Sam16

I dont know how much acreage you have to hunt in East Central IL, but I hunt West Central IL and would not have let that buck walk by, 3.5 or not. First of all, I consider a 3.5 yo 10 pt a darn good deer. I understand if you've got studs runnin around, but dont hang your head. Most people would kill for an opportunity like that. Great buck and a great weekend with the 2 does.

Weekend update... Had great movement over the weekend, saw a couple shooters roaming. Passed on several small bucks. Stayed and hunted Monday and Tuesday and things really slowed down for me. Havent seen much chasing yet, just bucks on their feet. Hopefully next weekend they are chasing hard!

I would probably leave it alone for a bit. The buck may lay low for awhile. But then again, he could come back tomorrow. Never know with those critters.

Backwoods07 and I have been hunting together for 4 years now or so... Finally took the plunge and decided to butcher ourselves.

Shot a doe on October 3rd at 8:30 AM on our brand new 40 acre farm in Fulton County, IL. Smacked her at 25 yards, quartering away. She went about 80 yards, then took a right turn directly into a pond, and died in the middle. Made the retrieve a little tougher, but its a good story. The rage did the trick for sure! The guy in the picture with me is backwoods07 by the way, for all you regular Realtree'ers out there. He helped me with the tracking, rowed me out to my doe on the pond, and helped butcher our first deer. Awesome weekend!

I live in the suburbs of Chicago and hunt in Galena, IL. In researching areas, i've learned that the Peoria area is extremely good for big deer if you can find a place to hunt. I hate to say, as a citizen of the suburban part of Chicago, that people are a bit different up here... I wish people were like the rural people i've met in Illinois

I am really looking into start butchering my own deer. I feel like I am young enough in 21 years old where I can save myself a boatload of money over the course of my lifetime (hopefully). Especially since I rarely pass up big does. Do any of you guys have a link or advice that will help me and my buddy get started into butchering? What tools are necessities, and what tools are helpful if we have the money? Thanks in advance!

Way to go Al! Congrats, that is one ooooold doe.

Congrats Tony, a very nice doe and looks like a good shot!

Sweet bandana...

That is a huge 8 pointer! Congrats on a great buck. I'd guess 140"ish if I had to guess

We have another picture of him walknig away right after this... and I can tell you he's just about to his ears however the quality is poor. As for the brows, they look about 5-6 inches when i zoom in on the pic. Does this help?

Hey everybody, Well i finally admit it, I need to buy a rangefinder. Does anyone have a working rangefinder that they'd be willing to sell? I'd rather not spend 150 dollars that they are asking for at Cabelas and such. Let me know if anyone has any deals for me. Thanks!

In my situation, I usually only hunt ladder stands that are 12-17 feet up. I feel like the people who get away with not wearing one are sometimes 25-30 feet up. I cant get away with that at 15 feet. Just my two cents. I feel naked without it

Yes it will work, especially on does and young bucks. The mature bucks may be a bit more cautious and have their own safe routes through an area. We do this very often through our switchgrass fields to funnel the deer movement past our stands.

Looks like a good 2.5 year old! Where exactly is that? I hunt 5 minutes outside of Galena right on the Galena River.

beautiful buck and beautiful pics. That first pic looks like it belongs in a calendar... Not a bad buck either...

Here are some of our recent pics... Notice the top right of the photo, where the soil is turned up. That is our 1 acre clover field that we planted this year with a 15 foot tripod overlooking it. All these deer are about 30 yards from the stand. Enjoy... First two pics are of a bachelor group of 3 bucks. One looks to be destined for a spike/fork. One looks like a thick racked mature buck with good brows, and theres one in the very back and that looks like he could be a 130-140 class wide buck. We are hoping anyways. You can only see his rack in the 2nd pic. Can someone zoom in on it and do some magic to see better? Also, any age guesses on the two bigger guys? 1.5 year old another 1.5 year old The same buck (we think) getting leaves from the top shelf...

