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Lots of great deer taken today! Great day for the forum. Congrats to everyone who scored! I did my part. Sat from 5a till about 6p. Not a single deer seen. Heard about 40 shots all day. Neighbor to my south had 6 guys in 20ish acres and they also saw nothing. Back in tomorrow..

Coffee is on.. LFG!!

Good tip..

I'm glad this was the verdict. The next few days should be interesting...

I debated over this and decided I'll start out with the Axis .308 shooting American Whitetails in 150gr. If I have some luck early in the season, I want to get out with the .350 semi that I built with Winchester 180gr's. It shoots well, but I haven't taken deer with it yet. I don't want any variables and I know that the .308 is field proven.

I'm hoping I'm in early enough that things settle before the neighbors start moving into their stands and that they spook the deer in my direction.

Plan is to be in by 530 and sit until dark both days. If I get lucky, I'll get up to take care of that, but then get back in the stand to see if I can score again.

It all depends on how long I plan to stay in the woods. On a cold blustery day when I'm not seeing much, a cup of hot coffee keeps me in just a little longer. If I'm just doing a quick morning sit, I'll usually just bring a water and a granola bar or apple in my fanny pack. For a longer sit, I'll almost always have a thermos of coffee, water, cliff bars as a baseline. When I plan to sit all day, I'll add a pb and banana sandwich and or some jerky. I've been known to bring smoked turkey legs, italian sausage, subs... One of the biggest deer I've shot so far came in down wind just a few minutes after I devoured that turkey leg.

The Under Armour early season jacket that I bought this year. I spent $150 for a quiet, water and wind repellent shell. The liner tore after the second use and customer support didn't help.

I'm curious about pickled but haven't ever tried it. I found this recipe a few years back and now it's my go to.

I don't know that I've seen that red barn, but I'm in Monroe County. There's lots of AG around here and, with good genes and time to grow, they can get pretty big. There was some article a few years back about US Olympic speed skater Cathy Turner. She has a place out here near Hilton and is (or was) an avid bow hunter. The article showed a brute that she took off her property. Found that article: https://www.nyantler-outdoors.com/cathy-turner-buck.html

https://www.archerytalk.com/threads/the-buck-we-call-moose-—-guess-his-score.6054646/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ed91&utm_content=iss208&utm_source=threadloom#post-1114143298

Good God Almighty.. just read a quick story on another site about a deer taken in IN.. The left side of the rack looks like a standard, albeit giant, 8 typical pt. The other side though is a different story. The brow tine grew into a beam all it's own with 3 points that are several inches long. The actual main beam looks like a red stag antler with palmation and a heavy fork that grew off from a heavier fork. I don't know any details about private v. public v. high fence, but man what a deer.

Congrats @Steuben Jerry and #DLM. Awesome deer and memories with the boys that you won't forget! My older son is 8 and my newbie is only 14 or 15 months... so it'll be a little while before I get there, but I can't wait. My older son turned a corner recently and went from the "I don't want to hurt animals" camp over to the "Daddy I can't wait to go deer hunting with you" camp. Depending on how the early gun season goes, I may let him tag along for an afternoon sit later in the season.

Well that's confusing... Front page of the promo says open through 11/24, but the rules say that it ended 6/30..

Great question and one that I toil over constantly. In my situation, the soybeans are brown and down, so the deer have no interest in them at the moment. Oaks in my area didn't do much this year either. I could sit on the field edge which backs up to my small block of woods and hope to catch some movement along the edges. Or I could position myself further back in the woods and hope that the neighbors push them my way. Based on the wind and what I think will give me my best shot at seeing deer, I'm going to sit back in the woods for the opener.

I'd like to agree with you but not sure i can. I've shot deer in the chest with multiple Remington 12ga sabots and was unable to recover the deer after 5+ hours and 800+ yds of tracking. I was inexperienced at the time so shot placement was probably not perfect, and i likely pushed when I should've backed out. Since switching to .308 though, I've never had one run more than 30ish yds.

catching up from the office.. the hardest part about this site is remembering where i left off with "Live from the Woods"! Congrats on a pile of nice deer taken in recent days, and a bear!

I have a mono and don't care for it. I tried it a few years back when sighting in and found that there was too much play from left to right, along with forward and back. It didn't do much at all to anchor the gun when I had it shouldered. I could get it out again and give it another go, but with most of the shooting I do now I wouldn't need it. My ground blinds have built in shooting rails. If I'm still hunting, I just prop the gun against a tree. I may move to soft sided ground blinds in the future, and if I do, having some sort of shooting stick would probably come into play.

Good story and congrats on a nice deer.

Skunked again

Got an unexpected opportunity to sit tonight and jumped on it. Tower stand overlooking a food plot. It's been nice all day and now that I'm hunting, it's raining again...

Well that's it folks. No archery deer for me this year. Sat in my stand from 5:30 until about 10:30. Didn't see anything. Got rained on the entire time. Oh well, time to move on to gun.

That's the Greece store on ridge at elmgrove. The funny thing is, I think they still had them in the sporting goods area at full price. But then they had this stack of them in the clearance area at 60% off.

Found these at one of the local Walmart stores. 2 man ladder stands on clearance for $60. Seems a little early to have these on clearance...