wolc123

Sorry to hear about that. I know the feeling, having lost my buddy Joe on opening day of gun season this year. He passed the same time as this buck, right down to the minute. That's the second time that I named deer after buddies who have passed away. I am sure that they are all in a better place now. RIP Joe, Jake, and Maryland 66.

Yes, pull the breech plug and push out the bullet and pellets with the rod. I only use those "used" pellets for practice. This works very good with pellets but is a little messier with loose powder. I think I will stick with 777 pellets until they start making blackhorn 209 in pellets for this reason.

It depends on the deer for me. On adult deer, I typically grind all but the back straps, tenderloins, and a neck roast. I like roasts and steaks from older deer, but our kids are not crazy about them. On button bucks, which I am usually blessed with quite regularly, I make lots of small roasts. They are so good that even our kids like them.

A good thing about that, on a day like this, is that they are always quite warm inside.

The end of the season snowy day hunting used to be better, here at my folks place, before a new neighbor moved in and cut off all the trespassing from an adjacent trailer park. Those aborigins (my word for folks that I don't know) would get on tracks in the snow and keep the deer bouncing around like pinballs. I have yet to see another hunter, anyplace that I have hunted yet this season, starting with early ML in mid-October, up in the Adirondacks.

Keep it moving all day and someone might get a shot at it. Besides, you are getting a good workout and don't need to pay for a gym membership.

Here on the SE corner of wmu 9F, the deer hunting weather is the best I have seen all season. There is an inch of powdery snow on the ground, the temperature is 30 degrees, and there is a 5 mph South wind. I am in my most comfortable stand at this location. Only problem is I left my Stanley cider thermos up at my in-laws in Adk's last weekend. I had to swipe my daughters fancy insulated water bottle. This office chair that I garbage picked a couple weeks ago is wonderful. It is going to be tough staying awake until noon, but at least the squirrels are keeping me company. I have tags for antlered and antlerless and still room for at least one more in the freezer. There are deer tracks all around, but my folks have not been seeing much until the last hour before dusk. I will move to my uncomfortable hang-on stand for the last couple hours, after lunch with them. That overlooks a clover plot where they have been seeing a few deer come out, almost every evening.

As long as you use enough pepper, they are better than any sea oysters. It is a damn shame to let such fine eating go to the vermin.

I'll give you that, but the 7 month old, less than 3 inch "antlerless" ones are better yet, especially at dinner time.

Please dont throw away the three best parts. First is liver and you know the other two.

Wife says she is making my favorite, stuffed cabbage. That is always good.

I have built a few, but this is my favorite, mostly because I have killed quite a few deer from it, including 2.5 and 3.5 year old bucks. I also appreciate the fact that all the materials were free, and it is comfortable in any weather conditions. My brother had abandoned an old snowmobile trailer and a construction style truck cap on our farm many years ago. I built a 3 ft high 3-sided wall, on the trailer deck, framed with 2x6's. I bolted the cap to the top of that wall. The solid wall "front" faces the prevailing wind direction, and the back is open. The cap sides fold out, providing an overhang for sunscreen/rain cover over the open sides. That is something most box blinds are sorely lacking. I spend most of my hunting time in the upper cupola however, built on the cap's ladder rack. The best part about hunting up there is that there are no "blind spots", another thing most box blinds have. The additional elevation helps with longer shots over standing corn etc.. The upper deck is floored with maintenance-free decking. The 3 foot high wall around that is sided with weathered barnwood. That wall provides safety, concealment, and a great gun rest. There is a plastic swivel chair up top and a plush padded one down below. The trailer makes it mobile, but I have had it blocked up in it's current location for about 10 years. It is just about maintenance free, although the back of the lower floor looked like it needed a new sheet of 3/4" exterior plywood nailed on before next season.

I had a little glitch with my ML this morning also. Rain was in the forecast, so I taped up the muzzle, prior to leaving my inlaw's house. I got all setup at my spot this morning, umbrella up, seat setup, etc, then realized the ramrod was still back at the house. There was a load in the gun, and I put a primer on at sunrise. Had a deer showed up, I would have really needed to make that shot count. Any "finishing" would have needed to be done with my Buck 110 knife. Nothing was moving this morning, so I did not need to try that. I will be back at it one more weekend, down in the southern zone. One more deer for the freezer would be nice.

