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This year has being fill with ups and downs in the deer woods. I fill one tag during rifle season and tonight I was able to harvest young buck. Meat in the freezer is why I hunt. Congratulations to all who punched a tag during the 2024 deer season.

No shot during Bow season . Got 1 shot 1st day of gun and took a 9 point .

Muzzleloader WNY Buck Sat in a tree for 3.5 hrs. A few doe ran up to me about 10:30. I raised up on one and, pft.... misfire. Saw three run off I put a new primer in and after a few minutes wondered if my powder got wet. It did. Pushed the bad load out with my ram rod and pushed my ram rod through with a stick from the tree I was in. Reloaded and waited till noon. Got down and walked through the wet leaves in silence with the wind in my favor. Followed a trail of fresh scat piles every 50/100 yds and as I popped my head over a hill/mound i saw him standing about 70 yds looking in my direction. I knew he couldn't smell me. I raised up quick, pulled the hammer back lined him up and squeezed. As the smoke cleared I saw two more deer run off that were with him. I reloaded quick and peered through my binos. He dropped dead right where he was standing. 100gr white hots 300gr powerbelt aerolights Remington primer Cva optima Sent from my Pixel 4 XL using Tapatalk

Another great late season in the books. Sucks to get beat by this guy during bow season but pretty awesome catching up to him with the snow camo and smoke pole. We really are blessed to be able to chase these great animals around for sure.

Last dmp filled, folded her

Oh forgot to say my Brothers Grandson at 14 got his first buck! It's pretty funny but we have one stand where we send the new hunters to. They always seem to connect! Thats him years ago with Stepdad. Now first deer at the box!

1 minute before sunset buzzer beater 8-pointer tonight:

I slept in too cold for me but my brother wanted the trifecta! He got an 8pt at bow, spike and doe at gun now wanted one at Muzzy season. Well he went out this morning at dark sat in his favorite spot. Said he blew out a lot of deer going in. Along came a single doe and shot it at 50 yards with Muzzle loader. Double lung shot deer went 70 yards! Left little to no blood. I was amazed cause we have snow. I went down with the quad to get him and we retraced the track job. I just couldn't believe it didn't leave better sign. I'm happy for him.

My buddy asked me to do a euro on his son’s deer. He wanted a piece of “driftwood” from the property they hunt. I’m pretty pleased with the results overall, although I don’t recommend working with epoxy resin on a log. Extremely difficult to mix, and apply etc. There were too many runs/drips etc, but it is what it is. Thanks for looking

Very good year so far, between me and 1 of my sons we took 3 shooters off of our 41 acres between the rifle and muzzleloader seasons. Freezer is almost full with healthy lean meat!!! Unfortunately the ML buck was a mercy kill as he was in bad shape otherwise he would have gotten a pass with that half rack. Only got half the meat off him but I didn't do it for the meat, had to end his suffering. All in all a fantastic season with lots of great memories!!! Truly blessed to be able to hunt these elusive animals.

I shot a decent 8 on the afternoon of opening day and I’m grateful. However, I put a lot of time in between the xbow and rifle seasons and did not see much. Actually, I have been seeing less deer each year and the kill rate amongst me and my peers seems to be declining as well. I don’t get it. You would think that we should be seeing more if we’re killing less year after year.

I managed to get out of work on time, hit a few lights just right on the drive home, and make it into my tree stand in the first hedgerow behind our house, 1/2 hour before sunset on December 17, the last day of SZ regular ML season. 29 minutes later, this 8-pointer stepped out into my awp/wheat/clover plot, 120 yards away. I cranked the old Redfield on my 0mega 50 cal up to the max zoom of 7x, centered the crosshairs behind his shoulder, and squeezed off the shot. He trotted towards my pond, 90 yards away, and piled up 10 yards short of it. Stomach was full, chest taped at 39-1/2”. I’m guessing 2.6 or 3.6 yrs old. I think it’s the same buck that I missed with my crossbow in early November, when my bolt deflected off a corn stalk. I wasn’t entirely sure I missed him clean then, but there wasn’t a nick or blemish anywhere on him tonight, so I’m more certain now that I did.

I went up to pull the card over the dead deer. Told my neighbor and said he was hunting the hedgerow by his house. Half way up I see him and text sorry I thought you were on the other hedgerow. He say s go get the card plenty of time left (4:40) so I get the card and head down to my house. Before I'm even in I hear a shot. It was him. They came right out at 4:50 into the cut corn. Shot a nice button buck, not ideal but they needed meat. Offered my quad service and he took me up on it! His Dad passed away this year and was using his gun. Dead on and got the deer. Very special for sure. Here are some of the pictures from the dead deer cam. I would say 90% of the deer is eaten by them damn crows.

