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Oh damn....., I don't want any ones imagination to get carried away,lol! Thank you very much!

Bucks in a bachelor group 8/12/15. Starting to pay off by passing on small eights with bow and gun. Many of them will get whacked of course, but that is OK. Makes some other hunter happy! But if they get through to become 3.5 year olds, then they become literally something to shoot for. The small eight gets a free pass this year. If I need the meat, I'll shoot a spike or a yearling or a small doe.

Most of the time I don't have enough time to look a deer over good and determine if it is a 2.5, 3.5, 4.5 or whatever age it could be. You guys/gals really have the time to do that?????? Damn.........................I'm doing something wrong.

In 2012, and again in 2014 I spent opening week of the northern zone deer season camped at Lows Lake, NY with my wall tent and a wood stove. I hunted the Tomar Mt area, I saw more moose sign than deer sign, but just having an opportunity to spend some time in those big woods was very rewarding. I don't hunt hard, at 66 years old my days of sitting in the woods from dark to dark are over, but I enjoy time around the camp as much as time in the woods, so not seeing deer was no big dissapointment. I live in Connecticut and always manage to have venison in the freezer by years end, so the pressure is off at Lows, just relax and enjoy. I posted a couple of videos on youtube, Here are some pics of 2012 and 2014 My wall. tent, I cut an 8x10 by 6'6" high tent down to about 7x6 deep by 54" high, with an interior frame and a 12x12 by 8" high wood stove I paddle a 16' Chestnut Pal wood canvas canoe, I eat prety good in camp, this picture is from 2012 when the wood stove was 12x12x12, I have since cut it down to only 8" high Cruising the shoreline early am, Enjoying some time in the big woods, Up on Tomar Mt,

I know there is a bunch of diffrent ways to view the SD card from a trail camera,I figured I would share my new to me method for this year. I bought the external SD USB card reader and the USB adapter from best buy. Just plug the SD card into the reader and the phone automatically opens them,select all and save ,go on to the next camera and do the same thing ,it saves a bunch of time screwing around in the woods and allows for instant gratification.

I have been getting pictures of this every day. These are 2 different cams 600 yds. apart. Both pictures within 20 minutes. The second one is right behind the house heading to it.

Fast moving storm. And ribs on the grill eehhhh I might fight threw a tornado to finish them lol.

Id rather kill a wacky racked 1.5 year old over a typical 2.5 year old 8 pt if that makes any sense.

Nice looking bucks. I have read and seen studies that show a how a buck may be a spike in his first year but when left to grow can produce a great rack in a few years.

I don't think too many QDM properties would have public hunting. After the expenses and work of plots and propery management, most are kept private. But perhaps you could find a lease property to your liking. Quality land access is the most challenging aspect of hunting these days.

I too have kept a detailed log for well over 20 years. And in our area of 4h, I stand by November 1st. to the 14th. for having the best buck movement year in and year out. The best three days being November 9th. 10th. and 11th. for having bucks on their feet and actively searching out does. This is the time when you see bucks standing out in the middle of fields, running across roads and being a little less cautious than normal. Intensity as always depends on weather as if it's very warm, more activity will happen during the cooler period of night time hours. I agree that there are flurries of activity that happen in October and later in the season, that vary year to year. That is why you hunt every day you can. You just never know what will show up any time during the season. That's what keeps me out there all season! Or until I tag out.

You are welcome my skinny ass knobby knee friend

Thank you for the nice gift! I can't stop looking at it....... it's so wild, and amazingly beautiful, and exotic! It's everything I could ever dream of seeing,lol Your pal, wooly

I've had a few large coyotes on my cam, going to carry a few extra arrows this year

Back in the observation stand yesterday evening. Had a good flow of does starting around 6pm, then had a nice bachelor group of bucks stroll by me.

https://youtu.be/Z1vk2SsWRdA

Just enjoy it , it all looks the same in freezer paper

I am willing to bet that 95% of the hunters and anti hunters have never see the inside of a coyote den.I have seen a few , One is a sight I will never forget , in the area I live there are some pretty steep hills with many large rocky areas and thick growth. One day we stumbled in to an old bears den. big enough to walk into which we did , after seeing coyote's heading to that spot. In side we found body parts , some still with flesh on them and whole fawn deer caucuses and not just 1 or 2 but a pile of them. The area outside had scat with all sorts of hair mixed in . This was before hunting season and the weather was not that bad. I think they kill a good part of the time just to kill not to kill for survival and this is why I despise them.

