I was worried about our deer population since we have been in a pretty serious drought for 2.5 years and our ponds and creek have all gone dry.

I put out 100# of corn in my two gravity feeding tubes (so only the deer get fed) and it was all gone in four days! I guess the deer are still around in good numbers. (Most of my cameras were still in storage, so I didn't get any good observations.)

I did deepen one of our groundwater ponds this fall so all of the wildlife would have access to water. I had a camera up on the watering hole, and the deer decided it was a good spot for some late night parties!

It will be interesting to sit in the deer stand this season and observe the current state of all of the wildlife on our property.

I've been seeing a lot of decent bucks. Have yet to draw blood though.

Those are some handsome boys in your pics!

Are you a bow hunter? Probably have to put in some blind time to get the big, smart ones to come to you.

Good luck!

Looking at those antlers makes we want to post a picture of some of the common antlers on our property.



That is a 6-point buck with those tiny things on his head! (Sorry, I don't have a good shot to show his body size.)

However, every year I have lots of medium-sized bucks with tiny 4-point and 6-point antlers on their heads.

I don't know if these are young bucks that will have bigger racks in future years, or if I just have some genetics in the population for tiny antlers?

Doesn't matter that much to me, but I do like learning how "nature works" if anyone has some enlightening comments.

(I do have a pic of one big-bodied 10-point at the pond. Hopefully, I can get out this weekend and start getting all of my cameras up and see what is really out there!)

Rod,

Its been 30 years since I hunted in OK but back then we checked deer in at a DOW station. Often there was a biologist present and I agreed to and later asked them to age the deer. They used a tool to pull the lower jaw and could age the deer by assessing the wear of the teeth. The most points I have ever seen on a year and half old buck was 10. Small rack but I was told that the buck had a lot of potential had it been allowed to grow up. I read somewhere that a buck needs to at least fork in its year and a half year in order to have good potential. If you can learn to age from the teeth ... you will be able to answer your question.

Back then I harvested all the bucks and does allowed with gun and muzzleloader. I hunted sandy soil blackjack country on a parcel my dad owned and lime country tall grass prairie. What I can tell you is that these habitats grew entirely different deer. In the blackjack country, the racks were basket shaped and much smaller and the deer were smaller too. Up north on the prairie the antlers spread and were much larger ... as also were the deer. Environment does make a difference, I think.

As a teenager, there were much fewer deer and my dad absolutely did not tolerate passing opportunities for bucks. It was driven so hard that I never overcame it and I always have harvested the best of an initial opportunity. The hunt, the kill, gutting, packaging, and eating make a pretty good experience too. But of course the most memorable are the couple I harvested that had impressive racks.

We can hunt hogs with neither limits or seasons. And Texas is butt deep in them. We consider them vermin. I can no longer plant winter wheat patches for deer and small game. Pigs root them up like a breaking plow went through. I re bait my pig trap about every 60 days. I’ve eliminated plenty but they have a lot of babies. They are also loaded with ticks. Grandson, (21 yoa, 6’4”) and his buddy caught a bunch and butchered them. A couple of days later my grandson started running a high fever. He was hospitalized and we almost lost him. Docs couldn’t figure out a specific diagnosis but figure it must have been a tick bite from butchering the pigs.

I don’t allow grandsons to shoot coyotes. Why?

A couple of years ago I was deer hunting near a corn feeder. A bunch of pigs showed up but I didn’t shoot. I can hunt them 365 days and I don’t like to fire a shot unless the right wall hanger buck shows up. Suddenly, a coyote blew by, grabbed a piglet, and kept on going. The pigs erupted and lit out. At that time, I decided that the yotes were on my side. I know they will take fawns but I have a whole lot more pigs than deer for them to feed on.

Grandson deer hunted yesterday. He saw 8 pigs, 1 coyote and a buck that wasn’t mature. Seems about right; 8 to 1 ratio of corn thieves.

Thanks jpsdad. Mine are mostly "prairie deer" so I would expect them to be less spikey!

We do not harvest enough bucks to get a good grasp on teeth wear versus rack and body size. I think I need to do that for bucks and does! Kind of like keeping RW records for a pond.

Can't evaluate your management without data.

Thanks DD1.

I remember your coyote/piglet story and have repeated it to some of my Texas and Oklahoma buddies that have hogs!

I know you HATE this map, but I thought I should probably post a copy to Pond Boss.




