Texan_Til_I_Die

If your budget will allow it, check out a Leica. We did an impromptu side by side comparison last year at deer camp between a Nikon, Leupold and a Leica. The Leica was clearly superior in every aspect. I've got one on my wish list, just watching for a sale or a good deal on a used one.

I'm so excited! Just checked the weather map for West Texas and there's a nice little thunder boomer lined up perfectly to hit the ranch! Come on rain!!!! Got 600 acres plowed and waiting to drill in some wheat, just need a little moisture.

Looks like a keeper to me too.

Get the he77 out of my team thread, you commie before I put a hurtn' on ya'! :gun2: LOL - spammer, not you Todd...

Sent a PM to BAMA TRAE. Looks like he's the only member we haven't heard from yet.

I threw this up yesterday afternoon for a bow stand. It overlooks the intersection of 3 trails. One goes to water, another to a protein feeder, and the 3rd to a grain field. Still need to brush it in some more, but I ran out of daylight as you can tell by the picture quality.

OK, I've done this the past couple of years and it's turned out to be fun. So what do you think your odds are of getting a deer? A buck? A biggun'? This year is going to be a bit different for me because of the extreme drought. I'm giving myself a 100% chance of getting a doe, and no better than 50/50 on a buck. I'm sure I'll see plenty of bucks, at least I always have in the past, but my standards are usually pretty high. With the conditions we've seen this year, I just don't think there will be very many bucks that make it into the shooter category for me. Most years I can also count on taking a management buck if I don't run across a trophy caliber deer, but this year it may be too hard to tell if a buck's antler development is the result of genetics or poor nutrition. I guess we'll see when Oct 1 rolls around and I start spending some time in the stand.

If you have a bow season before the rut, I'd say you have an excellent chance at one of those bucks. They should stay on that same feeding pattern until the testosterone starts kicking in. Good luck!

Yep, unusual but not unheard of for a fawn (6 month old) to have tiny spikes. Most spikes are 18 months old and on their first set of antlers.

Availability of natural browse will have a huge impact. Example - I have 5 free choice protein feeders (which don't get hunted) and 16 timed corn feeders on 7000 acres. The rancher also plants 600 acres of winter wheat every year. On the years when there's rain in the fall, almost all of the deer will pile into the wheat fields. Activity around the feeders, even the protein feeders, will drop dramatically. In areas that have oaks with plentiful acorn crops, you'll see the same thing when the acorns drop.

Are you updated to version 6? That might help. No problems from my Firefox 6.0.2 browser.

Last one I got called for was a really nasty child custody fight. Mom, who had custody, wanted to move all the way across the country. Dad, who seemed like a nice enough guy, was working a low paying job and couldn't afford to fly himself or the two kids back and forth for visits more than once or twice a year, at most. I was so glad I didn't get picked for that one.

I had planned to work on stands and do a couple of other deer related things over the weekend, but dove season got in the way. We finally had some birds move in and it got really good really fast. Plan to get a few things done during the afternoons this week. About 99% of the bucks are out of velvet now, and the antlers are really showing the effects of the drought. Short tine length and very little mass. It may be slim pickings around here.

Done. For some reason, I suddenly feel like I need to take a dip of snuff and sip some corn likker!

...who watched the president's speech last? And laughed?

I bet he climbed up the legs. I've seen raccoons do it countless times. Try some Shark Teeth strips. Shark Teeth - Keeps raccoons from eating all of your feed!

Shoot him and then you can us how much he scores! :beer:

Had the camera out from 8/26 until yesterday afternoon. Had 5 bucks go from velvet to hard horns. Another couple of days and all of them will be there.

Pulled the cards from 2 cameras yesterday afternoon. One card was DOA and couldn't be read. The other had a bunch of night time pics of bucks, nothing very impressive. Hoping to see more activity once the temps cool down some. We're still hitting low to mid 90's everyday, but I'll take it over those 105+ temps we had all through July and August. So do we want to go with Choot 'em Crew for a team name? I think it's pretty cool!

Here's my submissions for a team name: Bone Heads Team Antler Attack Antlermageddon Buck Wild Choot 'em, Choot 'em (for you Swamp People fans)

I'm here. Just got back from a long weekend at the big ranch I hunt in West Texas. Man is it dry out there, but I did see quite a few deer including one definite shooter buck. He still had velvet on so it was kinda hard to score him, but I'd guesstimate him at 150+. He was with 4 other bucks and none of them would have gone over 130. I've got 2 other smaller places I hunt close to home, but so far I haven't seen much on them. One 10 point that's about 18 inches wide but he's got very short tines so he'll probably get a pass this year. Good luck to everyone this year. I'm not very good at the creative stuff, but I'll see if I can come up with a couple of ideas for team names.

Looks like a mess for sure, but you can't even begin to imagine how jealous I am of all that water. We're ready for a Category 5 here and whatever destruction comes along with it, we'll take it and be grateful.

That's the one thing missing from the genetics where I hunt. I see some pretty big typicals, but the nontypicals are almost nonexistent.

I watched it, good stuff. Very interesting engineering in that building. Looks like they learned a lot from the collapse of the towers on 9/11. And a big salute and thank you to all of the workers on the project.

135 - 140. For comparison, this deer as an 8 point scored 130 (barely).