Deer Season 2016-2017!!!!

Good luck to everybody this season!!!

Be safe out there and bring home some meat and post some pics of you and your deer or whatever else you take.

My daughters went on youth hunting day the weekend before last. My youngest didn't have any luck but my oldest who is 11 and has killed four deer in the past 3 seasons that she has hunted. Killed a 3 point with her tang safety Ruger 250-3000, all have dropped right where they stood.

Congrats! What marksmanship!!

Thanks nothing makes me prouder then when I see my daughter go from woods to skillet with meat. Her younger sister who was 7 at the time killed a nice 9 pointer with her tang safety ruger 250-3000. I hope I have them hooked, both love to shoot. And really love it when I break out the Marlin Mountie or their own S&W M63's. And it gives me a reason to buy guns that I like by telling the wife it is for one of the kids, which they will receive them hopefully a long time from now.

Must be a slow season... I didn't take anything during bow, saw some with 1 swing and a miss. Muzzleloading has gone better, put some meat in the freezer. Took a nice 8 point this morning, not huge, 14" inside. Popped a doe yesterday morning, and the bullet blew a hole out the bottom of her chest you could stick 2 fists through and removed a large chunk from her heart.

Here is a link to the heart(did a link in case anyone viewing this is squeamish, which I doubt, but you never know).

http://i1082.photobucket.com/albums/j374/thecwa77/Woods/image_zps9scw6gk6.jpeg

Nice C

Very nice! Slow out west, too. Have seen some bears, coyotes, and watched a bobcat nearly catch a squirrel. Have seen several does (not legal) and a few small bucks that I passed. Have heard considerable shooting, though.

The rut is getting underway in this area. A friend hunted with me yesterday and from his stand he watched a buck chasing a doe. He said they made 2 laps around him and never stopped moving. An hour or so later, I saw the same buck crossing the main path through the property. I saw 2 nice bucks crossing the road on my way in this morning(not near the place I hunt), but no action in the stand, at least not on the main path(I was by myself today).

Eastern Montana muley that thought was hidden in the willows. Stalked and shot in his bed at 30 yards.

Hopefully next up is a whitetail in VA this coming weekend

Shoot straight everyone!

Nice buck Chris

Good looking Muley

I have seen two nice bucks this year, but unfortunately they were both dead on the side of the road.

Good start to the general firearms season this morning. Brunswick county buck.

#FillinTheFreezer

That's a good day first day snake, congrats to you.

3 years he has been on camera ... always nocturnal , Monday he slipped up chasing a doe and a neighbor got him in his driveway ..... 15 pts

Wow! Incredible. If your neighbor will allow it, please post a pic.

WOOWW Ford---yes...love to see more!

I got a little one. Slim pickings around here. Before everyone gets their panties in a bunch the gun is 6.8spc not 5.56.

Congrats stock, at least you came away with something. You can't eat horns anyway.

Thanks cwa

Congrats. I had an early production Rem 700 in 6.8. It was phenomenally accurate and I am still kicking myself for selling it.

Atta boy stockram, glad you got to put the 6.8 to use.

That gun turned out better than I could have hoped for. Has taken 2 deer and two coyotes and several ground hogs in the past year. It loves 120sst hornady.

8 and 10 (12 if you count 2 small kickers off the back side) in 3 days down in Georgia.
Both taken with 6.8, screaming 95gr ttsx over 30gr of go fast.

Anyone ever considered shooting a doe?

Unless there is something unique about the doe, they all look the same, not much need in posting pictures of them.

Congrats to you James for a few good days of hunting.

All the time, I'd rather shoot does than small bucks.

Friday after Thanksgiving. Had to wait for legal shooting time, caught him in a field feeding.

Though only a spike, he had good size, body-wise.



Yesterday's results, took about 15 seconds. Ambushes are effective...




Busted the old guy first, knew it was a good hit, so I zoned in on Junior. Stopped him with a bleat and it was all over but the cryin'.

Blood trail to the Old guy. Minimal skills needed....

Now that's a blood trail!

WOW, looks like he rolled out the red carpet for you vic, that's good work. What were you chootin at em?

Nice Vic, filled all your buck tags there! Congrats! !

Da Pumkin.

I made it into a .308, and changed the VX-2 2-7X33 to the same format except with CDS.

Load was enough IMR4895 to get just over 2700 fps with a Sierra 165 HPBT Gameking.

Thank you, sir.

And in two weeks I go on vacation for another two weeks with nothing to do for the first week.....

