Slappy

In my experience with game cams, you get what you pay for.  I had a cheap moultrie and it was absolutely worthless.  I now have Bushnell's and have been extremely pleased.  

That is indeed a cut above regular Jim Beam.  Its worth buying! 

I am in the market for a new (to me) vehicle and have one I am interested in. Just trying to see if someone here wouldn't mind doing me a favor and checking a VIN for me? Thanks!

They were moving today bigtime.  I saw 6 total.

  Keep going out there, it will happen.  Don't get discouraged if your hunts aren't going smoothly.  Maintaining a positive attitude will result in being ready for the next opportunity.  Cant tell you how many times I have been busted when I was already frustrated about something else.  

Deer Down! First one of the season. Bow kills are such a rush! She came out of the woods to the right a few yards south of the sunlight on the ground at about 27 yards. I shot her with my Bear Archery Legion and 100gr Muzzy's and had a complete pass through. Only hunted about 45 minutes before she showed up. Very thankful for this deer! [URL=http://s532.photobucket.com/user/jtv14/media/IMG_3018_zpsf288db99.jpg.html][/URL] [URL=http://s532.photobucket.com/user/jtv14/media/IMG_3022_zpsf1b3e482.jpg.html][/URL]

Going hunting tomorrow! Hope to at least see something.  

That is fantastic!  Love those unique looking antlers too!  

Thanks.  

I like my Summit Viper. It's a comfortable stand and it feels very stable. I also have a Tree Lounge that is my go-to.

Sorry to hear that Spots.  I know the feeling.  My truck was broken into in my own dang driveway years ago when I was a freshman in college and living at home.  They caused me over $500 worth of damage to steal a radio I might have paid $200 for and its not like it was new either.  The neighborhood I was in was an upscale neighborhood with a $500,000 average home price.  So don't matter where you are these days...especially in Memphis. 

None of my deer play like that, they are a bunch of shady SOB's. A friend and I camped out on my land last Friday night so We wouldn't have to get up so early to hunt on Saturday. I slepped in my hammock and he slepped in a tent. Anyways, during the middle of the night, I woke up and had to pee really badly. So I just rolled over to the side of the hammock and started going. Well, evidently there was a doe within like 30-40 yards or so because she started snorting and stomping like crazy! She was snorting so much and so loudly that it woke my friend up in his tent. Haha! Annnnd that was the closest we came to a deer that weekend. Ha

Deer Hunting is frustrating. For 8.5 months I am wishing for deer season to hurry up and get here, then for the next 3.5 months I wish I had the time to go hunting. So, I'm pretty much frustrated year round. Haha

I went hunting today.  Was in the stand at 6am in pitch black dark.  Left that stand at 10:15 and relocated to another stand where I stayed until it rained cats and dogs on me around 2:30.  I did not see a single freaking deer!  After my hunt I was thinking about this because deer are ALL OVER the property I hunt and I figured out what it was....the acorns started falling.  It doesnt matter what you plant, deer will always prefer acorns.  I was hunting over cowpeas and a wheat/clover field at a pinch point. So the moral of the story is for the next while until your acorns are eaten up, hunt in the woods.  haha   I did have one bit of fun today.  The buddy I was hunting with, while we were transitioning between the two stands, threw an empty Gatorade bottle out as far as he could around 10 yards or so as a practice target.  I took out my blunt tip arrow guessed the yardage and popped that gatorade bottle and it flew another 10 yards or so.  Then my buddy pulled out his blunt tip and he popped it and it went another 10 yards or so.  Then I pulled out another blunt tip and stuck my 30 yard pin and let one fly and nailed it!  These blunt tips are so much fun!!  I highly recommend you get a set of those.    http://www.basspro.com/Saunders-Bludgeon-Small-Game-Head/product/23951/

You guys wont see any movement at all if you don't get out in the woods!  haha     Edit:  Not an article here but a video from a research study done on how move phases affect deer.  http://www.qdma.com/videos/does-the-moon-affect-deer-movement

Tomorrow is going to go by so slowly!!  Sound like thats the case for everyone recently posting here that are also hunting Saturday!  I am hunting sun up till deer down Saturday with a new bowhunting friend.  

