?

So what’s the answer? Kip Adams, a QDMA spokesperson, believes there may be no right answer. He has spoken with deer and deer hunters in over 20 states and is quick to point out that deer seasons are not as simple as the number of days they run. As far as keeping populations in check, some states get the job done in 2 weeks while others need 2 months. Hunter density and hunter enthusiasm has a lot to do with it. As far as big bucks go, well, it’s pretty hard to beat the Midwest but there is more to growing big bucks than a short deer season.

So let’s see what our fellow Outdoor Life deer watchers think about season lengths. Are you happy with the length of your state’s deer season and why or why not? And while you are thinking about it, how would you change it?

Ice fishing can get pretty boring. It seems these guys were driven to the limit of their boredom and convinced a buddy to sit on a motorized ice auger. Either that, or the guy is just kind of an idiot.

Anyway, it makes for a funny video, but don't try this at home.

When we're working on a big story, we typically like to play our hand pretty close to the vest in order to preserve that element of surprise when you open a new issue of Outdoor Life. But we've decide to tip our hand a bit and let you know that for April we're putting together a huge "how-to" package that will be full of essential outdoor skills, fun D-I-Y projects, and innovative ways to repurpose gear and save money.

The reason we're giving you the heads-up is because we want you to contribute to the piece. Do you have a favorite and foolproof way to spool a fishing reel in less than a minute? Maybe an outside-the-box method for skinning a deer? Or a clever tip on how to save cash when planning a hunting or fishing trip? Well, we want to hear about it. Email us your skills, projects, tips, tricks, and hacks to [email protected], and we'll run the best ones in the April issue.

A new study published in the journal Animal Cognition in December suggests that not only can some shark species tell which way a human is facing, but that they tend to avoid that human’s field of vision. When those sharks do approach humans they tend to do so from the rear.

Oh great.

This tendency has been noticed by divers and shark scientists for some time, but has only recently been studied.

The study to prove the behavior involved divers kneeling on a seafloor staring ahead for hours in Florida waters.  Video footage was shot from above to document shark interaction with the divers. The Caribbean reef sharks that came close to the human subjects did so from the rear 80 percent of the time.

Erich Ritter, a scientist at the Shark Research Institute in Florida, told LiveScience, "They [sharks] truly do swim up from behind, be it that they want to sneak up or they don't want to be seen. It doesn't mean they sneak up in a way of having a vicious thought; mainly, they are curious but at the same time cautious."

How the sharks can tell which way a person is facing though, still remains a mystery.

Ritter said that sharks may know from previous experience with humans that the diver’s facemask is where his eyes are located.  Then again, maybe not. It’s speculation at this time.

George Burgess, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research at the Florida Museum of Natural History doesn’t believe that sharks approaching from the rear is necessarily true. 

"I am not persuaded that the author's thesis was proven in this study," Burgess said. "We don't know the past history of these sharks, and whether this interaction with humans represents a new experience."

Ralph Collier, a researcher with the Shark Research Committee in Los Angeles, does believe sharks know front from back. He says that the study helps explain how some divers have turned around to find a shark swimming toward them.

But again, maybe those sharks had interaction with humans before.

Who knows? I don’t, and I do not care to put my body out there in order to find out.

Do you?

Evidence of why the Cape buffalo is considered the most dangerous of the Big Five became easily apparent to visitors of South Africa’s Kruger National Park when they witnessed a lion being tossed about like a ragdoll by an enraged buff.

According to a description of the video posted on YouTube by Barcoft TV, park goers watched for 45 minutes as two young lions stalked to within striking distance of a buff. Park goers assumed the buff was a goner once one of the cats pounced on it and dragged it to the ground. 

"It looked like it was game over, he [the buffalo] really looked finished," witness and videographer Oliver Matheson told the Daily Mail. "Then we saw two of the original herd coming back to investigate and we didn't really know what to expect."

What happened next was the lion literally got the horn of the bull as the buffalo tossed the young lion repeatedly. Some estimate that the lion was thrown as high as 16 feet.

Amazingly, all animals left the scene unscathed.

Given the incredible content Mateson caught on film, it’s no wonder this video has been watched more than 6 millions of times the world over.

Brandon Seward sent us these photos of a slammer piebald buck from his family farm in Wakefield, Virginia. A piebald buck is fairly rare, but what makes this deer interesting is how big it is. Most of the piebald photos that come across my desk show spike bucks or forks.

In his own words, here's how Brandon's hunt went down…

My brother and I had gotten several different trail cam pictures of this deer dating all the way back to 2008. September 2011 was the last picture I personally had of him. I had nearly forgotten about the deer until my neighbor captured him on his trail cam early this hunting season. I couldn’t believe it! 

This November the buck started to be seen on a regular basis by several people in our area, but it was primarily at night and on a tract of woods across from our farm that I did not have hunting rights to. Soon a day didn’t pass without someone mentioning the 'white buck.'

It was slow at work one evening so I decided to slip away at 4:00 and sit on a field until dark. As I was making my way to my treestand, I looked across the field and spotted two smaller bucks feeding. Just as I was deciding neither buck was a shooter, I caught a glimpse of a large rack just over the hill.  

I made my way around to the opposite side of the farm where I felt like I could sneak along the wood line and get within shooting range without being spotted. As I got into range and slowly stood to shoot, I realized the nice rack I had seen over the hill belonged to the 'white buck.'  On December 2, 2013 I went from never laying eyes on this deer in person, to killing it within 15 minutes of leaving work. When I finally got my hands on him, I could hardly control my excitement.

Despite the fact that invasive feral pigs have all but taken over the lower 48 states (Texas is said to have close to 4 million animals within its borders alone) and have caused millions upon millions of dollars in crop damage, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation announced Friday that it has introduced legislation that would prohibit hunters from trapping or killing “free-range Eurasian boars.”

Department commissioner Joe Martens explained to The Citizen said that although these animals are a threat to the state’s environment and its natural resources, hunting them hinders the efforts of the DEC and the United States Department of Agriculture to capture the species. 

"As long as swine may be pursued by hunters, there is a potential conflict with our swine eradication efforts," Martens said in a statement. "Eurasian boars often join together to form a 'sounder', the name for a group of pigs sometimes numbering 20 or more individuals. Shooting individual boars as opportunities arise is ineffective as an eradication method and this often causes the remaining animals to disperse and be more difficult to remove."

If passed, the proposed legislation would make it illegal to hunt or trap the animals.  Disturbing traps set by the DEC and the USDA would also be illegal. Hunting wild boar on preserves would be legal until 2015 at which time certain exceptions would be put into place.

Does this plan have merit? Comment below!

We’ve seen some giant bucks tagged this season, but this massive typical bowkill from Iowa may prove the biggest yet. We haven’t heard much about the hunter or his world-class buck yet, but rumors suggest we could be looking at a new world record. Here’s what we know so far.

This photo was posted publicly to Facebook as early as Nov. 19. The user who published it heard the buck was shot near the town of Frankville in Winneshiek County, Iowa. Details from an email shared with Heartland Outdoors blogger Tim Walmsley also suggest the monster was killed in northeast Iowa.

According to Walmsley and Scott Bestul of Field & Stream, the buck reportedly measured 206 inches. There’s no word yet on whether that’s a gross or net score. To unseat the current Pope and Young Club typical archery world record, this mystery buck would need to beat the reigning 204 4/8-inch Illinois stud taken by Mel Johnson in 1965. Johnson harvested his first-place buck with a recurve bow in Peoria County, Ill.

Let us know if you have any info on this hunt, and in the meantime tell us what you think in the comments. Will this mystery buck finally break the world record, or is this really just a rumor?