dbHunterNY

you gave good advice about not moving. still if you've hunted enough from a stand you should have had a deer walk in with you motionless, yet it'll look right up at you deliberately. you're not busted yet, but some deer will keep looking back. that's where people usually screw up. their outline or however they positioned just looks a bit unnatural or stands out to the deer from the start.

higher you climb the harder the shot. angles make form suck and vitals smaller. even worse when you add in terrain that's not flat like the side of a ridge, saddles, points, or creek bottoms with bigger banks.

at times i'll set up with cover on adjacent trees so that once they come in on a close trail we're both at times blocked from each others view on my off side. that forces me to shoot after they passed but also puts movement more where they've been and not where they're going and paying attention to. terrain and approach is everything though like TC said. cover is to break up your outline and dark silhouette that would appear to move through patches of daylight in the branches. that has to be from the deer's perspective where you think it's going to be though not you looking at the tree from a distance. i haul the bow up using the strap that keeps both top and bottom sections together when packing in, which also serves to hold the top section in place once settled in. i loop it around the outer rail of the bottom section and under the bow limbs. as i climb it's right there a few feet below my platform. if at any point while climbing something's coming in i can stop climbing and get to my bow quick without movement of hauling up 20+ feet of line and the bow to the height i happen to be at. plus it's one less piece i need to carry. i don't hunt with a crossbow but most have anti-dry fire feature. while cocked it won't fire without the bolt in place. still you should keep an eye on it as you climb, same with a regular bow or anything else.

you don't have to be really high. stuff to breakup your silhouette behind you is important. plus you can do things like pick a tree that's near others. there's a lot more to it but once you figure it out you'll get a feel for what tree at what height is best. if it's all really tall straight tree trunks and wide open but then there you in the middle of it, you're going to stick out.

it was in the winter after the season. indoors it's warm. they all were older and had custom recurves and long bows including the one recurve i would borrow before i had my own. ...but yes a techno hunt interactive screen technology got me into traditional archery.

at least you can look out your window. if i look out my office window it's at a wildlife preserve here in Albany where I have 2, soon to be 4 DMP tags for. the struggle is real. lol

i shot a trad league during the winter one year. we shot the indoor techno hunt screen setup. just prior to release the little turtle sitting on a log in the water that i was aiming at suddenly fell off. my arrow sailed into the screen (empty air just above the log) for no score. no need to be sarcastic. anything can duck your arrow with those things!

good deal. think it comes with it's own factory mechanic/pit crew? that'd be cool. while they're on stand by to ensure optimum performance to accurately indicate the last hour of day light. you could have one of them nock your arrow for you while they're there. maybe even flag in a big buck to the treestand area. i think it's a sound investment.

i've seen non-powered ones in action. cool but not for me. lol i think my limits are an electric mountain bike.

i've found it's access/pressure related. nocturnal term is in context of the immediate spot you hunt or check cams. oldest bucks i've known here tend to shift their patterns to swamps or an adjacent property that might not get hunted as hard and provide better cover. This happens during hard antler or soon after. Also if a buck gets hit, it'll typically shift to an area or section of woods with less pressure than the one it routinely visited. while i don't believe bucks think strategy some have daily habits or patterns that coincidentally make them hard to kill. add to that they're less tolerant or ignorant to poor woodsmanship mistakes a hunter makes and they live. another buck in the area might be just as wary and it's just as "smart" but it's day to day happens to put it in an area accessible to a hunter that can capitalize on the opportunity before it's pushed to a spot they don't have access to. bet your a$$ every buck is on their feet right now looking for love or setting himself up to do so.

yea it seems like hits or injuries to areas that are effected by a deer's daily function and don't particularly heal well effect antler growth more. hind quarter, ankle, leg, etc all get heavily used. this guys hit to the top of the shoulder was likely just a flesh wound that didn't getting into strained muscle as much. my thoughts anyway.

