2023 deer hunt

[casts_by_fly]

Let a smaller 8 walk today. Had him

dead to rights at 18 yards but I am hoping for one of the bigger ones. No guarantee he gets a second pass though…

[A-Jay]

18 hours ago, casts_by_fly said:

Let a smaller 8 walk today. Had him

dead to rights at 18 yards but I am hoping for one of the bigger ones. No guarantee he gets a second pass though…

Nice,

But what happened to

"If it's brown, it's down" ? 

j/k

A-Jay

[casts_by_fly]

29 minutes ago, A-Jay said:

Nice,

But what happened to

"If it's brown, it's down" ? 

j/k

A-Jay

 

Funny you say that.  That's how I grew up hunting.  If you have a tag and its legal for the tag well...  we ate every piece of deer meat we shot so for the most part it was all a meat game.  Sure, a nice buck was great and fun to brag about and tell stories, but the meat tasted the same as a spike.  My wife and I don't eat deer in this house though, so everything is a donation.  To that end, I can shoot unlimited does and donate them.

 

Over the past two seasons I've set a couple rules for myself on what I'll shoot.  Only basket racked bucks (i.e. the main beams need to curve, which around here means a 2.5 year old deer or more), no does at the house (they are our 'yard deer').  This buck passes those rules.  I also have a limited time period to hunt this year as we're getting a puppy on Sunday so I won't be able to pop out as much (I'll be the primary caregiver).  So I REALLY considered it which would end my buck hunting for the year, tag me out with 2 modest bucks, and let me not worry I was missing out by not being out there.  then I could go shoot does when it was convenient for me.

 

And then I looked at the pictures of the two bigger ones running around.  I already shot one buck this year so It's not as if I'm going deerless.  And to give this buck another year would mean he'd be in the 'bigger ones' camp if he made it.  So it was an odd decisions for me when my gut was telling me to shoot him but my brain said let him walk.  Then again, tomorrow morning might be my last sit (pending how the puppy is) so if he comes through again at 18 yards broadside....

[TnRiver46]

11 minutes ago, casts_by_fly said:

 

Sure, a nice buck was great and fun to brag about and tell stories, but the meat tasted the same as a spike.  

I agree. Everyone wants the big male to be tough and chewy but I’ve never experienced that, they are tender and delicious. I ate some steak from a massive bull elk a couple weeks ago and it was top notch. Now a big wild boar, that’s gonna be stinky……..

[gimruis]

3 hours ago, casts_by_fly said:

That's how I grew up hunting. 

That's how it was when I started going to deer camp too.  But not everyone was able to draw a doe permit where we hunted every year, so some people "had to wait for horns."

 

It's not even remotely close to how I hunt nowadays anymore.  I am not really that crazy about venison, and neither is my wife.  I will eat it on occasion, but I always buy a bonus antler less tag every season so I can fill that with a young corn fed doe and then sit and wait the rest of the season to fill my buck tag with mr big (which rarely comes).  Most seasons, my buck tag gets unfilled as I have no interest in shooting a spike or other small buck.

 

Luckily I have co-workers and friends who like venison, and they don't hunt.  So there is always a home for it, even if it's not mine.  @TnRiver46 if you lived by me I could very likely give you a whole deer almost every season.

[TnRiver46]

Thanks @gimruis!!! I can drive, what time should I get there??!!!

 

 

[TnRiver46]

My buddy got a cow tag! Yee haw , I got friends in high places

 

[casts_by_fly]

Well, we share the good and the bad, the successes and the failures. Last night was a failure.

 

After thinking about the buck I passed I decided that I wouldn’t have passed that buck before and why start now. My time is running down so I made the decision that if he came through again I was pulling the trigger. Sure enough, a cluster of 4 does/buttons came in and were grazing.  One doe in particular seemed to have my number.  I’ve hunted the same tree 4 straight mornings and evenings this week because of the back cover. I think she got wise that something was happening but never smelled me or truly made me.  I’m in a saddle so I can hide most of my body behind the tree.  Every time she came in yesterday (morning and evening) she’d be looking at me anytime she was within 50 yards. 

 

After the does came in and calmed down I saw antlers coming in. I grabbed my bow and it turned out to be the buck. He came through where I thought he would but I didn’t have a shot.  He did a loop around the does and came back to my shooting lane.  I got drawn without the suspicious doe seeing me but he stopped a foot short.  I leaned out a little far to see if I had an opening and the doe blew on me. They all trotted off 75 yards and I figured my night was done.

