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Joined: Aug 2009
Posts: 1,728
Campfire Regular
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Campfire Regular
Joined: Aug 2009
Posts: 1,728 |
Worst year EVER for me. The super hot and dry summer pushed the deer out of my lease. We had over 3 months of over 100 degrees and a drought coupled with it. I never even saw ONE! If the summer does it again I may think about putting in water tanks even though there is a deep creek that runs through the property.
The only other reason they wouldn't be there would be poachers (which wouldn't shock me).
Maybe that's why I'm planning an elk/ mule deer hunt in Colorado this year.
Drink and be merry for soldiers die for your freedoms.
Semper Fidelis!
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Joined: Nov 2010
Posts: 1,611
Campfire Regular
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Campfire Regular
Joined: Nov 2010
Posts: 1,611 |
...never even bought a permit, too busy working I guess. Maybe next year.
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Joined: Dec 2010
Posts: 300
Campfire Member
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Campfire Member
Joined: Dec 2010
Posts: 300 |
Saw deer every time I hunted except for 2 days,real windy those days. Shot a doe in the shoulder with a 10 mm and did not get her.
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Joined: Jan 2012
Posts: 1,973
Campfire Regular
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Campfire Regular
Joined: Jan 2012
Posts: 1,973 |
Is choosing not to shoot so they get bigger considered the same as being skunked? I prefer to refer to it as counting coup Took my friends kids out every spare minute for a month trying to get them both a buck. got them on several but they just couldn't put it together. Had a ball and proud as heck of them. They chose to shoot doe in order to let the bucks grow too. Naw, I wouldn't say that's being "skunked". Actually, far from it.
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Joined: Jul 2008
Posts: 4,866
Campfire Tracker
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Campfire Tracker
Joined: Jul 2008
Posts: 4,866 |
Aye (raises hand). Was a humbling year, but got in some good tromping around in beautiful WI.
Golldammed motion detector lights. A guy can’t even piss off his porch in peace any more.
"Look, I want to help the helpless. It's the clueless I don't give a [bleep] about." - Dennis Miller on obamacare.
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Joined: Feb 2003
Posts: 10,378
Campfire Outfitter
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Campfire Outfitter
Joined: Feb 2003
Posts: 10,378 |
I got an antelope a few minutes after the season opened. I got a mule deer a few minutes after the season opened.
There were a lot of winter kills, and the animals were not where they usually are.
Much better hunters than me got skunked, because they have jobs, and did not do the kind of pre season scouting that I did.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self. -Ernest Hemingway The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything.-- Edward John Phelps
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Joined: Jan 2011
Posts: 679
Campfire Regular
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Campfire Regular
Joined: Jan 2011
Posts: 679 |
I too reside in the "losers lounge" this year....but I did put my best friends son on a real nice 8-pt...his first buck, and I did choose to pass on the ladies this year. Bucks went and stayed nocturnal unusually early this season in these parts. Still consider it a great season though! johnny
No Farmers---No Food
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Joined: Oct 2011
Posts: 8,573
Campfire Outfitter
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Campfire Outfitter
Joined: Oct 2011
Posts: 8,573 |
Saw fewer deer this season than ever before. Got a doe the second week of a five week (modern gun) season and I was there every day.
Last edited by websterparish47; 03/01/12.
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Joined: Sep 2009
Posts: 46,247 Likes: 1
Campfire 'Bwana
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Campfire 'Bwana
Joined: Sep 2009
Posts: 46,247 Likes: 1 |
Tagged out on meat doe's, but "big boy" gave me the slip again this year Gunner
Trump Won!
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Joined: Dec 2009
Posts: 3,193
Campfire Tracker
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Campfire Tracker
Joined: Dec 2009
Posts: 3,193 |
Saw lots of wolf tracks, heard a bunch of coyotes howling every night, admired the eagles soaring in the crystal sky and saw a few bear tracks.
Never saw a male deer during the season, not even a button buck. The only deer I saw were 3 does and 3 fawns that were so tame that I could feed them by hand from 10 feet away. I never got mad enough at them to shoot.
Wonder why there were so few deer around?
Life is like a purple antelope on a field of tuna fish...
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Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 12,328
Campfire Outfitter
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Campfire Outfitter
Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 12,328 |
I didn't get skunked. Moose didn't get skunked, but Supercore did. He got one poorly planned shot at a buck that was way too far out-- offhand at 300 yards with an unfamiliar rifle.
