Global Moderator 12poundbass Posted November 12, 2023 Global Moderator Share Posted November 12, 2023 There are enough squirrels out here right now to feed a small army. They sound like deer too on the dried out leaves. 🤬 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super User casts_by_fly Posted November 13, 2023 Super User Share Posted November 13, 2023 17 hours ago, 12poundbass said: There are enough squirrels out here right now to feed a small army. They sound like deer too on the dried out leaves. 🤬 I was thinking that as I sat in a tree saturday evening. If hawks could hunt by sound they could have a field day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Global Moderator TnRiver46 Posted November 13, 2023 Global Moderator Share Posted November 13, 2023 2 hours ago, casts_by_fly said: I was thinking that as I sat in a tree saturday evening. If hawks could hunt by sound they could have a field day. As a person that catches squirrels for a living, this is not entirely true…….. 😂 I even know a master falconer that will turn his birds loose on squirrels and they strike out most of the time 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super User casts_by_fly Posted November 14, 2023 Super User Share Posted November 14, 2023 On 11/9/2023 at 4:16 PM, casts_by_fly said: 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. and to put a final wrap on this, I now know what happened on this shot. On Saturday evening I turned my light on my sight and something felt odd. I checked it over and the elevation adjustment screw was loose. Very loose. A couple weeks ago my buddy came over to shoot and my bow was hitting just a pinch low so I adjusted it. I never tightened the set screw back up and the front housing was able to move a half inch if you wiggled it. I tightened it back up and will put it on a target tomorrow to double check it. There was certainly enough movement to throw a 20 yard shot 2’ right and it was loose enough to explain the noise on the shot that evening. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Solution DaubsNU1 Posted November 21, 2023 Solution Share Posted November 21, 2023 Second time double-pulling, this time it was the ATV trailer behind the 5th wheel instead of the Lund. Usually hunt with my brother, but this time it was a solo trip...he spent weekend with his son hunting waterfowl. About 2 hours in to the 6 hour drive, stopped to get a snack...noticed one of the camper tires looked a little low...and heard the hissing...yep, bolt stuck right through the tire! Thankfully I was just a mile outside town with a Walmart...They got me in, replaced tire, and I was on my way...total down-time just over an hour. Got to spend three whole days riding around the Sandhills, enjoying warm weather, and looking for deer. Another group of hunters have leased up rights to hunt Mule deer on this Ranch, so I get to search for Whitetails. This guy wandered out from center-pivot, trotted for a bit. I got the nocs on him to confirm a Whitetail, and ranged at ~125 yards. He walked about 10 more yards then turned broadside to look my way. Standing, I shouldered my trusty 30-06 and put the crosshairs on his shoulder, then adjusted down just a bit (I am sighted in 2.7" high at 100 yards...that puts me at 0" drop for 250 yards). Pulled the trigger and heard the THUD as the bullet found the mark. Watched him run 80 yards and pile up dead. Broke camp and drove home yesterday. No major mishaps aside from the flat tire. Overall a wonderful trip that is putting meat in the freezer. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Way north bass guy Posted November 25, 2023 Share Posted November 25, 2023 Got home today just in time to see this big fella cruising around my property. He crossed my entire 25 acres twice, and I got a bunch of pics and video of him. He was here a couple mornings ago as well, nice big 10 pointer. This pic is right behind my house. Here’s why he was hanging around. These 5 ladies were bedded down right behind my barn first thing this morning when I was loading the truck for work. Guess one of them must still be in heat and he’s cruising around looking for her. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Global Moderator TnRiver46 Posted November 25, 2023 Global Moderator Share Posted November 25, 2023 Took this from the drivers seat (stopped the car of course…..) she thick. Probably could have drilled her if I threw my iPhone, not far at all and stood there for a solid 2-3 minutes staring at me And took this pic off the front porch, dogs can’t handle their presence 😂 . As soon as it gets dark they are crawling all over the place 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RipzLipz Posted November 25, 2023 Share Posted November 25, 2023 On 11/13/2023 at 12:42 PM, TnRiver46 said: As a person that catches squirrels for a living Someone came up to the deck wanting to speak to you about something & she didn’t seem too happy. 🤣 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Global Moderator TnRiver46 Posted November 25, 2023 Global Moderator Share Posted November 25, 2023 Good lord that’s a double digit fox squirrel! I guess you live a bit north of me, we’ve only got gray and flying squirrels. Occasional fox squirrel up closer to Kentucky/Virginia Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VolFan Posted November 25, 2023 Share Posted November 25, 2023 We had a deer hunter shoot a fox squirrel on our land (near Memphis) when I was about 9. It was literally the size of a rabbit. We had a few swamp rabbits around too that made a cottontail look like a kitten. Always cool seeing Ma Nature’s variety. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RipzLipz Posted November 25, 2023 Share Posted November 25, 2023 2 hours ago, TnRiver46 said: Good lord that’s a double digit fox squirrel! I guess you live a bit north of me, we’ve only got gray and flying squirrels. Occasional fox squirrel up closer to Kentucky/Virginia @TnRiver46 LOL @ double digit. Yeah, I’m in IN. Live in a subdivision in a small city south of Indy & that silver maple you see in the background has up to 6 squirrel dreys/nests in it every year. There’s a ton of them around the neighborhood. A few are tame enough to feed by hand. The one above wasn’t one of the tame ones. Haven’t seen her since early this year. Hawks & merlins try to get them but the squirrels are usually too quick. They’ll get in areas where branches in trees are too thick for the larger birds to get into. The hawks usually get smaller birds from what I’ve seen. You might be surprised what all shows up in our backyard. Red squirrels (pineys), chipmunks galore. Mallards will sit up on the rooftops waiting for people to go inside so they can come down & eat fallen bird seed & unshelled peanuts. Had 13 mallards back there at one time a couple of years ago. They come from retention ponds around the area & bring their ducklings in the spring. Coons & opossums show up at night. I sometimes live trap the coons & take them out to the rural farm areas a few miles away. Sorry for hijacking the thread with non-deer stuff. I’ll leave you all to it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Global Moderator 12poundbass Posted November 29, 2023 Global Moderator Share Posted November 29, 2023 Well 6poundbass was unsuccessful in bagging a buck this year. The rifle season ends the 30th of this month and we won’t have a chance to get out. Muzzleloader season kicks off after that, which I don’t have one so we won’t be participating in that. He did pass on a couple smaller bucks during bow season which I’m proud of him for letting them go. Late doe season kicks off Dec. 11 and goes until the end of the year. Hopefully he’ll get a shot on a doe. Side note, after the bucks basically disappeared from the face of the earth for the last week or so they are showing up on the trail cam again. There was even a 9pt we’ve yet to see make his appearance Sunday night around 9pm. These bucks aren’t stupid! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super User gimruis Posted November 29, 2023 Author Super User Share Posted November 29, 2023 10 hours ago, 12poundbass said: Side note, after the bucks basically disappeared from the face of the earth for the last week or so they are showing up on the trail cam again. There was even a 9pt we’ve yet to see make his appearance Sunday night around 9pm. I follow a local MN/WI outdoors forum and one of the more popular threads this time of year is obviously the deer hunting thread. It starts in Sept and ends in Dec. The reports on there are very scant too with daytime deer movement. All kinds of deer moving at night time on camera, virtually none during daylight. One poster claimed it was due to a full moon phase and high pressure. I don't know if there's any truth to that or not. This is where a drive or stalk can come into play. When I hunted in a larger group, we'd put together drives in standing corn or pieces of timber and place posters in escape positions. It generally did not result in a lot of kills because the deer were always running, but it got the deer on the move at least. No one seems to hunt any other way nowadays other than sitting in a stand and waiting. Maybe the deer aren't moving as much because no one is moving them anymore. Just a theory anyways. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Global Moderator 12poundbass Posted November 29, 2023 Global Moderator Share Posted November 29, 2023 6 hours ago, gimruis said: I follow a local MN/WI outdoors forum and one of the more popular threads this time of year is obviously the deer hunting thread. It starts in Sept and ends in Dec. The reports on there are very scant too with daytime deer movement. All kinds of deer moving at night time on camera, virtually none during daylight. One poster claimed it was due to a full moon phase and high pressure. I don't know if there's any truth to that or not. This is where a drive or stalk can come into play. When I hunted in a larger group, we'd put together drives in standing corn or pieces of timber and place posters in escape positions. It generally did not result in a lot of kills because the deer were always running, but it got the deer on the move at least. No one seems to hunt any other way nowadays other than sitting in a stand and waiting. Maybe the deer aren't moving as much because no one is moving them anymore. Just a theory anyways. The one property we hunt is my friends and it’s only 20 acres and all woods with a swamp on the east side. Sunday was the last day my son and I could hunt and my friend drove the swamp. The other property is my parents which is 40 acres with only 10 being woods and the rest, this year anyway is beans. Deer drives have been a thing here for my group anyways, but I agree with you it doesn’t seem to be a common thing anymore. Interesting and frustrating revelation the past 24 hrs. I woke up to a text from my friend and he sent me a video of two decent bucks sparring just before midnight, then they were back at it again at 2:30. When I woke up at 5:30 there were over 100 pictures over the night between the two cameras. I kept getting notifications throughout the morning after daylight and one was a really good buck! The two sparring and the big one after daylight we’ve never seen before. The big one this morning had a harem of doe so it seems as if a group of deer have been pushed out of their normal area and moved to this property. Basically we’ve had nocturnal deer for weeks then all of a sudden they’re having a party in front of the two cameras in the daylight. They have me scratching my head. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super User GaryH Posted November 29, 2023 Super User Share Posted November 29, 2023 One of the hunters didn’t want to get up on Sunday so one of the younger guys asked if he could go to his stand. Should have gotten up. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super User Bird Posted November 29, 2023 Super User Share Posted November 29, 2023 45 minutes ago, GaryH said: One of the hunters didn’t want to get up on Sunday so one of the younger guys asked if he could go to his stand. Should have gotten up. That is a really really nice buck, congrats to the youngster. