Recreating a Deer Woods

Congrats on a beautiful buck Dave! Reading your story reminded me of the similar path we are on at the farm in terms of habitat management and harvest goals. 3.5 is the number we shoot for and in this part of the country, it ain't easy to get em to 3.5. Pretty much auto-pilot these days with nothing new taking place this year. Same plots planted, plenty of early successional habitat and weather that's been too hot to want to hunt much. Always enjoy your updates!

Congrats! That is a great buck!

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pinetag said:

Congrats! That is a great buck!

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X2. Congratulations!!!

Thank you everyone for all of your comments. If I could have my fantasy deer camp in the wilderness as they used to be it would include all of you. It would be one hell of a hunting trip. There would be some great hunts had and great stories told;That is for certain.

Steve, as you know while it did take a lot of work to get to this point since I, you and we all chose to do this, is it really work? I'd do it all over again in a heartbeat.

Thank you Mennoniteman, your words are so meaningful as always.

Thanks Tom, your property is a huge motivation to me. The deer that you are able to grow in an area with huge hunting pressure and very tough winters is simply amazing. Since you have done it there it means that all of us can do it with our properties as well.

Okie, I always knew you were a get off the road guy and many call it high impact hunting; however with the stand and shooting lanes made a year ahead and the access path carefully chosen and only used on the exact right morning, the hunt is successful in a very short time so really it is low impact and not high impact hunting?

Thanks Rusty, your property has entered the zone of growing deer to an older age and you are also in an area like Elk Addict and I where deer past 1 1/2 or 2 1/2 is not only not the norm but actually thought by many to be impossible. I think your area hunters are in for a wonderful surprise as you set the example for growing older deer where spikes and forkies will no longer be the norm.

Farmhunter, I am aging this buck as either a strong 3 1/2 or a maybe 4 1/2. He has huge parts to his body. His feet were size 13's people wise. His hind end was huge as well as his front quarters; Only one top round roast could fit in a gallon ziplock bag and his inner loins made four very huge servings. His neck is developed good for this early but the telltale sign for me is despite all of his 4 1/2 year old traits he has the slim waistline of a 3 1/2. He maybe would have gained weight for another couple of weeks and by Thanksgiving he would have lost thirty pounds from his peak.

Thanks Dogghr, you really get it! I'm sure you noticed that the deer fell in an opening between heavy brush areas--natural random clusters in reverse!

Thank you for your congrats The Old Oak. I don't know you well yet but expect I will soon. Hopefully we'll all have even bigger neck pictures as the bucks in our respective areas hit their peak rut stage. Good luck to you this season.

Thanks Chummer. Yes we have a target buck but actually he is not the largest buck on the property just the most visible of all the over 3 1/2's. No question he is 4 1/2 this year but there are a few others that are hitting that age as well. Whichever one comes by first and offers a killing shot will be taken. I've learned from past mistakes that hunting just a single buck can be very disappointing. Things beyond our control can make it impossible to succeed.

Thanks Pinetag. I know that you hunt in a high pressured area as well as most of us do. Your congrats are appreciated.

Thank you Suburb hunter. While you are still a relative new entity to the forum you have already contributed much and are probably more over the top than many of us. And of course that is a good thing to us.

Thanks 3c. Yes growing deer to 3 1/2 is a struggle indeed here as well. I am beginning to believe though that growing deer from 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 is not so difficult. Deer that have made it to 3 1/2 have the habits and caution needed to make it to 4 1/2 and maybe even beyond. It is new and un-chartered territory for us and though we are many miles apart our properties are in similar stages. I always enjoy your comments and feedback.

I wish all of you a great season with great friends and great health and a few great hunts. The real opening curtain is still about twelve days away here.

Dave, if he’s 31/2, can you imagine what he’d look like in 2 or 3 years?

Elkaddict said:

Dave, if he’s 31/2, can you imagine what he’d look like in 2 or 3 years?

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Yes I can Tom. He of course won't get the chance but luckily we have the luxury of taking two or three off the property and still having a few moving into the next age bracket and possibly beyond barring a devastating winter.

Chainsaw said:

Yes I can Tom. He of course won't get the chance but luckily we have the luxury of taking two or three off the property and still having a few moving into the next age bracket and possibly beyond barring a devastating winter.

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I like that balance. You can't save them all to 5 years old, the three N's will get most of them (Nature, Neighbors& Nighthunters) The goal is to keep great habitat and enough deer that if you don't have any old boys you can shoot a 3.5 and still have several 3.5's left to grow.

Can’t wait to see some 51/2 year old bucks coming off your place in a year or three. I believe your soils and genetics are a significant step up from mine.

Mennoniteman said:

I like that balance. You can't save them all to 5 years old, the three N's will get most of them (Nature, Neighbors& Nighthunters) The goal is to keep great habitat and enough deer that if you don't have any old boys you can shoot a 3.5 and still have several 3.5's left to grow.

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agreed!!

Elkaddict said:

Can’t wait to see some 51/2 year old bucks coming off your place in a year or three. I believe your soils and genetics are a significant step up from mine.

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It appears from the yields SOME of the farmers achieve that the soil here is indeed special. The deer genetics though looking good lately absolutely looked horrific six years ago. Thus it may be that the easier winters we have had compared to your area over the last few years have allowed the deer to better reach their peak genetic potential. It was just the luck of the draw; your area was pounded with snow regularly while we had a few large snow events that disappeared quickly.

