Moho81

Sounds like the best outcome. Tough to try and get a dog to rest though. I remember one time my Lab had an issues and the Vet said she needs to rest. I just kinda laughed because that dog didn't know what rest was.

One for me that comes to mind is I could never be roaming around the house, spot a deer in the back yard grab the rifle and shoot it. To me personally that's not hunting that's grocery shopping at best and not "fair chase". I need to be in the woods actively hunting.

2.5 years old and going on a week now.... Time for a vet check up. Could be as simple as a strained muscle but why worry about it might be.

Sexy

I had the most satisfying season that I can remember. My daughter got her first deer during the early antlerless season. Then she got another doe during the special youth season. We have spent a lot of time in the woods together and for her to finally pull it all together and to be able to experience it with her was out of this world. My eyes get watery just thinking back on it.

My friend hunts with the Vortex with the built in range finder. It also has some ability to program ballistics into it and it will give you bullet drop info at the distance you just targeted. Pricy as all heck but he loves it. He does nuisance hunts for a farm and shoots long range often.

Wow seems earlier than normal

I do think that for 1-2 years when you put a blind up the big bucks will avoid it during the day. After that they seem to ignore them. We have a lot of elevated shooting houses on the property and it's something I have seen happen a few times. Guys put them up and are all excited to be comfortable while hunting only to not see anything.

Sometimes a spike will just always be a spike.

This is the second and maybe even third year in a row it seems that deer have just vanished off of our property once the gun season started. Our 500 acres gets hunted hard. Harder than any piece of public land but the surrounding properties no longer seem to get hunted at all and we think the deer get scattered off our property and just stay away because no one is pushing them back. Even with that said I don't hear many shots off in the distance either. I was out yesterday until 12:30 and there was only one shot the entire time and it was the coldest morning with a light dusting of snow. Almost perfect conditions for deer movement and nothing.

All depends on the day, conditions and where you are sitting. Inside the woods with no snow on the ground your lucky to get and extra 10-15 min before/after due to darkness. Open field no snow that might stretch out to 20 min. Now you add snow in the mix and there is a good chance that you can utilize the full 30 min before and after. That's just my experience anyways. I don't mind the change at all and think it makes since and aligns with every other state in the country.

They closed down Stewert State Forrest in Orange County because of the fire's. Perhaps that is what you heard?

Like they say, Vote early and vote often....

Just a note in case anyone is not aware. The second round has to be picked up in person you can not get them online. I knew someone that went to Cabela's on Friday (stupid I know) and waited over an hour in line.

100% Not to many times have I seen a picture of the deer then the actual deer and thought man that picture really does not do the deer justice. It's almost always the opposite.

Honest question but how does one profit from CWD and what is the political play with it?

I'll be out all weekend with my daughter. Not sure I'll be able to log in or not. Hoping for success on Saturday because Sunday/Monday look like a wash out.

What a story! Thanks for writing that up.

Hunt of a life time!

My mom stopped decorating her house decades ago because she was tired of theft and destruction and this was in a medium sized village not like some big town or city.

Way back when we had those big piece's of paper that had a sticker for every license you had, what was the tag system like? I can remember the big paper with all the stickers but I can not remember what the tag system was like.

I'll have to give it a read later when I have some time.

Talk about an update LOL. Well two years later I have a good handle on the reloading process the .243 for some reason is a lot easier than the 30-06 that I still struggle with from time to time and in fact I talked to RCBS and am sending the 30-06 die back to them for them to clean, polish and inspect. I have enough 30-06 brass ready for powder and a bullet that I am not worried about RCBS having the die for an extended period of time. Most of the last 2 years has been fooling around with different powder charges to get as tight of a grouping as possible which I have a nice tight group with the .243 probably a tighter grouping than anything I ever had out of factory ammo. I have a decent group with the 30-06 but I still want to play around some more with different powder charges after the season is over to really get it tight. The best part of this adventure is my daughters doe on Saturday was shot with my .243 reload and it could not have been a better shot as she took the top of the heart out and got some of the lung. Had a big exit hole with a lot of blood on the ground. Not that we needed a blood trail as the doe died 20 yards away after bulldozing the ground and flipping a few times.

Not that Saturdays weather was bad or anything but we just filled out the tag, put it in a sandwich bag and zip tied it to the deer. Don't forget the tag needs to be filled out while getting the deer out of the woods but you do not have to attach it to the deer until its out of the woods.

Unfortunately I now only have access to this forum from my work computer. I use to be able to log in through Tapatalk on my phone but now even that has stopped. I tried resetting my password but with an absentee owner my request never gets fulfilled. Anyways... onto the hunting portion of this story. My daughter and I went out Saturday evening and set up in a log pile to get a jump on where we have been seeing a doe a few evenings a week. The plan worked out and she took her first ever deer in the start of her third season hunting. It was a pretty wild 15-20 min as the doe popped out but offered no shot. We where not in the best of cover so we had to stay as still as possible but you could tell the doe was getting increasingly nervous. I think she could tell something was off but we where just hidden enough and she was up wind from us. She eventually worked up the courage to try and circle around us to get down wind but she didn't even have to get down wind all she had to do is get directly to our left because at that point we are completely exposed. She gets to our left, freezes, starts to stomp her hoof at us then eventually blows and takes off running. Here's the wild part she stops 60 yards away completely broadside just blowing away almost like she saw us but we somehow still had her confused. My daughter acts fast gets the gun on the doe and whispers "I'm shooting" I just simply replied "take it". Her gun goes off and the does front legs tuck into her body while she crashes to the ground and bulldozes and flips for 10 second before dying within site. High fives some hugs and probably a few tears of joy where had. Even though we knew the deer was dead and not moving we sat back down to let it all sink in. After about 10 min I have her get her tag out and start filling it out. At about the 20 min mark we slowly work our way over to the doe, thank her for her sacrifice before taking pictures and getting to work. This is a day neither of us will ever forget and has probably taken over as the best day I've ever had in the woods.