Hopefully, the tag soup will be kinda thin this year. (grin)

The Spike I shot just after Thanksgiving was with a Savage Weather Warrior 16 I bought from a member not very long ago, no more than a couple months.

Loaded up some Lapua brass with IMR4895 and some Nosler 165 Ballistic tips. That Savage shoots good!

Put a Leupold VX-3i 3.5-10X40 CDS on it.

The Halloween gun!! Very nice... I remember when that was a .243 I believe.

I'd say you set it up right, it sure did a number on the big boy.

Those Sierras will instigate some amount of leakage....

That blood trail is huge. Looks like you hit him with a truck and drug him underneath it. Where did you hit the deer?

Post that picture of your 15 if you can, Ford! Been an interesting year on my end. Got a really nice 9 out in Suffolk, who was about 21.5 wide. Currently at the taxidermist. He got a 150 grain Remington Core Lokt .30-30 through both lungs and dropped in about 40 yards. Almost zero blood trail.



Entrance wound:



I also got a cow elk out in Montana, who the guide estimated to be between 550 and 600 live weight. She took a 165 grain Federal Fusion PSP .300 WSM round that passed, as best we can ascertain, through where the heart would have been. We opened the vital cavity while dressing, and there was nothing left... everything was completely macerated. Walked about 15 yards and dropped. Weird part: almost no blood trail, either. I guess the round must have just disintegrated in the would channel? You can see where at least part clearly exited through the far side in the second picture. Entrance:




Exit, on her right shoulder:



What gives with the lack of blood trails this year? Whitetail was about 120 when I shot him, and the elk was at about 90. Not a big deal if they keep dropping like these two, but a little disconcerting in the event that a track job had been necessary.

That's a nice buck there OXN, nice cow too, you should get some nice steaks out of that. Blood trails can be a weird thing sometimes, you put everything where it should be and then nothing. I shot a doe once w/ the shotgun, tracked her 200 yards across an open field just barely dribbling blood. When I got to the edge of the woods where she fell, it looked like someone had been slinging blood from a 5 gallon bucket, very weird.

Thanks, dude! I can see it with the .30-30, but one would think a .30 caliber magnum round from inside 100, through the heart, would produce a pretty apparent trail.

The more I hunt, the more I find that there's really no way to predict it. Deer are very strange, tough, resilient animals- all you can do is your part to ensure an ethical kill shot, and exhaust every avenue of recovery if it gets weird.

I think you summed it nicely, all very true.

I shot him low in the chest at a pretty severe angle. I was about 30 feet up in a tree, and he was about 25 feet from me. The exit was just above the sternum.

Two years ago, late season, I hit a big-bodied deer with a .30-30 high in the lungs at a fairly shallow angle, meaning the exit was about level with the entrance. There was virtually no blood trail until I got about 20 yards from the dead deer. He had been bumped out by another hunter and was running by when I shot him. He continued for another 110 yards, and when I opened him up, both lungs were destroyed and all of the blood had pooled in the lower chest.

This is it. It was a buck that had already dropped its' antlers



Here is another blood trail from a deer I shot with a .308 and the Sierra 165 BTHP GK.

Fairly confident this is what happened to both of the animals I posted. Both were shot at a time of year when they had plenty of time to put on a dense winter coat of fat that may have plugged entrance and exit wounds. Either way, both ended up being happy stories, and both were harvested with firearms off the website!

Nice buck OXN and nothing like an Elk for the freezer.

I agree with you. I failed to mention "nice animals" earlier, and that Surry buck is a great one!

And Elk is durn good eating, I like the flavor more than deer, but that could also be a regional thing dependant upon diet. Nothing wrong with the taste of our deer, but Colorado Elk is some kind of good tasting.

I think the idea that it could be diet dependent is spot on... a few years ago, I shot a doe way back in the middle of nowhere whose diet probably consisted almost exclusively of acorns and native forage plants. This is what I'd compare the taste of the elk to; some of the best game I've ever had the pleasure of trying, no doubt. The fact that both animals were 2.5-3.5 year old females probably also had something to do with it, but I'm definitely a believer that diet significantly influences the taste of game.

Do you think the elk cow didn't have a big blood trail because you destroyed her heart. Basically destroying the blood pump so it just wasn't spewing out like it would if you just hit an artery? If that makes sense. I shot a deer last year with a 180 gr .308 and it also filled the body cavity with blood and he didn't have blood trail till he laid back down. Very nice kills everyone.

That's certainly a possibility. No pump, no spew...

