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View Full Version : Anyone else having a poor start to the season?



savedbydbelle
11-18-2004, 08:12 PM
Throughout bow season, I was seeing deer pass through every evening (just a tad-bit too dark to shoot). However, since opening day I have not seen any deer, either while hunting or walking along the usual roadsides. They just packed their bags and moved away!!! How is everyone else doing?

ANIMAL
11-18-2004, 08:24 PM
Sorry bout your hunting.
Got a big ole doe (cornfed) at 7:00am monday morning

Backstraps were a bit over 30"long and about 3"in diameter and darn tasty too.

looking for number 2 now

Jerry
11-19-2004, 04:51 PM
Well......I ended my archery season with a nice spike and have been rifle hunting all week and just got home and never saw another deer out in the woods where I hunt.......JR

Bob S
11-19-2004, 05:20 PM
We had a good opening day on my property. My dad, brother and I all saw deer. I changed stands in the afternoon and saw deer from that stand also. We filled 2 antlerless permits on Monday. Tuesday I hunted a stand in another part of the property that wasn`t hunted on Monday. I saw deer from that stand also. Five different stands used the first two days and every one produced deer sightings. I thought that made for a pretty good opener.

I hope to get out this weekend if it doesn`t rain. Trying to whack more does.

Freetime
11-19-2004, 05:22 PM
I got a real nice 7 point opening day at about 1:30 in the afternoon. It had a 17 1/4" spread was about 2 1/2 yr. old and dressed out to about 160 lbs. This was the first time I have deer hunted since 1988. Just happened to be in the right place at the right time :D By the way, "Sprink", if you're out there, I got it with the Ruger #1 in .270 that I bought from you. Beautiful rifle!!! I went up on Nov. 11th and never saw a deer until I shot this one opening day. The deer check at Clio wasn't very busy when we stopped either. ???
Larry

sprink
11-19-2004, 07:37 PM
Well I'm glad to hear it Larry! Very glad you got to use that rifle too.

sprink
11-19-2004, 07:38 PM
Well I'm glad to hear it Larry! Very glad you got to use that rifle too. Pretty piece of wood on that rifle.

ANIMAL
11-20-2004, 05:57 PM
Got #2 at 7:20 am this morning. Same spot as the first.

There's gonna be some good eatin commin up soon. :D

Maranatha
11-20-2004, 09:01 PM
I was up in Emmett County a bout 7 miles from the Big MAC.

The Only Dear I saw all weekend was the cute Blonde serving coffee Sunday Morning at the Local Levering Café.

I did see a lot of what looks like Coyote Scat, and at night when I was out watching the stars there was a lot of Howling

I hope to get out again this Friday

Autumnlovr
11-21-2004, 09:07 PM
...just got back from 10 days in Oscoda. During Archery, we were seeing quite a few deer, LOTS of yearlings, some does, a couple spikes, 3.4, 5, 6 & 8 point but most too far to shoot. (darned bambis kept getting in my way!). My hubby got the 5 point opening morning and then he did not see a single deer for the rest of the time there (but he got the 3-point during archery). I saw 2 button bucks opening day & a large "body" that would not move out from behind the brush. Then, I didn't see anything until o'dark-thirty last night. I saw 4 confirmed bambi's but the other 3 deer just kept placing their bodies and heads behind the bambi's! AARRGGHH....so I'm skunked so far this year. It's a good thing I found the rub line in my back yard. Now, I've just got to rush home from work & set my butt out back and pray the line gets tended during dusk hours.
Well...at least we have venison. I won't complain.

One of Many
11-21-2004, 10:18 PM
The only deer I saw was in the headlights of my van as I was driving home from my hunt. Two days up in rifle country (Wednesday and Thursday) and it was 45 - 60 degrees, and raining the first day. Only heard shots in the distance about 5 times for two days of hunting. It seems that every store and gasoline station up there was selling 'deer bait', and most of the peope shooting deer in that area are using bait. The 2 gallon limit (total per site) makes it hard for someone that doesn't live near their hunting site to effectively maintain a baited area. I can't take 4.5 hours of round trip driving every couple of days to stock a bait pile for 2 - 3 weeks before the rifle season starts.

bluethunder
11-22-2004, 02:38 PM
2 1/2 days near Belaire, hunting was great. But apparently the 'targets of opportunity' were not to be found. Deer - 1
Me - 0
:shock:

Randycad
11-23-2004, 08:14 PM
I spent 7 days in Jackson Co. and only saw two running at full speed through thick cover. Worst season I can remember, have to go back to work and wait for muzzleloader season. But I do love my pistol for deer.

karcent
11-23-2004, 09:01 PM
Just heard about a lucky hunter who took a 14 point buck with a 27" inside spread in the Algonac State Park a few days ago. Just a few miles down the road from my home.
This park is hunted hard by many hunters.
I'll try to get a photo.

MrSmithMSU
11-24-2004, 03:17 PM
For some unknown reason, my back gave out on me after 1-1/2 days, and I'm still not right a week later. Getting better, and hope to be out over Thanksgiving, fueled by Motrin! This has never happened to me before.

