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Hunting & Fishing Deer hunters

Nathan Gravitt

Sergeant of the Hide
Full Member
Minuteman
Jan 23, 2018
152
84
Lynchburg, Va
Who’s getting geared up for the upcoming season? Bow opens the first week of October here. About time to plant fall food plots. Anyone have any good bucks on camera? I only have one shooter but I had him on camera last year and he didn’t winter on the property I hunt. The first pic is the buck I’m talking about. The others need at least another year
 

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Those are some good lookin bucks! Archery season opened sat out here but its been in the 100s and I haven't been much into bow hunting lately. I found a couple promising new spots early summer for rifle season. Really excited for a private land whitetail hunt in Oregon this October too. Hopefully it's a good year. Hunt hard, fill the freezer and enjoy every second outdoors!!!
 
Those are some nice deer. I’ve found since I started using cameras extensively where I hunt that bucks will stay in one place all summer and up until the rut starts. You have to get them before the rut or there is no telling where they will run off chasing does. The flip side is during the rut you see bucks on camera that you have never seen before. Hope you can get him
 
I'm going out in muzzle and firearm season. No interest in bows and arrows right now. First time deer hunting in my current state and on public land. I'm effectively self-preparing to be disappointed, annoyed, and shot at. Especially since I don't have any kind of tree stand... nor a place to keep one.
 
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I'm going out in muzzle and firearm season. No interest in bows and arrows right now. First time deer hunting in my current state and on public land. I'm effectively self-preparing to be disappointed, annoyed, and shot at. Especially since I don't have any kind of tree stand... nor a place to keep one.
Where are you located? Public land hunting is hard. My best advice is to go out during small game season and walk a lot. See the land. Try to make friends with people you see out there and get advice on where to go.
 
Georgia. I have been out to many WMAs and so forth hiking with my dog, scoping out places I want to be. Many years ago when I hunted, I would randomly come across deer on hikes. My dog has bumped ONE in 5 years of going on hikes into the forest in these places -- just one. Either there aren't as many out there or they're a crafty bunch down here (my experience is in IL and Michigan). I don't know anyone that's a public land hunter (and nobody I know wants to let me step foot on their private land or lease). I hope to meet folks and plan to be nice but from what I've been told about people who do public land hunt around here, people are more often than not assholes and I better pick a spot for the day and make it known it's mine. Some people tell me if I go farther than 400 yards from a road I'll be all alone. I plan to go as far from "the road" as possible and not to hunt the "most popular" WMAs, so hopefully that helps me.
 
Georgia. I have been out to many WMAs and so forth hiking with my dog, scoping out places I want to be. Many years ago when I hunted, I would randomly come across deer on hikes. My dog has bumped ONE in 5 years of going on hikes into the forest in these places -- just one. Either there aren't as many out there or they're a crafty bunch down here (my experience is in IL and Michigan). I don't know anyone that's a public land hunter (and nobody I know wants to let me step foot on their private land or lease). I hope to meet folks and plan to be nice but from what I've been told about people who do public land hunt around here, people are more often than not assholes and I better pick a spot for the day and make it known it's mine. Some people tell me if I go farther than 400 yards from a road I'll be all alone. I plan to go as far from "the road" as possible and not to hunt the "most popular" WMAs, so hopefully that helps me.
I live in Atlanta and I have hunted WMA’s a pretty good bit. PM me and I may be able to help.
 
no cameras here but I'm about as ready for bow season as I've ever been. ordered a new bow but I won't have it for 2 more weeks lol, gives me a couple days to get it tuned up and ready to go.... Bow season opens October 1st here too...
 
Got the gun and backup guns verified today. I can’t shoot a bow anymore thanks to an angry c130 but muzzle loader might get brought out.
 
This guy is my target when archery season opens in October, even though I’ll most likely only shoot pigs until rifle season starts.

That’s a beautiful buck. I have a kill permit on the property that I hunt. I have seen every buck I have on camera through a thermal. Good stuff. Hopefully he sticks around once the season starts
 
I just got a muzzleloader from CVA. Never fired one. Will be interesting.
Just a suggestion. Look into blackthorn 209. You won’t regret it. The worst thing about muzzleloaders when using loose powder or pyrodex pellets, 777, or even white hots is the cleaning. You won’t be able to fire more than 3-5 rounds without having to clean your barrel. The black horn 209 isn’t the same. I haven’t even cleaned my gun since the last time I shot it in November. You would need a black horn 209 breechplug but other than that you are good to go. I hated the idea of loose powder until I tried it.
 
I read about that. If I planned on doing a lot more muzzleloader hunting, I would go that route. Considering I will sight the scope in and then shoot at one deer during the muzzleloader season, I'm probably going to accomplish firing a total of 5 rounds. If I have to clean it and fire a few more, I will. The White Hots will drive a Barnes copper sabotted 250 gr slug and that's as complicated as I'm going to be about it.
 
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That’s a beautiful buck. I have a kill permit on the property that I hunt. I have seen every buck I have on camera through a thermal. Good stuff. Hopefully he sticks around once the season starts
I’m hoping he does. Even if he doesn’t or gets shot by a neighbor, I always have new bucks move in once the rut starts. My biggest concern this time of year is keeping the hogs from running everything off.
 
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I have tons of pictures of deer in my backyard. However it's just a pass through and the deer vacate it during the season. I've been practicing with the crossbow for 2 weeks now. I'm ready, if the deer do there part, I'll be eating venison this winter. Got a freezer ready. All I need is for Bambi to do his part.
 
Just went to camp yesterday to show a buddy around. This will be my first time attempting bow hunting and I've practiced so much over the last 8 months that I've shot out 2 blocks. Definitely looking forward to that. That'll give me a couple extra months to be in the woods, but I'll still gun hunt when that opens. 4 wheeler is all tuned up, gonna check my zero at work this week and I just got gifted an old run down camper that I'm gonna have a good time gutting and remodeling into my home away from home. My club just acquired another 750 acres of paper company property, so that gives about 18 of us a total of 1400 acres.

To say I'm excited is an understatement. Hell, I can already smell Dutch oven biscuits and fresh backstraps. Rain or shine, I'll be in the woods every available minute. Just as a bonus, I got drawn for a limited entry bow only property thats 5 miles from my front door for the days I don't have enough time to make the drive to camp. And don't tell her, but I happened up on a package on the front porch from Scheels marked happy birthday. Only thing I asked for from there is a Spott Hogg Wiseguy release. 4 more days and even my bow will have a bad ass trigger 😎
 
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Just went to camp yesterday to show a buddy around. This will be my first time attempting bow hunting and I've practiced so much over the last 8 months that I've shot out 2 blocks. Definitely looking forward to that. That'll give me a couple extra months to be in the woods, but I'll still gun hunt when that opens. 4 wheeler is all tuned up, gonna check my zero at work this week and I just got gifted an old run down camper that I'm gonna have a good time gutting and remodeling into my home away from home. My club just acquired another 750 acres of paper company property, so that gives about 18 of us a total of 1400 acres.

To say I'm excited is an understatement. Hell, I can already smell Dutch oven biscuits and fresh backstraps. Rain or shine, I'll be in the woods every available minute. Just as a bonus, I got drawn for a limited entry bow only property thats 5 miles from my front door for the days I don't have enough time to make the drive to camp. And don't tell her, but I happened up on a package on the front porch from Scheels marked happy birthday. Only thing I asked for from there is a Spott Hogg Wiseguy release. 4 more days and even my bow will have a bad ass trigger 😎

You will love early bow season. Deer aren’t near as skittish since all the gun hunters haven’t plowed through and stunk up every square inch of land
 
You will love early bow season. Deer aren’t near as skittish since all the gun hunters haven’t plowed through and stunk up every square inch of land
Ain't that the truth. Our bow season starts 10-1 every year. I usually start really hitting the woods first week of nov, firearms season always starts sat aft Veterans day. Night and day difference
 
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Im really excited for the first time in several years. My last hunting spots went private. But this year, I was able to get on an 800 acre lease. Im behind where I would like to be (just got on this weekend) so no cameras out or scouting yet. But now I have to catch up. Should be interesting!
 
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Hopefully since I've been knocking hogs down all summer I'll have some deer back this year. From opening day last year (11-19-20) until last Saturday night all I've been doing is killing hogs. They took over my 1000 acre hunting lease. It's been all out war on them. I think I've put enough pressure on them to thin the herd and cause them to seek other refuge off my lease. All I'm seeing of them is the big boar hogs as I've just about shot all the female hogs I can find. Now I'm taking out the big breeder boars as that's all that coming to the bait. I've killed 65 hogs since the 1st of the year.

Last week is the fist deer I've seen on my cameras besides hogs. I had 2 does show up in one field and a doe and spike in another.

A few of the pests I've removed this summer.
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Went to camp yesterday. Built a quadpod stand, a tripod stand and i hung my climber in a gnarly hardwood swamp bottom thats torn up with sign. We put out 4 more cameras and about 300lbs of corn. My rookie bowhunting season starts next Saturday. I'm jacked about it.

A couple weeks before rifle opens, we've got a truckload of iron and clay peas coming to plant in all the plots. This is gonna be a good year hopefully!
 
Just sent my last 20 practice arrows down and loaded all my gear/4 wheeler in the truck. Gotta work tonight, but im headed straight to camp when I get off at 0200. Should get there just in time for a tree stand power nap.

This is gonna be the longest night everght ever. T minus 17 hours till my first bow hunt! With any luck, I'll have some pics by the evening.
 
Just sent my last 20 practice arrows down and loaded all my gear/4 wheeler in the truck. Gotta work tonight, but im headed straight to camp when I get off at 0200. Should get there just in time for a tree stand power nap.

This is gonna be the longest night everght ever. T minus 17 hours till my first bow hunt! With any luck, I'll have some pics by the evening.
Good luck. Hope you have better success than I did. I lost my biggest deer to the neighbors last weekend.