5 reasons why the white-tailed deer is Canada’s favourite big-game animal

#2  THE VERSATILITY

Unlike most other big game, another attribute of whitetails is that you can effectively hunt them in myriad ways. You can hunt them from treestands or ground blinds. You can still-hunt them, or track them through the snow. And you can spot-and-stalk hunt them, or set up bush pushes, or drives. Over the years, I’ve pursued whitetails using every one of those tactics, all with success.

I shot my largest buck ever on a drive through a half-mile by half-mile willow and alder flat. I was a pusher, and a buck moved by another pusher stepped out onto a fenceline trail in the middle of the flat, 100 yards or so ahead of me. At the shot, he sprinted off, but we found him on the ground just 30 yards from where he’d been standing.

Unfortunately, he’d run straight into one of the very few large trees on the flat, breaking off his right main beam just above the brow tine. It was broken again about two inches inch beyond the first break, and the top three or four inches of his G2 point were busted off. We dug around in two feet of snow and found the two-inch plug from the main beam, but we never did find the top piece of his G2; who knows how far it might have flown in the collision.

My taxidermist pieced the rack back together for me as best as he could, and it ended up scoring approximately 173 typical—unofficially, of course, because it had been repaired. That deer is likely to be the largest I’ll ever shoot; despite how abundant they are, mature bucks are just that elusive.

Unlike most other big game animals, you can effectively hunt whitetails in myriad ways

I vividly recall sitting in on a seminar hosted by Dave Hall, the legendary wildlife officer from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He said you should consider yourself extremely lucky to ever take a 170-point typical whitetail, the minimum score required to earn a place in the all-time Boone and Crockett record book. Shoot two in your life, Hall added, and you should be buying lottery tickets instead of hunting, Shoot three? Do that, Hall said, and he’s coming after you, because you’re probably a poacher. I have no doubt there are hunters who’ve legally collected three record-book bucks, but Hall’s point should not be taken lightly—big whitetails are just that difficult to fool.