BowmanMike

I missed having a scale this year. I used to process at a buddies house and he had one. That is the only way of really knowing how big the deer was. My archery buck seemed giant to,and it was a forkie. My gun buck seemed smaller but was a really nice 8. So i am definitely buying a scale this offseason.

it is amazing how big some does can get. Several years ago we were doing a drive and i only had a buck tag left. So.e deer walked past me at 50 yds and the first was a doe. The ones behind her were a lot smaller and i almost didn't pay them any attention. I did a double take when the deer behind her turned out to be a six point. It looked like that years fawn behind her. She was a horse. The buck was a decent 1.5 year old i think,i had some sort of mishap with the muzzleloader and didnt get him. Later that day my buddy shot a six and when he skinned him my bullet was stuck in his backstrap and the bullet was not deformed at all. Maybe only one pellet went off. But the point of the story is how big that doe was. If I would guess now she would have been over 140 dressed.

50% seems high to me,but maybe i trim too much. I think the yield is about right,maybe a tad low.

I agree. I am just butchering my last deer for the year. We used to take everything off while it was hanging but i switched to doing it on a camping table now. It works pretty good for me. My order is shoulders first,then the neck meat,then the hindquarters and last the loins. The inner loins are usually gone already. I started saving the legbones for the first time this year to make broth. The shanks are left whole and cooked slowly,the meat falls apart and all the connective tissue breaks down during cooking. I used to hate trimming shanks,now i love them.

Damn,there are some real foodies on here. I made some gnocchis tonight but we ate them before i had a chance to take pics. My wife ate them with homemade pesto and i had them with homemade tomato sauce.

My season was great,i would give it a 9 out of 10. And that is only because i was very solitary about hunting this year,just went once with a buddy for a bow sit. I saw the normal amount of deer during bow,shot a big bodied forkie. I think he was a 2.5 year old with bad genetics. Then got my biggest buck so far on opening day of gun season. Then i didnt go out,oh,once briefly during gun season. Last week i still hunted after the fresh snow here on tuesday and got a doe. Done. Bow season is my absolute favorite and i generally slack of during gun season anyway. I only went out three times but scored twice,the wife likes that.

I look for sheds when i am scouting in the winter and early spring but have not had much luck yet.

Good summary moog..Deer tend to bed high in the a.m. to take advantage of the rising thermals..A strong wind will override thermals,but when the wind stops thermals take over. Milkweed is the best way to see what really happens. Creek bottoms are very difficult to hunt because the wind tends to swirl there,especially if it is a narrow valley. The hunting public had a great video where they were on some heavy pressure public land and were after a mature buck they knew was in the area..They set up in a way that they thought would work and the buck came out late afternoon and worked towards them,just checking things out as big bucks do..Then he hit their scent stream and it took him less then a second to do a 180 and bolt out of there. The guys were surprised and kept dropping milkweed and when the wind died down the milkweed would drift to their 12 o'clock,as it did when the wind was up,but when it hit this little gully it would make a 90° turn and follow that instead,and that was what got them busted. The older the buck the better they know exactly where to be to scent check an area. Using milk weed while accessing your hunting area is a good idea too. I think dan infalt talked about bumping a buck out of a bowl where he didnt expect one to be at all. But he said as he walked around the bowl he kept dropping milk weed and it always ended up where the buck bed was.

It would be interesting to know where they hang out. The valleys are colder than the hills though...

Come on now,trump is busy fighting the election results. He doesnt have time for that stuff or a little pandemic.

The mail ins didn't get counted earlier because republicans in a bunch of states blocked the early count. You guys are funny...

If memory serves democrats accepted a few republican presidents lately that didn't even win the public vote. The number of lawsuits thrown out is at 60 now. Not one of them could provide enough evidence to even go to trial? But you keep on believing the most truthful president ever,he knows there was fraud. Pathetic.

that looks good actually...before the season i thought i might try nuts,but forgot all about it when i got the bucks

easy

I am on a hill too,about 1900 ft. I hope you didn't get any more. At least it is light stuff.

I am doing nothing but keeping my fingers crossed for you for a while. Come on bucky's,go see what uncle Larry is up to.

18"to 24" at my house,Cooperstown area.

Plus it will be a long wait until next deer season. I say go,especially if you can stay until the end of mz season.

I passed up a ham shot after i high shoulder/spined a doe. I regret that to this day as I never found her after she got up and trotted away. I thought the follow up shot was a bad angle,which it was but doesn't matter for a follow up. That was a mistake i will not repeat.

They are if a hot doe walked it.

I would get down and closer to that trail at least...

I didn't come up with the name for it...

Haha,that excuse was bogus. You got his number. Go get em fellas,i want to see some harvest pics. I am considering going out again this weekend and shoot a doe for the venison donation program. It will be a long wait until bow season,so i might have to make the most of this gun season.

if you are going to get some snow from this upcoming storm i would recommend still hunting. It is a ton of fun and you will learn.a lot from following/observing fresh tracks. If there is fresh snow i dont know how anyone sits still.

Well,i did find tracks very quickly. I followed them for a while and may have caught up with the deer since they turned into running tracks. So i veered off and worked my way to my favorite north south ridge. I forgot who mentioned it,maybe @G-Man. Zig zag across the ridge. I have seen does bedded on the windy side before,so i gave it a go. No deer on the windy side,so i zagged over to the other side and peeked over. I caught movement and froze. A doe about 45 yds from me,behind some blowdowns. Then i see another,and a third. It is really thick with fallen trees so i kept scanning and trying to figure out how big they are. Well one starts circling to get downwind of me,and another watches her and follows slowly. Another is watching me from further down the hill. I decided no.2 is big enough and shoot her at about 60 yds before i get busted,and a whole bunch of does run off. This one made it 80 yds or so,the shot was a little further forward than intended,i think i was afraid of a tree and some brush that hid the back half of the doe. I am very happy i got her,what a season i have had. It has been years since i got three deer,and this was my first two buck season as well.