A nice thing about the cameras is that you see some of the survivors .

Sat out for 4 1/2 Hours in my double chair blind this afternoon . Freezing cold with a SW wind making it colder . Didn't see a thing . At about 4:15 my oldest son pushed the thickets and kicked out a doe that my grandson shot . At least the day wasn't a total waste .

Looks like the Holiday hunt is shaping up to a touch on the milder side. Hope more are able to get out and capitalize on some great late season potential. Good luck

Hope everyone had a great season. Either freezer fillers or some bone on the wall. I was lucky enough to get 2 of the 3 target bucks I was after this year. I was beat by all during the bow season. Late November I started to get the Letchworth buck back on cameras and was able to close the deal on him. It was into December before I started again getting pics of the buck I had hanging around on the North farm. Finally sealing the deal with him during late muzzleloader season. Was another great season and have been getting some pics of a couple of new bucks that have been hanging around a couple weeks now Hopefully those will be 2 that I will be chasing around next year.

These two, a doe from September and a buck from Tuesday, will put the freezer in good shape, but there’s definitely going to be room for another one or two in there. December 26 can’t get here soon enough.

I had the most satisfying season that I can remember. My daughter got her first deer during the early antlerless season. Then she got another doe during the special youth season. We have spent a lot of time in the woods together and for her to finally pull it all together and to be able to experience it with her was out of this world. My eyes get watery just thinking back on it.

Started out in bow missing a couple .. Got things worked out in my brain Got a avg 8 pt and two nice does

After a three year decline in game due to the severe Gypsy moth caterpillar infestation that defoliated all the mast trees things picked up in my neck of the woods. Saw a good increase in game especially Squirrels. Turkeys have bounced back and have a few Cottontail rabbits showing up. I hunt big woods and there is not a lot of Deer but enough to get some meat and fill the freezer. The Fall weather was great for the most part and I was in the timber frequently seeing enough game to keep things interesting. Now that Deer season is over I will me messing around training my young Airedale pup and plan on doing some Varmint calling so long as the snow does not get too deep. So all and all I am pretty happy on how fall hunting has gone so far.

My plans for the late season was to get 1 more deer to finish off our season. Had to use my muzzleloader tag Saturday afternoon on this poor fella. Was in stand not 15 minutes and was in the process of getting layered up with clothes when I caught movement over 100 yards away. Picked up binos and saw it was a mature buck but was a half rack. I thought it was the half racked 8 point I had on cam but turned out to be another buck. As he was walking i noticed a limp in his back leg, as he got within 50 yards i could see he was in ruff shape and that 1 leg was held in the air. Had all intentions of letting him go till next year until I saw his shape. He would have never made it thru the winter, was happy to end his suffering. I waited roughly 20 mins.from the time I first saw him to get a clean shot. I settled the 50 cal. ML on his front shoulders, he dropped, as he rolled down the mountain the one side of his rack fell off. In all I was able to salvage, 1 back leg, tenderloins and backstraps. The very next day I could have taken a bull of a 7 pointer however I'm content with using my ML tag on this guy, felt I did the right thing, definitely wasn't for the amount of meat. I know shit happens but boggles my mind how someone can hit a deer so far back and low. Please don't take running shots, don't shoot thru brush, practice shooting!!!!! Rant over, thanks for reading. Happy Holidays all!!!!!

Trying to do a little last minute doe patrol and this guy walks around like hunting season is not even a thing. He has offered his shoulder a few times this year but another year hopefully puts him at the next level.

Regular season ended with my brother taking a spike. We goy up at 4:45 I looked outside and heard the wind and bed was calling me back. He texted a few times seeing a couple of Does and the 4 together but still couldn't get me out there. Then he texted just shot a buck. Hunched over headed to the thick stuff. Told him to take a look but back out if it doesn't look good. He did at 10 am and we went back in at 1 pm. Again we looked at google maps to see the funnels that the deer may take. The thick stuff was an area inside the hard woods. He went on one side I went on the other. Upon circling around I saw the deer bedded looking right at me. 40 yards shot put him down. We have been blessed this year with venison. 7 bucks and two doe. Not an ounce will go to waste we all love it so much. Oh BTW scrapes opened up last night here are two.

