Slappy

I am both!  You will be happy to know that in my experience this year, the evening hunts have produced more deer down than the morning hunts.  I love evening hunts mainly because I am not in a rush to arrive before the sun comes up and I usually have a lot more energy.  But I prefer morning hunts because nothing beats watching the woods wake up!  

  Thanks.  Sometimes it just doesnt feel like hunting when you are in it.  Its too comfortable. haha

Another doe down tonight!  Fairly interesting story too.  I saw 2 spikes that I passed on and only had about 15 minutes of legal light left.  Then this doe caught my eye leaping through the beans at about 250yards.  Its too far for my comfort level especially with the quickly fading light so I wasn't going to shoot unless she got closer.  Well she stopped for a bit and started chewing up some soybeans and with about 10 minutes of shooting light left, I decided I need to try and get her to come in closer.  So I grabbed my grunt call that will do fawn bleets and started bleeting at her.  She quickly snapped her head around and looked my direction, then started walking to me!!  I will be honest, that is the first time I have ever used a call and seen it work.  So that was a great learning experience.  Anyways, she got within 150-175 yards of my stand and facing straight on at me and with literally 3 minutes of legal shooting light left, it was now or never.     So I zoomed in on the Leupold scope and decided I was going to go for a neck shot because it was really my only option.   If I shoot left or shoot right, its a clean miss and she wont be wounded.  No harm no foul.  If I hit low, the bullet would exit the back of her neck and enter back into her through the backstrap and into the guts.  So I didnt want to shoot low.  If I shoot high, it will go over her head and miss her rear end and go safely into the ground.      I aimed right beneath her chin and sllloowwlllyyyy squeezed the trigger.  BOOM!! All I see is my muzzle flash for a second.  Then when my eyes adjust back...no deer running.  So I'm thinking, well I either missed her and she ran off and I just didnt see her, or I dropped her in her tracks.   I went to go find her and there she lay.  Apparently, I shot just SLIGHTLY higher than where I was aiming and the bullet went into her nose, through her brain and exited below the base of her skull/upper neck area.  It was not gory, just a simple entry and exit wound and it did the trick.  That was literally the most humane shot I have ever made on a deer!  She was a big momma too which is good.  Going to keep the backstrap and tenderloins whole and get the rest in jerky, spicy breakfast sausage and grind.  So far we have taken a total of 9 doe off our property. 

My buddy just got one about 800 yards as the crow flies from me. Apparently the deer don't want soybeans right now. :-(

Haha, not going to lie. I wish I had one right now! My father in law has one of those Mr. Buddy ones and he loves it. Probably sleeps through most the deer movement though! Haha

Haha, I hear ya! I'm in a nice box blind so that helps with the coolness and the wind. This is what I am hunting out of. http://www.redneckblinds.com/predator-combo-blind.php

Was able to sneak away from work a little early and am now in my deer stand! Sitting over 20 acres of standing soybeans hoping to catch one! Was here for a morning hunt this past Saturday and only saw 1 crossing so hopefully an evening hunt will yield different results.

Any of y'all looking to adopt a 28 year old son?

Summits are great...I have one.  But I also have an Ole Man Treestand.  Those are very easy and lightweight and also a lot cheaper than the Summit.  So keep an eye out for one of those as well.  They are the quietest of all the climbing stands I have.  

I wish it would save my TWRA number.  

Cool. Thanks. I just downloaded it.