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super User gimruis Posted November 30, 2023 Author Super User Share Posted November 30, 2023 1 hour ago, GaryH said: One of the hunters didn’t want to get up on Sunday so one of the younger guys asked if he could go to his stand. Should have gotten up. Oh man. Talk about your all time back fires. Might regret that one for a while. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super User casts_by_fly Posted December 5, 2023 Super User Share Posted December 5, 2023 Sunday morning after thanksgiving when I wasn’t able to get out my big 7 showed up under my stand. I just pulled the card yesterday. Only time he’s been around lately. Seems like once every two weeks he’s making a rounds. At this point I just hope he makes it to next year. He’ll look great with another year on him. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super User gimruis Posted December 5, 2023 Author Super User Share Posted December 5, 2023 22 minutes ago, casts_by_fly said: big 7 That thing is wide for only being a 7 pointer! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Global Moderator 12poundbass Posted December 5, 2023 Global Moderator Share Posted December 5, 2023 1 hour ago, casts_by_fly said: Sunday morning after thanksgiving when I wasn’t able to get out my big 7 showed up under my stand. I just pulled the card yesterday. Only time he’s been around lately. Seems like once every two weeks he’s making a rounds. At this point I just hope he makes it to next year. He’ll look great with another year on him. Looks like he just made a scrape and is marking his territory as the picture is being taken. Poor guy gets no privacy! 😂 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super User casts_by_fly Posted December 6, 2023 Super User Share Posted December 6, 2023 4 hours ago, gimruis said: That thing is wide for only being a 7 pointer! yes, quite. We don’t have the best food sources around I estimate he’s a 4.5-5.5 and gained the width but not the mass. He’s around 19” inside as best I can tell. He’s well past his ears and wider than his butt looking from straight behind. 3 hours ago, 12poundbass said: Looks like he just made a scrape and is marking his territory as the picture is being taken. Poor guy gets no privacy! 😂 there is a scrape halfway between him and the camera actually. That’s why the camera is there. He’s not on it but he could have made another. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super User casts_by_fly Posted December 7, 2023 Super User Share Posted December 7, 2023 Added one to the tally tonight. I put out a camera two days ago and went to hunt the spot tonight. Had a ton of deer through in 48 hours including three bucks (one shooter). I’ve been looking for does and there weren’t any on camera in daylight but I had hopes. About 30 minutes to go for shooting light a pair of does came through. The first eventually made its way to a shooting lane and I shot. It looked good, front end, pass through. She bounced 40 yards and stopped. I figured she’d fall over. Then I realized the other doe was standing there. She didn’t know what I was still so I snuck an arrow off the quiver and got ready. She eventually started moving so I drew but I was early. She stopped where I didn’t have a shot and I ended up holding at full draw for at least 3 minutes. I was using the tree and my leg to brace myself. She eventually took three steps and stopped. I loosed the arrow and knew it wasn’t a great placement (back and high) but lo and behold she made it 40 yards and fell over. I hit the artery by the liver and she was down in 10 seconds. I packed my gear and rappelled down the tree as quick as I could to use the little daylight left. I got to the arrow and started tracking. There wasn’t nearly the blood I expected from a good front end hit. Long story short, I did the first 80 yards and stopped. I went back for the other deer, got her and my gear to the truck, and went home to the dogs. I was home for about 2 hours and when my wife got home I went looking again. I tracked about a quarter mile with the blood getting more and more sparse as I went. I eventually lost it. I’m pretty confident that it was a high shoulder shot- too high, too far forward- and non lethal. It would have been great to have a double tonight. But I’ll celebrate the one I got (a big old doe) and not be too sad since the other deer is still running. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super User Catt Posted December 9, 2023 Super User Share Posted December 9, 2023 Sorry had to 😉 Enjoy reading thread! 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super User clayton86 Posted December 9, 2023 Super User Share Posted December 9, 2023 I gave up on deer hunting 8 seasons ago I would go out opening weekend or thanksgiving to push with my best friend like we did growing up but that would be about it. I deer hunted more this season than I have the last 8 years combined. Saw deer almost every sit but all out of range and when they were within range it wasn’t shooting hours yet. We did a push 2 weeks ago I got a button buck after it was shot at several times by the other guys I couldn’t let it go past me and not attempt the shot. I ended up hitting it on a wide open run doing Mach 3 across the field with my 45-70. I really wanted to get one with the pistol this year but never had the chance. This is the first weekend I haven’t gone for deer and season ends tomorrow and I have zero plans on chasing deer. Switching gears to ducks and coyotes which is basically all I’ve hunted since giving up deer. Way less boring than sitting in a tree for hours harassed by squirrels. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super User gimruis Posted December 9, 2023 Author Super User Share Posted December 9, 2023 1 minute ago, clayton86 said: Way less boring than sitting in a tree for hours Haha. My brother (who doesn't hunt) refers to it as "rotting away in a tree." Its definitely not for the mentally weak. Takes a lot of patience and fortitude to sit there for hours or days on end just waiting. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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