DaveS, thanks for chiming back in.  Your herd management has been doing a good job obviously if you have those bruisers walking around!  And I and I am more than ok with shooting mature deer regardless of rack size.  My view on it isn't all about rack size but producing healthy and quality deer.  Rack size to me is just a by product of a healthy deer and it being able to reach full genetic potential.     I mentored 2 new hunters last year, one shot a nice doe and the other shot a 1.5y/o spike with 7" long antlers.  I was as happy as he was! Like you said, I believe you should not limit a new hunter as long the deer is legal.     I hear you on poachers!  They are terrible.  Last year we found a 5 gallon bucket upside down up against a tree overlooking a hollow in hardwoods.  The leaves had been completely cleared out around his feet exposing the dirt.  He also had Bud Light cans and L&M cigarette butts next to the bucket he had been sitting on.  We know who it is too.  So will have to keep an eye out for it this year as not only is it illegal and he doesnt have permission, but he wont hesitate to do his best to negatively impact our management program!

We both agree that herd management is a good thing.  I do respectfully disagree with a few things you mentioned because it boils down to how you and I view proper herd management which could probably be argued ad nauseum.   "A good herd management program includes the harvesting of certain bucks".  ~ Agree Partially.  If you are monitoring the health and growth of your young deer (spikes) then I can see it as acceptable to harvest a few spikes to record data for your records so you can compare to the year(s) before.  You would record things such as weight of the deer, the stomach contents, the jawbone,  and antler measurement.  So unless you are recording that data and using it for herd management purposes, I see no other reason to harvest spikes.  Certain bucks to harvest for me are bucks 3.5-4.5+ years old when their antler and genetic capabilities are near 80%-90% and higher.     "You cant harvest does and be happy, you wont be doing your herd any justice". ~Agree Partially.  Bucks are what people want hanging on their wall, not does.  Nothing is more exciting than a bruiser in front of you.  But how do you get that old and wise maybe even nocturnal bruiser in front of you instead of just on a trail cam?  The best way is to make him walk.  If he has easy access to a doe, he will stick close to his bedding area where he is nice and protected, but if he does not have easy access to a doe, he will have to travel further to find one.  By balancing the buck to doe ratio there will be a massive increase in competition from your bucks.  This makes the rut VERY intense.     Have you ever heard of the "2nd rut"?  Do you know why there is a "2nd rut"?  Its because you have too many does vs bucks.  These are does that are left to be breed by a buck so they go into heat again. Fawns that are conceived during the "2nd rut" are born later in the year the next year.  By the time these fawns are born, there is less quality food available to new mom and fawns because of all the births from the main rut.  This makes the fawns and moms unhealthy and fawn recruitment rates are much lower.  Not only will they die from lack of nutrition, but an unhealthy mom likely wont give birth to more than 1 fawn. Bucks born from the 2nd rut often stay young looking up until they are 1.5 years old and can easily be mistaken for "bad genetics" or that "cowhorn spike".  Most likely that cowhorn spike is a buck that was born late in the year and never had the nutrition to turn those horns into 4 or 6 points.   So what does a balanced buck:doe ratio look like?  The rut is freaking intense, your does will be bread during the main rut.  There will be not 2nd rut. This also means that you have enough quality food available for the new moms and new fawns throughout the gestation period and after birth.  Healthier does give birth to multiple fawns therefor increasing the amount of deer you have on your property.  The bucks born from these moms express greater antler grown due to the available nutrition.  Your bucks will become more visible and make for better hunts.  So its delayed gratification but harvesting does does lead to happiness.     So to affectively manage your heard for the best quality bucks, the most visible bucks, and the healthy does that give birth to multiple fawns you harvest does to balance this, not bucks.     "For every doe you kill during the rut, you are potentially killing up to four deer".  ~ This is not completely true if you have too many deer for the carrying capacity of your land.  Malnourished  doe tend to have only 1 fawn.  By reducing the doe on your property, this actually increases the deer on your property which you then monitor and harvest appropriately the next year.  Its a cycle.  But the point is, all the deer being born are healthy and the bucks have the nourishment to express their full genetic potential...if you let them mature first.    "How about leaving the "big boys" to spread their genes".  Well, it is true that the dominate bucks get to breed the doe, but you can't control the age of bucks that breed your does.  The age of the father doesn't have anything to do with how much genetic potential a young buck may have.  Genetic potential is genetic potential, a young buck that has the genetic potential to be a 200" deer will likely result in a bigger son than an already mature buck with a genetic potential of 140"   "I thinned two "scrubs" with jacked up racks off my property last year". ~ By shooting "scrubs" you are assuming 2 things.  The first is that the deer has bad genetics.  The second is that be eliminating this deer, you are helping to control bad genes from being entered into your heard.  (remember what I said above to about how that cowhorn spike likely is a late born buck and still has the genetic potential to not only grow big with proper nutrition but to produce strong offspring).  Be careful with this.  Many people have this old school methodology that you can manage deer genetics enough to make an impact on your herd.  That is simply not true!   First, most antler abnormalities are due to injury...NOT genetics.  Ever see that buck with one messed up antler but the other looks normal?  Thats injury, not bad genes.  So if you kill this buck, you are eliminating him breeding with your does and spreading on his genetic potential.    Second, you can't control genetics because of several different reasons. 1) Genetics are invisible 2) Deer move too much.  Yearing bucks travel up to 40 miles away from their birthplace.  During the rut, these deer travel even further. 3) Does carry genes too 4) You dont have the time 5) Genetic manipulation wont last anyways.  (you can read more about this http://www.qdma.com/articles/why-we-cant-manage-deer-genetics )

