Congrats!

About 3 dozen Canada geese pitched in this morning. One's about 10 feet from my office window as I type. Told him it's a good thing I bought an organic turkey a couple days ago. Failed to mention that Christmas is coming....

Almost glad the season is over...need rest! We really whacked and stacked 'em this season, with no errant shots or inopportune naps...plus we even have a few good stories behind some of the animals.

Fish on...

Todd

Right on. Tag soup for me on deer.

Fookin' rednecks!
You can fix the damage for cash money too. That's kinda a double win.

My friend and I (we both got skunked on deer) joked that we saw more dead bucks on the side of the road during the season than we did hunting and should have just picked up already dead deer instead of trying to kill one.

Last round of deer butchering tonight...I'm almost glad the season is over so I can get some rest! Post season wrap up will come sooner or later, once it is all over!

Fish on...

Todd

Glad you guys had a good season. I struck out again, as in, none of the archery guys I invited over came to shoot a blacktail. A few weeks ago a spike and a forkhorn were humping does in the side yard. I haven't seen the 3-point since before deer season opened. Either he stayed well hidden, or maybe one of my neighbors shot him, don't know. Near as I can tell, I'll have another major crop of fawns come spring. We have way too many deer around here. They walk through the breeze way between my house and garage, walk up 3 steps onto my front porch to eat geraniums, and they smirk at me when I walk too close to them on my way to the mailbox.

I'm glad I left the elk alone. They stuck around until muzzy opened and my dad managed to harvest our third bull of the season. We all tagged out on elk and struck out on deer. I'll take it!

That's awesome WSU and congrats again. Glad they stuck around for your dad (good call on leaving them alone). Freezers full of Elk are a wonderful thing!

Salmo - I'll have my multi-season next year and will remove a problem animal for you. I couldn't this year as I had modern tags. Pretty sure you don't want the 12 gauge booming from your porch at first light...

I filled my second doe tag with a 21 yard crushing thump to the head. It's rather incredible the amount of punishment a 3" magnum shell doles out. Lights out sweetheart.

Salmo,
Let me know if the 3 point shows back up.
Now that he has made his doe donations I can help him with a responsible dirt nap and truck ride.

I think the seasons are over for this GMU. I should get a paintball gun and do a population census just to learn how many of the critters live around here. It's probably more than anyone would think.

If only I could figure out blacktails. I'm toying with the idea putting up a tree stand or two. I've got a spot that has trails crossing in a bunch of directions and is in a timber strip between a clearcut and open field. Seems like there are always deer there but seeing the bucks is difficult.

Tree stands are 110% the way to go. This is the first year we deployed stands and they made all the difference. I filled both my tags out of the same stand and Todd filled one of his tags from our other stand. We bought (and recommend) Hawk's 1.5 man 21' ladder "Sasquatch" stand. It's big, but it sure is comfy and roomy. I'll be getting two more during the off season.

Two more stands or two more deer?????

I'll have to figure out a way to sit in one once I buy it. I don't have a lot of patience but we'll see. I'm convinced I'd kill a lot more deer that way.

Stands good sir.

WSU - I've hunted from stands a few times back out east...a very LONG time ago. So I'm (we) are just sort of re-learning it all over again. One thing I can tell you is that you only need to be in your stands at dawn and dusk (for BT's). Once the sun comes, mature animals will bed down tight for the day. It's best to give em' till 9 am or so, crawl down out of your stand and get into the bush for a daytime still / jump hunt. Or just leave em' completely alone and not pressure their beds.

Both of my animals came within the first and last 5 minutes of hunting hours this year. It's pretty much a 15 - 30 minute window of opportunity....more or less.

Wait until we give our season recap sometime here in the future. We learned some interesting things this year. This was my 3rd year hunting BT's and I don't think I'll ever truly figure them out. The only truisms are to expect the unexpected; their pattern is that they have no pattern; forget what normal deer are "supposed to do" and be in the right place at the right time. Once or twice per ENTIRE YEAR they will make a legit mistake and you have to be right there when it happens.

Also, game cameras are THE most important thing. There is a reason Salmo doesn't see his yard 3 pt. all that often and that his 3 pt. isn't the big daddy that IS there and NOBODY ever sees.

Good luck,

Salmo - BTW, I'll put up a camera for you if you would like. You can track what's really there year round. It's pretty cool to see what the yard critters are up to during the middle of the night and we may just get your neighbourhood boss on camera.

Were your stands in cover or in open areas? Mine will be in cover where I can look down into a swamp/jungle that is full of trails/tunnels going every direction but up on a timber flat above that is also full of trails and rubs during the rut. I killed a pretty decent buck on the flat last year doing a little drive with a buddy (shot in damn-near self defense as the buck ran by). Behind the stand is a big clearcut. Between the stand and the more open parts of the clearcut is a flat covered in 7 ft tall scotch broom. Also filled with trails going everywhere.

A tree stand is unnecessary at my place. I have a full width deck on the back of my house. With a daylight basement, the deck is one story up and commands a view stretching downhill about 200 feet. The hill out back used to be BT I-5 connecting the lower forest with the ridge that is forested on neighboring back yards. Since I landscaped and fenced (in self defense) my back yard, the hill remains a main thoroughfare, but there are a couple alternate "collector" route trails to my immediate north, leading into my neighbor's yard. So I get a lot of deer traffic.

I should get a game trail camera - oh, something for my X-mas list - for the entertainment. The trail along my fence line is so well used, I would probably be surprised by just how much traffic goes by while I'm sawing logs in bed.

That's an interesting theory Nick, that the 3-pt (I think there are 2 of them, but since I never see them together, I can't tell for sure) isn't the biggest big daddy out there. Last year a forkhorn had a harem of 5 does in the side yard. It would be fun to learn more about the local BT population.

I live near a large neighborhood association that has long been a no-shooting area. That's logical because there are probably a couple hundred homes. The mixed forest and yard land use creates tons of "edge" habitat favored by BT, so I think that accounts for so many deer around here. I noticed that the neighborhood assoc. this year adopted a "no hunting" policy, probably because someone reported a deer walking around with an arrow sticking out of it. I think the policy is mis-guided, and the deer might be out-stripping the available winter range. Of course I'm not sure of that. But there's far less forage available now and for the next 3 months, and it seems like the population could use some thinning by hunting. We have coyotes, but I never see any cougar sign, the most logical predator species.

One stand is in an open area / older alder patch with mixed undergrowth of all types (tons of feed). It's placed at the intersection of 3 main trails and several side trails up on a hump point between two shallow gullies. It's deer central.

The other stand is at the edge of a older growth cedar swamp that was once logged a long time ago. It's reprod is pretty massive today. That stand is up in a cedar thats pretty damn big and it overlooks the swamp bottom. The swamp bottom itself is a long big gullie that has smaller side gullies & trails feeding into it. We access the stand through one of those side trails.

Even though they are in very different habit, both stands see tons of deer and both produced this year.



Salmo - I almost guarantee that there is a big daddy out and about. There are always bigger BT's as we have painfully learned. They just never show themselves and a camera is the only way to get a good look. We have at least 12 bucks of varying degrees of age and size. 3 showed themselves during hunting hours. 9 did not and get to live another day. We'd never even know they were there without the cameras. Drives me crazy. As Broodbuster tells us..."sometimes it's really better NOT to know what's out there"....