A series of that same map data over 5-year intervals would be very informative in showing how far and fast the feral hogs have spread.

P.S. I hope your grandsons have some successful hunts this season!

They sure must love Texas compared with New Mexico.

Agreed.

Clearly a sampling artifact, reporting artifact, etc.

(And always remember, as Abraham Lincoln said, "87% of all things posted on the internet are incorrect!")




Personally, I like it that the hogs also seem a little bit scared to leave Oklahoma and set foot in Kansas.

Good point Theo! Just like those no guns allowed signs preventing robberies, NM must have no hogs allowed signs at its border preventing the hogs from crossing.

Got a cellular trail cam picture of the best buck I've seen on our property this season so far - at 1:35 this afternoon. Ruth is kicking in and bucks getting more active maybe. Had a bobcat on same camera at 6:30 this morning and a whole bunch of raccoons at various times last night and so far tonight.

I almost bowhunt exclusively. Even bow hunt through rifle season even though the tag is good for firearms. I mostly hunt from the ground, no blinds and only a few stands. I plant food plots but don't hunt them. I think it all helps with seeing more older bucks.

The deer on your place should be able to grow bigger racks than the 6pt you posted. I'd imagine they are there, unless you have neighbors that lease to outfitters bring in new people every weekend and decimating the older buck population. Or maybe someone is dumping out several tons of corn. Otherwise you should have bucks bigger than pictured. Good luck this season!

Do you also hunt upland birds at your property?

We had bobcats move into our place a few years back. Surprisingly, it made our bird hunting much better! However, my closest neighbor had about 20-40 feral cats at his place. I think they were eating our quail and pheasant chicks. I believe the bobcats made short work of the feral cats.

So now I have no clue about the impact of bobcats during "normal" conditions?

If they eat pocket gophers, raccoons, and armadillos, then they would still be a net positive on our property.

No. No pheasants or armadillos around here. Used to have some quail long ago. I saw one hen with chick's this summer. None since.

We do have bigger bucks and I have a heavy-body 10pt on the game cam at our little pond already. However, when people post pics of big groups of deer at their feeders (when they are not just posting the trophies), I NEVER see a group of spindly antler bucks like I see at our place. However, maybe it is just observation bias since that is the place where I currently get 99% of my data.

We also have a neighbor that is catty-corner that runs a big camp at the start of rifle season. They lease other properties and drive around the county roads on their ATVs like a swarm of bees. I believe they may have cut one of my fences that is adjacent to a little watering hole and feeder they have set up on a lease to lure some deer from my heavy cover onto their land. That many guys gunning for trophy bucks probably does affect our population to some degree!

Hard to control neighbors.

From The Gettysburg Address, which Abe gave right after the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor!

Been seeing some good bucks on the trail cams. Misery's firearms regular season started yesterday.
All of our freezers are full so I didn't even buy tags. After 30+ years working as a RN, Mrs. Augie hates
deer with a passion. She's seen a lot of lives ruined by car/deer crashes. She's usually done by 8:30
on opening day but didn't have a shot she liked so they got to walk. She's still out there this morning
so it seems today is more of the same.

It won't hurt my feeling if she doesn't shoot one. Jalapeno/cheese Slim Jims are up to $4.75lb at the
locker plant now. I like deer sticks, but I don't like em that much.

Agreed!

That is why I get some wise people advice on Pond Boss for the things I CAN control on our property.

Just checked trail cams. 1 really nice buck passed by stand during shooting time last night. Would have been easy shot if had been there with crossbow. Another nice buck passed by same stand this morning during shooting time.

Person who owns some land close by out right now with guy who has bloodhound and finds wounded deer for people. Apparently, the guy stuck an arrow into a "monster buck" yesterday evening and couldn't find it. Haven't heard if they've found it in last couple hours or not. Guy with bloodhound has recovered some otherwise lost big ones.

Great story about the bloodhound search assists!

I have asked local deer hunters (that are far more experienced than I am) about using dogs to find lost deer. They all said they have never heard of such a thing. It seems like a wise thing to me!


Good luck bagging one of those big bucks the next time they make the mistake of wandering past your stand!

I still haven't heard if they found it; but they're getting pretty common aroubd here.

https://www.unitedbloodtrackers.org/find-a-tracker/

Great link, Rangersedge!

There is one guy within 5 miles of our property.