That's certainly possible! I would have thought there would be enough residual throughout the circulatory system of the body to produce somewhat of a blood trail, but in a case like this elk, you might just be right.

There are four of us who hunt together, with 3 dedicating a lot of time during general firearms.

Here's a pic of one that went down yesterday. It was traveling with two others, one of which was, the shooter said, noticeably bigger but didn't present itself very well. He took the one which was the surest shot. I then helped with the recovery.

Beautiful buck !!

Vic, you and your crew are taking some good deer this year. Congrats!!

Thank you, sir!

Now my quest will be some meat does, smallish preferred.

I'm kinda on a leash until doe season begins. If I don't go hunting, I prowl the Sporting goods stores.

Out of tags and almost out of money......

Very Nice!!

Nice deer everyone.

I got this one Tuesday. He ran past me with his good side showing. I wouldn't have shot him if I had seen the broken side. Got him with the 6.8 at about 110 yards. How much do yalls deer weigh after they are field dressed? This one was about 100 pound after we gutted and cut the antlers off him. We don't usually weigh them so I'm curious what other are.

Hey, at least you brought 1 home... or half of 1 anyway

The 8 point I posted a pic of earlier weighed about 120 and I got a doe the day before which weighed just a little less, 118 or so if I remember right. those are the biggest I've taken this year. In the areas I hunt, the biggest I've taken in years past have been 160-170 and I typically weigh before gutting.

Haven't weighed any for the last several years but most VA bucks will go 125-150 dressed. Most mature does 80-100. Personal heaviest deer dressed 210 .

210 pounds sound like a huge deer. Was it killed in va?

Yeah Rockingham county. It was a 21" wide 9 pt. Actually a mountain deer not off a farm or foodplot.

Alright, looks like my deer season is over. I didn't score any additional deer, but we tried.

Just nothing was willing to walk by, so....work will keep me busy and the best I can do is a half-day Saturday, so I'll probably just let the season slip into history.

We had a good year, and thanks to those that shared their's, and I'll look for some additional posts before we close this one down.

I'm trying to add to it, just need a little cooperation from the deer.

A half day is better than no day... I've come home from work and spent 20-30 minutes on my stand at the house and had luck, so you never know.



Me too!!

You're right. I had to wait until legal shooting hours to bag the first one this year. Caught him feeding in a field, I could see him with binos and through the scope, but had to wait until the clock ticked down....he was patient....

I don't know how late I'll have to work Friday night, but I'm tentatively thinking 0330 or so into Saturday, and with an hour's drive to where we hunt, I ain't getting too excited.

But my gear and rifle are still in the grab-n-go mode.

Very Blessed this year with lots of meat. Mountain deer can be quite large with very modest horns... I'll take that... especially when their food is good (i.e. they haven't been surviving on mountain laurel).

.358 Winchester (built Remington 700) is a very fine caliber.

Finished my season with a doe on thursday . Little over 200 yds with a 20 ga slug . 10 months til deer season !

Well I decided to be bold and went out this morning despite the snow, it was coming down pretty good, there was a brief period of sleet/ freezing rain as well. Fortunately for me I have a treestand in the woods at my house, so no driving needed. I was doing good for awhile, staying warm, even brought a thermos of coffee, but my old neoprene gloves failed me. Once my hands got wet I couldn't get them warm again and they started to go numb. I left the stand about 8:30 and only saw 1 squirrel.

I had hopes of going back out this afternoon, expected the snow to stop earlier, but it' still coming down so my deer season has ended w/ popcorn and Columbo reruns.

I will have new gloves by next year... maybe try to get a shack put up with some heat too.

Congrats to all who shared here and good luck next year.

I went out at noon just as it ended. Glad for the chance to wear my Woolrich heavy wool coat and bibs Did some still hunting/sitting and ended at the edge of a field until dark. I was fine and glad I brought my carhart face mask as the wind was bitter. Got my fleece gloves wet brushing snow off a log, but kept hands warm enough using my coat pockets. Now I, too am in search of good waterproof gloves lite enough for hunting. Nothing moving, not even a squirrel. Likewise on the congrats.

We found this one in the woods at the end of season. I guess he was shot last year by someone and he ran into our place and died

Got the mount back, turned out pretty good. He ain't a wide rack, but darn tall. Good buck.

Nice buck and a good looking mount.

What bullet/load are you shooting in your 6.8? I just built one and plan to take it out next season. I'll more than likely be using the Federal 90gr gold dot ammo

The 90 gr gold dot is a good load . I use it in 2 different ARs good 300 yd round and that bullet shoots and expands well.