Hunting and Fishing ***Picture Warning***

[ACecil]

Very nice, Todd!

[Sugarmaker]

Todd,
Do you have room for any more hunters where you hunt? Those are all awsome deer! The mounts look great in your deer room!
Thanks for posting!
Regards,
Chris

[nikster]

One of my stupid coyote's,

[nikster]

Originally Posted by zippy1

Here's our deer room, you could say we're whitetail crazy

Nice MAN CAVE room, super racks.

Nik,

[zippy1]

Nik, that's how a coyote should look, (dead) nice job on the skull.

[ACecil]

Originally Posted by zippy1

Nik, that's how a coyote should look, (dead) nice job on the skull.

What Todd said!

[zippy1]

Originally Posted by Sugarmaker

Todd,
Do you have room for any more hunters where you hunt? Those are all awsome deer! The mounts look great in your deer room!
Thanks for posting!
Regards,
Chris

Well Chris, if I did I would let you know the land we have was what my grandfather bought back in the early 40's for 25 cents an acre, (how strange does that sound?) it's not alot, 180 acres, but that also includes ag-fields, not all wooded.
I, my wife Nancy and our hunting buddy hunt it. We started to do the deer management thing back in 1996, harvesting does and passing 2 1/2 year old bucks, it was doing well with the cooperation of the neighbors till about 2008 and the neighbors stopped shooting does and our deer population took off for the moon again.
So the bucks in the area lost their prime bedding, and everything became over browsed, not enough food through the winters to sustain a higher deer population, all the bucks food intake went to just survive, not to grow their antlers. Plus the bucks suffered because of the preasure on them to breed more deer, antler production went way down over the last few years also.
Granted, their out there, but not in the numbers we had say three years ago, used to be our 3 1/2 year olds would dress in the area of 200 - 225# in the prime time of the year. Our does used to go 125 - 140# now if one hits 120# you're lucky.
See, the neighbors thought by doing the management thing one could harvest a mature buck every year, and if they didn't see ten deer on each sit, there were none, so they just stopped shooting does and passing the younger bucks, years of work went right out the poop shoot. I guess it's the truth, times change, I for one hope it changes again soon.

[Sugarmaker]

Todd,
We have a lot of folks posting there land near by so there is a chance for big bucks in the area. Our doe population in the part of PA is well under control.

Your deer management looks like it work well till the over population started. We saw that here in the 70's 80's and into the 90's. Then we thinned the herd.

One of the problems we have is that the antler restrictions do not apply to all hunters so junior hunters can take anything with a horn over 3 inches. Great for the kids. And I enjoyed very much that the grand kids got some small bucks too.

So we will keep hunting and trying to stay awake I hope to harvest a big racked buck at least once before I hang up the ol 06.

I am looking forward to the late muzzle loader hunt here starting after Christmas.
Regards,
Chris

[nikster]

It's a shame that some people don't want to accept the fact that selective shooting in a given area WORKS. You could talk to them till your blue in the face. A friend of mine had the same problem & ran into the same ignorant people. Sooooooo, he started food plot's with 2 other neighbors. That made a come back for all those years lost. Yeah it ran a few $$ but it bounced back.

Nik,

[zippy1]

I hear you, some spots in WI are below goal, but in the farm country around here, it's way over goal. We've been planting foodplots for many years now, our deer management group became a dealer for the Whitetail Institute, (Imperial brand products) four years ago. At our place here, this year we planted five and a half acres of foodplots, all annuals, it does the deer good while it's there, that should be enough to get them into March, but it will be gone before the middle of Jan.
The neighbors take advantage of it by posting close to the fence line, but it is what it is. We'll just keep doing our thing, we were doing the management three years before the neighbors decided to try it. They couldn't figure out where all these bucks were coming from all of a sudden Dah!
I keep saying we'll do what we can, we harvested nine does this year and one buck. But the neighbors will still say there is no deer. If that was true, we wouldn't of been able to harvest nine does!