phade

I got the wife to buy me one for xmas.

Best wishes on recovery!

I think its safe to assume this was a ruse. I doubt a winner will be picked. Late a week or two isn't a big deal. Late several months says another thing. Just m.o. Reflects very poorly on this site and its owner/operators.

Mind me asking is you are along the park? Will be hunting a bit there in Mendon this year and I am looking forward to it.

A couple bucks from today...I'm 20-25 miles away from this place at the moment and get the little text message/email alert. Love MMS cams. Here's one from yesterday evening on another property a couple counties over...

No offense, but I don't think I'd blame anyone turning down a request for 5 guys to come hunt in today's environment in wNY and cNY. It's tough enough to get permission for 1 let alone 2 hunters. I would think between five guys, you could lease one heck of a parcel for $500 each. $2,500 would be a solid lease. Post up cards at the grain bins, co-ops, and TSCs and the like. Someone will be interested in it.

Big Mike, get in touch with me if you are looking to buy a cam soon. I can offer some personalized advice. I have ran an MP6 Black through its paces and completed an assessment on it. I got 13k photos on a set of batteries that cost about .22 each. So, for less than two bucks, that cam snapped 13k photos.

$10-15 for the HME mounts are well worth it. Screw in or strap options. Worth every penny as you can angle easily. Much better and cheaper than equal cost/performing options.

Apples look clean, almost too clean for deer to eat, lol. You need to get some radish in there, unless the Winter Greens has it. Looks like most of your plots are in the center of your property?

20 people on 700 acres for bowhunting is spacious by wNY standards. Assuming a few take the lottery but don't show, and a few hunt close to the roads or with a partner in close proximity, and there's bound to be large chunks of non-pressured hunting ground. Lottery hunts are a different breed of public hunting, usually pretty solid results for the localized area. I assume you need the license before applying to the lottery there? $250 is a bit on the high side for OTC. Especially when looking at Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana which are within a 4-8 hour drive.

Maryland is one of the lesser known states that can produce book bucks. Don't hear much about western Maryland, however, lots of focus on the mid/eastern portion of the state. Two over 120? Not bad.

I pulled a cam and have four fawns in one pic. I doubt they are anything more than a pair of twins. But, neat nonetheless.

Every single piece of electronic equipment from WGI that I bought has had to go back for warranty eventually. I can't be bothered with that brand any longer.

A little late for cams going out to inventort as noted. Hang them high out of eye line of humans too.

I'll end up with 4 plus consignments...they dole them out like candy in my WMUs.

Hair retains and promotes bacterial growth. No need to add to your scent problem. I shave my armpits during bow.

Post season scouting will be very useful. Outside-In is a very conservative practice that oftentimes to me leads to missed opportunities, but maybe this could be a useful tactic the first year with no legit post-season scouting knowledge. Maybe you can hang some observation stands and sit them in September?

No doubt. The most difficult kill I ever had was an old Alpha doe. She busted me more than I care to admit. When I finally got her at 15 yards, it took me three shots to connect with her because I was too nervous. The rest very readily helped me in the shot process. Every once in a while I get wobblying knees....it's my buck fever. Mentally I am ok, but my knees shake uncontrollably. Doe kills really helped temper that, even the non-memorable ones. I know I am over 40 bow doe kills and probably over 60...land of plenty where I hunted, but not many mature bucks. I went several (5-6) years in a row filling every single doe tag I had including consigned and second draw. Land of plenty and I had to get through that blood thirst stage. Thankfully that meat helped several elderly people and people who needed lean meat.

I'm going to be honest here, my experience differs slightly from Belo. Some of my kills start to disappear from memory. Many blend together now. I most certainly remember the buck kills clearly, but doe kills have all started to mesh into one big blur unless something completely unique occurred.

Most important piece of info you have stated in this thread imo. Sorry for the hijack WNYB but it's well off tangent. This is such a monkey wrench piece of info and is critical to your hunting. Most peopl don't do a thing until it's right up to the season opener. This can bump deer, change a pattern, etc. Good idea on keeping an eye on it. One thing I would plan for, and this take some educated guessing...if that buck were to be bumped, where it the nearest safest place he would move to that wouldn't have hunter intrusion? Figure those spots out and set a stand or prep a tree for it. Day one, if the buck isn't in that bed because some moron went onto that ground to hang a stand the night before or the weekend before (and you know this rather than him being in a different bed), move to that area you think he may be the next afternoon.

LOL. That's not good. Only place to enter? Or is there a long painful way that can be safely accessed? One of the biggest mistakes hunters make who want a big buck but don't get them. Rarely is my entry/exit the one I would like. More often it's the one I most want to avoid, but that's the needed route. I've GPS walked more than a mile to access a stand that is 1/4 mile from the truck. I've also waded creeks, walked through marsh muck, etc. just to get on the back side of a bed that is 100 yards from the road.

Be careful screwing around with the cam. Sounsd like you have a potential buck bed. I'd make one effort to retrieve the cam, maybe scout one last bit to confirm/set up a stand spot, and get out.

Not often, unless that area being bedding in is historically served as bedding. The screening and cover offered by corn changes things. If you are seeing multiple beds of varying size in that stretch, you are probably tied into a doe group. Look for drainage ditches between corn fields, low spots (the deer will enter the field there), hedge rows between the corn fields, or a high spot (even a foot or two) for the bucks. Another spot to keep an eye out for are washouts...the place where spring rains collected, washing out seed or stuning/delaying corn growth. It can serve as a well used area or bedding.

Well said overall. I've taken my fair share of 1.5s and I've simply moved up to 3.5s here on out. People who have the land and/or the skill to target 4.5+ here are rare. I only know of a handful people locally who do that, and only two or three that have that goal and meet it with a respectable % of success. People that target 3.5s or 4.5+ and never or rarely get it done through several seasons of history are not practicing proper expectation setting imo. It could be skill or it could be land, but in any case, those people burnout, finally match expectations by dropping their requirement, or they become shady to reach that goal.

Sleds and carts can be useful tools. I use my cart more to bring in stands and my decoy than anything. Sleds get deer out easier and are better for packing in the truck...cheaper too.