wooly

I'll kill an antlered doe if I see one!

Nice early season gut pile to fatten up the cubs! Good job on the doe and vid too!

He's getting a quick nap in before heading off to the stand tonight. Looks like he'll have to be there between 2AM and 6AM. No need to wait till sunrise..... or Oct 1'st if you're not gonna play by the rules anyhow. Better open up the 2016 archery harvest thread soon so he can get a head start.

My "scouting" is done, but I'll still be out there checking cams over scrapes, looking for new sign to pop up, and taking pics around the cut corn at dusk. If I see any patterns that are worthy of hanging my final stand over, I'll do that too. Next evening we get with good light and no rain, I'm going to drag a blind along and get some video footage of bucks I rattle up across the field. I'll post that up soon as I get it. The field is filling up in the evenings, I just need to make a few adjustments to where I set up within camera range of the action. I'll try to keep my distance as best as I can, but I know the temptation will be too strong. This week is almost as fun as the week leading up to the spring turkey opener for me with the camera in the woods! Stay away from bedding areas and have no fear... just like the rest of the year!

Yep- that's how you get it, but you can use both during early archery with a bow. I made the mistake of waiting to get my ML license one year until after I killed a doe with the bow and had to put it on my archery "either sex" tag. When I finally went to get the ML tag it was just for "antlerless" so don't be dumb like me if you plan on killing one of each with your bow.

Find yourself a REAL fresh scrape now if they're not hitting your mock yet. They wont always take over a mock especially now that they're out there opening up fresh scrapes daily where THEY actually want them. I know some guys don't like to be roaming around the woods this close to season, but it's the best way I've found to stay up to speed with where the hottest action is at the momment. Also, don't be afraid to pull your licking branch down to about 2.5-3ft off the ground for that extra appeal. If they have to walk through it face first, that's usually enough to trigger a reaction in itself. Of course you also want it to be where they will have no trouble finding it. You don't need a big branch, but I would try bigger than what you got there,lol! Clip off any other low hanging branches in the immediate area so they don't compete with yours for visual attraction. I'll try to load a clip here. This ones been hot for 3 weeks now seeing action EVERY night. VID0002.AVI

I was very conservative with those two. I could have really bumped things up and made it look like a twilight shot but you lose a lot of the contrast that way. Those aren't any fancy controls I worked with. They are pretty standard and likely you have them edit sliders in Windows or some other basic program you already import your pictures to.

The fields I was most concerned with got cut yesterday as well as I checked my cams. Finally something I can count on! I'll be "hanging around" there for the next week or so with my camera to see what's coming out in the open before dark! Exciting is an understatement to me now!

I would think those pics are plenty good enough for what you want them for. If you have an image editing program you can enhance your night images by boosting the shadows, and experimenting with the contrast and D-lighting. I'd say what you got are very usable shots. I wouldn't mess with the brightness or sharpening settings at all as that tends to blow out the night time IR shots and introduce more graininess. You can't do much to fix motion blurr, but your cam seems to do alright with that anyhow. Here's a quick 2 second fix to a couple of your pics.

Some nice looking bucks. Those "eyes" look like reflective tree tacks to me. Is it possible someone has a trail marked there?

Tie up a chicken in front of your cam!

I've decided to go with the pointy devil beard this year. Starting to look like the back side of a horse on the front of my face,lol So far I can pull it up past my eyeballs. I tried the Santa thing, but it didn't work for me! My cheeks don't grow thick as I'd like them to.

I don't think it makes a difference real or synthetic. I've used both. Bucks are sparring and fighting out there every day soon as the velvet comes off. I'd go out on a limb and say it's probably the most common deer sound in the woods this time of year. Although I do like to rattle randomly and blind sometimes...., my favorite time to hit the horns is when I see a buck heading away or out of range or unresponsive to a grunt call. You can watch their reaction and decide if you should keep it up, or if you need to shut it down because he's now coming your way. You'd be surprised how many don't even pay attention to it. It doesn't work every time, but I've seen more bucks not pay any attention to it than I've seen bucks spook from it. I blame the spookers on catching my wind over fear of the sound. I've called in more bucks with antlers than any grunt call I've ever tooted on. and that's the honest to God truth.

Not a new item, but you can't go wrong with a solid set of rattlin' antlers IMO. Just read through the forums here and you'll see how deathly afraid some NY guys are of making any noise while on stand. I don't know of anyone who hunts the properties I do that uses them except for myself. The results I've had so far are pretty amazing even to me especially during the first two weeks of archery.

You guys that claim it doesn't work aren't doing it right. You need to pee on your tarsals (inside of your knees) and let it drip down your leg into the scrape just like the bucks do. I've had a cam over a doctored scrape going on two weeks now and every buck and doe that has stepped in it has stuck it's nose to the ground at some point. Been whizzing in this one every day, and it has been red hot with new visitors nightly. Another naturally occurring scrape I haven't done anything too approximately 100yds away has gone cold. I'll try freshening that one up later today.

183 3/8" 3.5 year old 236 lbs

I once heard Bear Grylls say that if you pee around your camp site it'll keep the predators away. At the very least, you shouldn't have any bears, cougars, or coyotes around to spook your bucks!

BINGO! Lock this one up- there's your answer!

This was a big part of the reason I haven't hung my stands yet. Corn is still up here and sometimes it's not cut until the first week or two of October. I didn't want to hang them for the early sign I'm seeing now and then see the fields mowed just before the opener. That happened to me a couple years ago and it was a real PITA relocating all my stands during season. There have been years where the farmer has left it standing on this farm and never cut any of it, so I never know what to expect.

Speaking from personal experience, most women won't complain about a couple inches too long.

PSE Bow Madness with high performance rubber band string silencers,lol

Shotties all 12ga.- Remington 870, Mossburg 500, Winchester 1300, Ithaca Deerslayer, NEF Pardner single shot Muzzies- Traditions 50cal, Knight 50 cal, CVA 50 cal Bows- PSE Polaris Express, PSE Baby-G, Hoyt V-Max, Bear Instinct, PSE Bow Madness X-bow- Horton Fury Never hunted with a rifle.

Geeze... 40yds is a long poke with a bow to me. Maybe if you were half the hunter that I am you would set up differently and wait till they're within 20yds.

It's a heavy pack for me too. Thermos, lunch, rattlin antlers, headlamp/flashlight, calls, camera, tripod, knife, scents, rope, tags, bow or gun, e-cigg juice, jacket, hat and gloves, extra e-cigg battery,, safety harness(when out of tree), surveyors tape, more e-cigg juice.... and I'm sure I'm forgetting a pack load of items. Everything is in or strapped to my pack walking in before sunrise, coming out after dark, or after a kill while dragging out. Often times I'll decide to move a stand or blind mid day and that gets tied to the pack and added to the load. I could never pull that off in one trip without my pack. When I hunt with my sister, I'll throw whatever she brings for the day in there as well on top of my stuff. It takes away some of the physical demands she is not used to while hiking the hills with all the extra weight hanging off her. I'd rather see her enjoy the hunt without putting too much demand on her that might turn her off to hunting and some of the work involved. I'd be lost in the woods any time of year without my pack for sure. Winter shed hunting, spring turkey, summer scouting/field sits have all prepared me to lug all this crap around without it bothering me much any more. I LOVE my backpack.., and everything that fits in it or on it!

Damn that's a big squirrel!