Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire 8 months of deer season just started here...

Need any help? Have gun-will travel.

Cash;
Good morning to you my cyber friend, I trust the start of the day has been going well enough to be promising and you're all well.

Thanks for the thread, it's educational for someone such as myself to read for certain and one of the main reasons I keep pulling up a log to this ether net 'Fire.

When I started coming on here there was a chap who was I believe it's called a "crop sniper" in Tennessee who shot hundreds of deer from soybean fields. He supplied some videos and stills which were eye opening for me to say the least.

While we might see herds of 40 plus whitetail deer in winter at night back on the prairies, the numbers that this chap from Tennessee and you talk about are tough for me to wrap my head around.

For context Cash and I'd have to check the field notes I keep every hunting season, but in 3 months of hunting I'm fairly confident we didn't see a dozen whitetails this year and I never laid eyes on a whitetail buck.

Please understand I'm not complaining in any way about that, it is what it has become and since it used to be a bit better, it's possible it'll be again - but - we'll never see the numbers you folks have.

Our limiting factor here in the mountains is winter range, to some degree predators as well, but there just is not and never will be enough winter forage for large populations of deer.

Thanks for the education this morning and all the best as we head towards a weekend.

Dwayne

Yep. People around here were pissed when one farmer said he killed over 300 on a nuisance permit.

Anyway, Cash, have fun! Should be interesting to test the cartridges you're tinkering with.

Clearly you guys need some cougars. We do not have a deer problem here.

The deer don't venture anywhere near the bars after dark.

FWIW, during my short stay in AL, the legal limit in my county was a buck and a doe per day. That was for, I believe, a 120 day season.

I used to shoot on a couple of farms in South Georgia. I haven’t done it in many years but I’ve shot way over a thousand deer. At first I’d shoot them like I would hunting for meat. Back then you couldn’t legally do anything with the deer except pull them out of the field. At the suggestion of one of the farmers I started to just gut shoot them. They’d run out of the field back into the swamp. Kind of harsh but as far as the farmers were concerned the deer were just big rats. Every time a deer popped it’s head up in the field they were chewing a mouthful of cash.

Sure wish I was close to an impending slaughter like that. I'd sure like some of that organic free range red meat. Just tell me where it fell, I'll take care of the rest.

We have plenty of Cougers... but I am happily married.

Cougars are for the younger crowd.

Winters are a non-issue here most of the time Mr. Dwayne.

Occasionally we had a hard one in the mountains and deer are relegated to eating Mountain Laurel (Kalmia latifolia)... taints the meat pretty bad IMHO... I reckon like sage for Western folks. i.e. I have never eaten a Speed Goat, but have heard tales.

In Virginia lots of folks use food plots and try to manage DNA for big racks. I am not much on worrying about racks. Big plump doe or some Sika is always my preference. Come August we will be looking for the "milk lips".

This was a huge (200+) WT from a year or so back... huge body, tiny rack (Regular fall season) in Floyd... Cull I would call him. Too much food most years.



We do have a monster on our place here on the Chesapeake Bay that I leave be... He takes refuge on our place (back-a-lane kinda thing)... Throwing good DNA I reckon... and the dogs love to jump him some. Give me joy. He can swim like a SOB.

Parts of Virginia have so many deer, there is no limit in some counties during the season. It's nothing for me to go ourside in the morning just belfore light and find a dozen of them in my yard.

I still own a horse farm near Americus (Sumter County). No damage stamps available (only 10 ares), but a huge deer population... I am sure there are Kill Permits open in the area. Georgia is thick with deer.

IIRC, Georgia was about the same 20 years ago... small deer down South, but thick as fleas.

Rounding to the nearest dozen for a season was very common practice back then.

While I can understand the problem and some of the related headaches, I'd like to find someone near here with that problem that'd like help to fix it.