I got lazy earlier.  Its been a long weekend.  Here is my story though:   Woke up saturday morning at 3am and took my scent free shower.  Made my way to my dads house and met him there and loaded up.  Dad taught me how to hunt so it is always special getting to share the outdoors with my dad.  So we left at 3:40am to go to our hunting property that my father in law owns.  He has 425 acres with a mix of 70% mature hardwoods and 30% food plots and bedding areas.  FIL just got the property a little over a year ago and my dad had not hunted it but once before and he didnt feel comfortable being on it yet, especially walking to a stand he has never been in when its pitch black dark.  So I decided to hunt with my dad in the blind.  These blinds are 5x6 and 10ft off the ground so there is plenty of room for us both.     We walked to our deer stand overlooking 20 acres of standing soybeans with our high percentage shots around the 150yrd range or less.  The wind was stiff from the north but we were very comfortable in our blind.  We got in our blind at 5:30am and hunted until 11:30am and only saw 1 deer!!  That doe was cruising too, she was only in the field a few seconds and not enough time for us to open the window, put on hearing protection and get the gun up.     We really had high hopes.  This property has a crap ton of deer and they were no where to be seen.    We also had 3 other family members with us that were hunting in other spots of the property.  2 of the 3 had the same experience dad and I did.  If they saw something, it wasn't for long!  My FIL was able to get a doe though hunting over a wheat/clover field not too far from where my dad and I were hunting.     So at 11:30am we decide to go into "town" and get lunch.  So we grab lunch and I thought everyone was going to go back to hunt afterwords.  Well they all flaked out.  They were tired and ready to go home.  I told them, these deer havnt hardly moved all morning, when they start moving, you don't want to miss it!  Of course, the cold front kept coming in all Saturday so deer movement was looking more and more likely.     So dad and I are both a little crippled at the moment.  I had pretty invasive knee surgery 4 months ago and I am at 50%, dad is just old and needs new joints.  So we decide we will drive to the stand my FIL got his deer out of.  On the way to go to his stand, we come out on the field where another family member was hunted that morning and didn't see anything.  Well right there at the edge of the woods, 152 yards away from our vehicle were 2 doe standing there, frozen, looking at us!  So I took a picture of one and decided it was time to make a shot.  So I get out of the truck, put my blaze orange on, get my gun out of my case, load my gun, put my hearing protection on and rest the gun on the hood of my dads truck.  I squeezed one off and she only ran about 40 yards before she succumbed to the 130gr .270 round.     So I quickly sent texts and photos to all the "fair weather hunters" that left after lunch instead of coming back to hunt.  So we throw the deer back in the truck and continue to head on to the stand we were planning on hunting out of.     When we get to that box stand, my dads college was playing so we turned on the iphone radio and listened to his team for a few hours and not seeing much in the way of deer movement.  But by about the start of the 3rd, a 5pt buck walks out broadside at  55 yards.  We watched him feed for probably 15 minutes before a button buck walks out on the other side of the field at probably 40 yards.  So we enjoyed watching them both.  We are only taking does off the property this year to help out with our management goals.     Well a few minutes later and about 5 minutes until sunset (35 minutes of legal shooting time left) this BIG BERTHA of a doe walks out.  She was massive, she was probably around 150lbs.  I had to keep looking at her head to make sure there were not antlers, haha.  She was VERY alert.  So when she turns her head, dad gets his gun up and tags her.  She ran about 30-40 yards.  So when we loaded her up, every field we passed by or through had deer!  some with 1 or two, others with 6 or more!  We ended up seeing 21 deer that night!    So yeah, we really rubbed it in thick to the guys who chose not to hunt.  haha.     It was great spending the whole day hunting with my dad.  The last time we hunted in the same stand before was probably 15 years ago.     Like an idiot though, I left my hunting coat out at the farm.  So I went back out today to get it.  In the process, I had about 35 minutes of legal shooting light left so I sat down in a chair on the edge of one of the fields we saw a bunch of deer in.  Like clock work, nice doe walks about about 10 minutes after I sit down and I watch her come from about 80 yards to about 30 yards to me.  So much fun!  I didn't shoot her because I didn't want to deal with the after shot recovery and loading her up by myself especially with my bad knee.     So I can't wait for next weekend!  

Well I had a good weekend.  The morning was slow with the stiff wind from the north, but after lunch we went back out and saw 21 deer!  I got a doe and my dad got a HUGE doe.  We don't have a scale but she was bigger than my Great Dane puppy who is 125lbs.  Good times!

Good luck tomorrow fellas.  Don't forget anything important, don't get jealous of all the gunfire happening around you and BE SAFE!

I will be taking my Remington 700 in a .270 that I have been using since I was 11.

  What yardage are you comfortable shooting a recurve out to?  I just know nothing about recurves.  

This is a result of liberals and wussified beta males who are offended by anyone doing anything for themselves.  People who don't hunt, don't understand.  They think we are just out for blood and that we kill things for the fun of it.  While that may be true for SOME hunters, that is no where close to most.  Most of the hunters I know, honor and respect the animals in both life and death.  How is hunting anymore brutal than herding pen raised cattle through a tightening tunnel only to be shot or electrocuted?     How is the lion any different than any other animal she has killed?  It wasn't endangered, it wasn't illegal, it has 4 legs and a beating heart like everything else, but somehow because its a lion everyone is in an uproar (pun intended).  Also, African Safari hunts aren't cheap. I bet it cost her a MINIMUM of $50,000 US dollars for that lion.  That money goes to the local communities and helps to provide for those impoverished Africans, oh and she cant bring that meat back, the locals will eat every bit of it.  Their livelihood depends on rich outsiders coming to hunt their animals.     My family has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on land and improvements to the land to help out the quality of our herd.  Part of having a healthy heard is also eliminating some of it. This is not wasteful eliminating.  I killed a doe last week that I didn't need.  So I gave it to some Mexicans building a house and they were thrilled.     This wont make a lick of sense to anyone who is not a hunter, but I feel remorse and sadness for every animal I kill.  I also feel much joy in knowing that it will provide for me or someone else.     I bet many of these people who are so offended that she killed a lion probably have no problems having a baby aborted. Yep, I went there.  But its true.   

