Core

That house I mentioned earlier in the thread? Drove by last night and saw 6-7 deer mulling about on this guy's lawn. I cursed out loud! I was also driving through the heart of Penfield today at lunch and saw a massive doe--one of four--grazing in a small plot of trees between a guy's house and a gas station. I turned around and parked next to them. This caused one to lazily run off and the big one looked at me for 20 seconds then back to rooting around in the snow.

That would be crazy, which is probably why nobody has even hinted at it.

You can. Just don't use any screw in equipment of any kind. I've seen a number of ladder stands left (the several I've seen this year have been there since october--nobody takes them, in part because not many go to my particular area). To be honest, I'd rather not leave a stand of any sort--not because I'm worried about somebody taking my $60-70 stand so much--but because I work hard to find the areas I think are good and I don't want anybody else benefiting without putting in the time, seeing my stand and thinking "huh, you know what that is a great spot". Case in point this season I happened to look up and see scrapes that somebody had made using a climber. That made me take a second look at the tree and realize it's actually a pretty damn good spot

Yeah it was with bow and The odds of me hitting a running deer with an arrow are hovering around 0%. My only hope would be to have been to chase it to exhaustion (its or mine), but I know even a small bit of blood can look like a lot on leaves.

For some this election was about the second. I have a neighbor who I think only voted for trump because Hillary hates guns. The left is not really winning this fight even in hearts and minds. If you look at Gallup polls of people on gun rights the left is not doing terribly well. In the past 8 years we have had two pivotal SCOTUS decisions supporting the second plus another supporting decision from the SCOTUS earlier this year (taser case). Once trump throws another justice in asap plus most likely 1-2 additional throughout his term the SCOTUS will be poised to support gun rights for another 10-20 years at least during which they will have more cases thus piling on more precedent to protect the second. Hillary's mistake was, for once, being honest about something--her view on guns: had she lied about them she may have won and could have snuck in an anti-gun justice or two in her first term. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Their Christmas card.

I thought the "buck" knife was too big? I actually got one for my 16th birthday and still have it hungup fondly in my basement with my initials on the sheath. Maybe I should give it a whirl out of respect, though.

Yeah me too, though I pay almost $4 for them. It's my edc knife and I've dressed two deer with it. It blunts fast but I am still impressed at the overall quality for a sub $4 knife. I've spent hundreds on hunting year this fall but still have a crappy little knife hehe.

I could often benefit by just being 8' off the ground, above the gnarly ground cover. Here is one that is expensive, but also light for a tripod (36 lbs). Carrying into the woods with a pack and weapon would be a hassle https://www.amazon.com/Millennium-Treestands-Aluminum-Tripod-Stand/dp/B004XNYPWO but setup would be insanely fast (3 hinges and you're done--there can't be anything faster!) and it could be setup pretty much anywhere.

Thank you! Officially the silliest thing I've seen written about tree stands. You continue to offer no value except your own butthurt, which is profound considering the very innocuous topic. If this thread were about abortion or theology I'd understand why you're getting so personally offended, but tree stands? Chill out, son. Blocking you for being a goof.

This is great advice. I wonder how many people leave loaded during hunting season and whether the pellets/powder sitting there in the bore ever cause issues, but this is exactly why I won't be bringing in my mz--will leave in the garage.

For some reason these were high and right from the last group, but these were three shots today, One of the close two were off a pristine bore, and then two swaps plus water for shots 2 and 3. Perhaps it made no difference, but I sorted some of the pellets last night and the 4 X 30 gr I used today were ones without any tiny chips on the pellet. 250 gr Shockwave @ 100 yards. Very content with this group!

Yeah, notice how many people post pics of groups online and yet these groups invariably are significantly far off from the bullseye? Don't forget carbon boot warmers!

FWIW the scope is a konushot 7234 3-9X32 mm scope. People say they are decent for an entry level scope, but it is still an entry level scope of course. This link http://www.frontiermuzzleloading.com/t7577-main-differences-between-cva-wolf-and-optima a few posts down the guy says the optima doesn't have the Bergera barrel. Looks like main diff is the break-action is different and the optima has 2" longer barrel plus possible thumbhole stock.

