Not one of the big ones.....

[Bill Carlsen]

Here's one I shot yesterday afternoon. The landowner who gave us a right of way to our property owns a commercial flower farm. Some deer had been getting into her fences and eating some expensive flowers. Since I had an antlerless tag to use I set up a stand near a wild apple tree in back of her garden and decided to try to help her out. Well, this one and a slightly larger one walked in right under the stand. My first shot took hair off of the larger of the two but they did not go anywhere. (Did I ever tell you how quiet my DAS bow is)? The arrow has a lumenok on it but the deer came back to try to find some apples and completely disregarded the lighted arrow in the ground. This one was about 15 yards away and between two trees quartering away. It looked like a clear shot so I took it. The lumenok was very faint and I was unable to see where or even if it hit. I felt like the shot was too far foward and I was pretty sure I had hit a twig on the way. Neither of the deer went far....both about 20 yards and stopped. I could barely see the lumenok on the second arrow which was also sticking in the ground. I thought it was a clean miss. I waited until dark, got down and to my surprise the second arrow was covered with blood and there was the proverbial "blood trail a blind man could follow". It only went 15 yards and the button buck was down. Apparantly the arrow had deflected some as the arrow took out the jugular vein/carotid artery which accounts for the tremendous blood trail.  This was not one of the whopper bucks Laura and I have been hunting but we did the landowner a favor and my friend, Todd, and his family have some venison for the winter. I still have two buck tags left so I'll be back after the big boys again tomorrow or until Dec. 15....which ever comes first. The pic is not a good one of me or the deer...there was way too much rain coming down to  create an appropriate setting so Laura took one snapshot before I  delivered the deer to Todd. I was shooting my 60# DAS bow, Beman MFX and a 200 grain Razorcap. Interestingly enough the buck had very small spikes and was sexually mature (he smelled like an old goat). It was clear to me that he had been scraping and rubbing although nothing in the picture demonstrates that.

   

[coconutdave]

Congrats Bill.    

[ishiwannabe]

Congrats Bill. Im sure they will love that venison.

[twosheds]

Congrats!!

[limbow]

Well done!!!

[mmgrode]

Cool stuff!  Congratulations!  Best of luck on the buck hunting coming up!

[Bill Carlsen]

Here's the one I would really like to get a crack at....thank goodness for multiple tags!

 

[longbowben]

Congrats  

[Benny Nganabbarru]

[George Tsoukalas]

Very nice, Bill. Congratulations! Jawge

[Ray Hammond]

nice gravity feeder. You have to carry a ladder in to load that thing?

[Bill Carlsen]

Ray: We are in about 1/2 mile and we canoe in. We carry the corn in those fabric grocery bags at the store...each one will hold about 25 pounds. The feeder is about 6.5' tall and 4" in diam. so it is no big deal to fill it. That feeder will hold 25#'s of whole corn and will last about two weeks before we refill it. I have another that is 6" in diam. and it will take 50#....the coons really like that one better. I can tell you one thing for sure about baiting deer....if you don't get them the first time they show up they have got you figured out and the season gets to be really long if you don't have stands in other places where there is more natural feed. Our property doesn't have a single bearing oak tree or beech tree on it. The fellow that owns adjacent to us has a food plot and feeders all over the place and the fellow on the other side has baits out as well.  The only way we get the deer to hang around at all is to bait. My best hunting, however, it at oak trees and apple trees. Last winter was very hard on the deer herd and we did real good last year getting deer and moose so getting deer for the freezer this year isn't an issue. We are trying to learn how to hunt our  property so this year we are really trying out new things to see how they work since we can do it on our own property. Laura and I have each had one good opportunity at the bucks I have been posting pics of but like I said, if you don't get them the first time it gets pretty hard. One thing  I have learned is that corn is not much of a magnet when there is an abundance of acorns, beechnuts and apples, which are plentiful this year. Tomorrow I will be back at the apple tree where I shot the little guy. Hope your season goes well for you.

Hey, Jawge....how are you and Joanie doing? I haven't seen George T. since last Spring.  Is he doing any hunting this year? If so how's he done? How have you done?

[Brian Krebs]

I shot a doe on a special extra deer tag for antlerless deer only last week; and I found myself smiling.

 After all these years; and all the deer; I am still happy to have taken a doe.

 I tell you what- that deer tastes REALLY good !

I think it is great that we can hunt deer for over 3 decades and still find happiness in taking a deer-- even if a tape is not nessesary or needed to measure happiness.

 Congrats Bill !!!

 

[Huntrdfk]

Good job Bill, way to go!!!  


David

[SHOOTO8S]

Congrats Bill!

[Ray Hammond]

Oh, I was thinking it was 6 inches in diameter, and wondered how you could fill it, then lift it up and attach it back to the tree...It definitely looked over 6 feet tall..thats why I asked about the ladder.

We have corn in SC as well...its definitely NOT something to hunt deer over...we use them to KEEP the game on the property, and hunt other food and travel spots normally.

Canoeing in has to be fun...a classic hunt for sure.

[Bill Carlsen]

Ray: When Laura and I built our house we had underground wiring done and they left us all the left over pieces of PVC that they use. It sat around  for a few years and when we purchased our 23 acres of wetland and discovered that we had limited mast on it I decided to make a few gravity feeders just to see what would happen. I set them out this year and found that they work great on coons and pretty good for deer but it sure ain't shooting fish in a barrel. But, it does keep the deer on the property and I expect that as we get into Dec. and natural food gets depleted we may have more action than we have been experiencing so far. Tonight I'll hunt the apple tree I got the button buck at. The landowner still has several deer she would like to see disappear....I just need one of them to be a buck as that's all I have left for tags.