Thanks, I am in position now, at the edge of a swamp. My tree umbrella is up, there is a steady drizzle, and it is about 5 minutes until sunrise. The last two deer that I saw up here were antlered bucks. Normally, I see 6 antlerles per each antlered here in wmu 6c. Hopefully those 12 "missing" antlerles will show up before noon when I need to pack up and head home. I already cranked my scope up to 4x, to increase my odds of threading a bullet thru the branches. It ain't all that thick here so my odds should be better.

Wmu 6c in the nz where ML has been open for a while. Today is the last day.

I guess it serves me right, for starting this thread, because I had a "probable" miss on a buck this afternoon with my ML. It looked like a 1.5 year old 4 or 6 point, depending on if it had brow tines. Around 1.5 hour before sunset, I was seated on a log in some young hardwoods, just below the timber line on a mountain ridge. I noted movement to my right, about 75 yards away. I stood up and aimed towards an opening that it was headed towards. The small, light colored fork horn was visible, as it walked slowly thru the trees. It stopped in the opening, I centered the crosshairs behind the shoulder and shot. The buck spun around, and trotted back in the direction it came from, with its tail part way up. There was no blood or hair at the spot it had stood for my shot, nor was I able to find any , following its tracks in the leaves. I searched the area it dissapeared into until dark, finding nothing. I was confident in the shot. The most likely explanation was a deflection by an unseen branch. I had my scope on 2x, and they are tough to see at that low power. If I had a do-over, I would change two things. I would crank the scope up to 4 or 5x, as soon as I saw him, to give me a better chance of seeing the branches. The shot looked clear at 2X. If it was not clear, I should have used my grunt call to try and get him in closer. That worked well for me on the gun opener. Now that I had some "live action" practice this afternoon, hopefully I can put those lessons to use tomorrow morning. My optics would have worked a lot better at 4 or 5x than it did at 2x.

Merry Christmas to you. I am up in the big woods right now and just a little sad that I did not get to see any good snow this season. There was just a smidge in the dark timber, where the sun dont shine much. Even that is going fast now:

Should have taken the point for the team.

BR-549

If you want to hit a particular spot/hair on the deer, or to make running shots, then practice helps a ton. The suspended beer can cuts are particularly good at getting ready for the running shots. The can swings wildly in the wind, and from previous bb impacts. Like everyone else, I would prefer close standing shots, but making moving ones have put some meat in my freezer. I only take those that I am confident I can make, and that confidence comes from lots of practice.

Even 22 ammo was rationed this year, of you could find it. BBs were still available though. I modified my daughters Red-Ryder for practice, matching the draw length of my Marlin 336BL. I just need to figure out a way to double its weight. I practice with it off the porch, cutting beer cans in half.

I have had two misfires with my Marlin 512 and both saved the lives of mature doe on "chip" shots. Neither primer was struck, and both were caused by the firing pin freezing up in very cold weather, after the gun had been soaked in water. I am still a bit leery to hunt with that gun when it is real cold out, even though I have disassembled the bolt, cleaned it, and applied CLP. I am in a shotgun only zone and on last year's fridge opener, I toted my Ithaca 37 instead. That one has always gone off when I pulled the trigger, no matter how cold it is, and even after it fell thru the water to the bottom of a ditch one time. The buck I killed on the opener this year was also a bit of a shaky recovery, because there was no blood trail to follow in the black swamp water, even though he was double lunged. Fortunately, I heard the splashing from the last few times he lifted his head. I also assumed he ran straight. They always seem to loose the ability to turn when the boiler room is punctured.

Yes, but it won't amount to much until the following year. The wheat/oats will provide the main forage the first season.

I killed two birds with one stone, giving my old car to our daughter, and buying a new SUV for myself. They had plenty on the lot to pick from in September and the prices were good.

There seems to be more than the normal number of these being mentioned on the forum this year. I wonder if that is due to the current ammo shortage, and folks not practicing as much because of it ? I think it has affected me a bit, on the only two shots that I took at a deer this season. My first "kill" shot missed the intended point of aim (shoulder blade) by a little. My parting shot, taken as that buck disappeared into a swamp, was a clean miss. That shoddy marksmanship resulted in a nasty drag, that I am thankful did not give me a heart attack. It probably would have, if I had eaten more beef and less venison thru my 55 years. It got worse for me last weekend, with 2 what I think were clean misses on a coyote, with the same gun. I did not spend nearly as much time on the target range as normal this year, and that likely cost me at least $ 15 worth of wasted ammo on game. I do most of my practice shooting with a bb gun, but even those were more expensive this year. A jar of 4000 cost me $ 10 at Runnings, where I got 5000 for $ 5 at Walmart a few years ago.