Leaderboard

Piebald at 1 1/2. Piebald at 2 1/2.

Yote pack freaking out 200 yards from me. Not loving getting down right now

Maybe discovery channel is shooting an episode of " Naked and Afraid" nearby.

100 % true all spikes will never grow any larger than a spike if SHOT!

Ive been playing with mock scrapes here and there for a few years, they work great. This year, I decided to try setting up a whole mock scrape line on the edge of one of our food plots. I went around the entire plot and cut any branch less than 6 feet off the ground, except for 5 that were in a path from one end of the plot to the other. All of them have been hit, and you can tell from the tracks that deer seem to be using one after the other. All of them were created by leaving the licking branch, scraping the ground with a rock rake and urinating in them. I have video of bucks and does using them. Its pretty neat. I have a stand set within bow range of two scrapes on one end of the scrape line, on the predominately downwind side. Im hoping to kill a deer or two off of that scrape line this year.

my first deer, i dont have a kill shot full body so ive provided a trail cam picture.

I thought these ones turned out pretty cool.

Well it's official. I'm hooked. Can't wait to get out and do it again. Spent tons of time researching(thanks to all of you)practicing my shooting and game planning for this. Went out Sunday morning for the first time. My hunting buddy and I are both rookies so expectations were low. We felt that the day would not be a waste no matter what happened because you are always learning. We'll at about 9:30 in the morning I was walking through a field with waist high grass hoping to scare up some pheasants(no dog...yet). About 100 yards away from me a single pheasant flys in from the North side and lands. Talk about getting juiced up. Now I know there is something in this field. I slowly stalked the pheasant and as I got about 30yds away I could see the grass moving as the pheasant tried to run on the ground. At about 20yds it took flight and I swung my Shotgun around and took the shot. First time not shooting at paper. I am hooked.....can't wait to get out and try again. Thanks for all the help and teaching from all your posts on this forum. I felt prepared and confident.

In the last issue of the NY Outdoor News Oak Duke had a great article on turkey hunting. I have already round filed the issue so can't tell you what page it is on but if you'd like a good read, chase it down. Anybody else get to read it?

Had the misfortune of walking up on Pygmy once, just before he pulled up his trousers after going # 2 in the woods. Looked kind of similar to that deer in the photo. LOL

No spiders,just some "web" shots.

Great read.....Only problem is in NYS southern tier 4 1/2 year old deer are hard to come by. I could see that deer making it out of the spike stage where I hunt but once he was sporting that 2 1/2 year old rack he would be a prime target for the majority of hunters in the southern zone.

There ya go http://www.realtree.com/deer-hunting/galleries/photo-gallery-from-buttons-to-booner

little too soon after surgery to be pushing it don't you think? what does the Dr. say?

I think red squirrels are dicks. Always chasing and bothering the gray squirrel and never the other way around.

Young buck 10 yards Now 4 doe at 50 yards moving off though two are fat slobs

I have 1.75 kids who would disagree

Have some females left they should be good ones and will be old enough to start some training.

46 Lancaster. Dripping sweat

Good luck everyone dam I wish I was hunting thismorning there's no wind

Good frost here in hills of 9x this am....to bad I gotta work...good luck to those going out today should be a good am....

I seen nothing till i left the woods, they were all crossing the road from a field!

2am is nutzzzz! That would wipe me out for two days lately! Back in 1991 I had a great spot in PA that had a few adult gobblers gave me a slip the first day of the season. I went back twice and didn't drive down the night before, choosing to get on the road by 2am. It was a 2.5+ hour ride and being only 30 years old could still manage it. Today? No way is that happening....... PS.......I killed a dandy the second early morning trip down!

I think getting ALL the sound to travel down the tube is a joke. 30' of plastic scent in the air at ground level sounds like a winner too.

I'll be dipped..............thought the only place to get them was the PO?? Next thing you know Walmart will be selling live bait.

Imagine mixing up tubes in the excitement!?

'Nother thing.......I'd call first depending on your locale. That could save time, fuel and frustration!

Felt good to shoot the cobwebs out of the ol' gun!

I've never used the zip-tie method. I've found that the most important thing is providing an overhanging branch at the right height (40" or so) and don't leave your scent all over it. Also, it needs to be in a conspicuous place, like along a field edge or logging road. I also like to make "live" licking branches by one of two methods: 1) find a 3-4" sapling growing about 10' back from your intended scrape spot, climb the sapling until you can bend it over and then wire or tie it to a tree so the top of the sapling becomes your licking branch. 2) If there are overhanging branches that are too high for deer to reach, grab one of the higher branches (7-8' up) and bend it down (without breaking it) and wire or tie it to one of the lower branches so it is angled almost straight down. With either method the branch or tree stays alive and becomes a perennial scrape spot. Here's a clip of a buck my Dad shot under a mock scrape I made by bending over a sapling in 2008. That scrape is still in action 8 years after I made it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEH8nK8BeFQ Mock rubs are also a blast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI-w-M2fXr8

