Well I got another stand hung, checked a few cameras and checked in on some food plots this weekend. Nothing super exciting going on, but there's a few deer running around worth tossing an arrow at. A few of my food plots are looking pretty rough so I'm going to broadcast some oats and winter wheat in them tonight before rain moves in tomorrow. We still have a few weeks to go until IL season opens so we'll see if anything else interesting shows up. Planning on hunting WI this weekend for the opener and we're in an area with a lot of deer so chances of sticking a doe are pretty good. Not sure what the buck movement will look like, but only time will tell. For now the bow is dialed in, broadheads are on and it's time to pull together all of my clothing and get it washed. With a little luck we'll get bloody this weekend. Congrats on the bear, CJ! Looking forward to the video.
Here's our two main targets for the time being. The Shovel Buck No name for this one yet. We just call him the Big 12.
Two very nice deer, Justin! Good luck if you get out to WI this weekend. I might try and get out for a goose hunt.
Checked cams late this morning. Decent activity. Daylight doe almost every night in he stand I plan on hunting on Sunday night. Hopefully can put an arrow in one! Another pretty good buck showed up too. I think I am up to 6 that I would shoot this year so that's all I can ask for.
People are always talking about big bucks showing up now or changing their patterns. Anybody know what the reasoning is behind that?
I'd venture a guess and say it's because the weather is changing and they start shifting from their summer patterns into their fall patterns. That could mean shifting ranges for some deer. Some people have great deer in the summer and they all leave in the fall and vice Versa. One of the properties that I started hunting on is the opposite. I usually don't see a buck till mid October or maybe I only have one or two on cam. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Bucks tend to hang out together in bachelor groups in the summer and are typically easy to pattern on a food source. My land is the bedding area for the most part because I have CRP grass and cattails with very few trees and the bucks tend to disperse from one another around end of August/early Sept. when they shed their velvet and start frequenting my area more. I have a few food plots, but largely deer use it as a refuge. The grass and cattails make them feel extremely comfortable. So when I have a new buck "show up" at this time of year, they are likely establishing a core area. Smaller bucks tend to travel more on my block while bigger bucks tend to stay within a 400 acre range if they are one of the dominant bucks. Some of them travel quite a bit as well. The buck I shot last year was what I believe to be a 3.5 year old looking to be a dominant buck somewhere. I had him feeding in my food plot 4 out of 5 nights before I shot him. He was bedding in the cattails, getting up around 4:30-5:00, made his way to my clover plot before going to the woods. My brother had him on camera going away from my area almost 3/4 of a mile away as the crow flies on 2 of those 5 nights so he was moving quite a bit in a given day. (See map in photo showing distance from bedding area to my brother camera. I killed him from the stand on the edge of the woods.). When a new buck shows up, he might be looking for a core area or simply be a traveler that is passing through, but generally if you get multiple pictures of the same buck in an area, you know you are at least part of his regular area. One buck we were tracking was showing up regularly during August and September and then disappeared in October. A couple weeks later, a friend on the opposite side of the block got him on camera and continued to do so. We think he got kicked out of the area he had been using by a bigger buck and was forced to relocate. I guess the long and short of it Garet is that bucks behavior varies so much based on terrain, pressure, seasonal movements, the rut, that it's difficult to say why a buck prefers one area over another and why they show up where and when, but a lot of them have a routine, even from year to year.
That's pretty informative. Thanks! I think it's going to be a pretty interesting year this year. With all the pressure put on the public piece i'm hunting plus the fact that the big bucks are coming from the neighbors as is.....It's going to take a lot of luck on my end.
I'm by no means an expert. Just an observation in my 8 years of bowhunting. I'm blessed to see and track a lot of deer from the stand and on camera and shortly with a spotting scope when my house is done. Scouting at a distance is going to be invaluable to me I have a feeling. I'm just spoiled I guess. If I don't see at least a half dozen deer a night, it's slow for me. I think there was only one sit last year that I couldn't have shot a deer and most of the time, I had he opportunity at a buck if I wanted it. I definitely don't take it for granted, but it certainly makes hunting a whole lot more fun!
So my buddy saw the buck in the pic and got a real good look at him. Thinks he will net 140+. Pic doesn't look like it have high hopes he is that big
Did some scouting today. Walked a bunch of public and by sheer luck found a clamp on I lost two years ago, couldn't believe it was still there. I had to run out of the woods one night from a thunderstorm and just never went back to get it. (Last I know, would never do that now) Found some awesome spots and fell in love with a new property and had about a 10 minute stare down with a doe threw some long grass. On another note I fried my computer two days ago, apparently whiskey and cokes don't work well on Laptops . I'll get the bear clip up soon enough.
Justin, I saw on here somewhere that you are shooting the new SF double cross? Do you have any troubles with the bleeders opening up? I was testing mine out by shooting them through cardboard and then into my target and they would never open for me. Was hoping you had some input on that.
No issues for me so far. I just shot a few at lunch into a Rinehart block. Here's the entry on both. My guess is that that cardboard is just too soft to pop them open on entry. Both the antelope Troy Spolum shot and the whitetail the Tim Conley shot fully deployed on entry. Although with those bleeders I wouldn't expect that to be the case on 100% of shots. In most cases those Spitfire "over the top" blades don't fully deploy until they're inside the animal.
On second thought I was thinking they could have possibly snapped back into place when I pulled them out of my morrell target. They seem to click into place which at first glance seems iffy on the likelihood of them deploying. Have you noticed the same with the bleeders on yours? Accuracy wise they were dead on though. Loved that about them.
Yes, they snap into place and are held in by their patented spring clips. It's the same design they've been using for decades on the Spitfire broadheads. And yes, they will fold over and snap back into place when you pull them out of the target. Happens to me pretty much every time I pull them out.