That is a good resource to have available as several of the deer hunters at my place are starting to transition to bow hunting. (I have found two large buck carcasses at our property at the start of rifle season when no one was bow hunting at our place. I assume the bucks were wounded during archery season on adjacent land and worked over to my quieter area.)

A good friend of ours had two days to hunt in between business trips. He got this nice buck on our farm the first morning.
link

Nice buck, Theo!

Apparently, I need to start scheduling more business trips!

I let this nice ten point walk by me Sat in the name of letting him procreate and sire more nice bucks like him in the future. (this is a game camera pic that was sent to a home camera then emailed to me) the camera is right by my stand, thats how close he was. I will attach another picture of him that I took with my phone after he had went by the stand.

Why did the chicken buck cross the road?

Because gehajake had a nice harem set up for him on the other side!


P.S. Nice buck!

Theo, is the dude's face obscured on purpose??

My friend is currently out of the country; I can't contact him to see if he is okay with being shown identifiably. So I did my best to "pixelate" his face with Paint.

Also, he is so extremely handsome it would distract from the fine 11 point buck.

There are more than a few nutjobs that believe harvesting a deer should be a death penalty crime for the offending human.

I don't post any full-face shots of me or especially my children.

Some of the outrage over this dinosaur hunting picture were obvious spoofs ... but I believe a lot of the outrage was real!

OK, it just looked creepy.

May have been better to put the horizontal black bar across his eyes so he'd also be viewed as a drug addict.

Heard more info regarding the buck shot referenced above. Even with trained bloodhound, they were not able to locate and recover it. They followed it across two neighboring properties (all adjacent on south side of ours) for some distance; but did not find it. They described its rack as two feet wide and two feet tall. Probably laying dead out there somewhere; but likely not on our property.

Also found out that someone hunting neighbor's property to the north of ours shot a massive 10 point buck that weighed over 300 pounds after being field dressed - literally yards from our property line. I suspect it is a buck I had on trail cam a few times last spring (after season before shedding).

Honestly, kind of frustrating. That landowner lets tons of people hunt on him. He and most of them have the brown is down mentality. I'm in between all of them with little time to hunt, trying to ensure wife and son get chances at big bucks, and spending time and money improving habitat for people who do none of that to benefit and take it all for granted... Sorry for the rant... just frustrated... I'm sure those bucks genetics are in the does and young bucks on our properties... I know... I just need to improve our habitat more so spend most of their time on our property...

What is the "brown is down" mentality?

Does that mean getting out of your stand as soon as you observe the deer drop?

We have only lost two deer on our property in all of the years it has been hunted. Both times, the person got out of their stand when they saw the deer go down!

Brown is down = meat hunters who shoot any deer that moves, without regard for any sort of local herd management.

Thanks Augie!

"Brown is down" can refer to herd management...if you need to thin the herd everything can be on the menu, but usually does and fawns. Deer on our property are like squirrels...so many with no hunting pressure, even with 5 antlerless tags being filled it won't put a dent in the population.

We will "if it's brown it's down" for the next 2 years most likely in the hope that more bucks will be sighted.

Had one come out into a food plot yesterday. I have passed on several bucks, and probably should have passed on this guy. I guess I got a little buck fever, as he looked huge at 150 yards. 😂

I find antlers gain or lose at least two points between when I shoot and when I stand over the dead deer.

Usually lose.

Only had time to hunt twice and have seen nothing. Not a lot of hunters around my area this year.

I hope the deer that I have pics of back in March makes an appearance tomorrow. I have some pics of him in velvet - last pic was July 19th. He grew since last year.....

That's a nice deer SetterGuy! Will fill the freezer!

Esshup, pics of him?

Happy Hunting!

Have seen lots of does and small bucks. Neighbors about an eight of mile northeast of our properties got a big 18 pointer. Neighbors immediately east (hunting on line) got a nice 12 pointer. Nephew got a nice 9 pointer (would have been 12; but three were broken off one side). I guess the bottom line is we have good genetics in area. Just need to pull big bucks to our properties and find more time to hunt / pattern them. Haven't had any of those really big ones on any of our trail cameras. Thinking their core areas aren't on us.

Prior to buying my own place, I did a lot of weekend lease hunting and brown is down meant take meat home. But, those were the days prior to herd management. We had never heard of such a thing and ranchers considered any deer as $. In those days there were no antler regs. “It’s a buck” meant shoot.