We must keep in mind that either of us have had and can experience again a series of snow events that wipe out a complete generation on any one of the coming winters.

Tom, I have conflicting feelings about corn. It takes seven acres of corn here to make it to the middle of December and in years when we had it there were ton's of deer but hunting mature bucks was not any more productive. Keep in mind that a lot of property around us has waste corn in harvested fields and though that causes them to feed on neighboring property corn fields they come back here to our secure cover to spend their day times. That makes for maximum travel on our property during the early morning. When the corn is on this property the deer do not have a long distance to go from corn to bedding. Further the prospect of carrying "extra" deer thru the winter drawn to us via corn accelerates depletion of our native browse. Corn may still be a plus but for the moment I'm just not sure.

I would like to see you plant corn for one year with your current numbers. The reason being shed hunting. We planted three acres of corn one year when I was I high school just for the deer. I found sheds of 12 different bucks the next spring. It would be a cool experiment.

Congrats Dave!! Beautiful buck!


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Thanks Luke, it was a very exciting hunt. Just a very quick recap of tonight's hunt to let Ny guys know that the rut movement has started here. This evening 11/4 within minutes of Skip, a life long hunting buddy (for over sixty-five years)shooting a nice 3 1/2 year old eight in the two acre food plot, the four does remaining from the original nine that the eight point came after were then chased by a large 4 1/2 year old ten who then bred a young of the year doe forty-three yards out in front of his Redneck. We just got the eight point hung up so we haven't taken pictures yet. This was the first sign for us that rut movement has finally began and hopefully it has as well throughout the area.. Pictures when time permits--it's Jagermeister time for now.

Awesome buck Dave congratulations.

G

Dave, they’re chasing hard down here. When setting up camera traps this weekend, I came across 4 different fawns bedded by themselves. It usually means mama is locked down someplace.

Bad news is 1/2 my bucks are badly broken up. We have a 5+ year old 2x3 (giant body) that was only legal because of a 3” eyeguard. Trail cams show he broke it Saturday. I’m bummed because I was hoping to see my boy or brother shoot him (I’ve passed him 12 times this year at less than 30yds).

It’s that time of year!

Chainsaw said:

Thanks Luke, it was a very exciting hunt. Just a very quick recap of tonight's hunt to let Ny guys know that the rut movement has started here. This evening 1/2 within minutes of Skip, a life long hunting buddy (for over sixty-five years)shooting a nice 3 1/2 year old eight in the two acre food plot, the four does remaining from the original nine that the eight point came after were then chased by a large 4 1/2 year old ten who then bred a young of the year doe forty-three yards out in front of his Redneck. We just got the eight point hung up so we haven't taken pictures yet. This was the first sign for us that rut movement has finally began and hopefully it has as well throughout the area.. Pictures when time permits--it's Jagermeister time for now.

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congratulations Skip! Looking forward to seeing pics !

I had does with fawns walking around all weekend with no bucks looking for them. I had 4-5 bucks on camera in the last couple nights but all in the middle of the night.

After the whirl of activity Skip enjoyed in the food plot on Monday evening,Tuesday was a huge letdown. Apparently the young doe in heat that caused all the stir was one of only a few in heat or even the first this year on this property. Tuesday it poured all morning and into early afternoon. I hunted the woods early morning and late afternoon and saw no mature buck activity; except for a few stray young deer it was pretty slow. Anne hunted the same Redneck tower blind as Skip and as expected saw only does and the regular spike all calmly feeding. The good news was none of the eight in the plot deer paid any attention to the blind which Skip has sat in and shot from the day before.

We didn't weigh Skips deer but we estimated it to dress at 165 to 170 max. We like to weigh them all but the weather was tough and we are getting lazier about those things. We have an electric winch to install for hanging and weighing and that ought to make those activities more convenient to do once we install it. And we'll score the antlers for our records and our first ever end of the season annual deer management co-op summary report when we get it back from the meat processor. We intend to create an historical picture album showing all bucks taken on our Big Sandy Deer Management Co-Op lands. Before we brought Skips deer to the deer processor we did take a picture or two despite the rain.

We forgot to take the stick out that we had put in to air out the stomach cavity so the picture looks like the deer hasn't been dressed out but of course it was dressed out right after shooting . Skip was excited with his deer but still was in awe of the giant that ran out in front of his blind and bred the young doe right after he had shot this one.

The trip to the meat processor was an experience in itself. The owner Art at Ramsey Meat Processing was very friendly and entertaining. His sense of humor had us both laughing and laughing. Art has a large checklist/order form he has you fill out to order the type of cuts you would like and he makes sausage, hamburg and cube steaks as well as the regular steaks and roast cuts and even offers different seasonings that he puts in the various cuts before shrink wrapping them. And of course neither of us could read the form because we both had forgotten our glasses so Art walked us through it and filled the form out for us. Art then brought us into his large cooler to show us the deer recently brought in. There were about fifteen bucks there with two of them being mature. Mature buck wise that was a two hundred percent improvement over what we saw there last year so things are looking up for the area.

We are behind on most things and are still setting cameras out as we hunt different spots; We have 29 cams out so far with only 13 more to go so late yes but we are catching up on some things. Except for cameras we might walk by when hunting they will not be checked until after the hunting season closes in mid December.

Beautiful buck gentlemen. The beams look to be particularly long. Congrats !


Rusty

Nice buck! I always hope to catch that first come in doe because every mature buck in the woods is after her. When several does come in the action is hit or miss...