I scored gold on the first day of bow. But then throughout the rest of the season saw almost nothing, of any sort. I met a guy last weekend walking into the public land i go to and he said that he and his brother normally pull a deer out but haven't been able to yet, and that he's heard other guys complaining as well. I think "archery" season is becoming more popular and certainly it must have some impact on the prevalence of deer left over by gun.

Well this is interesting about the apples because I hunt in close proximity to them and based on my limited perspective the deer don't seem particularly interested in them this fall. I wonder what long term impact hunting has on deer activity. Meaning: Deer that tend to come out more during the day tend not to live as long (probably). if this is any sort of behavior they pass down to offspring, behaviorally or genetically, perhaps over time deer would become more nocturnal as a species in an area that is hunted. Course, they've been hunted for a long time so maybe any such impact was baked into the cake centuries ago.

I know people have mentioned it in the past and it's a huge topic, but it would be really nice if the state could come up with some plan to encourage private land owners to open their land to hunters (no idea what it would look like and of course not compulsory, and surely some compensation in some form and yes I'd pay for that myself). I hunt mainly a 600 acre chunk of public land that is serving up hunting to dozens of square miles of people who have no private. I even have DMP tags. None of us are doing a darn thing to address deer population numbers when literally across the street there may be another 300 acres of sanctuary that nobody hunts. There is one road in fairport I drive by and I see deer there on this guy's front yard constantly, loitering just next to the road. In the past month I've had to slow twice to watch them cross the road including last night as a bunch just hung out there. But all the state can really do is offer more DMPs that aren't going to make one lick of difference to the family that live next to this guy's house.

If people are that easily frustrated, that's good news for the rest of us First week of gun really was pretty terrible weather.

My archery course had you required to prove you could hit a target, but there was no standard; people who were missing using the supplied compound bow with their fingers were not penalized, so really it was completely pointless. I know lots of courses here require no proof of ability with a firearm.

I wonder if this is going to be a lean year on harvests compared to last, even though last winter was warm. I'm almost 20 hunts in a row striking out. I'll be out another 4-6 times and I expect I will continue to pull nothing. I see fresh sign all the time but the deer are completely evaporated from where I can hunt come day time. Just no activity at all; gone.

I figured you out uptown. You get all your news from NYTimes. That's like ONLY listening to you crazy uncle for views about the world. You need more sources; pretty much all your threads are a link to NYtimes. At least it's not huffpo, but it's pretty bad. I didn't read the article but I think people offering sanctuary to people they know to be felons should be treated like anybody harboring a criminal.

Plus these shotgun areas allow muzzleloaders, which are getting increasingly accurate and far-reaching themselves. I haven't read this entire thread, but I would be really surprised if the bulk of these hunting accidents were NOT in the range of a typical shotgun anyway. If it turns out a lot of guys are being hit at 250 yards because somebody with a rifle thinks they see a deer, that would be an argument to rethink rifle. I bet most are by the kind of person grizz mentions above who are taking 300 yard shots at deer when they don't have a range finder and have never shot past 100 and they're probably bad shots at 100 anyway. i.e. sloppy shooters who just don't take it seriously and don't concentrate sufficiently on what they are doing.

Good luck. It's gonna be storming here tomorrow, at least in the evening.

I posted my response to this thread before seeing yours. Wish you had seen my query last year wondering what to do after I hit it (I would have known to push right off the bat) I went home and that's when I found somebody online saying the same: bad hit into muscle/shoulder, you need to push it. Don't wait! I saw firsthand exactly what a lack of pushing after the shot could do.

#2 is good. I had a bad hit on a deer last year (high-leg, so no vitals and no gut) and I believe waiting was the worst thing I could have done. When I went back to the trail hours later I found lots of blood trail leading to puddles of blood where the thing had laid down. After these puddles, the trail would almost totally dry up, but then it would start again. The deer laying down had allowed it to clot up. I'll never know if I could have encouraged it to expire had I stayed on it immediately, but I never caught up to it.