I vote tacklebox for captain and Team 8 for team name. He has the attitude to keep **** on the up and up!
Awesome! Looks like we have a good team. Anyone else want to weigh in on the captain and name? Looks like CLS has the majority captain vote and The Fateful 8 is the team name...well except for tacklebox, he thinks team names are gay. Hey tackle, who's your favorite sports team? Mine is the Pittsburgh Football Team.
Just got back from scouting a new location. Looks promising. It is a piece of public land surrounded by swamp on one side and all other sides are private. Near impossible to get into unless you have private permission, which I should be able to obtain. Boof that is one hell of a buck!
Welcome! Glad you've picked up a bow! In order to help you out a bit, tell us a bit about what type of area you hunt. That usually affects strategy. Any big corn or soy fields around? Any water on the property? What's your hunting property like; hilly, flat? And what type of stand do you use: ladder, climbers, hang on, or a ground blind? You can probably find the answer to any question you have by searching this forum. There's a lot of wisdom here! My main advice without knowing your set up is to be willing to put in the time. Bowhunting isn't easy but it's worth it. So dedicate yourself to learning as much as you can. Don't get discouraged if it doesn't happen as fast as what it appears to on TV. Most hunting shows make it look easy: hop in a tree, the giant buck steps out at 20 yards, they make the perfect shot and find the deer 100 yards away. It doesn't usually happen that way. At least it hasn't for me. I've been bow hunting for 8 years and I have yet to kill a giant buck. Decent bucks and does yes, but one like some of the guys on here have got...not yet. "Yet" is the key word. I keep learning and growing and someday (hopefully in 2016-17) it will happen. And even if it doesn't, its awesome to just sit in Gods creation and watch the sun come up or go down. Good luck man!
I hunt a 160 acre wooded area surrounded on all sides by corn and soybean fields in northern Missouri. I hunt using a hang on stand and have 4 food plots scattered around the property ranging from .50 acres any up to 1.5 acres.
Like Travis said, get out there and spend time in the woods. Pay attention to wind when hunting. Find bedding areas and try to catch the deer on their way to the beans and corn. Just stating the obvious to make sure the basics are covered. Have fun while you are in the tree and be safe.
Wow man, I'm a bit jealous of your setup! That sounds like an awesome place. Yea make sure you think about wind direction when hunting. One of things that has taken me a while to learn...go very easy on the calls. I watched all the shows and called my head off with a grunt tube and an estrous bleat can. I would call blind meaning I hoped to stir up the action since I was bored. So far, it's sent more deer the opposite direction rather than calling them in. And even if it does get them in, they always circle around me and come on down wind and bust me. This year I only plan to use that grunt tube if I see the buck and he's walking away from me. I want to gauge his response to the call rather than just hoping to get lucky and call on a buck tags I can't see. In your set up you probably need to watch and make note of their entry points into the fields. Glass them like crazy this month and get a feel for where they come in, what time, and where the exit. Hang a stand close to one of those spots but be sure to think about what wind you need in order to hunt that spot. If the wind is gonna carry your scent to the entry point, stay out of that stand until the wind is right. That's my advice but I'm betting some of the other guys in here may be able to do better than that. Most of my properties I hunt do not look like yours...so other guys can jump in and correct me if I'm off on that strategy. Just know that you should enjoy that spot. It sounds like a bow hunters paradise!
Blind calling can very useful during all the phases of the rut. When the bucks are out cruising they will investigate if they hear another deer sound(s). I've had big mature deer come right to the tree and I've had them circle downwind. Each situation will be a little different. Pay attention to their body language, specifically their ears and tail. If their ears are laid down, chances are they are coming to try and kick someone's a$$ and wind won't be a big factor.
*** Team 8 - Official Thread*** I agree with what you're saying. Blind calling can work. But my point to this young hunter is don't think that just blowing on a grunt tube can constantly bring in bucks. I don't care if it's the extinguisher around your neck or the Primos roar strapped to your arm, my point is learn to pattern the deer rather than trying to make it happen like they supposedly do on TV. My first few years bow hunting I blew on those tubes like trumpets naïvely thinking I could stir up a buck. I probably would've been better off just to be quiet and wait with patience.
As Shedding mentioned above, when I was a newer hunter I used to blind call all the time with a 0% success rate. Really for no other reason than I thought it was the right thing to do. To this day I have only blind called one buck and it was accidental. I was grunting at a much younger deer without success, soon after that deer left an older buck came sprinting right underneath me in response to the grunts. I think blind calling is a tool to keep in the big tool box of tactics. But knowing when to use it is key. My advise would be to put your time in on the stand. What I mean by that is... You can read all the tips and tricks online, run trails cameras, then hang what seems to be the ideal stand. Only to realize the deer are moving in a completely different way than you predicted, which can only be observed from actually being there in the woods. On a side note. It seems we are finalized on a Captain (CLS) and team name (The Fateful 8). CLS feel free to post the info in the team thread unless anyone has any objections.
I've got a busy week but I should be able to work on something. Anyone have any ideas on what this should look like? Fateful 8 is not really getting the creative juices flowing. F8FUL Just an idea. That's about all Ive got for now. Of course I'll jazz it up a bit. -D
I had 15 minutes to kill before work and mocked this up in PS. Thoughts? Drath feel free to make one still, I was just bored and figured I'd whip something together.