 

like before though, they didn’t smell me so about 15 minutes later they filtered back. The buck followed the does in but an ornery spike came from the other way and distracted all of them. They all ran around a bunch totally distracted which let me get drawn. As soon as he stopped in my shooting lane I centered the pin on his lungs and pulled the trigger.  There was an awful sound on the shot and I watched in horror as the arrow hit two feet right, straight into his rear end. I got about 6-8” of penetration and watched him bounce off, lighted nock showing the way. I saw the arrow fall out 40 yards from me and didn’t hear any more crunching. I snuck out of my tree and went in the house. 
 

Replaying everything in my head, I think my bowstring was impinged on the saddle bridge rope and that was the noise it made on the shot. I didn’t notice it as I was angling for the shot.  I shot the bow this morning on a target and it was fine. 
 

Of course replaying the shot I worked through the possibilities of the hit too. I knew it was in the rump but the question was if I hit anything vital like an artery or a gut. 25 years ago I hit a doe in a similar spot, got a pass through, and she bled out in 40 yards as I hit a main artery.  This would be the best case scenario and he’d be dead on the hill. If it hit guts then he’d almost certainly bed down quickly and bleed out overnight. Turns out I was right that he’d bed down quickly. He went about 60 yards from the shot and laid down for the night. I bumped him as I tracked him this morning. He ran down the hill and stopped, too far to shoot but close enough to see that he wasn’t bleeding anymore and the wound was clean. He didn’t show any signs of a gut hit and didn’t bleed a drop past his bed. He’s clotted up already and will be fine.  
 

All in, it sucks I screwed up the shot but for as bad as the failure was, the outcome is about the best case scenario. 

[gimruis]

I saw a really nice 8 point buck following a doe this morning from my stand.  Unfortunately, when it turned towards me, I could see that half of the antlers on one side were completely gone/broke off, so I let it walk.  That was such a buzz kill.  It even had a drop tine on one side too.  I've never seen a buck with a drop tine. ☹️

[TnRiver46]

My mouth starts watering when I open this thread thinking about venison and y’all are just letting them walk by. It’s a good thing I don’t hunt, hahaha. The sky would be dark with arrows like an ancient war 

[gimruis]

Operation Cornstalker will commence at midday today.  There is so much standing corn around the property I am hunting that its clearly impacting the number of deer I see, and its a safe haven for all the deer.  I have seen them come in and out of it multiple times from a long distance. With the warmer weather on tap, it won't be harvested anytime soon either.  It'll be there for weeks.

 

I will be methodically walking into the wind and peering up and down the rows for deer this afternoon.  There is a west wind at 15 mph that will be covering up the noise as I sneak around like a ninja dressed in orange.

[casts_by_fly]

1 hour ago, gimruis said:

Operation Cornstalker will commence at midday today.  There is so much standing corn around the property I am hunting that its clearly impacting the number of deer I see, and its a safe haven for all the deer.  I have seen them come in and out of it multiple times from a long distance. With the warmer weather on tap, it won't be harvested anytime soon either.  It'll be there for weeks.

 

I will be methodically walking into the wind and peering up and down the rows for deer this afternoon.  There is a west wind at 15 mph that will be covering up the noise as I sneak around like a ninja dressed in orange.

 

good luck orange ninja!

 

I had a grand plan for today and tomorrow.  I have a 2-3 hours break this afternoon and was going to do set a stand to creep into before daylight tomorrow morning (I have tomorrow off).  It's a piece of public land about a 5 minute drive away so just enough time to set up for the morning.  Alas, then I remembered that we're down to 1 car right now and my wife is in the office.  So we're going to try something a little different and start walking here from the house and walk the whole way to a bordering piece of public land that I've hunted a time or two.  Then dark is going to fall about when my wife is coming home so she can pick me up on the side of the road.

[TnRiver46]

Orange ninjas and hitch hikers. Guerrilla warfare 

[gimruis]

26 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

Orange ninjas

 

[casts_by_fly]

So I’ve got a new twist in the 8-pt saga and it burns me up. After jumping him Saturday and seeing him hustle off, not bleeding, I was sure he would make it. I didn’t hit gut or anything vital, just flesh. Turns out that’s lethal too when there is a pack of coyotes around. I heard them howling Tuesday night when I had the dogs out and they only do that around here in a fresh kill. I thought maybe, but put it out of my mind. This evening I had to walk from home as my wife has my truck and I decided to make it a long walk which took me past where they were howling. As I approached there were three buzzards and I knew what was coming. Sure enough, there he lay with two days of scavenger chunks missing. I’m sure he would have made it otherwise but for the coyotes. This weekend I’ll harvest the rack and probably put my buck tag on him. It sucks that no one gets the meat so I’ll have to find an extra doe for the food bank. 