I used to plant wheat crops to feed deer and cattle. Then the hogs moved in and made a mess of everything. Combine plentiful hogs with our 4 year drought and i haven’t seen a winter crop in years. I wanted to this year but the rains didn’t come at the right time and I had some nasty surgery that kept me off a tractor. I’m still not 100% but getting around ok. Combine that with some nasty arthritis.

My place is mostly hunted by a young couple that I know. They’re hunting this weekend. My Grandson has hunted once and I’ve been twice. Seen some bucks but not shooters.

I have a corn feeder about 75 yards from my kitchen window. Last year a monster buck showed up while we were eating breakfast. I didn’t shoot. I don’t like the idea of shooting one unless I’m hunting.Glad to see it. About 5 years ago a herd of about 20 bucks wandered by that place. They ranged from spikes to Bone and Crocket whoppers. The younger ones stopped by the corn feeder but the big boys just kept walking. Once again, I didn’t shoot because I wasn’t hunting. I had no idea that those guys were in the area.

This year, I’ve decided to keep some corn feeders filled all year. Gonna do a lot of hog hunting.

Based on my (limited) data, I believe this to be a true statement regarding the biggest bucks NOT eating at the feeders. It seems to me that the biggest deer have to do the most fighting during the rut and therefore need the most energy. (They also need energy for their other activities.)

I do get bigger bucks at my feeders at 3AM later in the season. However, the true monster bucks I only see passing by on a trail camera, or when I am up on my highest platform blind during the season and can see many of the open lanes within a half mile where the biggest bucks briefly cross the open ground between areas of dense cover.

Questions for the deer experts:

Is it true that the biggest monster bucks generally DO NOT go to feeders?

If so, what is the best means to lure them from adjacent properties onto our properties?

My personal opinion about this...

I think older bucks check feeders but they do it differently than younger deer. They swing far downwind and scent check for does, and danger.

I think they are more in tune with their environment and less tolerant of changes. Ie - if you want to successfully fool an older buck you need to have your baiting routine set long before season starts. Otherwise you all of a sudden going in to fill feeders is a change likely to shift them to night movement, or different acreage.

Want old bucks... give them habitat, security, good cover, no perceived pressure, and don't let them know you're hunting them.

I dont think the big, old, smart ones will hit a feeder out in the open very much, Might make a little difference if they been feeding at it since they were born.

Getting them out in the open is pretty hard but my theory is, if you have the does, the bucks will be there, and when they are in full rut, with competition from other bucks, they tend to do stuff that they would not normally do, I think that's how most of them get killed.

I did get a pretty decent ten yesterday but he was stuck in the woods, thick stuff, would not come out, had two eights and a nine that were out in the green field with twenty does and young stock at the time, and thats actually how I seen this one, the nine point all of a sudden got all stiff and puffed up and was staring into the woods just behind my stand, then I was able to make him out in the thick stuff. smart old booger.

I’d like to see a picture of that old guy. Sounds like your deer population is in pretty good shape.

We saw this guy several times on the cameras. But haven’t seen him since we started hunting.

Great advice.

My biggest problem is that I am getting too old to work on all of my farm projects when it is 104! Much easier to get work done on those nice crisp fall days.

I think I will have to keep getting feeders out earlier. I always wondered why manufacturers made feeders that held 500# of feed. Now I realize that many people fill it and then set the feed rate to run out 2 days after the start of the season. They never go into their property for any work at all during the pre-rut and rut.

That leads to another question that I have. We have all kinds of open ground, plum thickets, and mature tree forests (but small acreage).

Would any of the trophy bucks perhaps be more likely to go to a feeder that is not in the open, but is actually in pretty thick cover?

If so, I have lots of "junk" trees that I can clear to make some narrow paths into a deep cover feeder and also clear a few shooting lanes for the deer's most like approaches.

I already have two feeders out in the open that draw plenty of smaller deer for my nephews and buddies to harvest.

Great rack on that deer, SetterGuy.

Looking at his face, he does look like an old buck.

Probably would be a good year to harvest him. I hope he wanders back into your hunting ground!

Angie is correct regarding my brown is down comment. Lots of experiences with people shooting exceptional young bucks that would have been true trophies if they'd waited a couple more years. If you just w a nt to shoot a deer, shoot a doe. We have lots. If you want a trophy, let the young ones walk.

