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how do you guys do it?
joshmb1982
Member Posts: 8,228 ✭✭
ive been shooting a bow an arrow of some sort since i was about 5 years old. started with a little yellow longbow and suction cup arrows. the last couple years ive gotten back into it. went out and bought a parker legend ep compound and the whole get up. im not the greatest shot in the world but at 40yds im confident i can make a good kill shot on a deer. ive been laid off since the beghinning of september this year. been out trying my luck since mid-late september and today i think im calling it quits. at least for this year. saw 2 deer i could have taken a shot at and didnt. one was a doe that looked to be this years fawn. the other was a nice buck buck that was about 40yds away but there was a bit of brush in the way and i was comfortable with the shot. that was in early october. about 2 weeks ago now i moved my treestand and the second day in it i saw a small herd of deer(probly 4-6 deer) about 125 yards off. waited a few days and moved my stand over some. this is now up on top a pretty goodsized hill. it was about 25 degrees here this morning when i started trekking up to my stand. being a good walk i only put on a layer of thermal bottems and pants and 2 thermal tops and carried my coveralls and jacket in a backpack. i get on top of the hill by my stand and im sweating pretty good.. and i was not rushing in the slightest. I started climbing the tree (it was a decent sized hickery) the bark wasnt flaking to bad at all so i went on up. i didnt realize hickery bark was so damn hard. the teeth on my climbing treestand were only sinking in mabye 1/4 inch. i goot up about 15 ft and said ---- this and got down. if i wouldnt have been sweating i would have just sat down under a pine tree but with my hair soaked i figured no way so i came home. how do you deal limiting yourself to a 40yd shot max? if id have had a rifle or shotgun id have taken a shot at the buck. jusst seems like you limit yourself so much archery hunting at least for me it almost makes it all but impossible. though all add this is all on heavily hunted state land so the deer are spooky as hell to begin with. sorry for the rant. but this is so frustraiting to me. thanks for listening.
Comments
One of the places I hunt has winter wheat. My buddy spent over 20 hours their the weekend before Thanksgiving and finally shot the only deer he had seen on Sun. morning. There is just too much food out there for them to eat that they don't even care about fresh greens.
For years I used bow hunting for scouting for our firearm season. This year I have been on the does pretty good though.
Keep at it. If nothing else it beats watching tv.
Don't give up. I shot (rifle) at my 1st elk at age 16 and missed. I didn't even take the safety off for the next 6 years.
+1 man. It will come together for ya, perserverance always pays off..............eventually[:)] my uncle went 13 years without even seeing an elk yet kept goin hes been in the middle of the elk every year for the last 6.
Dont get down man it will work out for ya ten fold...............eventually[:)]
The deer are thick as thieves! One of the nearby towns is named Deersville, if that tells you anything.[:D]
I didn't tag out this year because I was being waaay to picky, and the bruiser I was hunting snookered me 3 times. I passed on at least 15 shots at some really nice bucks, but that big ole boy was the one I wanted.
Each year in that area I will see between 30-50 bucks, in a 5 day period.
Once we tag out, we turn to coyotes, since they are pretty thick too. So if you ever decide to make the trip, remember to throw a rifle in with your gear. There is plenty of state owned areas to hunt, so access is not an issue.
Just a thought, and maybe rekindle your interest.
Seeing game up close, calling to it, having to better learn the habits of your game to get close is all part of the archery experience. It can be frustrating not to harvest, but there are alot of perks along the way.
Couldn't have said it any better.
im just gonna wait untill we get some snow on the ground. hopefully that happens befor the season ends. it snows and the deer will probly move around a bit more.
its like the woods are dead.
I've heard a bunch of people say that this year. Sure is strange.
Not sure how much this applies to your situation but this story might help:
When I went through my big dry spell for elk I was freaking out. I almost quit going. The elk were there. When it snowed there tracks were everywhere but I was never in the right place at the right time. My approach was to do it just like my father taught me...sit on the big meadows and wait. All day every day if you had to. And this works if you have the time but I never did. I'd have 3-4 days at most then back to school. I eventually focused on 2 basic principles that over the years have resulted in a significantly higher kill rate than the average guy.
Principle 1: There is no single thing you can do to significantly increase your odds of success but there are many many little tiny things that you can do and each one increases the odds just a little. Enough of these over a long enough period of time equals more animals hanging in camp.
Principle 2: You have to maximize your shot opportunities by learning to take the 1st shot that you know you can make. You can't wait for the perfect textbook shot.
Once I started thinking like this I shot 5 elk, including 2 bulls, over a 6 year period. The significant part of this is that I only had 5 shot opportunities and only fired 6 rounds!!! I had to shoot one of the cows twice and both shots hit the heart.
Realize that my experience is almost exclusively rifle hunting but as I transition to archery these principles will be coming with me.
Do not give up. You will be a much better hunter when you come out the other end of this drought.