My parents have house on water down in Florida. No hostility here. When I say its be the boring hunt to pick I mean that from experience. They move slow and pretty much seek you out due to curiosity. It's a huge target too. I've been so close I could touch them in both boat and kayak. I gotta side with grampy though on the gator hunt. I love gator meat. Despite its comforting knowing deer dont circle my stand hoping I fall out, I'd still hunt gators. I'm not a reptile person in any way shape or form. That'd be a hero shot though if you were behind a trophy sized gator all stretched out and broadsided while you hold its mouth open. Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

That's awesome. He held his own as a 2.5 yr old with a really decent set of antlers. Doesnt look like the injury messed with him much. We've had bucks get hit and all sorts of crazy things happen to their antlers. Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

Looks like TF has a five star kitchen coming. lol until then I feel some sous vide from a fire pit kind of meals coming from him soon. Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

friend showed me a hero picture of a buck out this way. it was "only" a 7 pointer but likely 6.5 yrs old. forget score it was huge. anyone would be happy taking it. keep after him!

we did it voluntary here. our "restrictions" include spread of 15" outside (almost to ear tip to tip) and 3 points on each side. at first a good number of hunters complained about what most were okay with. those same hunters now think it really does work and it's more important than the points. other co-ops have been tweaking points but all are heavily based on spread. ours saves all yearlings and a portion of 2.5 yr olds, some of which elude hunters to live to be older. plus almost all those yearlings are now bucks most would shoot. there's basically more buck opportunity now, if hunters can capitalize on it. that extra year or two makes them much less ignorant and harder to kill though. it's perceived as less opportunity but it's really not on a larger scale if that makes sense. the buck take is more spread out vs bucks getting hammered a lot in any given small area.

Almost forgot to take a picture. Still grilling at work for lunch. Couple venison burgers with merican cheese, Romain lettuce, and burger sauce. all on an onion roll. Bacon ground in with venison as a more convenient binder for here at work. No time for egg and breadcrumbs deal. Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

That the one that spits poison at ya and makes you go blind to every around you. Right after it fans out and gets violent when it doesnt like something? I know that one. Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

i take everything done after the season. things last longer. especially life lines. at some point you'll just buy new ones for piece of mind despite they might seem fine.

i now use them on every hung stand or placed stand that's mine. climber i just use rope style tree strap while i climb. no reason not to. it's cheapest life insurance you'll ever have. plus they've gotten cheaper and come with multiple lines per pack now. couple important stuff with them like tied off at the bottom and not holding the prusik knot while you climb but they're safest option if you're going to hunt from stands.

should be one handed operation. when you do take a hand off you have three points of contact. they're stupidly convenient compared to a linemans belt. without anything, you're obviously at risk not being attached to the tree while climbing.

nothing girly about it. it saves time scrubbing that stuff out of finger nails and cuticles. i'll go a step further and say ever since becoming a dad i also carry none scented wipes. pull off glove inside out so hold dirty gutting knife and then use wipes to get my forearms. i'm clean and could be in a public place without looking like a mass murderer. lol it just makes sense. all bets are off if a glove gets torn though.

i'd hope you're taking your time and not getting any of that in the cavity, especially popping the bladder. bow shot to the gut is easier. when field dressing carefully roll the guts out with squeezing stuff out and all over. gun shot to gut is way worse. stuff will be flushed out with pooled blood when field dressing or you remove it. if need be use something clean to wipe out. if that stuff happens i'd skin and bone out the deer right away once getting back to where you're headed, but don't rinse the inside of the cavity. contact was only made in spots inside the cavity but if you rinse it you'll spread that stuff all over in there and it'll drain into places you can't see. when taking straps and other cuts you just avoid and cut around anything that'd be the inside surface of the cavity. if none of that happened then it's just blood so by all means rinse it out. that make sense?

People mention rinsing out the body cavity. Only do this if you did not break the piss sack, get crap from the intestines in cavity, or have your arrow or bullet go through stomach or gut. If any of this happened you dont want to rinse and spread that all over to the rest of the carcass. Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

Reach up as far as you can when field dressing from chest cavity. If you're letting it hang at below 40 but above freezing, you want it out as it can be a source for bacteria. After you take the head off, cut down the front of neck to get to the rest and pull it out. Often I bone out carcass right away though, in which case I wouldn't bother. Some let it hang for a bit though. I like to get the meat in something that's climate controlled and clean. Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk