Pygmy

Yes.. I try not to shoot fawns....Not a lot of meat on them... I try to pick larger does, because does always taste good and they have more meat than smaller does.. 1.5 year old bucks are fine with me, unless they are REALLY tiny...I've seen a few antlered bucks that were smaller than the average doe, and I would pass one one of them...I suspect most of them are late fawns from the year before... I'm perfectly content to take an average 1.5 year old, which in my area would dress out from 110 to 130 lb.

WNY Buckhunter....... Who mentioned bowing down to the antis...??...Those wingnuts have already made up thier mind about how they feel about hunting... If you would take time to read my post rather than being macho and selling bridges, you might notice that I mention NEUTRAL people are the ones we need to avoid offending.... Believe it or not, there are still many people out there that are neutral about the issue of hunting, and thier votes might someday help determine the future of our sport.... I don't believe we are helping OUR cause by showing them a bunch of tasteless gory pictures of dead animals..

Amen! I dont give a rats patoot if anyone is offended by my kill pics. Im not cleaning them up. Blood dripping, tounge out, who cares. In fact, I find it pretty ironic that this topic was started by someone going by the screen name of gutpile. Well, perhaps you don't give a rat's patoot who sees your photos.. I guess that is your perogative... Perhaps you don't give a rat's patoot about the future of our sport, either... There are lots of people out there who are currently NEUTRAL concerning our hunting priveledges... Some of those folks may turn toward the ANTI side if they witness people flaunting gory hunting pictures.. The idea of political correctness pisses me off as much as it does anyone else, but we don't need to provide the treehuggers and antis with extra ammunition...

I no longer bowhunt, but I've spent the last few days in the woods putting finishing touches on a couple of my treestands and scouting out turkeys for some friends who are coming to hunt this weekend.. I've seen bucks chasing does the last three days and have seen a BIG increase in the number of freshly worked scrapes.. This morning I was nearly RUN OVER by a doe who had two bucks in hot pursuit..She was going Mach III with one buck about 20 feet behind her and another following about 50 yards behind... I think this weekend will be a good one for bowhunters...

Eddie.... .... I usually take a few pictures of the kill right where it dropped to share with my hunting buddies who aren't offended by the gore... Then I clean the critter up as Gutpile says and take a few for the more GENTEEL folk, who may be interested but might be turned off by the blood and guts...

What did you do, take advantage of some poor widow..??.. .... Great deal.. I have a buddy with a Model 7 in 7mm08 and he loves it... With that short barrel they are a little on the LOUD side, tho.... ..... The .308 ( or anything based on the .308 casing) performs real well in a shorter barrel, as opposed to some of the bigger overbore cases ( the 25-06 and 7MM Mags come to mind) which really need a 24" barrel or longer to perform up to thier true potential....

I have an older ( early 70s vintage) T/C Hawken .50 cal. I have a tang peep sight because I can't see regular open sights well any more.. I'm currently shooting 460 grain No Excuses conicals ahead of 80 grains of 777... I love those bullets..Real accurate and load real easy, and less expensive than many projectiles, like Powerbelts... For years I used patched round balls and 90 grains of pyrodex..That combo worked well for me also...

I never ate a doe I didn't like.... .... I have gone through different phases in my hunting career... At first it was important to take a DEER... Then it was important to take a BUCK... Then it was important to take a TROPHY BUCK... Now I am at a point in my life where I have trophies and no place to display them.. From here on, I intend to hunt deer for the sheer joy of hunting, and hopefully kill a couple a year for the freezer, be they does, small bucks or whatever.. I'm not saying I would pass up a big buck if he walked by, but I don't intend to pass up a small buck ( as I have done many times in the past) waiting for a big one... Does are fine with me ...... If a buck comes by, that's just fine too...

Every shotgun, like every rifle, is an individual... In general, as Larry said , full chokes don't group as tight as more open chokes..That's why most smoothbore slug barrels are choked Improved cylinder or cylinder ( no choke at all)... However, I have seen some full choke guns that shot VERY good groups with foster slugs, and I have seen some open choked guns that did not group well at all.. The only way you can tell for sure is to shoot it off the bench and see how it performs..

No, Foster type slugs will not harm your full choke barrel.. Also, I suspect that your rifled barrel is cylinder bore rather than improved cylinder... I can see no reason why a rifled barrel would be choked...

I'd rather hunt the waterfowl.... They are easier to drag back to the truck and the decoys are much lighter.... .....

Dadgum, Eddie, that is just slicker than snot on a doorknob...Nice setup... Must be the winch is setup for a 12 volt..Hence the battery..??..

Most certainly the buck of a lifetime for most of us mere mortals..

Karp...Indeed a fine buck..I posted my thread above before I read this one... As far as EATING good... In my experience the older bucks are stronger tasting than the yearlings and the does... I have only shot a couple of 3.5 year old bucks myself, but I have eaten venison from several shot by friends... In every case ( in my limited experience) the meat from the older bucks was stronger than the meat from a 1.5-2.5 year old buck or ANY doe..Never ate a doe I didn't like... ....