[Way north bass guy]

Just got back today from four days at our hunt camp. Got three small bucks on the game pole ( very tender meat @TnRiver46😏), couple does that guys missed, saw a huge buck yesterday that we couldn’t get a decent shot at, and on one run in the afternoon we saw 8 moose, three of which were huge bulls. Was a great time at the camp, with lots of critters around too. We’re still going to hunt the next couple weekends so I’m sure we’ll get another deer or two as well. 

[TnRiver46]

Nice work @Way north bass guy! 8 moose spotted?? Y’all are loaded with them up there ! 

[Way north bass guy]

10 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

Nice work @Way north bass guy! 8 moose spotted?? Y’all are loaded with them up there ! 

Yup, we have a very interesting area that’s almost 50/50 moose to whitetails. Usually, even around my neck of the woods where there’s both species, if you have a small area that holds many moose, the deer will not really hang around. Where we hunt, you have just as good a chance to see either one. When we did that particular push ( about 8 guys on specific watches, and 2 guys “dog” the bush, basically they wander through the area to push the deer towards the pinch points where the watchers are), we had 3 huge bulls, 3 cows and 2 calves all come out at once. It was like they were having a big block party at the one large dried up swamp, and the cops all showed up and they had to split 😄. 

[gimruis]

1 hour ago, Way north bass guy said:

we had 3 huge bulls, 3 cows and 2 calves all come out at once

That would be quite a sight.  I used to participate in "drives" for deer as we call them here when we had a bigger group of hunters.  No one does them anymore here.  Everyone sits in tree stands instead.  And people are far more selective on the deer they shoot too.

[Way north bass guy]

It is a pretty amazing sight to see so many large, wild animals in one small area. Couple guys scurried behind some large trees and one guy slid behind his parked atv when they came stampeding through. You do not want to get in front of a running moose! 
Around here there’s quite a few guys that sit in blinds or stands for deer as well. Still plenty of deer camps around though, it’s as much of a get together with good friends as it is the actual hunt for many of us. For many years the only way I hunted deer was by still hunting. Basically just pack a lunch, grab my rifle and sneak quietly through the bush all day long. I’d cover up to 20 miles a day some days, just me sneaking up on wild, big woods deer, no crop fields or bait around. About as close to being a wild predator as you can get, and one of the hardest, and most satisfying ways to harvest game that I’ve ever done. 

[gimruis]

7 minutes ago, Way north bass guy said:

Still plenty of deer camps around though, it’s as much of a get together with good friends as it is the actual hunt for many of us.

Those traditional deer camps are a dying breed here.  I participated in one for about 25 years in northern MN.  My Great Grandfather was one of the original 6 people who started it back in the 1950's.  Meals eaten together, playing cards, drinking beer, sitting by a camp fire, and deer hunting of course.  Sadly, that tradition ended about 3 years ago when our "camp" was down to only 5 people and we couldn't justify staying in a 10 person lodge anymore.  So now its just my Father and I on private land closer to home.  I'm afraid that at some point in the next 10 years or so its going to just be me, as my Father is 72 now.  He will not be hunting forever.

[Way north bass guy]

Our gang did one push this morning. Our newest member of the camp got his first deer today, nice little 6 pointer. That gives us 5 nice deer so far, and our huge moose from October. Gonna try again next Saturday one more time then that’ll be it for us. Should be lots of tasty steaks, sausage and burger for everyone. 

[gimruis]

Well my luck finally changed this morning.  I was going to sit until 9am and then hang it up for the season.  Wouldn't you know it at 6:50am I look to my left and a nice little corn fed antler less deer was standing 75 yards away, broadside.  The exact deer I was looking for to fill a bonus mgmt tag.  Done deal, tag filled.  Should be a good eater.  Its definitely one of the smallest deer I've ever shot.  More like an overgrown rabbit lol.  I brought it to the butcher at noon and he said "where's the rest of it?" 😂

 

I also saw another antlerless deer and a small buck half an hour after I shot this one.  I saw 15 deer in 7.5 days of hunting, which included 5 bucks.  None of the bucks were worth taking though, not big enough.

 

I also saw a coyote, 8 turkeys, 2 raccoons, 3 stray cats, and about 75 pheasants while I was deer hunting.

 

 

[TnRiver46]

Must’ve been a good day to hunt, my buddy’s son got his first deer, I think he’s 12 yrs old 

[gimruis]

13 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

my buddy’s son got his first deer, I think he’s 12 yrs old 

That's when I got my first deer too.  12 years old is the minimum legal age a kid can deer hunt here on their own.  Looks like a good eater to me.  Young and tender.