hoosierhunter

Frank- Super pumped for you going to New Zealand! Can’t wait to see pics and the story about it!!

Awesome news that he’s still kicking! I ventured to Ohio for the first time last weekend to hunt the ML season. The hammer didn’t drop, but it was still a blast getting out. Fingers crossed that some of the bucks make it through to next season!

Nothing new to report on the hunting front. It’s been several weeks since I’ve been in a stand. Pretty well set on letting everyone go until next year.

I haven’t been hunting much as I’ve be preoccupied with habitat management work, specifically invasive control. With no shooters available it’s the perfect time to basal bark treat autumn olive and cut & spray brush honeysuckle. You don’t really realize how much of this stuff you have until you dive in and treat it. Been using pathfinder II on autumn olive & multiflower rose and 50% gly mix on the cut honeysuckle. Fingers crossed that I got a good kill when green up happens.

Slow going here. Been out a few times but nothing worth writing home about. Gun season ended and it was a complete dumpster fire in terms of deer I wanted to live. Hopefully things will get better.

Well that’s a quick double! Love those chocolate horns William!!

Congrats! Al usually isn’t MIA this long, got a feeling he might have a good one when he comes back.

Nice 8 pt! A front end loader sure makes getting them out a little easier too!

Congrats Frank, awesome buck! do you know what he dressed at, looks pretty big! William, can’t wait to see him! I’m just now able to get the forums working on my cell phone. I haven’t been in the stand since November 7th due to a business trip, but I’ll be in one tonight. Crazy cold front slammed the Midwest and the extended cold should have things happening. Excited to get back in a tree!

Sweet November is here! Only been out once since last Friday and it was slow. Cameras are lighting up though and I’ve had a few buddies also put down good deer in Indiana during October. Temps are a dumpster fire being 60’s in afternoon.

I really enjoy filming them almost as much as shooting one. I view it nearly the same as a kill. It also goes a LONG way with neighbors when there is video evidence of the pass and not just word of mouth.

Al-That’s a stud 8!

Frank, awesome that’s he alive! Were you elevated when you shot him? My guess would be the wound is above his spine where those pics won’t show it. It’s also looks like he’s missing some hair further on the center of his back. either way, awesome to get after him again!

Thanks Martin! Neighbors can be frustrating. I have plenty around me that will shoot anything and I have some that will let deer walk. I just control what I can control and try to tactfully educate every time I interact with the bad ones.

Congrats Martin!

Team 1-Buck 11 scorable points

This guy comes from a farm I hunt with my best friend and his son. He’s been hunting it for several years and was kind enough to bring me on this year. It’s a pretty big farm so we ran multiple cameras over the course of the summer trying to learn as much as we could for the upcoming year. This was one of the several mature bucks we found and thinking he went low to mid 40’s we tried to get my buddy and his kid on him early. Fast forward to September and once this guy dropped his velvet he became very consistent hitting a specific food source. He was so regular we took his son in for youth season with a rifle. The deer read the script but a rushed shot at 200 yards resulted in a miss. After the miss he still stayed consistent so my buddy hunted him fairly hard in the same spot for several weeks, but wasn’t able to get a shot opportunity. A telling piece of information was that my buddy said he was bigger than he looked in the pics. We originally had him in the low to mid 40’s based on cams but he was confident he broke 150 when he saw him in person. As October rolled on we noticed his range starting to expand and we began picking him up on another part of the farm as well as his original area. He daylighted around the 20th twice in a matter of a few days so I decided to make a move and hang a stand mid day on October 27th with the hopes of finding him or a few others frequenting the area. I hunted that night and had great movement, just no shooters. Being confident in the spot I left everything in the tree, including my bow, overnight to return the next morning. As first light broke I was covered up with deer including one that looked perilously close to a shooter I was after. After some tense moments with him under me at 5 yards I was able to confirm he wasn’t the deer I was after, but he sure did jumpstart the heart rate! I had continued good movement all morning so I elected to rattle around 8:35. About 10 minutes after I rattled two does bounded through like there as something bumping them. 5 minutes later this guy made an appearance and after I grunted he headed in my direction. He closed the distance quickly and my first shot semi-spined him and I quickly followed up with another shot anchoring him for good. He ended up dressing a 191, has 11 adorable points and grossed 152 3/8ths making him my second largest buck overall. It was exciting to hang the stand and kill out of it less than 24 hours later. It makes all the hard work feel very rewarding. Man do I also love that adrenaline rush when releasing an arrow on a mature buck! Late October has been very good to me as I killed my biggest on 10/29 and now the 2nd biggest on 10/28!

Boys we are one the board! Sorry can’t post him this evening as I’ve been drinking all day to celebrate but second biggest buck ever that I killed happened this morning! More to follow tomorrow….

It’s certainly not for everyone. Killing mature deer consistently with a bow is a difficult task and I’m a geek when it comes to learning all I can about how whitetails move.

Yes and you can upload pictures from years ago to develop a pattern on either specific deer or just that area in general. It pulls all the weather data from that specific date and then breaks everything down for when deer move past that camera. Example is X deer likes to move past X stands at X times with X wind direction. It shows you a heat map on your farm for where that action is happening at. It’s also customizable to sort any time range you want, daylight only photos, etc. If for some reason the date stamp isn’t correct in the picture you can also alter it to make it correct. I sort mine by specific deer and then anything 3.5 or older. That data is what had me start hunting a week earlier than I normally would this year. It identified a pattern on one of my farms as to when mature deer start getting daylight active. Also pretty cool that it pinpoints when specific deer will either show up or leave based on their prior history. You have to be the one to identify the specific buck and tag him in order to get that information but it’s pretty cool. Below are a couple screen shots to show what I’m talking about.

Haven’t hunted the past few days as it warmed up. I ended up having to mow down my corn and plant winter wheat and rye today due to deer eating out the 2 acre plot already. Something I have used this year to analyze trail cams is deerlab. Pretty remarkable what you can learn. I already knew a lot but this is like steroids for analytics.

Speaking of wine, I’m finishing a bottle of Naked Chardonnay from Brys Estates in Traverse City Michigan. If you like whites, this place is amazing!

Had a great hunt last night and a shooter in the field, just didn’t have things go right to release an arrow. Back after him again tonight.

I will be spending a few days in the tree this week. 🤞 that one of the boys does what I need them to do!

Haven’t been back in the tree yet, but hope to early next week.