Wow, that's crazy. Considering they are cold blooded I would think it wouldn't take too low of temp for them to go dormant. We have lots and lots of ticks around here and I've killed deer with ticks on them in the past, but I haven't seen a tick this years since August.
Well I didn't bow hunt last year cause I went on a few duck hunting trips and kept killing the cr@p out of them. The year before I passed on a ton of 2 yr Olds and a real decent 3 yr old. This year didn't pan out either. It was hard passing on does and 1 and 2 yr old bucks this year but I did. I'm really gettin what you're spittin. Lol I try not to lower my standards but dang, I'm completely out of deer meat and I hate when people say "if I see one do you want me to drop it for you?" Like I'm some helpless starving pathetic soul...the truth hurts
It took me ten years of eating tag soup to cave in and shoot a nice 3 year old 10 point. not for lack of trying, i hunt my *** off!. Thankful i have a job that work four have off four every week. i'm in the woods almost every day i'm off from october to january. have passed many 2 year old and younger. Think that orchard owner next to property i was hunting was shooting nice bucks at night for crop damage. Hunted there for over 9 years and never seen or got pics of a mature buck in that time. Bought new house over a year a go and seems to have better quality deer, more agriculture in the area. Just lucky enough to harvest that buck in a stand in back yard of my lil half acre lot. Happens to have a natural pinch point that deer travel through. Now that I got a decent buck under my belt, the pressure has been relieved and i can focus on waiting for that mature buck to walk by. Anyone hunting in pa knows how it is here, its never easy.Theres a tree stand in about every tree here. Feel like if a person made the commitment of never harvesting anything less than mature deer 4 to 5 years+, it might never happen and would you be content with that. i'm all for letting deer grow bigger but it can only be beneficial in an area where everyone has same thought process and land that is not over pressured.
I'm with Covey on a lot of this. I get consumed by building the ideal deer habitat. I am about putting the bruiser on the wall for sure. If I feel like killing a doe is going to mess up my chances with that big buck I'll wait. I can go as long as it takes to get that bruiser. I'm looking for something north of 175". If that don't come along, I'll keep waiting. JMO
My wife and I shoot anywhere from 3-6 deer per year. None of those deer will be immature bucks. If we happen to kill some bucks that we have targeted thats great, but if not we will shoot adult does. Neither of us will ever kill a small buck again just to say we got a buck. Even if it got to the end of season and I hadn't killed a deer I don't think I could bring myself to shoot a little buck.
No doubt. Sometimes we all look at situations through our own experiences and expectations and don't consider that not everyone is in the same situation. Typically, I will see anywhere from 3 to 10 deer per sit. Most are does, fawns and button bucks. A few young bucks and every once in a while I will have an encounter with a mature buck. That's why my expectations are the way they are. I don't feel the need to kill the first deer that walks in front of me because I know there will be more chances. Now, I'm rolling the dice when I pass up decent bucks in hopes of getting that dominant buck, but it's worth it to me because I feel that my odds are pretty decent that I will get my chance at him. It's hard for me to think on other peoples terms as I have no idea what their opportunities are like. I can't imagine sitting a whole season and only seeing a couple deer.
It is just like Skywalker said. I've never hunted anywhere else other than North Central Kansas and that was only a couple of times. All the time I've been deer hunting it has been in Missouri. Either at my family's place in the NE part of the state or here around the KC area. Usually at my in-laws the deer are like ants. They are everywhere. At our place it is more hit and miss. It is an agricultural area and we've only lived there for a year now. It was previously a cattle farm so there wasn't any deer habitat to speak of. In one year it is amazing the difference. My wife just text me that there were deer in the standing beans again. A year ago we didn't see ANY deer on our place. Now we have them staying on our place. We have even seen some decent bucks this year at our place. Decent by our standards is in the 140" range. This size is based off one of the sheds we found from one of the bucks we were watching all year. We found this shed last week. We are letting these guys walk at least another year in hopes they make it to the 170" plus range. We've talked to some of the neighbors trying to get them to see what we are seeing as far as letting this size go. Some are good with it some are not sure. The biggest problem for us is we live in the part of the county that doesn't have the antler restriction so anything goes in our part of the world.
That is an awesome perspective of watching deer like that. I can only dream of seeing deer like that let alone to actually be sitting with my bow in hand and feeling the rush of a deer like that approaching. Should I be thinking about a New Year's resolution???????
I worked in Connecticut twice in 2011 for the Hurricane and the snow storm. I can tell you if Vermont is anything like Connecticut you would be amazed by the deer here. Number of and size. I actually killed 3 does at my in-laws in one afternoon. All with in 45 minutes and with a bow. In places around the metro area we use to have 200 deer per square mile.
I don't know. I'm going on 2 years now. I just don't want to shoot any young bucks anymore, but my family likes to eat venison so I try to fill a few doe tags every year. Last year was very tough in my area of Michigan as we had a bad case of EHG. I only saw about 5 deer total, and I hunt hard. This year I seen a lot of deer, passed on some very nice 2 years olds and one I probably should have shot, but I don't care. Problem is I didn't shoot a doe either! Oh well, I had a lot of fun and am already planning for next year.
When I was younger I always shot the first legal buck I seen, I've been happy with every deer I've ever tagged. I got some decent buck over the years (decent for my standards) and luck has it the buck I did tag seemed to get bigger and bigger with every buck I shot, which wasn't by design, it was more by luck. After about 12 years of hunting and a lot of antlers on the wall, I started to bow hunt (at 24 years old) and that's when I started to really set goals as a hunter. I started out in archery with the mentality that I was only going to shoot 3 1/2+ year old buck that scored 130 plus. After countless close calls, I went on a 4 year dry spell before I finally got a buck that reached the goal I set out for. In that time I passed up at least a dozen buck I would have been more than happy to shoot in the previous years and never once was I questioning the goals I had set out for. I knew with the goals I had set for myself I was no longer going to get a buck every year. That wasn't all I changed when I became a serious bow hunter. I've got at least one doe tag (other than last year) every year since I've began hunting at 12 years old, I was 27 before I shot my first doe (which happened to be with a rifle). When I was hunting for the first legal buck I came across, I never shot doe and that was by design. Now I'm much more willing to shoot a doe knowing that I'm less likely to get a buck every season.
I thought every county in the state had the four point restriction? Guess I never paid close attention.
I guess I would like to kill one deer a year because I like the taste of venison but when I shot my doe I wasn't really happy, I actually felt bad. From now on my plan is to hold out for a buck close to the end of the season and if I don't get one I'll see if I can get a doe.
I have went a couple seasons without seeing a single deer but it's only the beginning for me because I've been hunting for 5 years. I'm starting to figure it out and 70% of the stuff I learned was on my own. On opener this year I saw more deer than all my other seasons combined and I've only been in the stand a couple times and tagged out on a nice doe.
