Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Good Luck in the Michigan Opener Tuesday

Nice Buck Joel.

Heck yes!

He's happy. 2 8 points in bow and his 10 in gun so far.

Tree guys shut down operations Tues and Wed so we could hunt the property.
I took a small buck about 8 am Tues.
My favorite deer for eating are 2 1/2 year old bucks and old dry does.
So the buck will be working his way into the freezer.
Hope the harvesting of wood will trigger better harvesting of deer in next few years.

Good buck in the pic !
Congrats to all !


Logging will help big time !

Tuesday morning found me in my elevated box blind an hour before legal light. As the clock inched closer to hunting time, it started snowing. Cool! I love snow for deer season. Visibility and easy blood trailing are combined with nostalgia make me happy anytime there’s snow for deer hunting.
As it became light enough to see, the sound of large wings and thumping landings meant the local turkeys had been roosting around my blind and across the river. The flock of 12 hens proceeded to forage on the forest floor. It’s always a treat to watch turkeys scratch, back up to search the ground their big feet just cleared.
Watching the pecking order is always funny, with the dominant or most aggressive birds chasing the subordinate ones away from “their spot”.
This went on for 15 minutes or so, till the morning’s first cup of coffee signaled it’s need for relief.
Standing up in the Muddy blind means you can’t see out of the windows, but peeing sitting down ain’t happening. After relieving myself I capped the urinal and sat down. A scan of the woods was interrupted by a new stump about 60 yds away. In due time the stump moved and hey! It’s a buck!
His rack looked small and at first I thought I would pass on him. He was feeding slowly from right to left but him being behind a bunch of light brush there was no clear spot to take a shot. It took about 15 hours, I mean minutes for him to move where there was an opening to shoot. There was enough time to debate with myself over shooting him or not. The saying of “Don’t pass on the first day what you would shoot on the last day” kept running in a loop.
Since last year was a blank due to passing on a spike horn on opening day and not seeing another buck all season, I waited till he stepped into the opening and for some reason took two full steps and his heart was covered by a small sapling on the left side.
I put the crosshairs about 4” behind the elbow and 6” up from the brisket and pressed the trigger on my Bergara Ridge 450 Bushmaster. He launched himself forward and made a big looping turn running away.
The turkeys flushed, ran and skedaddled in every direction.
The snowfall threatened to cover his tracks and any blood, so I got down and followed a very good trail of red for 150 yards till I found him piled up. All I can say is this was the opposite of ground shrinkage. His dinky rack turned out be a 16” wide 8 point with fairly long brow tines. The reason his rack looked small is he's a brute!
After tagging him and hanging my white hanky above him for a visual locator I went to fetch the 4 wheeler and game cart trailer. Enlisting my wife’s help we went back down to the river bottom to fetch him. Laying the game cart on it’s side allowed us to strap the big sumbitch to it. Tipping it upright was difficult bit we made it happen.
We cleared a path through the fallen trees where he fell and pulled the cart to where I could attach the cart to the 4 wheeler. The trip out was fairly uneventful, only having the cart tip over once on the way.
Gutting him was messy since the entrance was almost mid ribs and the exit was 4” behind the last rib. The Hornady 250FTX hit the left lung and liver and either bullet or bone fragments lacerated the stomach. Those FTX’s are just a glorified handgun bullet, and not a good one at that. This isn’t the first time these have disappointed me with their performance. Close range performance is lacking with many bullets coming apart.
Notice in the second pic, he has no tail!

BTW, attaching pics taken with my iPhone, are always turned sideways. Ive futzed around trying to correct it, but I give up at this point. If someone wants to play with them to get them turned upright, be my guest.

Good job man.

Man, I shivered just seein' that picture.

Congrats to ya'!

Good buck for the BIL!

Thanks Joel!

And thanks skeen!

Congrats to Mark and Joel's BIL!

I gave up on that piss poor 250 gr FTX. I load the Barnes 200 gr XPB #30554 for my dad and daughters in the Bushmaster. I load them down to 2200-2300 FPS for reduced recoil. They both shoot Rugers with 1-16 twist and the load is very accurate and produces pass throughs with excellent blood trails.

My 45 Raptor just doesn't like the 200 gr Barnes. I shoot the Bear Creek Ballistics 240 gr HV bullet. Accuracy is very good with pass throughs and lots of expansion.

405wcf

Good read and buck,Mark !

Thank you sir.

This morning I sat in my dining room sipping coffee watching a very tall 7 point tending a hot doe out in the cut cornfield east of the house. He had to interrupt his sniffing and licking her behind in order to chase a small 6 point away.
That 6 point was not to be deterred though, he would get run off, at times almost getting gored in the azz, only to circle around and approach from a different direction.
A couple of attempts to photograph them through the spotting scope were unsuccessful as the window screens and leaves on the branches between us prevented getting the camera to focus.

Congrads on the bucks fellows. A buddy shot a large 6 this morning, I helped him retrieve it! Snowing hard here now we have already 7" with more to come.

Some nice bucks there fellas!

Joel, tell your BIL congrats on a fine MI buck!

Foot and a half of snow and windy in West MI. I stayed home today rather than fight it for the drive over to camp. Maybe tomorrow. Pretty sure my tent blind will be crushed. A little early for this.

I was gonna go out today also but the wind stopped me. Snow and temps I can deal with but that wind makes it terrible.

Becoming a wimp as I get older

Same deal here, about 14 inch's and still snowing and Blowing!