Buck_IT

Congrats TF!!!!!!!! Looks like asio_gear on instagram gave you a shout out as well!!!

I appreciate all of your comments guys. I truly do. I feel more motivated than ever this season to right the wrong. I will never forget this event but im going to take this and learn from it. Regardless if the neighbors seen it or not, i live 2 hours away from this property and exhausted all efforts to find him on the properties i was able to search. Does anyone use shooting sticks with rifle while in the stand? The stand i was in has no sides and no limbs to help stabilize my arms while aiming. I've always used shotguns and never had a problem dropping them quickly with a shotgun.

I shoot a Winchester .270. My understanding is the make small holes than could possibly close up relatively quick if not a double lunger or heart shot.

we have a feeling this is what ended up happening honestly. The blood trial ended up turning their direction and if it ran 100 more yards to a know bedding area, it would have crossed in front of them.

I totally agree. its all mentally disheartening to me. I'm an avid bow hunter and property management guy, but covid and having a newborn in the beginning of covid put things on halt. I am getting through this mishap with my wife and daughter so that one thing keeping me going. I'm already back to the drawing board for next year and all the improvements i want to make to the property. I'm defiantly more determined to get my wife and daughter more involved next year to make this a family event. i guess that's what keeps me getting thought this.

I should also note, this was a good 8 point buck, tall, just outside the ears. We have antler restrictions on our property along some of the neighbors.

Hi All, It sure has been a while since i posted. Hope all had a great season thus far. First of all, i'm truly having a hard time with this subject. As we all know, it was opening firearms weekend, i was all pumped up to be back at it after taking a 6 year break from gun season. On our property of 100 acres in 9Y, my stand is the notorious/most productive stand we have. 6:30 rolls around and i begin the ride up the hill to get into this amazing ridgetop stand. 6:45 im in the stand and setting up for the morning. As daybreak is brightening up, im enjoying the time in the woods and already hearing shots around me. 7:15 is approaching and i'm glassing the ridgetop where i sprayed this past spring and planted clover. I'm my scan, boom, BONE!!! right out the garte. I stop, calm down and reach to my left for the rifle. I'm the short time of me grabbing my rifle and flipping the safety, the buck stops, 75 yards, broadside. Set the crosshairs on him and right in the bread house. I calm myself, settle down all while he's still staring at me and POWWWW! I let her rip and the deer starts to book it. As he disappears into the thicket, i hear some crashing and for sure though he down right there. 30 minutes go by and my fellow hunters meet up and we start to find the impact zone. Within minutes we find hair and a couple drops of blood. I was so happy and amped up, but there was some white hair in the mix but also consisting of grey hair as well. We then start walking to the area where i lost him in the thicket and herd the crashing. I walked up right on massive amounts of blood the size of my boot. Look at the blood and its bright red with bubbles and there was lots of blood. As we start tracking the trail, you can see the blood dwindling and every so often, large amounts like he was blowing out the blood. After tracking for close to 300 yards, he ends up crossing a fence line into a large CRP field and we loose the blood trail. From impact at 7:20am to lost blood at 9:00am, i spend the next 6 hours searching for more blood and gridding this 20 acre CRP field. I go talk to neighbors who were sitting over the field in the direction he went and they seen nothing. I called every deer search person i could find with limited service, I was drained, lifeless and in disbelief. The deer could have gone anywhere and exhausted all resources. By 4pm, i had to call it. From talking with everyone, it seems like i may have clipped one of his lungs on the lower end and not both given the distance he ran and the dwindling blood. This is by far the hardest thing ive ever hard to overcome in my hunting career. I'd like to hear back from ppl to see how you've overcome this feeling of: Should i have looked longer, should i have waited a little longer with the shot to assure a steady hand, should i have talked to other ppl around. All words of wisdom would sure help Best Joe

Think ill start this lol. I've always had more success in the evening myself, just seems like i've noticed people on this thread seeing more in the morning lately.