Alright, I know it's a small, cheap piece and may have minimal effect on accuracy, but I may as well get some advice before I replace mine. I currently have a peep sight with tubing, which has broken on practice shots in the middle of october the last two years! Luckily, it wasnt to late to run to the archery shop to get more tubing and get in the stand to shoot my 10 pt that evening. However, enough is enough, I am going with a no tubing peep this year. Anybody have thoughts on specific peeps one way or the other? I read some good reviews for the G5 Meta which is supposedly lighter than other peeps and adds up to 5 fps. Also, do you guys/gals prefer the larger hole to increase light even though it could decrease your grouping? Sort of a catch 22. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks everyone!

That may work out well for you. Last year we tried to do that in our plots, and the clover really didnt do very well because the brassicas sort of choked out the clover. The turnips and brassicas were about knee high and the clover couldnt get much light. The brassicas grew great for the fall, unfortunately deer didnt think so. Then we went back there this spring and we noticed the clover and chicory we planted last year was growing great without the turnips there. However, it looked a little sparse since we probably didnt have adequate amount of seed for the land. So if you plan ahead, this plan could work great for you. Good luck!

Sorry, I accidentally cut my post short. As i was saying, BFO's have gotten rave reviews from almost everyone. Another annual i've been wanting to plant is austrian winter peas, however, i'm not sure on the specific planting instructions on those. Maybe dogdoc and wtnhunt can help you out with that. Just so you know, the brassica blend that failed on my plot was made by Maxi-Rack, but i dont think it was there fault, the plot grew great, deer just didnt prefer them. Whatever you decide to do, let us know and take pictures!

Well let me first start off by saying i am no food plot expect, but I am learning a few valuable lessons with each try. I planted a total of about an acre of turnip/brassica mix last year, and like a lot of people said, it failed. The plot was lush, a foot and a half high with huge leaves. The bulbs were softball size. I had one doe come out, and walk the edge of the plot grazing on the natural grasses, almost avoiding the big leafy plant she had never seen before. I'm not sure if it was because they werent used to it, or they dont like them, but i'm not paying hundred dollars to find out again. I would recommened buck forage oat sor somethin

I know this has been a topic in the past, but I forget what people said. As you may have read, I got my big clover/trefoil plot in last week. Our other 1 acre field is flooded, and doesnt look like we will be able to till that until august or so. So we decided to pick up a small bag of throw n grow and put it in a clearing we have on a wooded ridge that is probably only 30 by 30 yards wide. It is somewhat shaded and we cant get the tiller up there. So what kind of results can we expect if we just rake away the debris, fertilize and plant? I'm hopin it will at least be worth it, but we arent relying on it too hard. Hopefully we are pleasantly surprised.

My dad won an acre's worth of clover/trefoil seed at a wild turkey federation dinner. It's from the local seed co-op, and it's called Buck Blend. Hopefully it's decent seed. I'm pumped to see it in a week and a half. We've gotten several pictures of deer crossing this field before we tilled it up already, so it's in a good spot and hopefully it works out. Now we just gotta get the tri-pod up and take some pics.

Well i finally got my perennial seed in of clover varieties and trefoil last weekend. I got the local farmer to till up about an acre of pasture surrounded by thick cover in between 30 acres of alfa alfa and a huge thick bedding area on a ridge. This should be a perfect transition feeding area for october. The only problem was that my seed spreader rusted and broke so we had to broadcast the seed by hand. Im hoping the distribution isnt too bad, but we'll hafta wait and see. If it is, im planning on getting some SLAY and the other select herbicide from whitetail institute, the name is escaping me right now. Anyways, spray the areas that i missed, mow the plot, and overseed with either clover or even straight chicory. Im not going back to the farm for 3 more weekends, and we have had 2 big storms in the 5 days the seed has been in the ground, so hopefully by then i'll have some pictures for you guys. Thanks for all your pointers over time.