I know. I cringe when anyone except for new hunters shoots a spike. They always say "I'm just hunting for meat!" Either they have a lack of knowledge or they have poor self control. If you are meat hunting, then shoot a dang doe and let the buck grow. These are the same people that wonder where all the big bucks are at. First of all there are far more doe than bucks. If you start shooting doe, then that will allow for increased forage for the rest of the deer. The average deer eats around 1 ton of food per year. So by eliminating doe, your deer become healthier because they have more access to food and therefore have more MEAT on their bones. Plus, how muh bigger is a spike than a mature doe anyways. Not much difference.

Well I am going to give it another shot this weekend. Going to camp out at the farm Friday night and hunt morning till dead deer or last light on Saturday. If Mr. Thunder Chicken steps out in front, I will have a go at him too. We won't be buck hunting likely for a few years to help balance the sex ratio. We need to pull off at least 10 doe this year.

Shoot, one of my most favorite games in grade school was Smear the Queer!  And we played tackle! 

I went last Saturday and saw 6 deer and 11 turkey.  The deer never came in range though, they hovered around 50 yards or so.  Plenty of movement at the place I hunt but since I'm not made of money I dont get out very often.  

I learned something from you guys.  I had no idea you could shoot a turkey (either sex) during Deer Archery Only Season.  That sucks because last saturday I had 7 big gobblers at 1 yard.  haha

Make sure when you use your climber (or any stand for that matter) you wear your harness.  Its for safety obviously, but its also good to practice in what you will be wearing so you can diagnose any issues prior to hunting.  

  Does his range finder account for the angle of you shooting from a tree stand?  If it does not, then you will not get accurate distances.    Do this too...and this is a fantastic idea...buy these http://www.basspro.com/Saunders-Bludgeon-Small-Game-Head/product/23951/   In your quiver, have 3 broadheads and 2 of those blunt tips.  The blunt tips will fly like a field point believe it or not and are GREAT for practicing your shot while in your stand.  If you see a raccoon, armadillo, squirrel, dog, narrow tree, a stump or anything like that, judge the distance and pop them with that arrow.  It will help you better judges distances and how you can expect your broadheads to fly.  You can also use that tip to shoot at balls in your back yard.  Take a soccerball and toss it out, judge the distance and shoot it.  If it rolls backwords, you hit it low, if it rolls forward you hit it high, if you arrow bounces back straight in the air...just right.  :)    They work great!