Well now I feel like an idiot for shooting my little buck. Brought my dad into a spot I scouted yesterday and found all kinda rubs. Brutal hike. I got him to his tree and set up on the flat above him. Needless to say I only have doe tags.
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Team #7
- Thread starter Silvio
- Start date
hokiehunter373
Well-Known Member
Whewww, buddy! Sucks but still good to see one like that. Maybe he makes it til next year
I hunted yesterday daylight til dark, saw 4 doe and a button head.
- Joined
- Jun 6, 2020
- Messages
- 654
I hunted all day yesterday and all Ibsaw was this......zoom in on the tallest pine.
- Joined
- Jun 6, 2020
- Messages
- 654
Heres a close up if you cant make it out.I hunted all day yesterday and all Ibsaw was this......zoom in on the tallest pine.
Hit it hard all weekend with my dad and a friend and we all struck out.
I saw that giant 8 Friday, then a doe, and Saturday a spike and two does that squirted out the backside of a drive. Then jumped a doe pushing and couldn't quite get a shot.
I optioned to hamstring myself by taking my pap's 94 .32 special all weekend, and with open sights my range isn't much farther than my bow. With my sako I would have downed one.
Picked up a few cameras that were marinating a whole year and found where I should have been hunting this season. A couple big woods giants including that 8 and a big 12, 10 with g2 kickers. Whoops. My injury messed that one up, I couldn't get back there until very end of archery.
Did a few pushes, one-sticking in super hardcore saddle hunter mode. 3 or 4 minutes up and down, I couldn't hunt like this more than a couple hours, but for quick pushes, holy crap what a system. If these yokel driving crews up here "ran" sonething this efficient deer would he exterpated.
Onto bobcat trapping season then late season archery. I had too much deer left over from last year which I unloaded on my buddy, so now I have freezer space again.
I saw that giant 8 Friday, then a doe, and Saturday a spike and two does that squirted out the backside of a drive. Then jumped a doe pushing and couldn't quite get a shot.
I optioned to hamstring myself by taking my pap's 94 .32 special all weekend, and with open sights my range isn't much farther than my bow. With my sako I would have downed one.
Picked up a few cameras that were marinating a whole year and found where I should have been hunting this season. A couple big woods giants including that 8 and a big 12, 10 with g2 kickers. Whoops. My injury messed that one up, I couldn't get back there until very end of archery.
Did a few pushes, one-sticking in super hardcore saddle hunter mode. 3 or 4 minutes up and down, I couldn't hunt like this more than a couple hours, but for quick pushes, holy crap what a system. If these yokel driving crews up here "ran" sonething this efficient deer would he exterpated.
Onto bobcat trapping season then late season archery. I had too much deer left over from last year which I unloaded on my buddy, so now I have freezer space again.
- Joined
- Mar 8, 2022
- Messages
- 3,034
I ended up throwing the towel in a little early tonight. I was out all day , no deer but did end up on better sign than I've seen in a while. I found a really nice fresh rub at the end of last December, and a decent size one today. An area to investigate further. I'm strong to think the second fit might be a real thing. Not that i have the sorbets blue what to do with that knowledge lol
hokiehunter373
Well-Known Member
Ughhh let's see um?! lol. Letting those cams soak all year is the way to do it. You know where to be next year now
Didn't make it out this weekend, too many holiday honey-do's that seem to multiply every year. Got the green light to plan for some time out next weekend since our calendar is actually empty for once, then a tile in the bathroom popped up last night. Subfloor is wet underneath, presumably from the toilet, so I expect to be doing an impromptu bathroom reno next weekend instead.
same thing as primary rut, hunt the pinch points and funnels between bedding and feed. bucks will be cruising looking for the does that are cycling again. scale is much smaller, maybe 10% of the doe population and the little bucks are likely too gassed to go hard looking for does, so the action may be nonexistent unless you are on the x.
Had my #1 target buck for the year at 15 steps friday afternoon with no shot. A limb covered from brisket to spine. While he is standing there a coyote comes by about 50 yards and the buck whirled and took off. 20 minutes later had another mature 8 come by about 30 and on a fast trot. Not sure what he was doing but he acted like he was late for being somewhere. Target deer came back by right at dark and paused at 27 yards but I couldnt remember if the line was clear of limbs and 27 is a pretty decent poke with a longbow. Didnt send it even though my want too was redlined. Saturday morning I educated some does that were about to get by without me getting a shot. Last big doe stopped in a hole but was pretty hard quartered away. There was a 3" sapling just a hair off of where the arrow needed to be for the angle. I tried to slide one right past it but was off about 1.5" and drilled the sapling. Saturday afternoon the wind got up about 15-17 and didnt see a deer.
I would say it was my best card pull ever. It was actually a cell cam that a bear ate the antennae off in Sept, so thanks bear.
Pics went poof.
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Find the does. With the leaves being down for several weeks now, it gets so much easier imo to stay on fresh sign. That's something I don't hear a lot of the talking heads yap about, how much it sucks for a couple weeks in the crescendo of archery season when the leaves cover up everything.
Screen shotted all this so I can go in and poach your deer and keep y’all from gaining a bigger lead
Also I really agree on this. It's worked quite well for me in the past scoping out areas I think are good, but not quite confident to invest a bunch of time hunting to find out it might be a gar hole.
I had one in another spot out the ridge in a new area I was really curious about, the friggin thing had to die 10/30. I was so irritated it couldn't even make it another week or two.
I had kind of been trending more toward cell cams because they are super appealing to the lazy part of me, but I think I am mostly done with them.
Aside from rebelling against subsription everything, I just enjoy a good 1,000 picture card dump to the drip, drip, drip addiction of the cell cam app.
Cameras confirmed, but this ridge is just destroyed with big rubs. The old school approach would have worked just fine here.
This whole ridge system is interesting though. The deer just pop around so much. It feels like a game of whack a mole how they just shift around week to week and season to season. If I ever figure out how to predict that instead of chase it around, I'll have it made.
hokiehunter373
Well-Known Member
That 8 is gorgeous and the buck with the kickers ain't too shabby either lol. Still time to find um. Good luck!
I had this guy show up this weekend
That last one I'd be hunting hard. Course the deer I'm hunting now is probably a hair bigger, but i ain't posting any pics even on a team thread lol hopefully you can get on him next year!
Hunt it just like you do the first rut, in pinch points and high traffic doe areas. This is where cell cams help a ton, I had a doe hit a scrape at 3:00 am this morning, between 3:15 and 7:00 3 other bucks, 2 being mature hit that scrape and left direction she went. Sure wish I wasnt at work....