View from your deer stand.

[btulloh]

This is a from a ground blind made from truck bed liners on small trailer frame.  I call it the oven blind.  This morning was dreary and rainy and the only thing I saw was one spike. 

Then these guys showed up:



 

 
26 turkeys.  Never saw that many together here. 145 yards.  I don't have a choke for that.

[samandothers]

145 yards.  I don't have a choke for that.

:D

Mascots Va Tech!

[Bogue Chitto]

 
I let it go.

[WV Sawmiller]

    Hard to get the perspective of the steep angles involved but my favorite deer stand is a 6'X6' shooting house on poles about 9' above ground. The stand is on a point between a deep draw that runs up the middle of my property and a side draw that forks off. So on 2 sides I am shooting downhill at ranges up to around 100 yards. At the top of the side draw is a ridge covered in oaks and beeches and I can shoot a deer up to 120-140 yards comfortably. On the other 2 sides is a big bench (flat area on the side of the mountain) with an old logging road about 70 -80 yards away and mountain side another 30-40 yards above it in range. Out the final window is my feeder and 80 yards or so of the bench leading to the ridge. It is pretty thick in small beeches and such. My feeder is set up of bow hunting and 12-15 yards away and really too close but that is where the convenient trees were available.


 Overlooking side draw to the NE


 Ridge above this side draw mostly to the North


 Bench leading into the ridge out my North window with feeder.


 Bench leading to old logging road to the SW


 Deep draw below on the East side. That double poplar is about about about 17 yards away with a trail just below it. I killed a couple of deer with my bow using it to to shield my movements. They stick their head behind, I draw, they step out and I release. I also have a stick about 1" in diameter with one of my arrows in it from this spot. It was the only thing between me and a 6 points lungs and I centered the stick. An inch higher or lower and he'd have been meat on the table. Instead I have a dang souvenir. >:(


 
This little 130 lb (live weight) 6 pt came in from my blind side and to my feeder right at sunset (5:08 pm) today and was so close I had a hard time getting the rifle pointed down far enough to shoot him. Would have been a perfect pistol or good bow shot. I blew out his heart, passed through and broke front left leg and he still ran 60 yards down into the side draw (first picture) and I had to drag him up to and over the ridge to the next draw where my ATV was parked. I finally got him up, over and down and dragged him home and had him skinned and gutted and hanging/chilling for processing in my old log barn by 8:30 pm. I'll work him up tomorrow I guess.

[FLPINERAT]

Cool place!

Everything I want to shoot still won't walk when the sun's up....or walk where ya can't see in when it is. 

[WV Sawmiller]

    Yeah, if this little guy had been 25 minutes later he'd have been past legal shooting hours. I had seen a small rub and the makings of a small scrape on the way in and a fresh pile/clump of droppings about 6' from my ladder that looked like from a well fed buck rather than does or yearlings which are more often single pellets.

[Chuck White]

Here, we feel that a good percentage of the bucks have gone strictly nocturnal!

We're just not seeing them, even in the food plots!

Lots of does and fawns (50+) (not even any spikes) in the combined soybean field!

[btulloh]

Same here with the bucks going nocturnal.  I only see them during the rut. 

[tawilson]

 

 
This guy crossed the trail Saturday.  A couple grunts got his attention. 

 
He came right over to my stand, then finally got spooked and booked.

[FLPINERAT]

Same here with the bucks going nocturnal.  I only see them during the rut.

Man, around here even during the rut the best chance for sightings is when one gets locked down on a doe and she leads him around and out in the open when she gets receptive. I have vid after vid of nice bucks chasing all at night! What a week.

Scraping

Cruising

Stepping up the pace

Chasing

[stanwelch]

Morning before gun season in michigan

 

[Southside]

Same here with the bucks going nocturnal.  I only see them during the rut.

The day the dogs start running they go nocturnal over this way.  Walking back from checking cows at night I will often jump several or get blown at a couple of times.  

[FLPINERAT]

Morning before gun season in michigan

Haha...glad to see others have the same kind of luck I have!  Thought I was just cursed....that's a dandy!

[mike_belben]

"Sniff sniff.  Do i detect gun oil and antler lust in the air?  Im out of here."

[stanwelch]

Sometimes luck is on our side 

 

[Magicman]

Dat ain't luck Stan.  Dat's a very good buck!! 

[Greyhound]

 

 

 

 

[Woodpecker52]

Time to test the deer killed for CWD.  It has showed up in Ms. and has had an effect on hunter interest here.  Personally the last buck I killed, when I removed the skull cap, Its brain was crawling with worms and I lost interest.  Now the only fever I have is woodmizer fever!

[WV Sawmiller]

Stan,

That's a real nice deer. If I killed one that big around here I'd probably have to just cook and eat him on the spot as I'd never get him out of the hollow and over the ridge (They always run or fall down into the hollow when you shoot one here).

Greyhound,

Congrats on yours too.

I just finished grinding 17 lbs from the meat off a ham, brisket and trimmings and mixed with jerky seasoning to marinate overnight. I'll start drying it tomorrow. I put 5 bone-in roasts in the freezer from the neck and one shoulder. I gave one shoulder, one ham, the backstraps and the tenderloins to a young friend of ours last night when I finished breaking down the deer.

[FLPINERAT]

Darn just as things started to get interesting, Young bucks are chasing in the daylight. Watched a 4 and a 6 bother a doe for a while yesterday. She had no interest yet. Bad weather across the panhandle with deep tropical moisture. Almost 80 today, 70 low and the air is thick sticky.

This is gonna be around a few more days..middle of the week could get exciting, back into the 30's.

[WV Sawmiller]

   I'm surprised the bucks are even active down there yet. I thought it would be next month or so before the deer in Fla got active. I may have my dates off but I know we killed most of our biggest bucks in south central Alabama in January when they were moving more. I remember seeing very small spotted fawns there around Thanksgiving.

  We had 60+ degree weather here today. I went up and replaced the plastic barrel on the feeder in my previous picture at my upper deer stand because the squirrels had cut a hole in it and I think even the coons had enlarged it. The rain was getting in and swelling the corn and it would not pass through the feeder. I may have to make a metal cover out of flashing or such if I see them start chewing again. I put WD 40 on one one time and nearly fell out of my ladder stand laughing the next day when a big fox squirrel jumped on it, scrambled mightily then fell. Of course after a couple of weeks the rain washed it off and they cut my patch off.

[FLPINERAT]

Fl, I think has the most drawn out span of rutting.

You could follow it from Sept to darn near Mid February, starting in South FL up and around thru the Western Panhandle area.

Across the Panhandle from East to West it ranges from Halloween past New Years!

So yea, the area you talk about falls in that date range.

Right now, we're hunting in about the middle and serious activity starts usually about Thanksgiving and runs to the first week or so into Dec.

Christmas week we'll be hunting about 70 miles west...yea it does make a difference. That's when they get excited west of Tally.

This WOULD have been the view from my stand....pass! At about a 4" 2 day total could make for some very interesting activity in the next few days. Temp going to the 30's, all the swamps are filled. Should be a LOT of deer on the high ground. There's a lot of swamps!

RAIN!!!

[Chuck White]

Wow, that's really comin' down!    

[Ron Scott]

In recent timber harvest area, 2018.


 

[Bogue Chitto]