Milwaukee

1)Great marinade for loin steaks .... Marinade containing soy sauce, garlic, dash of mustard, salt/pepper, fresh onion and water - marinate overnight ....... Grill to medium rare ....mmmmmm. Tender and great taste. 2)Marinate in Western dressing ..... Grill to med rare. 3)Take ham from hindquarter , trim fat and freeze. Slice thin (while frozen) with a good meat slicer and cook in a covered pan with fresh onion and mushrooms ...... Outstanding on a good hard roll. For a twist sauté with garlic. 4)Take above sliced ham cooked and cut into small pieces. Mix with cream cheese and seasoning of choice ( garlic for me) and set aside. Cut whole jalapeño in half length wise, remove seeds if you are afraid of the hotness. Fill inside of each half of the jalapeños and place back together. Wrap with bacon and hold in place with a toothpick. Grill until bacon is crispy and jalapeño is tender ....... Just a few

I tried the 3 blade version in 2010 (bought a 3 pack) and shot 2 does (broadside) and a hard quartering away buck. Had great pass through shots on both does and although the exit hole was large, the blood trail was average but I did recover the animals in less than 100 yards (both double lung shots). The final one was used on a big 8pt last season, 12 yards, hard quartering away shot and I did not get penetration and did not recover that animal. Prior to using Rage, I used fixed blade Thunderheads. I'm now back to fixed blades. So, IMO, broadside shots the heads performed well for me. Hard quartering away shot, the head did not penetrate. Just my experience on 3 deer. The reason I switched back is just my personal confidence. To each his/her own when it comes to head choice. Just find something you are confident in and use it Hope this helps.

I hunt in the southern part of the UP and food sources are the best bet late season! We've had only a few mature bucks in our sights over the years but does are plentiful. I agree that evenings appear to be best with most sightings at last light. The bucks are hungry and run down after the rut so they look for food sources but do so under low light and no light conditions (in my experience). We have seen some dandy bucks late season so it is worth a shot. One year I shot a nice 8pt on December 29th. When my tracking assistant found the deer, it had no antlers :hammer2:. We ended up backtracking and finding the left side antler that night but I did not find the right side until spring thaw. Good luck!

Chances are you hit something vital but if it was a liver/stomach shot you need to wait at least 24 hours. I helped a friend get a deer that was liver shot and we jumped it about 50 yards from the shot sight and went the next day and jumped him again. We let him lay untl that afternoon and found him. Decent blood trail with this deer! Good luck and let us know the outcome!

I've shot a good number of deer (bucks and does) over my 20+ years of bowhunting and my opinion is that it is hard to beat a perfectly broadside shot. I've shot them quartering away and have had tougher blood trails (in general) than with perfectly broadside pass throughs. I have never had a perfectly broadside arrow not pass through but have had some quartering away arrows not make it through the opposing shoulder. I also prefer (if possible) to have the deers facing leg (the one facing me when he is broadside) slightly extended forward when possible. If you tuck the arrow mid-body behind that shoulder, the deer is as good as yours. Good luck! Disclaimer: I'm not an expert just stating my opinion based on my experience. I'm anxious to hear what others have to say regarding this topic.

Thanks for the input! Now I have two avenues to take that are both 180 degrees from one another :surrender: I do appreciate the feedback and hope others will chime in. It does appear that shooting the does is still a good avenue to take and that is good to know. My only dilema now surrounds the younger bucks and what to do with those. I've seen and read different positions on 2.5 yr old small and basket rack bucks and those positions range from 'they will amount to nothing more than a spike' to 'you cannot tell due to them being immature'. I was worried having too many bucks would possibly hurt the hurd and also be a negative when it came time for the rut to take place. With fewer does, especially mature ones, fewer bucks would potentially move in for breeding.

I appreciate the feedback and there are no 'right and wrong' answers here. I agree that mature bucks cannot get mature unless you let them grow. No difference in opinion here. I would gladly give up shooting a buck for a few years to get some true trophies. My question is do we keep shooting does or should we take some of the 'management' bucks out of the herd and leave the does? I can't imagine the 2.5 yr old spikehorns and basket racks will ever amount to anything but I'm not an expert and that is why I'm asking the question here. Thanks!

I'm new to this site and have a question pertaining to our hunting property. We have 400 acres of crop land to hunt (split about evenly with areas of cover and open field (cedar swamp/river bottom/field/ridges) in the upper peninsula of Michigan. This property yields corn and various wheats/alf/etc. for the deer to eat. Feed and nutrition does not appear to be an issue. For the past 10 years we've been shooting 8 pts and up and 'wider' than the ears along with mature does (2.5yr old and older). We've now began being more selective regarding our bucks and are holding out for 3.5 yr old bucks or larger. My question surrounds the doe to buck population ratio. Over the years, we've taken many does and about half as many bucks following our rules listed above. The past (2)two seasons have yielded fewer mature does with a lot of yearling does making up the mix. Also in the mix we have a wide array of bucks with some 2.5yr old bucks that support only spike or poor quality antlers. Based on our deer sightings, our buck to do ratio is 3 to 1. (3 bucks to every 1 doe - including fawns). What is everyone's opinion on the best way to manage this plot of land for more mature bucks? Should we be taking out some of the stunted/poor genetics in the scrub 2.5 and older bucks or should we continue to focus on the does and 3.5yr old bucks?

One side of our farm has very little buck sign but the edge of one of our corn fields is peppered with rubs and several scrapes. We started seeing rubs 2-3 weeks earlier this year than the previous 10. One stand has over 20 rubs and I'm guessing there must be some competition. I hope they try proving something when I'm on stand

Thought I'd share this little story . . . . I headed up for a quick evening hunt on Sunday. The wind ended up being perfect for my 'goto' bow stand (NNE), so I ventured my way out around 3:15. I was on stand and situated before 3:30 and had 2 nubbers show up at 4:05. It's amazing how big they look now that they have had a few extra weeks to grow and the fur is really thick. I watched the nubbers for a few minutes when I saw a small doe fawn sneaking in. She came in and the big doe was right behind her. It was so still and quiet that I could only move ever so slowly. I had the bow in my hand and tension on the string for over 10 minutes but could not get a shot because she kept standing either behind or in-front of a fawn. Finally, the fawns looked behind them and took off running. No snorting, just running. I still don't know why. A few minutes later the two buck fawns came in and then another buck fawn came from a different direction. Right behind this buck fawn was a big old doe. She would come in to the bait, get a mouthful and then back off the pile. She did this 6 or 7 times and after the 2nd time I started keeping track of how many seconds went past before she came back in. It ended up being about 30 seconds (give or take a few) so on the 8th time, I pulled back at around 25 seconds and sure enough, in she came. She came in, sensed something wasn't right and started to walk away. I centered the pin behind the front shoulder and squeezed the trigger. The arrow had hung up on some branches on the exit side of the deer and she spun it into the air as she ran off. I knew it was a good hit because she bucked when I shot and I could see blood in the snow from the stand. I shot at 4:25 and waited until 5:00 before getting down. I found my arrow and saw nice bubbly blood so I started to track her. There was a blood trail about 5' wide so it wasn't very difficult to track. The most difficult was walking through the very low canopy due to the snow laden branches. What used to be a comfortable 6' clearance was now around 4'. She ran about 80 yards and I found her. She ended up being a really nice doe that I figure dressed out around 140#'s. She's already cut up and in the freezer Now my hunting season is complete!

Great first buck~! That one will be hard to beat!