Spot on RE, Why cant people grasp that concept? They shoot their biggest nicest herd bull and leave the scrubs to reproduce, and then cant figure out why there are no genetics in the area.
I am pretty lucky in that aspect, together, me and my neighbor have 160 acres, square plot, and he is of the same opinion as me, leave some good bloodlines to reproduce,
Luckily we have another landowner adjoining us, she has like 350 acres and barely allows hunting, I think she lets one guy bow hunt it but he is trophy hunting only, unless its some huge old deer with a unique rack hes not shooting it either. which is pretty great, we have enough area to let some nice ones survive, that being said, we are going to have to thin out some does and young stock, they are getting too thick.

I wish I could find a family that just wants the meat, I could and would sure load them up, we are talking about taking our limit of them to the share the harvest thing that they have here in Mo, they grind them up for the food pantry if you want to donate them.

On the hoof, how do you distinguish between young bucks that will be trophy bucks in a few years and older bucks that should be culled? (Assuming you are trying to create trophy bucks based on antlers and body size.)

Just my opinion because I fully admit I suck at judging age unless I have years of experience with a certain buck. But... here are a couple of things I look for:
One of the bucks pic'd has a deep sag in his neck, and a paunch right in front of his back legs. The other has much less of a throat sag and a tighter belly. Plus if you look at the musculature in the shoulders and if it tappers back to the hips you can see a difference. Both are nice bucks, but one is more likely to get culled if you are into that sort of thing.

I tried to pull up two pics from the same camera, with deer in the same position. So you can get a better idea of the differences between the two.

[img]https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?

Thanks catscratch.

I am used to getting good advice on Pond Boss. Your post is like "text book level" advice with the side-by-side pics!

Lol! Thanks but you should always take my advice with a grain of salt, and "text book level" should NEVER be used in the same sentence!

Good points. I have a bunch of deer related books including Aging and Judging trophy whitetails by Kroll, a couple by Leonard Rue III and others; but still wouldn't want to bet much on being right. One thing that helps here in the midwest is just their overall appearance. Do they look like a doe with antlers or do they look like an old man with a bigger chest, sagging belly and skin, etc?

My bow hunters reliably (to my estimation) know the age of desirable bucks on our farm. They do this by having game camera pictures of the same buck year after year.

Maybe some dedicated trophy hunters here can confirm this practice or profess that its a bunch of hooey.

Certainly possible to know the age of deer that you have history with! The bucks I posted above are "yard deer" that I have extensive history with. I plant food plots and fruit trees around my house, run trailcams, and hunt. The wide 7 is on his 3rd year of me being able to recognize him for certain. I probably didn't have him specifically identified as a 2.5yr old or maybe even a 3.5yr old. So I likely can age him around 5 or 6. Antlers aren't the only identifiers though. In fact they may be very misleading. I like to look for color patterns such as the white throat patch, ripped or notched ears, scars, deformed hooves, etc.


With all that said, if I didn't have history with the wide 7 and he suddenly appeared chasing a doe in during the rut and I had to guess his age, I'd probably say between 4.5 and 6.5, but he could easily be 7+ and I wouldn't know different.

Cat, I also wouldn’t know the difference unless I see one that I just know is really old.

I’ve only been able to hunt twice and seen only youngsters with potential. And, these guys are definitely young.

Where do they go? I and grandsons are the only hunters in the area and I’ve watched bucks that needed one more year for several years. Then, they’re gone. So far, I’ve only seen 3 year olds; even on cams. And, their racks aren’t wide enough to even be legal. Only one doe.

Grandson hunted last week and saw 8 turkeys, one pig and one young buck.

This one was shot about 1.5 miles from my house.



A friend's daughter shot a buck in Oklahoma on their farm. He said he's seen it for a few years and said it was a 6 year old. They had the jaw aged. It was 4.

So, I don't have the answer, but what would the guess be on this deer age wise?

I am not a deer hunter, so I don't know too much of deer habits. I found this scrape (I think) near the pond. What surprises me is the size of the tree. It is a aspen/poplar about 10" in diameter. I have never seen a scrape on such a big tree before. I know that bigger the tree, bigger the buck. So, did a monster buck leave his mark?