Shoot whatever makes you happy. If you can get 2 doe early you have plenty of time to get a big buck or take a 4 or 6pt if you want. As long as you are not in an AR zone you choose what you want. Like some have said dont worry what others think, do what makes you happy. If you see no deer and a buck is big enough to shoot then do it. No matter what you do someone will complain lol. Just have fun and be safe, good luck this year! Hope to see some of your success!

Very novel philosophy, sort of reverse AR..!?! lol. Whatever makes you happy in the woods and while attaching a tag!!!

I would shoot a crazy horned buck of any age if I saw one.

you're only problem is worrying about what others think...get past that and all is good.

Your new , you may grow out of it or you may not. There are many stages of a hunter and you may never reach them all, just do not put so much pressure on yourself to get a trophy you lose the enjoyment of the hunt. I had to fill every tag I had and the doe tags (party permits) when i started. Now I don't care if I get a deer or not, no pressure lots of fun.

It pays off doesn't it though .

Track, scatter and call back is what I've always done, but recently I did go with dogs and as I get older the scattering gets easier using them, can't run to fast anymore,that dam age thing creeping up on me

Mr B hit a solid 2 1/2 year old spike buck with his truck...actually the buck ran into the side of the truck behind the drivers seat...the spikes were 12+ inches long and looked exactly like two flat pointed dagger blades...very cool looking strange too...I'll have to look in one of the buckets for them...

I keep logs but I can not be in the woods all the time. Up north November 4th- 24th prime time 10th-18th I do believe the fluctuation (In activity.) is due to lunar cycles but can be overrun by poor weather causing most activity to happen at night or delay it until colder weather comes in. Weather simply can wreak havoc on your hunt. I believe in the theory that if the temperature is 20 deg. above normal deer shut down. EX: If your average is 40 and it's 60 deer seem to shut down. Warm weather forces them to stay put. This IMO seems to delay the rut from what I have seen. Regardless of lunar calendar or weather I want to be in the woods as much as possible the last week in October and first of November on LI. Then November 5th-as long as I can stay up north. Usually a 2 week stay is all work will allow.

first one is definitely a 2.5 yr old I agree. that second one is a nice deer anywhere.

Very nice to see the results of not shooting a deer. Good luck with him, this would be a target for me thats for sure.

Nice pics.

Nice pic's! Nice bucks! That 10 in the lower right is VERY nice! Keep doing what you're doing, it seems to be working well. Good luck this season!

I know last year the rut was late as was expected by me, and I know it does vary, Nov 1 to 18th, with best 3 days somewhere in between those dates, but I think knowing it's will be early.or late lest.me pick when I want to be there

Last year the pre-rut kicked off the earliest I've ever seen it in my area. Rubs and scrapes were popping up by the third week of August and steady through Oct. Bucks were harassing doe in the fields the entire time as well even in full velvet. I was expecting to see some serious chasing between Nov 6'th-9'th at the latest, but it never happened. I really thought I missed my favorite time to be on stand with the bow. Opening day of regular season (Nov. 15'th), the bucks were running doe like crazy, so I hadn't missed it after all and managed to connect then. Once the frantic chasing begins, there's only like a 3 day window before they lock down with their doe to breed. Although the rut is a long drawn out process that escalates over the course of weeks and months... there's only 3 days I get REALLY excited about and focus on nailing!

That has not been my experience and my data does not support the simple notion that the rut peaks every year at the same time. The peak of the rut, when all the bucks are on their feet in the daytime has up to a three week swing on our solar calendars.) Sometimes it happens in late October, and sometimes as late as the middle of November. I have been keeping a detailed log for about 20 years on it. I do not buy into the seeking, resting, chasing phase categories. The main point of determining the peak of the rut is figuring the best time to be on stand, when those big bucks are on their feet all day and all night running does, scrape lines and aggressive towards each other. It is easy to miss it by as much as a week or by thinking that it always peaks at the same time (on our calendars.) If we used a lunar calendar I could agree that it peaks at the same time each year.

Cute pooch! Gonna be tough to keep up with those legs.

Uhhhhhhh If I ever stated anything incriminating on here I WAS HACKED it wasnt me. LOL

Too watch them walk on by while I deer hunt is would be my preferred way to hunt them.

LMFAO Must be they are reading this, its now been removed from the website.

I spent many summers up at Sabattis, and several return trips between then and now. One of my all time favorite spots in the world. It is very easy to imagine yourself 150 years ago. I haven't been up there in at least 15 years...you inspire me to get back up there. Thanks for sharing! The last time I was up there was after the last "big blow"...in the mid 90s. a lot of the virgin timber on the south west end was flattened. Sad to see, but it was a natural event, probably happened 100s of times over the centuries.

I have always aimed to be in the stand about 1/2 hour before sunrise on opening day of gun, the first Saturday, and Thanksgiving (the "big 3" in our area). Other days and archery & ML seasons, I usually wait until legal light prior to walking in. I have spent most of the last 30 opening days of gun season on our farm in the southern zone, which has been in the family since just after the Civil war. I have killed about 15 deer on those days and more than half were from 1 to 10 minutes after legal shooting light and shot from a stand. I always check the times in the paper and do not load my gun prior to sunrise and I also unload it prior to sunset. I will never forget my first and fastest (the 1 minute buck). That was also the shortest season I ever had. It was my third year hunting and I was just 19 years old. I chewed tobacco back then and I could see in the moonlight that the brown spot I was trying to spit on in the snow below my stand was getting larger as the seconds ticked away. With about 2 minutes to go, I heard what sounded like clumsy person struggling thru the brush next to me, on the neighbors land. I kept looking back and forth between my watch and the spot the noise was coming from as I held a 16 ga slug in my right hand. Suddenly a feisty looking buck with a couple busted off tines, and 7 remaining points, stepped out of the brush right below my stand. I had seen this same buck several times during archery season but never in range. He buried his nose in the tobacco spot as his last minute ticked away. I prayed that the slug would find its way into the chamber, as I shoved it in and cycled the pump on my granddad's old bottom-loading, Ithaca model 37. Then I centered the crosshairs of the old 1.5X Weaver scope on the top of his shoulder and was relieved to hear the bang and feel the heavy recoil of the "featherweight" gun against my shoulder. The buck went into a spastic "break dance" and flopped around at the base of my tree for several minutes before laying still. I gutted him quick, hung him in the garage and made it to college in time to take an exam (not sure how I did on that one, but I did pass the class). Our neighbors don't have any clear lanes on their land so they usually follow our adjacent lane on their way into the woods, just after first light. Most of the rest of my opening morning kills were pushed to me by them at this time. I am glad some folks wait until daylight on the "big-days", as we would go hungry some years otherwise. My first buck came in the first minute of an opening day and my largest-racked, symmetric, "typical" came on the last just a few years ago. I never would have taken that one had I not climbed down from my stand 3 minutes prior to legal sunset. The only reason I did that was because the Bible I was reading at the time slipped mysteriously from my hands, falling to the forest floor below. I had filled a doe tag in the morning (thank you next door neighbor) and a freind had given me another so I had no real need to hunt until the last minute. Our meat supply was good. As soon as I got to the ground with the same loaded 16 ga Ithaca in my right hand (sorry about the "safety" issue but it paid off this time), and reaching for the Bible with my left, a flock of turkeys landed almost on top of me. As is often the case around here, they were accompanied by a deer. The turkeys like to hang with the deer to capitalize on their good sense of smell, and the deer appreciate the turkey's superior eyesight. Combined, they have a nearly impregnable defense against a hunter clad in blaze-orange. This wise old buck's line of turkeys was breeched now however, and his big rack and head popped out from behind a bush just 10 yards away. I brought up the gun, centered the older, 1.5X Weaver scope on his neck and put him down in his tracks, with just a few seconds of legal light remaining. As I have just explained here, I have pushed it close to the limit at least twice, but in thirty years, I have never been tempted by a shot prior to or after legal sunrise or sunset. I also have no respect for those who call them selves hunters yet think nothing of shooting way before or after the legal times. They are "poachers" in my book and there certainly is no shortage of them in these parts based on the shots I hear in the dark.

Nice pic. Yep, that's up there a bit.

Cool pic. You take great pictures.

I just brought back a longbranch that someone had sporterised ..its all back to the way it was when a service man carryed it on the field. This one is a great shooter as well. Its a mix master of parts but it looks like it should. . I will be hitting all the gun show's this fall looking for the correct parts .so I can make it as close as I can.