I'm right here. Been too busy. "Mock scrapes" work very well indeed. But, I have been fooling with them since the early 80's...and have learned a few things through trial and error. I have killed a bunch of bucks and does coming into them and standing under the Overhanging Branch. Yes, I am obsessed with them and have a hard drive full of videos and photos of bucks and does at my zip-tied scrapes. I prefer to call them zip-tied scrapes because the emphasis is on the branch...not the pawed up area on the ground. Without the overhanging branch, the scrape does not exist. The ground scrape, the pawed up soil is only ancillary...a by product, and not important. Urine is not important. If you want to enhance a scrape...forget urine. Wear out some boot rubber and find some hot scrapes, snip the overhanging branch, put it in a plastic garbage bag, and zip-tie it to the scrape you are hunting over. That's all you need to do. Many commercial urines (or whatever they put in the bottles) have ruined uncountable scrapes for me. However, I have killed some nice bucks when using them...but for every buck I killed over a scrape using lures...five of them have "gone dead." I have 8 trail cams on zip-tied scrapes now on three different hunting properties, miles apart. Things are beginning to heat up. Notice the "bouquet" of zip-tied branches this buck is hitting on Monday 10/6/14.

Yes, but not for collectible or sentimental reasons. Save one or two of most recent ones, mostly for proof of hunter's safety & bow hunting course completion since mine were initially recorded on stone tablets.

Note to self: Do not meet any of Pygmy's relatives. Cool vid though

Been there twice... More fun than watching your cross eyed aunt give Uncle an enema !! Be sure to bring your hearing protection...

Trying to take a shot behind the stand only to realize before releasing that due to my ninja like maneuvering the bow hanger was now in between my cables at full draw. Doe walked and my bow survived. lol Heck, with my girth, it was a victory just to be able to stand and make the turn without being spotted. Its tough for a gorilla in a tree to go undetected.

118 lb's she's either 4.5 or 5.5 have pics from last few years. She has a noticeable overbite so it was easy to identify her. Sent a Rage through her lungs at 54 yards in the beans. She ran 80-100 yards downhill before piling up. The itch is gone so now I can play the waiting game with the big boys.

Deer were out pretty early feeding. Some turkeys decided they wanted a birds eye view of me before they take their bath. Thunder shower during the turkey pics.

Morning hunt. With the SE wind I decided to try to sneak onto the hill bucks seem to like to bed on at the north end of a small hayfield. I have picked up 3 different sheds there in the last 8 years and more than once I’ve seen bucks headed in that direction at dawn. The hill offers great visibility from high vantage points with thick mountain laurel escape cover to the N on the downhill slope that drops into a nature preserve. Using my GPS in the dark, I was able to locate a spot 100 yards downwind of the highest point, 50 yards from a massive shed I found last spring, and 70 yards from where I sat just out of the action a year ago. Downhill from me there was a long-forgotten ¼ acre paddock framed by stonewalls with barways through both the north and south walls. A heavy trail ran straight through. I was able to get totally settled just before it got light enough to see clearly, which was a little later than I’d planned. A few minutes into shooting light a doe appeared uphill to the east about 50 yards away. She fed on acorns for about 30 minutes, but I was never tempted to shoot- I hadn’t snuck all the way into this high-stakes spot to shoot a doe. She eventually made her way north of my position where she must have caught my scent, because she suddenly went on red alert and stiff-legged it down towards the mountain laurel to way to the north. A little before 8 I caught movement below me to the northwest. The legs of a deer came into focus below the canopy and as the deer continued in my direction I could see it was a nice 8 point buck. He paused momentarily before passing through the north barway into the stone wall paddock. At a slow walk he angled closer to my position. At 25 yards he walked behind a small sapling that blocked his view and I drew my bow. Directly downhill to my west, I needed him to take one more step and he would be in the open, but he locked up as if he smelled something. He immediately turned around and started to stalk away in the manner that deer do when they know something is wrong and are going to leave but are not necessarily startled. I knew I had to make up my mind fast so I put it right behind his shoulder and let the string drop. He took another step as the arrow flew and a solid “thunk” confirmed a hit. He ran back through the barway in the direction that he came from. From what I could see the arrow struck farther back than I intended but he was quartering away hard, so I hoped the arrow made its way into the vitals. He paused about 70 yards away but I lost sight of him in the dense canopy. A few moments later I saw two bucks in the same area walking away to the west. Shortly after I thought I heard a crash near the last place I saw my buck go but I wasn’t sure. Because of the questionable hit, I decided to wait two hours before trying to find him. After thirty minutes I talked myself into at least looking for the arrow. While on the ground in the vicinity of where I shot the buck a doe suddenly appeared near the north barway, which she walked through right in my direction. Soon she was ten yards away, but my bow was 20 feet up a tree and I wouldn’t be inclined to shoot not knowing the outcome of the buck. After a few moments she spotted me and bounded away to the south and then stomped around and blew at me for ten minutes or so at about 50 yards. In that time period a deer jumped up to the northwest and flagged away, presumably one of the other bucks I’d seen after I shot mine (and hopefully not the one I shot). Not being able to locate the arrow or blood in the immediate area of where the buck was when I shot, I decided to go back up the tree and finish my wait. Not long after getting strapped back into my harness, another doe appeared at the barway and walked to the spot where the buck was at the shot. Again I held off because of my uncertainty with the buck. I noticed she did a lot of sniffing behind a fallen log just beyond the shot site. Finally the two hours had passed and I went right to the log where the doe had been sniffing. Sure enough, my arrow was laying there. Covered in blood, the arrow also had the smell of a gut shot, but the blood made me feel more confident that the arrow had found vitals. I found first blood just on the other side of the barway. The trail was spotty and hard to follow but within 30 yards I found a significant puddle of blood. From there the blood continued downhill to the north and into the thick mountain laurel. Several times the trail switched directions, but when I started seeing a lot of scuffed up leaves, I became confident that he was close. Sure enough, while looking for the next drop of blood I spotted him 20 yards below me. The arrow entered just above the flank and exited right behind the elbow on the opposite side. Upon examining his rack I recognized him as the nice buck I had on a trail camera over half a mile away two evenings before. Although a nice buck I’ll be the first to admit that I was a bit disappointed that he was a 3 year old and not a year or so older, but the hunt was exciting and it was very satisfying to combine prior knowledge with a little intuition and a lot of luck, resulting in catching a buck coming back to his bed. In the satellite photo you can faintly see the outlines of stonewalls that were built more than a century ago (maybe 2 or 3) and you should be able to make out the small "paddock" I described. P.S. Although he came from downwind, I had a significant altitude advantage, so I am guessing my scent was blowing straight over the top of him.

Mine is on the left, friend's is on right. Mine was hit high into liver after a deflection, but she went down within 75 yds. Moog was too busy typing on his phone to notice bucks walking by on this hunt, lol.

1/2 acre Winter Rye. They look like Vacuums!

As hunters we make our own calls and I find no issue with a hunter making his or her own choice. Same goes with shooting a fox or furry animal. It's a hunters choice what they want to hunt and others should be ok with their choice regardless of why they made it. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Had two fawns under my stand. Unfortunately the big does stayed about 75 yards out. Had good activity this morning. Turkey too. Sent from my LG-VS980

Not cool dude, not cool Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

I just came up with a new excuse if I shoot a fawn......all I gotta say is "some prick killed it's mother and either I put him out of his misery, or he would have died a slow lingering death from loneliness and depression."

I really try not to form an emotional attachment to the animals I'm hunting......if I have two dmp's I'll shoot the fawn as well as the mother so it won't get depressed and suffer if that's going to make some sleep better at night, what's next not shooting ducks and geese because they sometimes come in pairs? wouldn't want to turn Ms Mallard into a widow by killing her husband........and shooting a turkey out of a flock in the fall? that's not for the faint of heart, I did it once and all I heard afterwards was the mother hen calling for hours trying to get the flock back together, I almost stuck an ice pick in my ears to make it stop....heart wrenching for sure.

Just shot a doe with a fawn Thursday. When my goal is to put meat in the freezer then that's what I am going to do. I have no doubt the fawn is capable of surviving on it's own, and if not then the gene pool is being cleansed of weakness. I refuse to attach human emotions to animals and don't believe the fawn is now moping around in a state of depression.

I have a hard time shooting any doe, fawns are just off my radar. Guess I am just a sucker for cute. This is my first year targeting doe on LI, after I eat one my views might change a bit. Watch me shoot a doe, then have to lay waste to her 2 fawns to shut them up. ARG no way! Your all a bunch of fawn killers, my image of you is shot. Not really, lol. Now lets get out their and kill some deer!

They don't need the mother. Sad part is not a lot of meat but it's very tender. :-) They are legal to take, it's your tag do what you want

A few years ago it was the final weekend, December 14th I think. Here I am at my stand Saturday morning. Down my field comes not 1,2 or 3 deer but 15. All were yearlings, small bodies and not one adult in sight. you can't tell me they don't make it through the winter. These are the deer that keep the population going. BTW an adult did show up trailing them. A 1.5 year old buck which I took bead on and fired. Only to have my powder moist and a roman candle came out of my gun doing no damage. Typical for my camp. lol

Just because they are trying to suckle still, doesnt mean they are getting any milk or need the doe at all. I have video of a fawn trying to suckle last week and the doe kicked it right in its head for its efforts. I have zero issues killing a doe thats in a group with fawns. Heck, i might even zap the fawn if its female and we need to fill DMAPs. At least Im honest.

Like a kid on Christmas morning!! I know the feeling well. lol Good luck!