I saw pictures today of a slob of a non typ supposedly taken near Monterey Saturday....looked like a big main frame ten with at least three palmated drops and crap all over the place.. It was said to have dressed 208.. I guess somebody pulled into a wedding reception in Bradford and emptied the place out with people taking pictures of it..

Sorry to hear about your bad luck, Cummins... ..... Years ago, I used to like following blood trails.. Then over the years I followed too many of them ( a few I had hit, many that friends had hit) that had no dead deer at the end of them... Nowadays, the only blood trails I want to see are the ones that are WIDE and SHORT.....

Fishers are starting to show up here in Steuben County in the southern tier.. Some of my friends who trap have caught and released several in the last couple of years.. Another friend saw one while he was squirrel hunting.. Fishers are adept at catching squirrels ( and other rodents) and there are plenty of them here..

The two knives I use the most are a Puma 3" folder and a Buck Pro-Line fixed blade 4".... The Puma takes a razor edge quicker than the Buck and is more compact.. However, the Buck holds it's edge longer .. Both are great knives.. I also have a Buck 110 folder that my ex-wife bought me for Xmas in 1971, the first year we were married.. It is a super knife...On a float trip in Alaska in 1989, I butchered two bull moose in one day by myself using that Buck knife and a 12" Wyoming saw.. I no longer carry it, for sentimental reasons.. I have lots of other knives to use and do not want to lose it...

I'm retired...Best Job I ever had.. Previously, I worked for 30 years for Corning Inc. ( formerly Corning Glass Works).. My job title was Engineering Technician in Finishing Research at Corning's Sullivan Park Research Center..... I got to deal with lots of PHDs .... (no comment)... ;D ... ;D ... ;D ...

That's exactly right WNY...hehehehe... Elk also have an alarm call, called a BARK.. When they do that, you are busted, big time.. ;D .... Deer get really annoying when they stand in one spot, stomp thier feet and SNORT and SNORT and SNORT... Seems like it happens MOST during spring gobbler season, when they have fawns...

Back when I was young enough to still remember each deer and each turkey I had killed, I started a little tally on my desk calendar each year to keep track.... Not for bragging rights... I just thought it would be neat when I was a grey haired old fart to know how many critters of certain species I had taken in my life...Many guys guys my age ( and younger) have taken more..many less.. It has less to do with one's skill as a hunter than it does other factors, like time to hunt, quality of your hunting territory, the amount of money you can invest, etc. etc. All said, I am now getting to be a grey haired old fart... According to my records, in 46 years of hunting, I've taken 97 whitetails and 117 turkeys...

It's an alarm call... Both sexes do it, but in my experience, does are more likely to blow repeatedly at you than bucks... When they do it they are telling all the other deer in the area that they have seen heard, or smelled something that alarms them.... I think they do it most often when they have heard or seen you and are not sure what you are..If they smell you, they immediately know WHAT and WHERE you are and they generally vacate the area..

I agree that there are many more hawks than there used to be....When I was a kid, hawks were protected, but nobody paid much attention to the regulation...Most people shot them them when they got the chance.... They were all CHICKEN HAWKS, dontcha know..??... .... Public opinion/awareness has changed drastically toward birds of prey... Especially since they have protected under FEDERAL regs.... Those redtails we see so many of are indeed fierce predators..I saw one hit an adult hen turkey once ...He was unsuccessful of course, but you have to give him an "E" for effort..That was one pissed off turkey, by the way...!!.. > ... I have also seen them attack adult woodchucks, which are pretty tough critters... I read a study once that said that the major predators of pheasnts are red tailed hawks, horned owls and red foxes... As far as squirrels go, I have noticed some ups and downs over the years, but they seemed more related to mast supply than to predators...There sure are plenty of them around here in Steuben County, as long as you hunt the proper food source.... For instance, hickory nuts are generally a big draw, but this year I have not seen a single hickory nut or beechnut, for that matter... However there is a bumper crop of acorns and the squirrels are in the oaks big time..I have hunted them several times this season and I have shot 28 so far...A couple times I didn't make it 200 yards from from the truck before I had my limit..

I feel the very most important factor in small game and gamebird populations is habitat/cover.... If the birds and rabbits have sufficient nesting and escape cover, they will thrive DESPITE high predator populations.... Much of the dense small game cover that was around my home area in the 50s and 60s is mature forest now..Great for squirrels and turkeys, but not so good for rabbits and grouse... There is still prime patches of cover around, but you have to seek them out, and they are often NOT easy to hunt... I hunt rabbits in some places so thick that you nearly have to lay on your belly to shoot a rabbit...Still, my buddies and I have managed to kill 40 to 50 bunnies per season ahead of our beagles the last few years...

Of course predator populations increase when there is lots of feed... However huntable small game animals and game birds are only part of the picture......Various rodents and birds and even insects comprise a significant part of predators diets, and of course bocats and coyotes rely to some extent on deer.. When predator populations get too high, Mother Nature steps in with a couple of very effective controls..Sarcoptic mange , rabies and distemper.... Of course those diseaes don't affect avian predators such as hawks and owls..