Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Wildlife Management Deer Season '23/'24 Comments

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.