Deer season. Post your stories.

"I do not hunt,"

Well, that's something you need to remedy.

Just kidding, I know hunting is not for everybody. It's a very personal choice one must make without pressure from anyone else.

You are correct. No one hates poachers and wasters more than hunters. Spotlighting deer is very common around my part of the world. The game rangers do what they can, but McCurtain County is actually bigger than Rhode Island or Connecticut, and has a population under 30,000.
Three game rangers are spread way too thin to ever put a total stop to it.

Here in MIssouri we have "Share the Harvest" which they encourage hunters to donate to food banks and such.

Congrats ont he granddaughter's first buck. As for the no blood thing. I actually have found that more often than not, it takes a few seconds for the body to catch up and start bleeding Im sure everyone has noticed that when they cut their finger there is a delay between cutting yourself and actually seeing blood. As spooked deer can cross a fifty yard stretch in about half a second its not surprising that it took ya a while to find blood. And then when you did, you didnt find much. Probably because of the speed at which he was moving. Then all of a sudden he ran out of air and died.

Im not going to try to get preachy. For every non hunter, there is more game for me. But just so you know. Knowing that you have six months of meat in the freezer is a wonderful feeling when you loose your job.

I constantly hear people say they'd love to hunt but dont have the money. What they don't realize is the money they save in grocery bills throughout the year more than makes up for the cost of starting up.

Ive only been able to get out hunting three times this year. And I count each of those as successful hunts. I count it as a successful hunt if I actually harvest game, or if I see shootable game at a range I can shoot, but choose not to for one reason or another.

Day before yesterday I took my first buck of the year.

As soon as I got up in the stand I heard a massive dominant buck grunting to my right. I figure he is the twelve or thirteen point Id been hunting all year. So I go to grunting with him. And as I said in the hobby thread we talked for about two hours. But then outta nowhere this eight point appears to my left. He must have heard the talking we were doing and came to investigate. As yall saw from the pictures his rack wasn't all that impressive, but he was just a massive bodied deer. 3/4 oz slug from a 20 gauge put him down on the spot. He dropped so quick that I thought I spine shot him. Nope. Perfect broad side. Caught him on the right side through the lung, destroyed his heart, through the left lung, and the slug stopped in his left shoulder.



After I cleaned it off I weighed it, and it retained 95% of its weight. And I think that 5% was probably shaved off when it swaged through the choke.

Not bad from a field barrel at about fifty yards.

I think his body was bigger than that of that twelve point Id been hunting. Dressed at two fifty, and after quartering and processing I came away with about one fifty of meat. But I collect every bit I can, neck, ribs, everything. The unchoice cuts I grind up and cook with rice for dogfood. Everything else is mine.



Around here there are between one and three officers per county. So a lot of it is self regulated. I do not like poachers, but my definition of poaching differs from the legal definition. While I do obey licensing law, I don't count hunting without a license as poaching. I understand that the DNR needs money. But at the same time do really believe that everything can be managed without them. Though my perfect world may not ever be a possibility.

That said. Round here if someone is out spotlighting deer they will likely come back to a truck that has had it's tires removed so they can't go anywhere until the officers show up.

Here in Germany, you need to be a professional hunter to be allowed to hunt wild animals.

But I've shot a mole with an M3 when the drill Sargent wasn't looking spoiling a "possible" score but had got a crate of beer from the shooting range master.

And I had shot a boar with a blank cartridge and had a hit. The boar was threatening my platoon and the green plastic blanks also fit into the other end of the riffle. We had found the bent cartridge but no blood.

What did he age at? Six or eight?

Huh. With all the grey round his muzzle Id of figured he was older. Thanks. But. it is interesting how the body can lie to ya sometimes. When a buddy came by to take a look at him all he had to go by was the meat and bones, he figured the guy at six. But when I showed him the teeth he saw that he was only three and a half to four.

But I trust ya brother. You do know your deer.

Pretty much if its brown its down round your house huh? I don't blame ya. You seem to have a plentiful herd of them.

Just out of curiosity. Why did she opt for the headshot?

Aight I hear ya. I figured it was something like that. Ive seen a lot of folks loose out and wound a deer by trying to take a headshot. And have ran into even more carcases where the jaw was damaged to the point they couldn't eat or drink. As ya know deer move their head almost constantly.

Our population was way up, but I suppose its going to be down a good bit after the seasons are over. From what Ive heard, state wide during the first bow split sixty thousand deer were harvested.