Suddenly Awash in Deer

[postoak]

This is bizarre. I've just been invited by my sister to come hunt their 20 acres in the Texas Hill Country. What's weird about that is they are both left-wing environmentalist bunny-huggers. I hinted about hunting when they first moved there and my sister said "we love our deer". I figured they'd be like that, so never pressed them about it in all these years.

Now, she's talking about 20 or more deer being taken off her land. Seems all the land around her is owned by similar bunny-huggers and the population has gotten so huge that they're eating all the plants. I guess they were the first to "crack'.

Oddly, I'd prefer to hunt the NF that I've been scouting all year. She makes it sound like shooting fish in a barrel. Still I may go up there for a weekend later in the season.

[dave-t.]

Don't pass up a deer rich invitation.:eek::D It is family after all.

[Twanger]

Good deal! Go whack a truck-load.
Maryland is about as liberal as it gets, but after somebody has lived the nightmare of bambi eating everything in sight they too say "kill 'em all!"

Just knocked on some doors in neighborhood last night with multi-million dollar homes and the residents were VERY happy to see us. I bet it's 90% liberal. They've had enough and want help badly.

[GF.]

Hunt for enjoyment's sake in the NF; that'll help keep you from losing your touch :D

Then whack'em heap big-ass truckload to fill the freezers - yours and that of anybody else who needs a little help. If you don't know anybody, you know somebody who does. Or you can just work with the local food shelves.

Either way - in a lot of places nowadays, killing every deer - or at least every doe - that you can is the only responsible thing to do. And figuring that you may be the only guy with access to any of those little rackin'-frackin' habitat-destroying hobby farms, if you don't do it, who will?

And then on a lighter note.... If you shoot a big ol' Suburbuck and the hollowness of that 'victory' really gnaws at you, you can save yourself the cost of taxidermy and use those antlers for some project that calls for big antlers but for which you'd never dream of carving up a 'real' trophy.

And if you don't have any ideas, I'll be happy to put 'em to good use for you :cool::D

[postoak]

Good advice. BTW GF, I'm not one of those hunters who is bragging (to himself) when he puts a good set of antlers on the wall. I'm *happy* I got the deer, not proud. Heck, a lot of the big racks taken in the past were taken by ranchers or their hands who just collected a deer they ran across in the course of their work day.

[Altjaeger]

Good advice. BTW GF, I'm not one of those hunters who is bragging (to himself) when he puts a good set of antlers on the wall. I'm *happy* I got the deer, not proud. Heck, a lot of the big racks taken in the past were taken by ranchers or their hands who just collected a deer they ran across in the course of their work day.

You can always go and collect 3 does and save a buck and doe tag for the NF too.:D

[GF.]

G I'm *happy* I got the deer, not proud.

Welll... then.... what do you beat your chest about?:confused::confused::confused:

:D

I don't know how I feel when I take a real big deer. I'll let you know... if it ever happens :D So far my biggest deer is one that I mistook for a spindly 1.5 YO and didn't realize how big he was 'til after the shot.:o

You spend enough time in the woods not being a total bungler, and sooner or later you're gonna see something special. And working on a ranch is a real good way to do that ;)

Spend the time in some woods where there are more big deer than usual, and you'll probably see a big one that much sooner. The guys who are really good are, IMO, the ones who've learned how to identify patches of woods that are likely to hold those bigger deer and then don't screw things up for themselves once they get in there.

I don't have the time it must take to try and 'pattern' a particular animal, but then where I hunt, I'm sure a good portion of his 'pattern' actually happens on land where I can't legally set foot. So I sit at the funnels - sometimes stillhunt through 'em - and wait to see that grace sends my way. Even when I do something right - like the nice young 7-point that I dumped at 20 paces with the roundballer after he bolted back where he came from, and then I sprinted 70 yards or so down & across the wind so that I'd be in the right spot when he circled down-wind of where I had been to begin with.... OK, so I used what I know about how spooked deer behave and I pulled a fast one on a nice buck. I didn't put him in the funnel that day...

Someday I hope to tag a nice enough specimen of a whitetail to put one on the wall, but the story on him is a lot more likely to be how I goofed up and got him anyway than it is to be about how I pulled off some kind of epic stalk and made some kind of million-to-one shot.

And besides - I don't take one-in-a-million shots. I like 'em more like 11 out of 10 so I don't have to worry about where that deer is going to end up. :rolleyes: