Buckstopshere

Three football fields...lot of space.

I keep them going all winter, and shift to turkey (gobblers) in April and May...once the antlers start coming out...in end of May...June, I set them for bucks at licking branches. Pretty much year 'round.

I bet I know where you will be in about 8 weeks. Did you find them close in distance?

No doubt the same buck. So it was actually 2 antler cycles ago that the top one was found? Because last spring was 2016 and if you found the lower one back in this past December...that would be both in the same year. I know it is confusing.

You could hang a bunch of rabbits on those sheds...awesome drop tines. Did you find both of them this year?

Well, at least you would be keeping your eyes in the same sight-plane...on the ground and not squirrel hunting. Good luck. And you could hang the rabbits off the shed.

Most here are still carrying. Course there are those bucks that broke them off fighting or getting them caught in a tree and snapping them off. Last year most carried at least one through January. JMO, but I would not waste my time looking for sheds now. But hey, it is never a waste of time being out there! And you never know what you might find or learn.

They are starting to shed here. But, I still hope to get some good trail cam shots of bucks through January into February.

Bucks don't yard here as I understand the definition of the word. Yarding to me is a behavior that occurs in the Adirondacks, Michigan, Canada...where the snows are deep and the winters long. Deer of both sexes create a yard in a traditional area like a cedar swamp. Here in Western NY on the Pa. border the bucks form their bachelor groups and will move from winter food source to winter food source. Like in a an oak flat with acorns...or when that runs out, to a cut cornfield a mile away, and then to a thick buck-thorn hillside full of purple berries etc. The does group up in loose matriarchal units with fawns of the year, but from what I've seen most don't seem to change their home ranges much. Yearling bucks hang around the does too and appear to have not "earned their stripes" so to speak and are excluded from the bachelor units. That's the way it seems to be around here.

It is the 2015 Strike Force. I agree, the vid mode is not that great at night. That's why I don't use vid mode when I make the vids. Huh? I use the fastest 8 shot still mode. Then I put them together into a vid with three seconds a frame with software. That's why it is a little choppy...but the quality is very good to me and it makes editing a breeze.

Caught this interesting holdover bachelor group hierarchy sequence on my cams today. In this short clip, a junkyard buck with a roman nose tries to back down an older 8 pt. buck with a scared muzzle and torn ears. Just when it appears as if the 8 pt. has decided to show his dominance ...both bucks quickly leave the high ground as the wide 6 pt. shows up. Scrub buck tries to back down 8 pt. 480 p .mov

Here in Allegany County, the bucks are still carrying...I have found a few sheds by looking not only where the bucks are feeding at the time they shed, here in the woods, but also to the entrance and exit areas. So for food...in spring seeps, old apple trees, and of course cut cornfields and heavy mast (acorns.) And keep your head up...sheds are where you find them. Some I have found in buck thorn and hawthorn trees. Deer like to feed on the little purple berries in the winter...and sometimes the antlers fall off. Also, they push through the thick scrub thorns on the way to a field or feeding area and leave them there. But there is a cost to pay shed hunting like that. One, you have to be on the thinner side, two, wear eye protection, dangerous with so many thorns, and three wear a rip-stop type nylon jacket. Anything wool, or polar fleece gets torn apart, and/or is a pain because it is keeps getting hung up in the thick spots. Good luck! The thicker the thorns the better. And if you have multiflora rose...thick. It is a sanctuary. If you want to find sheds, you have to go where they are

Be careful what you wish for. Twenty years from now lots can happen. For instance, we might be living in "the good old days" of deer hunting. What if a disease wiped out the deer, or a political or fashionable theory took away our hunter's rights? I want to be optimistic for you young guys to have the hunting that I've had and have. But there is a lot of negative trends out there.

Will Elliott and Bill Hilts Jr. do a great job for the BN. I've known them both for many years, good guys.

Thanks man. I need an agent. ...badly.

I think it is what I call "a junkyard buck" one with his antlers broken off. These guys have an attitude. Like the one in the start of the vid where the glorified spike puts his tail up in an aggressive manner and in a subtle way drives the eight-point off the good acorn/feed area. Not too many does or buttons here. This is pretty much a boy's club. Too much testosterone for girls and little boys to hang around.

A potential bachelor group of holdover bucks, and still growing. The last frames show two sequences of two pairs of bucks that appear to be more common than I thought, how one buck will sometimes completely rely on another for movement and direction. Holdover_buck_movie_of_12_29.16_.mov

As hunters, we sit around a big fire. Lots of room for differing opinions. Sometimes, it might need to be said that we agree on so much more than those few things we disagree on.

Huh? What do you mean? Here on the border of Pa. there is very little car-deer kill compared to more suburban areas. We just have to worry about jackers wanting a big rack.

Never implied that it was the "savior" just that it seems to be a logical, judicious move that would help to a lesser or greater degree, the problem areas. Certainly, there are other, perhaps more critical points to address like access. But hey, it seems like opening those specific units to crossbow would be a better alternative than the two-week buck moratorium the DEC tried year before last.

So it would seem logical to open only those DMU's in NYS with a chronic overpopulation of deer to the crossbow. And leave the counties and DMUs with no problem (at or below achieving their specific buck index) alone.

I have listened to the crossbow debate for many years. In Ohio, the chance of killing a huge buck has dropped since the advent of the crossbow. Not so much to do with jacking, but many younger bucks will not make it to the next level because the crossbow is more efficient than the long bow, recurve or compound. More bucks are taken out of the mix. Same with rifles here in the Southern Tier. Fewer bucks make it to the next age class because the gun gives the hunter a greater advantage. I don't have a moral objection to crossbows, just that they give the hunter a better advantage than the traditional bows. So not as many bucks will move to the next level because they won't make it through the season. And I like to hunt older bucks.

I'd probably fall apart...I usually have when drawing on a big one.

Does that buck have more white on the inside of its hind legs than usual, or is it just me? His mask seems to have more white around the nose/muzzle too. I think you can ID him next year because of those unusual white markings.

But I have to admit, in the recent years, I have thought about getting a crossbow. Started with the long bow and recurve in the 1970s and 80's compound in the 90's...85% let off in the new century. The bow, in whatever shape and form has allowed me to successfully hunt deer during archery season. And I am very thankful for that. Isn't adapting to change one of the fundamental hunting strategies? I blew out my shoulder and now learned to shoot lefty. When I can't draw a bow any longer, I hope I can still tote an x-bow up into the stand to still be out there in that magical time of the rut...hunting. I will always remember what Roger Rothhaar, one of the pioneers of modern bowhunting told me once, "Crossbows killed bow hunting hunting in Ohio." To paraphrase.