^^^ I've watched spikes and basket racks rub big trees, and monster old bucks rub little trees. About the only thing I'd say for certain is that a rub that goes high up the trunk of a tree is likely from a bigger buck that has longer tines and possibly stands taller. Those are some pretty deep grooves, he much have been getting after it!

Esshup: that was a nice buck close by.

I'll guess 4.5. Do you know actual age?

Yes, a rub, not a scrape. Thanks for the clarification!

That bottom buck is on my hit list for this year. Last time it was seen on cam was July 19th when the rack was less than 50% developed. IF I can get him I will get an age.

Good luck getting him, he's got it all!

I finally got around to posting a picture of the 9-point a got Monday afternoon. I got him at about 90 yards with my Ruger 77/44. (240 Grain Hornady HP/XTP over 23.0 grains of H110, Starline brass, for any reloaders here).
He can be seen here (deer #2) in the Image Gallery.

Good job, Theo.

That is a handsome lad!

I thought this was a well written article (at least from the perspective of a nonhunter but who is trying to learn everything I can along with my 16 yr old son who is hunting in his 2nd season).

It gives good tips about how to use caution and strategy to think about what the deere might do next. It also emphasizes the need to have knowledge about your local herd (surveillance) and know when a deer is best harvested (patience). I thought several pro level tips were embedded in the story even though I understand the phrase 'she checked her arrow and headed home' Does that mean that she found the arrow after it exited the deer? What was she checking it for?

Enjoy:

What is a Double Palmate?

You can read quite a bit from the arrow after a shot; is there blood on it, is it dark red or pink and foamy, is there hair and is it brown or white, does it smell like guts, etc?

Good article and a great buck! Those palmated antlers are cool!

Good buck Theo! Have you found any difference in accuracy if you swapped primers?

No, but I don't simply replace primers without working up a new load.

FWIW, virtually every load I've ever made (and all but maybe 2 guns I've ever shot) shoot better than I do. Which is not bragging about my reloading ability.

I can relate to that.

Neighbor called me yesterday because his son shot a 10-point buck and the blood trail led over to my property. I told them to go look, but they couldn't find the big buck.

I just called the local guy with bloodhounds and had a good conversation. Instead of people tracking, his dogs are specifically trained to track deer!

He usually charges $200 for a search, and said he usually gets a nice tip when he finds a lost big buck. (He said he also likes to do a steep discount when it is the first deer for a youth hunter.)

Further, he said when our archery season hits the rut, he frequently gets four call-outs per day!

I don't know if anyone will ever need to use it, but I am re-posting Rangeredge's link above.

This company is gaining popularity here in Oklahoma for deer recovery.

https://okddr.com/home

Laws are weird here in Indiana. You can use a drone with thermal to recover a dead deer. You cannot use the same equipment to recover a wounded deer.

Pricey!

But I have a buddy that does guided hunts in Oklahoma. I think his bonus is up to $4,000 if you bag an 8 pointer. (I think if you get a bonus deer, your trip charge is refunded?)

Wealthy hunters will pay well to show up and shoot a big deer on Day 1 or Day 2. Paying to recover a lost deer is peanuts at those prices.

That is an interesting legal Catch-22. In Indiana, is that called the Schrodinger's Deer Statute?

If I can feel the deer's pulse, or lack thereof, I probably don't need a drone to locate the body.


On a serious note, has anyone used a hand-held (or drone mounted) thermal imager to locate a lost deer? How expensive of a unit do you need to purchase for that application? Can you spot warm blood droplets with a sensitive enough unit?

P.S. I have helped buddies look for lost deer twice and found neither. One clearly had frothy lung blood in the blood trail. It suck to lose a deer!

Mrs. Augie had a rough deer season this year. It wasn't as bad as last year when we were both laid up with the covid and couldn't hunt at all, but it wasn't great.

She missed a nice buck opening morning. Then she missed another nice buck the 2nd weekend of the season. She never misses so it was apparent that something
was out of whack with her optics. I set up a target and found the gun was grouping perfect elevation but 10" to the right at 50 yards. I was able to bring it back to center
but she didn't have time to hunt the remainder of that season segment. That was the first time in the 25 years since I bought that rifle for her that I needed to touch
the adjustments on the scope. Not bad for a 3x9 Tasco $100 wallymarts special.