Overall it was one of the poorest excuses for a season we'd had in years, even though the county as a whole set a new record. My guess is that it was due to the acorn crop failing. That had the deer coming off the ridges and concentrating down in the bottoms.
Oh well, if it was a sure bet they'd call it deer shooting and not deer hunting, right?
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Joined: Apr 2009
Posts: 133
Campfire Member
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Campfire Member
Joined: Apr 2009
Posts: 133 |
Never saw a true mature buck this year. Hunted hard and long on three ranches and came home with does only. However, the average bucks we saw and passed should be nice with some rain this year. Luckily, I have taken some nice deer in the past and not as disappointed as I would have been 20 years ago.
jcc
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Joined: Dec 2004
Posts: 2,325
Campfire Regular
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Campfire Regular
Joined: Dec 2004
Posts: 2,325 |
First year in many that I didn't shoot a whitetail around home. but whitetail numbers were down in our area, bad winters and too liberal seasons and limits. I hunted whitetails a few days, didn't see any mature bucks at all and the does and fawns that I did see I passed up. I was not too disappointed since I was fortunate to take two mule deer, a moose, elk, and black bear and a bunch of geese and ducks and pheasants. Besides whitetails it was a good year.
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Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 15,683 Likes: 1
Campfire Ranger
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Campfire Ranger
Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 15,683 Likes: 1 |
"Not I," said the little red hen. Shot a nice 6X6 in Colorado and two nice bucks here; a 3 1/2 year old and a 6 1/2 year old.
NRA Life,Endowment,Patron or Benefactor since '72.
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Joined: Oct 2009
Posts: 673
Campfire Regular
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Campfire Regular
Joined: Oct 2009
Posts: 673 |
Left the house to head up the mountain and before I got outta town I got rear ended and push into the car in front of me, totaled the truck and destroyed my 10' utility trailer. Transferred all the stuff to my buddy's truck and spent all season enjoying the beauty. Saw 1 elk.......in someone else's hands.
Booked a cow hunt on private land and got call 3 days before the hunt saying there were no elk.
1st time in 20+ years I failed to put venison in my freezer.
Huntinut
"If it's the truth it ain't braggin" Will Rogers
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Joined: Jun 2005
Posts: 9,376
Campfire Outfitter
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Campfire Outfitter
Joined: Jun 2005
Posts: 9,376 |
I spent three days total in the woods this season and did not ever fire a shot.
Always remember that you are unique, just like everyone else.
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Joined: Apr 2004
Posts: 42,803 Likes: 1
Campfire 'Bwana
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Campfire 'Bwana
Joined: Apr 2004
Posts: 42,803 Likes: 1 |
Twice! no deer, but wasted a skunk...
"Minus the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the Country" Marion Barry, Mayor of Wash DC
“Owning guns is not a right. If it were a right, it would be in the Constitution.” ~Alexandria Ocasio Cortez
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Joined: Feb 2003
Posts: 10,378
Campfire Outfitter
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Campfire Outfitter
Joined: Feb 2003
Posts: 10,378 |
I filled the mule doe tag and the antelope tag .... but I did not fill the white tail doe tag.
The white tail herd was outsmarting me, again, as it got dark I was waiting for the white tails, a skunk ran right passed me.
I took that skunk as an omen to go home.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self. -Ernest Hemingway The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything.-- Edward John Phelps
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Joined: Mar 2011
Posts: 1,311
Campfire Regular
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Campfire Regular
Joined: Mar 2011
Posts: 1,311 |
I did, still smells real bad! I had my chances!
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Joined: Jul 2009
Posts: 8,923
Campfire Outfitter
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Campfire Outfitter
Joined: Jul 2009
Posts: 8,923 |
I have been skunked for the last 6-9 years, I quit counting but this year was different. Both of my daughter's, 16 and 17 seemed more interested than in years past to hunt so I did what I could to set them up in the right places on our farm; places I knew deer crossed on a regular basis. My oldest didn't even see a deer and my youngest had one chance but moved the Steven's barrel about 2" to reposition and sent the doe back in the timber. Late in January a coworker invited my youngest out to fill a doe tag in the late youth season. We were in the blind about 15 minutes when she connected with her first WT. We will have one more chance before they start college and I hope my oldest tags out this year. After they head off to college I will probably have the opportunity to hunt more often than I do now. I think my first deer hunt was around 1999 and to date, I have two spikes, one tiny 8pt and a half dozen does.
Dave
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