Y'all have some really purty states!!

I just got back from my son's wedding in Niles,MI, and we stayed in South Bend. Got to do a little sight seeing and it was BEAUTIFUL!! Aside from the wedding, I guess my favorite things were checking out the campus at Notre Dame (indescribeably beautiful)and seeing Lake Michigan. First time to lay eyeballs on any of the great lakes.

We had a fantastic time, and thanks for the warm hospitality !!!

You're welcome. You were only about 35 miles from me. Next time you're in the area let me know and we can visit talk ponds.

As far as Notre Dame it is beautiful but not cheap to go to school there!

If you ever get a chance you need to head north to the northern part of the Great Lakes and Lake Superior. Different world up there!

Glad you had a good time. I was born and raised in South Bend and now live 15 miles south but still work in South Bend. Did you happen to get a chance to see any corn

That's an urban legend. We have no corn here.

Hey I learned something about my home state I didn't know the other day: Indiana has the most Powerball winers at either 34 or 38 (can't remember which it is).

FCM: yeah, and I had no idea there was so much agriculture there. Saw another crop which I believed to be soybeans, which seemed very popular. I couldn't believe how thick the corn was planted. When I was a kid and my folks grew it, we had to space the stalks 4 or 5 feet apart or they wouldn't make anything. The stuff I saw there looked like it was spaced maybe inches apart.

Now those are some cornfields a kid could really hide in!!

Cecil: I will take you up on that when I go back up. Sounds great. And DANGIT, I meant to buy a lottery ticket and forgot.

Yep those were probably soybeans. You should see our deer that grow big on the corn and beans. And they taste like domestic cattle! Before I specialized in fish as a taxidermist it wasn't unusual for some 1 + deer to dress out at a couple hundred pounds a 2 + could be a trophy.

Corn is now genetically altered and hybridized. Bushels per acre are incredible along with drought and disease resistance.

I really should find the pic I took about 10 years ago of my Dad standing next to a buck that I shot. He was a really, really nice 10 point when I saw him, and after he was down I realized that he only had 2 points on the other side. I think he field dressed at 240#.

rack challenged...
shame on you

Hell, I wouldn't know what to do with a deer I couldn't throw in the back of my truck by myself. 240lbs would be a freak of nature where I hunt.

Hey, he really looked good from where I was sitting as he sneaked away from another hunter getting to his stand late.

As I was climbing up the tree that morning (climbing tree stand) I dropped my gun from about 10' in the air. (That's what happens when you forget your rope at the house and you've got to rely on the sling to keep it on your shoulder.) I don't load it 'till I'm up at hunting height, so I didn't have to worry about it going off, I was worried if it changed zero tho! After I shot, the deer took off running (oh no, the sights ARE off!), but right towards my stand. (I guess he thought the other hunter was shooting at him.) He ran by at 20 Yds and I shot again, and he piled up. The 2nd shot wasn't necessary, as he had two holes in him about 4" apart. It took 3 of us to drag him out of the woods - no snow on the ground.

esshup,

Deer around here must have a gene that makes them do that. The best deer I have taken, 10 pointer, ran directly at my stand after the shot. Like you I thought I missed. Put another one in him directly under the tree. Wasn't needed though. First one was a heart shot.

FCM67693:

I really think that deer in particular was trying to sneak away from another hunter. I heard him walking to his stand in the early afternoon, and then I see this deer skirting the swamp away from the other hunter (I think, I never saw him). The deer was sneaking towards thicker cover, but also towards some houses. I was deeper in the woods, and after the shot, the deer turned 90* and ran towards me, which just happened to be deeper into the woods. It was on a 100 acre stretch of woods that had a 5 ac. swamp towards the middle. I believe if the deer don't know you are there, they tend to take their normal emergency escape routes. There was evidence of a good sized deer that would bed on one of the islands in the swamp and I think this deer was sneaking from a bedding area on a ridge to the one in the swamp after getting kicked out of bed by the other hunter.

You haven't lived until you fall asleep in your tree stand and wake up to see two barrels of a double barrel .12 gauge looking up at you. If it had discharged I might not be here or I might look even funnier than I do now. What can I say I was a stupid teenager. Now I'm a stupid adult.

I think a lot of deer get taken that way on opening day don't you? Deer hunters spooking them right into the line of fire of someone else.

That's why I like bow season - less hunters and noisy hunters don't stick with bow hunting for long if they like success.

Bowhunting is what I really enjoy. For some reason. I tend to see my biggest deer in the early bow season. I hunt the whole season, but love late October.

If you want to see insanity in rifle season, try Pennsylvania on the opening day... Now that is some insanity! Before they started antler restrictions, at the end of the two week rifle season, the only male walking in the woods had buttons on his head... With antler restrictions, things have gotten a bit better. It's made hunting a bit harder and with that a bunch of guys complained and some quit. I think that has helped allow a few more bucks to slip by. In the 80's the opening day of rifle saw a million guys in the woods! Now, only about 750,000 to 800,000 hit the woods. The woods look like a giant pumpkin patch!

I think central Wi. is close behind Pa. I try and hunt the State Park deer reduction hunts, (throw your name in a hat and hope you get picked)and there's no way I would hunt on the ground.

In Indiana, in regards to flourescent outerwear, all that's required to make you comply with the law is a hat. "one article of outerwear must be flourescent....." No camo flourescent is allowed to count tho.

I don't deer hunt anymore with one reason being the idiots out there. I've been nearly hit by slugs from shotguns and so has my dad. We don't allow rifles here but we do allow guns that pack a similar load. The other reason I don't hunt anymore is the amount of people that hunt on land without permission. My dad and I had exclusive permission to hunt a track of land behind our house. At daylight I had a guy standing below my tree stand and we counted a total of 21 trespassers. No deer in his right mind would be in the area although there were plenty before opening day.

I just got fed up with it. More and more land is leased here to the highest bidder anyway. I'd rather go fishing during deer season. Some of the best fishing I've ever experienced was at that time of the year.

We do now! Although they have to conform to the DNR's case length/bullet dia. restrictions. It's pretty open ended if you want to wildcat tho!

To be honest, the only place that I need something that reaches past 150 Yds is when I hunt at Chain O'Lakes.

Got my 148" typical (153" before deductions) at 15 feet (5 yards) with a bow last year. I did just buy a 77/44 Ruger though. I hate slug guns!

I hunt with the same rifle I've used since 1967. 1917 Eddystone Arsenal 30-06. Yeah, it's customized. Of course, I have a few more.

I'll normally use my Savage Muzzleloader except for the park hunts. I did on one hunt but couldn't reload quick enough! The Tar-Hunt gets the nod now for those hunts. RAH, that's a nice deer!

In Indiana, deer hunting with a 30-06 lands you in a heep of trouble. I love my muzzleloader, it is real accurate, but I have had the same trouble reloading for a second deer (only managed to do it once without spooking the herd). If I was quicker in moving stands when I saw the bucks crossing a field a quarter mile off, I'd have gotten up the tree soon enough to get the larger buck, but the one I got was a dandy even if he was behind the bigger one. Habitat development has been the key for me.