But... I can't have much faith in a scope once they lose their zero like that so Saturday morning I went to a local gun shop and bought a $250 3x9 Vertex. They mounted
and bore sighted it and I took it home and half a box later had it dialed in and back to shooting dimes. The Vertex optics are made in the US and carry an unconditional
lifetime guarantee. If it holds up as good as the old Tasco it will last far longer than she will.

Sunday afternoon Mrs. Augie went out and dropped a nice fat doe dead in her tracks. I finished the butchering after work yesterday and dropped the boneless
meat off at the locker plant over lunch today. It won't be done in time to pass out for Christmas gifts, but there will be ~50lbs of jalapeno/cheese slim jims coming
after the first of the year.

Augie,

Glad Mrs. Augie got her deer!

Did your scope go bad, or did it move within the mounts? How heavy is the round giving it recoil shock?

(I am always worried about this problem if I get behind at work and don't get a chance to check my zero before deer season. I know, I know, that needs to be on my necessity list.)


For 50# of slim jims have you thought of making your own?

I had a good scope in rings on an aluminum base that less than 20 rounds of 460 S&W knocked loose - the notches in the base were rounded out.

I replaced the base and rings with a Leupold all-steel "dual dovetail" set, which has held things nice and tight ever since.

Thanks, Theo. That is some powerful ammo.

Did the scope rings wiggle in the base after they were damaged? Or did your zero change after each shot as the recoil shifted the alignment of your rings?

(Just trying to determine if this is typically a "hidden" problem, or an easily diagnosable problem. I would hate to have a youth hunter miss their first big buck because I screwed up.)

Mrs. Augie's rifle patterned dimes from day one. Ruger M77MK3 in .243 Winchester. Steel rings. All good there. Used them to mount the new scope.

I've made mountains of deer sausage in my lifetime. Back in the day I did it because that's the only way I could afford to have it.
Now I can pay someone else do the work for me so that's what I do.

I've had the steel "windage adjustable" scope rings made by Leupold start to walk rearward on the one piece base on my muzzleloader. That was the lighter one, shooting a 250g bullet @ 2300 fps. I switched to the dual dovetail and had 0 problems with the rings moving or the scope moving within the rings. On my .45 cal muzzleloader that is shooting a 300g bullet at 2700+ fps, I have a picatinny rail and steel rings with a 30mm tube 50mm objective scope. No issues with the moving. Check the scope base screw length and make sure that you aren't bottoming out on the bolt or the bottom of the hole before you get the base tight. Degrease all screws and use blue loctite on them. Tighten to the correct inch-lbs. BOTH bases and rings. If needed, you can lap the rings to make sure you get good contact with the scope tube.

The MGM 460 S&W barrel that had been nice and accurate for the first 10 or so shots started shooting patterns instead of groups. After pulling the scope, the slots in the aluminum base were visibly boogered.

Hunted yesterday afternoon and this morning. Saw nothing and heard no shots.

Our muzzleloader season started on Saturday. The local deer processor took 0 deer in on Sat, 6 on Sunday and I was the only one to bring one in on Monday.

I tried my first coyote hunt last night. Set up in a ground blind in an old pasture on the back of our place. About a 3 ac field. We’ve seen a lot of coyotes in the game cameras. I tried the screaming rabbit call for a long time. Until almost dark. Nothing. I’m thinking our coyotes are a little smarter than I give them credit for. Ha! I sure felt like an idiot with that call screaming. I think I may have scared all the animals out of our county. Even my neighbors cattle were restless. Ha!

I take it those processor numbers are way below normal?

Do you normally hear the coyotes howling at dusk in the distance? If so, did you hear them yesterday too, or did your rabbit call significantly change the coyote behavior?

I heard the coyotes howl almost every time I worked until dark at the farm this fall. They would start up on one side of me, and then there would be a reply in another direction. Sometimes I would even hear a third group.

However, the way that sound carries, I have no idea how close the coyotes were.

Yes, typically they are full up on any season opening day. This year on gun opener they filled up at 11am.

I've had a little trouble getting deer processed the last 3 years (mostly due to Covid and the "I don't want to have a job" mentally that arose therefrom).

This year my youngest, who now works for the butcher that has processed our steers for over 30 years, took care of it for me.

Them suckers are extremely smart, and with all the deer hunting going on currently and dead deer along the roads caused by the rut, many gut piles, they are not hungry enough yet to take any chances, later on in the winter they will be a little easier.
We did the rabbit call thing in the middle of the winter a few seasons back and this coyote came barreling in inside of 60 seconds.

