hunting

[Ivywoods]

Oh, yeah. I've shot young ones, too. Such good eating. My family and I go through 4, 5 or 6 deer per year. Three college age boys can eat a lot of meat.

I almost always hunt my own land, and getting them home can be a problem for this old girl. I've hauled them home in a tractor bucket, a skidsteer bucket, drug them with a horse, drug one with my commercial lawn mower one time. Hauled them with my John Deere Gator, rolled them down a riverbank into a flatbottom boat and floated them home, drug them through the river behind the boat, Drug them up out of the river in the john boat pulled by a 4 wheel drive jeep, had 3 kids and two adults pulling on a rope up embankments through thick woods. And where the access is easy, there's always the pickup.

Where there's a will, there's a way.

 

[Becky89*]

Here in Pennsylvania its only archery or muzelloader right now and I don't shoot either but while I was at Sheetz filling up my truck a pickup truck with a father and son pulled up to the pump next to me and they had to bucks in the bed.......one I think was a six point and the other was a four.....

 

[SillyChicken]

our gun season starts in 2 wks.... I have the whole week off to sit in a tree stand! Can't wait!

 

[kitchwitch]

I've always wanted to go hunting! SInce I was young, but no one in my family hunts and the only person I do know that hunts seems to think I'd rather enjoy watching wildlife instead of killing it and eating it.

 

[Ivywoods]

Hubby and I went out yesterday to check our stands and make ready for hunting. All were in good shape. We had to use the skidsteer to clear a path to one of the stands as a number of branches had fallen across it and there was a washout place to get through.

We saw some deer sign, but not near as much as we ususally do. We haven't been seeing the number of deer anywhere around here that we usually do. I don't know what to think of it. We had a horrendous winter last year. Minus 18 or 19 degrees with wind chills around 50 below. Snow and wind to the point of causing 20 foot drifts. We were totally snowed in four separate times. It was the worst winter I can remember.

I don't know if perhaps that is part of the reason we aren't seeing the numbers we usually do. Maybe many didn't survive the winter.

I'm going to give the boys all a chance to harvest a deer, then I will go out myself and fill the freezer if they don't manage to do it.

 

[Ivywoods]

Here's the buck my husband got last night. He's about a 13 pointer, 200 pounds.

He was no match for my old 83 Dodge pickup.

I really wish my husband had used a different method to take this deer.

 

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

This is our stand right behind our house.

And the view from the stand

Last Saturday Sharon and I were sitting on the stand - well she was sitting and I was kind of perching on the back coaching. On the back tree line a young buck came out and she couldn't get a shot so I took him. First time I had shot a deer with my 7mm-08, 140 grain bullet, in and out the lungs at about 250 yards, they exit wound was about 3/4 to an inch around. The deer was about 20 feet from where I shot him. When we gutted him I did notice less internal damage than from the .308 I normally use. I think the 7-08 is a keeper.

Steve

 

[Stevo]

Nice shootin Steve. I have a Rem 700 in 7mm 08 and luv it.

 

[Ivywoods]

Here's another view of the "Dodge Ram buck." He's quartered and in the feezer now.

Steve-congrats on your buck. I've heard a lot of people say they like their 7-08. As far as tissue damage, however, I think it depends more on the "type" of bullet you use. I've butchered deer that someone used a hollow point on, and there was so much fragmentation and internal damage (gut was all messed up, even though it had been a lung shot,) the deer was almost unusable.

Personally, I've had about the best pattern with a remington core lokt bullet or similar. Nice mushroom with no fragmentation. I use a .6mm or a .270, but my favorite rifle (if I'm not bow hunting) is my .257 Weatherby mag. Awful expensive ammunition, so you have to make that shot count.

By the way, I love the pics from your deer stand. Great pictures and great view. I could see myself sitting there all day.
Susie

 

[Stevo]

Holly Cow! That deer is a brute suesie. That poor truck lol.