  What rifle do you use?

  Good deal JR.  You are doing great by getting out there.  The more time you spend in the woods, the better at it you will be.  Wear your Orange and get there early.  Let us know if you see anything!

Since we all are having a hard time coping with our loss (the 2013 deer season) I am updating the thread to help us support each other in this off season! Page 22 starts the 2014 talk. If you find this weird, it's Dave's, Ruger's and Luke's fault. :-) Well we had the Bow Season thread, we have the Muzzleloader thread and now its time for arguably the most highly anticipated day of the entire year, GUN SEASON! So to those who have had to put up with all of us archers and muzzleloaders for the last few months, this is your time! The Rut is on, the smokeless powder is coming out and there will be back straps in the freezers. Share your plans, your successes, your failures and ask your questions. For on Saturday...we hunt.

Thanks for chiming in Dave. You are certainly the one most qualified to answer that! Haha

CVA Optima .50cal Dave and others....I had a HECK of a hunt today! One of THE BEST hunts I have been on in a long time! I was hunting over a wheat/clover field about 200 yards as the crow flies from a bedding area. Its about an acre plot as well so its not too big. I was hunting out of a RedNeck Hunting Blind in a very comfortable chair. Anyways, my day started with a 3pt buck that came cruising through. I was able to glass him for a bit with my Nikon Monarch 5's binoculars. Beautiful animal! [url=http://s532.photobucket.com/user/jtv14/media/IMG_3091_zps0167e4a3.jpg.html][/URL] Then a lone doe came out about 15 minutes later. She was tearing into the clover. My goal this year is to only kill does to help reduce our deer heard and balance the doe/buck sex ratio. Anyways, I thought about taking her, which would be my first with a Muzzleloader, and decided not to because I was a little afraid it might be a button buck (turns out it was a doe). So I decided to wait and I am GLAD I DID! So I look up and see a big bodied deer on the edge of the woods. Nikon Monarch's indicated it was a 2.5 year old buck with 4 on one side and atypical with 2 on the other. He was STARING HER DOWN. He wanted her so bad. He ended up bedding down on the edge of the woods just watching her for like 10 minutes. THEN he got up and started making a scrape! Thrashing his antlers around on this overhanging limb, hoofing the ground and then taking a wicked piss right on the center. Then he took a few steps towards her and started grunting at her over and over. He ran like 3 steps to her and she ran a bit but still for the most part ignored him. Then once he was in the middle of the field, he bedded down again! Then more time passed and she wandered off and he followed in hot pursuit. [url=http://s532.photobucket.com/user/jtv14/media/IMG_3094_zps5b81a695.jpg.html][/URL] Then I started hearing turkeys purring. A group of like 9 gobblers came out right by my stand. So awesome! [url=http://s532.photobucket.com/user/jtv14/media/IMG_3100_zps447ce7a3.jpg.html][/URL] [url=http://s532.photobucket.com/user/jtv14/media/IMG_3101_zps1e51e37c.jpg.html][/URL] Then after they ran off a group of 3 deer came out. A mom, and two fawns, one of which actually was a button buck! So I ended up taking out the mom. I cleaned her up and gave her to some Mexicans that were working on my FIL's farm house and they were very thankful and excited for her! [url=http://s532.photobucket.com/user/jtv14/media/IMG_3128_zpsb915d312.jpg.html][/URL] What a hunt!!! All I had was my iphone 4s, so sorry about all the crappy photos.

Going to hunt with a muzzleloader for the first time tomorrow.  Can't wait!  Bought one cheap of Craigslist and its in OK condition.  They definitely didnt take as good of care of it as I would have but I shot it out to 100 and it was in the kill zone.  Dont plan on taking anything more than 100 away anyways.   

The biggest deer in West TN that I know of is at Ames Plantation but its not easy or cheap to get into.  They have a full time wildlife biologist that manages it.  They also have the national bird dog competitions there.  Deer must be 125" or larger for you to shoot.  Really is a fantastic piece of property!  Thousands of acres.  As far as a WMA goes, maybe the Wolf River WMA?

    Baiting takes the sport out of it and is not "fair chase".  You throw out corn, a pile of apples to lure them in to kill them.  They throw their inhibitions into the wind to get to it.  Baiting does nothing to improve the quality of the herd.   Food plots are planted and benefit not only the deer heard as a whole, but other wildlife as well.  It grows, its sustainable you can harvest it if you'd like.     So while similar in that you are putting food out to attract wildlife, one does nothing to help the heard (only hurts because you kill it) and the other does help out the quality of the heard and other animals.     Thats they way I look at it.