As a teenager, I'm walking down the ice on a frozen creek with my M 69 Winchester .22.. the ice is lick and both feet go out from under me..The rifle goes into the air, does a couple of cartwheels and lands on the ice with a sickening CRACK !.. Broke off the front sight and cracked the stock...Got both repaired by a local gunsmith, but the rifle always bore the scars.. This is a REALLY dumb one....I am standing a quarterdeck mid watch on a Navy Destroyer.. The lazy ass CPO who is in charge of the watch is down in the chief's quarters watching TV and drinking coffee, leaving me alone... I'm bored stiff..I'm wearing a holstered, unloaded 1911 .45 with two loaded clips in a belt carrier... I wonder...." How long would it take me to get this pistol into action if I ever needed it ?" SO , standing alone on the quarterdeck in the middle of the night, I do a little "quickdraw" exercise.... I draw the pistol, pull a mag, load it in the pistol and rack the slide....Pretty dang quick, too, if I remember correctly.. Ok....Here I stand, locked and loaded, safety off....Time to unload the pistol.... I hold back the hammer and press the trigger to drop the hammer, something I had done many times with many different guns.. But this time the hammer SLIPS off my thumb... I swear to God it made the loudest CLICK I have ever heard in my life... Sweat pouring off my brow, I dropped the mag and ejected the round..The primer was dented, but not QUITE enough to ignite the primer... If that thing had gone off they would probably STILL have me in the brig, and that was in 1972..

LMAO- you rock Burty boy! Charlie has become somewhat an idol to me for his photography skills, but I don't pay much attention to ANYONES predictions outside my own observations any more.

Basic answer to your question is, long enough to get a well placed shoot off on an animal within your comfort range and as unnoticed as possible. Lot of things influence this and it becomes more of a complex question, with varying answers. Many factors in determining how long you can or even need to hold at full draw. Your equipment - Like others have mentioned. You - Your body type, muscle tone and to some extent, what you do for a living. For people with less than Rambo-ish physics or that sit at a desk for a living, this can be augmented by specific exercises. Naturally, the more you practice with your bow, the more you develop this specific set of muscles and the longer you can hold at full draw. Shooting style - The biggy! If you practice standing up, better plan on shooting this way at your prey. If using a climber tree stand and shooting sitting down, practice the same way - sitting. Do yourself a favor and do NOT get caught up in the mentality of bigger is better. If you have to come to full draw using the proverbial "windmill" motion, lower you draw wgt until you can draw directly back with a fluid motion. Then as you practice more you can progressively increase draw wgt while still maintaining that fluid, horizontal draw movement. Nothing less effective or unethical about shooting in the 50# draw wgt range. Hunting habitat - A reasonable time to be at full draw varies according to the ground cover you're hunting in. Meaning shoot opportunities. Open woods, dense cover with shooting lanes, edge of a field or brushlot. Each scenario presents different situations of being ready &/or drawing your bow as unnoticed as possible. This is where that fluid draw motion comes into play!! Oh yeah, better practice what gun hunters refer to as snap shooting. ID target, get ready, aim, good form and release an arrow in a 5-10sec time frame. Deer don't always come in leisurely walking thru the woods or a field, giving you 5min to prepare mentally and pick your shot, as depicted on TV. Ingenuity - If any of the above or combination of factors, presents a problem for you, Use you brain to over come them and make your shortcomings work in your favor If you find you can't hold at full draw for 1min or more, hunt from a stand where you are sitting, but shoot standing up, hunt in the open woods - be prepared to adjust your stand placement &/or concealment to level the playing field. This is where trail cams, scouting, finding travel routes or considering what your profile looks like or the back drop of the stand is very helpful. IMHO, deer will pick up your movement more often when you're trying to stand up than drawing the bow. Do this early! Learn from my mistakes, an ideal looking stand location becomes blatantly useless when the leaves are off the trees in the fall and any movements can be picked off 100yrds away. Granted, may seem really removed from your original question, but adaptability has a huge impact on your hunting and the need to be at full draw for lengthy periods.

What the guys have said and this...If he gives you enough of a visual lead take a quick glance around . Many times it's not the deer your drawing down on that nails you...it's the one with them you didn't see due to tunnel vision...

Thanks for the kind remarks.When I bought that wall tent, it was too big for anything but car camping. I'm not a sewer, but I learned via youtube. I bought a $25 Brother sewing machine on CL, and went at it. Making those first cuts on the tent where scary, but it all turned out ok and I'm glad I did it. Sitting in camp on cold rainy days with the wood stove keeping the coffee warm is hard to beat. Maybe too comfortable, and maybe I should be beatin' the woods, but it's fun and I really enjoy the whole experience. sittin' out the storm, Taking in the beauty of the Adk's,

Welcome Robin, good to have you join in. Very nice video work, can almost smell the coffee. The camp looks cozy and well thought out and packs into that beautiful old canoe very nicely. This is how hunting was done for hundreds of years in the dacks. So great that you're keeping some of the old traditions alive. Thanks so much for sharing with us. Look forward to hearing more from you!

Glo Sticks !!!