Down the road from where I live I found what was left of a small buck in the ditch probably hit by a vehicle, looked like the local varmints worked over the carcass pretty good. Figured it might make some good varmint hunting bait so I threw what was left of the body in the back of my truck and brought it home and placed it in one of my fields to see if it would draw any action. Did not take long for these two to spot it. Al

For me venison wise it was a subpar year but memories wise I can't complain. I had a chance to fill the freezer during bow when I shot over the back of a doe at about 35 yards and again on a doe during muzzleloader when the gun misfired. Once regular gun started the deer sightings went down and then around Thanksgiving we got hammered with over 3ft of snow making it hard to get to most of my spots. On the plus side I did start what I'm hoping will be a yearly tradition in renting a hunting camp for a week with a few other guys. No deer were taken but we had a great time. I also got to hunt with my youngest son and my grandson on a few hunts for the first time in a few years. That in itself made the season special. Sent from my moto g power (2022) using Tapatalk

Two in the freezer ... very thankful !

Now that the big game season is over in this neck of the woods I am back at it doing my favorite thing, hunting small game and especially Squirrels, and I finally connected on an off colored Gray Squirrel. In all the years I have hunted Squirrels I have only seen a handful of blacks, they are just few and far between in these parts and never seen a chocolate-mahogany colored one like I recently took with the Benjamin P-Rod Marauder pcp pellet rifle. These days there seems to be more than a few blacks in the area and I think this chocolate colored one is probably a cross between a black and a regular gray. Anyway, I think I will get this one mounted as he is pretty unique in my eyes. Al

nothing walked by the couch

Saw in the latest issue of NY Outdoor News, three hunters in Michigan keeled over with heart attacks dragging out their Deer this fall and there will probably be many more throughout the country. A reminder to stay in the best physical shape you can. Al

25 degrees and wind gusts to 20 mph. I decided to go to my new stand and sit the last hour or so today. What happened was picture perfect. Doe and two fawns come in from bedding area walk a smal ridge to my left and come right to food plot. I actually thought it was the triplets minus the Mom. It wasn't it was a 1.5 year old Doe with two fawns, one was a button buck. At the end of the video I say I think that is the Mom up front. We shot 9 deer so far this season split between 4 families. I'll be hard pressed to pull the trigger unless its a ginat buck or one of those weird rack bucks we have running around. Just nice being out there late season and see a few come in.

Lets see if I can post. Last day of the regular season. Fresh snow and a lot of fresh tracks in our spot in the Dacks.

Saw three doe this am. Headed to pa camp. Told my dad to hunt where I hunted this weekend. Tons of tracks and sign from early Nov.

Today was the first day they started feeding and it did not take long to get customers.

Mom and Triplets are good to go as of Christmas! Pretty surprised they are intact, a good Mom.

Monday afternoon sit was anything but boring, with the number of deer still grazing on food sources. Good number of young ones rising up the ladder. Two bucks entered, minimus the head gear pushing doe around the field. Maybe find a shed or two in the future. This time of year can give a good assessment of the deer herd. The deer have settled down a lot. Enjoy being out to get sort of a handle on things.

Some Pics from my recent Chip switch out ...

My spot is so secret even the deer can’t find it.

Yes, crossbows are currently considered muzzleloaders for late season

The killing scene in this guy's video reminds me of a kill I made on one of my better Bucks. The gang I hunted with back in the seventies and eighties hunted a huge farm on big hills outside of Norwich NY called King's Settlement. I had an escape route spot where I built a brush blind a couple of weeks before season about 3/4s of the way up on one of those hills and I was in it on a cold opening day before daylight. I hoped as the orange army made their way up the hill someone would push something past me. I heard a noise just as it was getting daylight and could make out a really nice buck moving away from me through a scrub apple orchard, he was too far away and there was too much brush in the way for a clean shot so I just watches him disappear, the best I could hope for is he would run into some other hunted and maybe comeback through. The rest of the morning was uneventful and around noon I headed back down to the vehicles and meet up with some of the guys to warm up and get something to eat. So while we were going over the morning's events one of the guys spotted a nice buck way up the hill standing in some high goldenrod only a couple of hundred yards from my blind. I grabbed my gun and started to haul ass back up the hill jogging up a farm dirt road, just maybe I might get a crack at that guy. The farm road was in a gully with high banks on both sides and as I got in that buck's vicinity I hear some shots from the buck's direction. I stopped and listened and all of a sudden here comes the big Buck running full tilt right at me over and down the bank. I was ready and when he saw me, he turned and I let him have one broadside, he went down on his haunches, and I gave him two more killing him, that was the last time I fired more that one shot at a Deer. Everything happened in just a few seconds, and I did not have any time to think. I was using an Ithaca model 51 Deerslayer 3 shot semi auto, probably the most accurate slug gun I ever owned. I gave that shotgun to my youngest son and a few years later he killed a nice buck with it just a short distance from the one killed above. Ahh, the good old days!! Al