“Some men are obsessed with good guns, fine wine and beautiful women. I am consumed with shooting a drop-tine buck.”
Hanback, January 1, 2008, the day the BIG DEER blog was launched

About Me :

I was born and raised in Virginia and started hunting and fishing with my dad when I was 5 years old. My first bow was a Bear recurve; I shot thousands of wooden arrows into hay bales. I killed my first buck with a custom Sako rifle in .243 with a 100-grain bullet. My dad, a master woodworker, built that rifle for me. I have retired it and I cherish it.

I graduated with honors in English from Carson-Newman College in Tennessee a long time ago. I minored in hunting and partying and got As in those :)  

My first job was Assistant Editor for the NRA’s American Hunter magazine, then located in downtown Washington, D.C. It was the commute from hell, but it got me started. I moved up to Executive Editor and worked there for 10 years. I got to travel all over North America and hunt and write about it. I have shot some 15 species of big game-- all the deer, elk, most of the bears, wild sheep, caribou, even one wolf. But my passion has always been BIG DEER; those animals will always be at the center of who I am and what I do professionally.

In the early 1990s, seeking creative freedom and new challenges, I struck out on my own and started freelance writing. Those were fun years, but tough and lean, man. In those days most magazines were paying $100 to $200 for feature stories--8 to 10 photos included--banged out on an electric typewriter. When I got an assignment for $300 to $500 I went wild; when I got a check for $1,000 from one of the “Big 3” magazines (Sports Afield, Field and Stream, Outdoor Life) I had hit paydirt! My wife and I damn near starved.

For more than a decade I wrote for Outdoor Life and was the magazine’s Whitetail Deer Editor. I left in January 2008. Now I write a few stories for American Hunter again, and I also do a regular hunting column for Cabela’s Outfitter Journal. All told I have written thousands of columns and magazine articles in my career, way too many to count. I have written and/or edited 6 books on hunting, but, sadly, the outdoor book market is pretty dead.

That is largely because of the Internet. I saw that coming, so for the last 5 years I have blogged like a wild man almost daily about deer-hunting and big bucks. In January 2008 I started the BIG DEER Blog, the heart of this website and why you are here. My goal is simple: To make this the most interesting, compelling, informative, interactive and up-to-date deer-hunting/big buck community on the Web. With your help and support we are on the way.

Over the years I have made guest appearances on TV shows produced by Mossy Oak, Realtree, Drury, Knight & Hale and others. I had a great time doing it, and I met and hunted with some great people. For 3 years I co-hosted Winchester Whitetail Revolution on VERSUS. In 2008 I filmed hunts for my own big-buck show. "Remington's Buck Stops Here with Mike Hanback" debuted on VERSUS on September 4, 2009. It became a hit and was/is one of the top-rated shows on VERSUS' Friday night deer-hunting block.

While I have hunted most everything that walks or flies for the last 30 years, these days it’s all about BIG DEER, whitetails mostly with some muleys for spice. I hunt for big deer in 8 to 10 states and a couple of Canadian provinces each fall. I use all the tactics, from tree stands to rattling to stalking. I think out of the box and will try anything once (if legal) if I think it will help me shoot a giant buck. I hunt with all the tools—bow, blackpowder, rifle and slug-gun. 

I am a Life Member of the NRA and will forever support our 2A rights. I am an ambassador for ethical hunting. I will do all I can to sustain and grow our blood sport until I walk the deer woods no longer, you have my word on that. 

DISCLAIMER: The opinions I express in the BIG DEER Blog are mine and only mine and do not necessarily reflect the views of any of the magazines, TV networks or companies I work with. Just Hanback straight talk, man.