Try a fawn in distress.

I’ll stay after them. I was in a ground blind, and was trying to watch 360 degrees. I need to drag my son in law out with me. 180 would be better.
I’ll try the fawn too.
Thx

SetterGuy,

I used to have very hit and miss (mostly miss) with the rabbit call until my neighbor shared something with me. He told me that coyotes have a very good sense of distance and direction from their hearing. If a person calls too much, the coyote will know EXACTLY where the sound came from. He told me this. If a coyote hears the call once, it will have a good sense of the generally area from whence the call came but will not know precisely where. So he will investigate and search. The more a person calls, the more likely it is that the coyote will have pin pointed the caller's precise location and will be able to identify the caller before the caller spots the coyote. He told me to do this. Call once ... if there is a coyote in the neighborhood he will come into investigate. Give a coyote at least 15 minutes to come into view but wait no longer than 30 minutes. If no coyote, then assume none were close enough or hungry enough to come to the call and move to different spot or call it a day. He claimed that overcalling will ruin the hunt and educate coyotes. I had a lot of respect for him and followed his advice and although every hunt did not end in a kill ... a greater percentage did and I spent less time hunting.

Ill buy that, coyotes are extremely intelligent. Ive had more unsuccessful hunts then I have successful, I have always wondered about over calling.

I have a friend that hunts them at night with the thermal imaging scope, they are for one, not near as skittish after dark as they are thru the daytime. Quite a few people have started hunting them on a bright moonlit nite with snow on the ground with buckshot, its not uncommon for them to come a lot closer then they ever would in the daytime.
Friend of mine entered a tournament last yr where they had an entry fee and met up, and then everybody scattered in their own direction all nite and showed back up in the morning, with prizes for the most coyotes and biggest coyote, that was a lot of fun.

Do any of you good coyote hunters ever work land where they perform prescribed burns?

Whenever I do a big burn, I almost always stay out after dark and walk the burn to put out any embers. Every time, the short grass areas beyond my fire breaks are filled with coyotes, and they are VERY close to me! I assume they are having a feeding frenzy on all of the ground critters driven or wounded by the fire.

I have seen them near my truck, and then hopped in to drive to the other side of the burn, and caught more coyotes in the headlights - where I NEVER see them unless burning.

I would think that on a full moon night, or with a thermal scope, you might be able to get a dozen coyotes at my farm?

(Just an observation from a non-coyote hunter that doesn't like his increasing coyote population.)


P.S. I assume full grown raccoons are too big for coyote predation? I get coyotes loping on my game cameras, but have never seen them even stalking the fat raccoons at my deer feeders every night.

lol I guess they don’t fool with coons, at one of our feeders we counted 29 coons at one time!

I do normally hear them at dusk, and that’s when they generally show up in the game cameras. But I’ve spotted a few recently mid afternoon just driving around. I heard zero the night I tried calling. Now I know I called way too much. I’ll try again in a month, and I’ll call for a short time and wait. I might try that fawn call too.
Nothing seems to cut into our coon population but me. Definitely seeing more vultures around than a few years ago. And,, we are seeing more turkeys too.

Caught a neat pic on the game-cam last night....

I also had several pics of bucks fighting on my game cams long after the rut was supposed to be over!

No clue if they were fighting over corn, over females, or just mock fighting to get ready for next year's rut?

Deer are social creatures. They lick each other, groom each other, play with each other, run across a field to greet another, and spar with each other. I think it's the equivalent to a couple of teenage boys wrestling in the living room after a summer baseball game. They aren't fighting over a cheerleader but they might look like they are. I keep cameras on scrapes year round. Deer check and leave scent at these spots every month of the year. Their social network goes way beyond breeding and includes many different aspects.

Deer season sucked. Early season I saw a lot of bucks that needed one more year to be legal. Later, I saw an occasional doe. I’m not much of a meat hunter. Saw no pigs.

I was worried about our season due to the drought. I deepened one of my groundwater ponds by 8' and it stayed full at that new pool level throughout the fall.

I might of had the only open water for several miles around. We did see our highest number of bucks on camera ever. I think we were drawing them to our land.



P.S. I wonder if your drought conditions also explains your lack of hogs? Piggies have to drink too!

My grandson saw some pigs at the end of the season.

Bummer! I was hoping the drought had at least a tiny silver lining.