So....if you had an opportunity worked out with your employer to hunt everyday for 3 hours from now till December 17th. Would you go in late (hunt the morning) or leave early (hunt the evening)? Just feeling this out cuz the opportunity is a possibility for me. Also, so far this season, 9Y has been incredible. Had two separate bucks chasing does in adjacent fields. moved in one night for the kill and was frozen by an old doe staring me down, in the meantime, one of my shooters moves in within 5 yards to my opposite hand (i hunt out of a saddle) while im frozen by the doe. So pissed because the action was incredible the last two weekends. This weekend, nothing. Starting to wonder if the full moon effects their daytime movement. 9F has been sloooooooow. Great first two weeks of the season with observation sits, then they disappeared. Haven't seen much in 9F worth of chasing the last three weeks.

Yea we'll see. like i said it was a rumor lol

NET. Dad works with his neighbor

Rumor has it, this deer scored 187. They will wait a couple months and score it again.

So let the buckwheat grow, then broadcast my beans(next rotation for brassicas), peas, and wheat/oats end of july, roll, then winter rye in September? I do Have a older ford tractor with a nice tiller, i just chose the no till method because of time. im hoping this first year will help with the PH

I went with the blend of rye, wheat and brassicas this year for the exact reason to help with future plots. I like the idea of buckwheat, when should that be planted, spring?

Hey WNY, I did see your post with the electric fence, nice set up. But i opted to not till due to the slope these plots are on. I was afraid the soil and seeds would have washed away/relocated. So i opted for the no till method. i might still try the no till method, but might try drilling next year

has anyone had poor experiences on their first plot?

Hey Ya'll, It's been a while since i gave any updates to this post, so here's the latest. With advice from this post and various research, the following pictures show's the progress made up to this past weekend. Picture with UTV shows the day of broadcasting (August 5th), second following pictures show winter wheat and Austrian winter peas with the third showing brassicas. Now with this being my first plot, it seems the peas did not germinate at all, and everything seems a little behind in terms of growth. The soil tests came back ranging from 5.8-6.0 ph. After seeing the growth for the first time since initial planting, i decided to spread 300 lbs of 15-15-15, 200 lbs per acre. After i decided to plant the winter rye. I hope this turns out, if not, we'll have to learn from our mistakes. Any incite to slow/poor growth would be helpful. I'm sure they will come back around with the cooler, wetter months coming. Let me know what you think. Best

ok great. Thank you all for the great insight. Ill keep this thread going to show progress. may 25th is next time ill be down there, ill take some pictures. Best

db - Thank you for the advise. We have the buckthorn and honeysuckle in various pieces of the property. Trying to limit then but kind of difficult. G-man - should i wait till everything is killed later in the summer before i rake the surface? it does get somewhat dry in the large plot, but its downhill from a natural spring running along the south side.

thank you, its been in the family for 30 years. They bought the property when it was just cow pasture. There was nothing.

Red- apples Yellow - food lot locations Green - Egyptian wheat the west end of our property is the ridge where elevations change is 200' from top of ridge to bottom of valley where our cabin is

Thanks creek. That's some incredible information. If this site will allow me to upload my map, i would (i keep getting and error). I do plan on multiple spraying through the spring/summer. We've been studying the property over the last three years and determined the location of plots based on movement, bedding, access and safety for the deer. We didn't want to disrupt the fields much because like you said, it creates great natural cover and safe travel corridors along with great natural browse. The only downfall is when the apples are down and out, the bucks tend to leave. With no ag for miles, and 100 acres of timber to our north, we don't know where the bucks tend to bed since sign is very limited. We do know of 3 doe families who live on the property all year long and have had many bucks on camera through the summer into early November. This past year we had 4 shooter bucks but couldn't get down in the month of October so by the time we came down in the rut, we couldn't hold them. In terms of our plots, we set up one large "sanctuary" plot with lots of depth of cover where no stand will be. We wanted to give the deer a sense of security and food at the same time. Then we spread out small kill plots through the valley of our property where stands will be set up within the travel corridors going from plot to plot. We also started the resurrection of all our apple trees with some TLC. We do have a lot of trees so it will be a couple year long process. Also, great info on the non square plots, we strategically shaped the plots for the exact reason you have mentioned.

I appreciate that. Ive always had the notion you need to till up to have nice soil contact. Might be saving us a lot of unnecessary steps, again, thank you.

Thanks moog, I appreciate that. I have been contemplating that no till method, i think pending the soil test, we may try the no till option. You have much experience with the brassicas oats and rye?