On opening day I had one nice buck sneak up behind me, then run away when he saw me move. I figure at least a 6-point, maybe more, from the quick glimpse of him I got as he went over the hill about 50 yds away. I guess I'll use the blind next time, instead of sitting in the tall grass! I saw a doe in the same field an hour later but couldn't get a clean shot before she ducked back into the woods.

Jim Rund
11-24-2004, 07:54 PM
We have deer in the woods? Only ones I saw were at about 7pm and I was sitting at a friends house in town and 4 does came into his yard and several minutes later a nice buck came in. only ones I saw until driving back from the U.P. that wern't on cars or trucks. Hope everyone had as good of a time hunting that I did. Was just nice getting out in the woods with my Dad and just sitting around in the woods I grew up hunting.

papabear
11-25-2004, 06:19 PM
Got a small doe today, there were 10 of them. Left the momma's and the babies and picked one in the middle. She's nothing to brag about but I bet that it will be good eating :D . The grand kids were begging for some of my jerky so I just had to do it. Opening day we saw about 20 in about an hour. A guy down the road counted 40. All on private land that gets hunted regularly

savedbydbelle
11-25-2004, 07:05 PM
I'm gonna try again tomorrow. Maybe now that it is cold, they will come out of the marsh before dark. Then I head north to Houghton Lake Saturday till Tuesday for a girls deer camp. Congrats to everyone who has had success so far!!

joen
12-06-2004, 12:04 PM
Second lousyest season I've experienced. Saw one doe. The lousyest of all was last year when all I saw were woodpeckers. This is an area in Roscommon county where we were seeing 10-15 deer a day until the DNR came out with these over the counter does tags, all you can buy, to eliminate the TB potential. Well, it worked! Each doe taken over the last 4 years resulted in 2-3 fewer deer the following year.

On the plus side, the DNR clear cut a square mile area west of us and I expect the deer population to benefit from this and the elimination of over the counter doe tags. Now all I gotta do is live for a few more years for me to benefit from it.

I had to come back Wed AM and saw nothing on any vehicles going south. Back up again Sun AM and saw nothing on the hoards of south bounders. Might have been some there but I wasn't in a position to peek inside truck beds, etc. as I was boogying north. Check out an area a couple of miles away and had the same result.

Talking with coworkers, I'm hearing about 12, 10 and 8 pointers being taken between Rogers City and Cheboygan. Might have been but the guys I was talking to are not known for BS.

That's my story so far. Heading up to burn some charcoal, if I can find something to burn it on. Good luck to me and others!

joen
12-22-2004, 03:17 PM
Muzzle loader season a bust as well. With fresh snow ending about 05:00 on sat, found only two track sets made b4 I got out there at 08:00. Mostly was interested in seeing where the deer were headed and coming from. Next day, nothing. Probably just as well I didn't see anything as when I 'unloaded' the rifle at dark, I missed a 3' stump at about 30 yards. Taught me I need to do a little more charge/bullet/sight work.

Jerry
12-22-2004, 06:24 PM
On Friday afternoon I had just got into my shack and was getting everything where it needed to be before I sat down and darn if when I was stooped over picking up my dropped glove I saw a couple of deer moving through the woods about 80 yards away!!!!!

Well, I just had to decide between my scoped inline or ironsighted percussion.....I decided on the scoped and as I had the cross hairs on the deer, it was facing me and I was looking for a side shot but it was standing between a couple of trees so when it shifted to the side I was getting ready(boom!) to shoot the gun went off before I was ready.....the gun has a single trigger and I am used to a double set type trigger plus I did not have time to take off my gloves yet!

Oh course with the big puff of smoke all I saw was the deer back up and exit stage right!!!

I sat there for a few minutes and talked to my friend on the radio...I (we)decided to give it an hour to pass and then start tracking....after 15 minutes of waiting the snow started coming down hard so I radioed in that I was gonna find the deer before the blood got covered up.

I finally found the track and tracked it through the thicket for 80 yards and found her!

Now the funny thing about this is that the sight picture I had on the deer is exactly where the bullet entered the deer! Boy o Boy was I lucky! The bullet entered the front of the deer right in front of right shoulder and broke 3 ribs and the bullet passed through the liver before stopping.

On the inline I use two pyrodex pellets(100 gr) with a hornady 44cal 240gr sabot. It certainly did the job!

When I shot the gun it sure seemed like the recoil was kind of low compared to my other gun with 90gr ffg under a .490 round ball...I told this to my friend and he just said, I was probably just excited during the shot. So I shot the two guns later the next day after the hunt and the pyrodex was definately less recoil then the blackpowder...I am gonna do some comparisons next summer at the range to see If there really is that big of a differance between the two.

So this year I got de-virginized (a word?) twice!!!! I got my first deer with an arrow and my first deer with a muzzleloader.....guess I am pretty lucky!!!!!

By the way.....I only saw three deer the whole hunting season...and none at all during regular firearm season.