Hey Guys-
Seems like everyone's doing great! Some real nice deer hitting the ground.... I'll be back out again this weekend but am still holding out for a big boy. The pic below is a buck we call Deep Forks. We've held out for him for a few years and My twin brother (in the picture) shot him with a rifle last week. I had a chance at him with my bow 2 weeks before but didn't sneak him as we were afraid we might push him off our property. Gross scored in the mid 170's or so.

Good luck to everyone still going strong :)

Deep Forks- (SticknStringer's deer)

Great looking buck for sure! Can see why you didn't want to bump him!

That is a dandy. Im headed home for the holidays and the rifle season comes in next Monday so I'll be sticking around for that all week. We have a family farm thats about 200 acres. A few years ago we turned the old milk house into a butcher shop, beer drinking/ food frying spot. Its going to be a good week no matter what hits the ground. Happy Thanksgiving everyone

Birddog , You have had awesome action. Is has to be a perfect situation when hunting with primitive weapons.
Nice job on the buck.
I have been MIA for a few, I was out last weekend for the Illinois 3 day gun opener. The rut kind of slowed down, no chasing.
Saw plenty of deer, but no large ones.
My buddy did take a nice 130” 8 pt. with a hand gun….open sights 35 yds
He missed it with his bow one week earlier.
Good luck to everyone and have a great Thanksgiving break.

Hope everyone has an awesome Thanksgiving!!! I cannot wait to get back out there when season swings back around!!

Checking in to make sure everyone ate enough on turkey day. If you didn't I ate your share no worries.

First things first. I took the girlfriend out a couple of days ago and we got into the stand late. She wasn't feeling well so we got in about 1030. I hit the grunt call a couple of times and could see a deer coming to use from down the hedgerow. I could tell he was a buck not how big at that point. Well he hops the fence and when he stepped out fellas I almost **** myself. This was was a 200" monster that I had never laid eyes on before that moment. He was bristled up and coming right at us. I couldn't believe it guys. I really couldn't. First I had sat in this stand everyday all day for 8 days in a row and never seen this deer and second we had been in the stand for 10 minutes.

So she's ready to hammer this bastard and he is still walking right to us on a string. He turns at about 25 yards out and starts to rub on an evergreen. He then turns to hit another set of rubs about 10 yards to our right. I range him at 28 yards. She's good out to 40 so I figure it's over. She draws back and is following him over to the second set of rubs which is 30 yards from us. She plans to hammer him when he stops there. She's swinging with him and her back elbow hits the tree behind her and causes her to hit her release and she sends an arrow right off his ass that just hits about 6 inches behind him. He keeps right on walking and I can't get him to stop. He walks right back into the hedgerow from where he appeared, hops the fence and walks right back south from where he came. She was sick. Me too. This was one of those deer that you just see once in your life if you're lucky. He had three brows on his right side all over 8 inches. Split brows on his left over 10 inches apiece and 25 inch main beams guys. He looked like one of those deer farm fake freaks. I can still see him in my minds eye.

So here's the funny part (to me). She's so upset she wants to go home. I tell her they are cruising and she will get another chance. Well low and behold here comes her second chance. Its a 160" ten that we have seen before on pics. She wasn't interested in shooting a "small deer" after seeing the swamp monster. We sat until about 130 and she wanted to hit another spot. We haven't been back in there for about 4 days now and that area is just a crazy good funnel. We'll be back after it in the morning.

On another note I had an OK tag so I got to slip down and hunt a buddys farm yesterday. It's an absolute honey hole that is loaded. I saw several bucks and right before dark I had a stud roll in with a big group of does. I was sitting between two cornfields and needed his hot doe to bring him by because nothing I was doing was working. Well just as I got that thought out of my brain here she comes and she motors right by with ole split G2's in hot pursuit. I stopped him at 19 yards and shot him right in the heart. Scores just over 140". Nice big bodied deer. I had a great season. I may get to hunt MO yet this season. It's been great. Stay after em. We have a great chance in this contest.

Here he is. Double split G2's with one broke off or he would have scored closer to 145".

Wow - heck of a buck BB!! He's a stud for sure!! I love split tines like that!

I'm going to be doing a little hunting myself this weekend... Getting my Ross Cardiac all loaded up to use - kinda excited actually... The last couple of years I've considered it my backup bow and was using my BT Captain as my primary... Just wanted a change of pace - ha ha. I've been shooting it (as it's my backup bow) periodically. So grabbed it out of the case and giving it a once over tonight... Also got a couple of slick tricks that I've been messing around with but haven't actually hunted with them yet - I'm going to use them too (normally use 3 blade 100gr Muzzys)... Again - just looking to switch it up and try and fill my last tag.

Hope everyone had a great Turkey day! Happy hunting to all those going out this weekend!

Birddog, you've had an awesome season!! Congratulations on your two fine bucks. I couldn't imagine the party you would have had if the GF would have shot the monster. Hopefully she will back down and start to shoot at those little 160's.
MJ, tell your brother congrats on nailing Deep Forks. I bet he was thrilled to put him on the ground. Your turn is next!
If anyone is interested, I posted an updated avatar in post #199. Probably should have left some room for "2010-2011 CHAMPIONS"
I'm planning on hunting this Saturday and Sunday. Forecast shows rain and snow. Not sure if I'm ready to get soaked in a bone-chilling rain just yet. I'm hearing word of a 14 pointer that's cruising a hedgerow on public grounds about a half mile from the RV park where we stay. I'm giving serious thought of bringing my climber or my Muddy and parking my skinny *ss there for a couple of hunts. I'm estimating the second estrous cycle should kick in on Sunday, just in time for the snow.

Thanks KCMO. She sat this morning had a nice big tall 8 chase a doe by her at 80 yards. I think she has calmed down a bit and realized she should have shot the second deer. I called her in a nice 145" 8 on Saturday morning in the ****ty rain and she just couldn't get drawn back on him. He was a nice deer. We saw a helluva big bodied deer that had a nice left side with 5 good tines and his right antler was busted off about 4" above his head. He was a stud. He just needed another antler. He milled around at 20 yards for about 10 minutes before he moved off.

KCMO I think you're right on the second cycle. I just hope the rifle hunters in Kansas don't do a number on them this week. It opens tomorrow. She'll be back out Saturday morning.

Why has Jimmy's buck been scored yet? Just curious. Good luck man. Whack a biggun. You're due and we could use the dagger in the heart of this competition. Go kill a monster.

Anyone hunting this weekend? Let us know. I'll be out in it on Saturday and Sunday. I can tell my wife is getting a little agitated with my trips to the field so this might be the last one until the New Year.
Have fun and BE SAFE out there.

Good luck MO we need another kill on the board. Go get a good ole biggun or a big ole goodun whichever works best. My fiance' will be out this weekend. Should see some rutting action I would think. I met Jon Brunson today down here about a mile from my house. He is hunting some ground about 3 miles south of one of my places. He's a cool dude.

Good luck KC! Just remember that's what hunting seasons are for (to annoy the wife) - ha ha....

Hope your Fiance gets a crack at a big one Andy!

Depends on weather around here for me. Would like to try and make it out and shoot a doe over the next week or two - we'll see what happens...

Good luck to everyone going out!

Well, I wish I had some good news but I don't. Despite the rain on Saturday, I saw 3 small bucks chasing does under my stand and that was it. Sunday evening I hunted in a pop-up with my hunting buddy, mainly to see if the turkey would pass by. We had about 50 turkey pass nearby, including 1 smoke phase turkey and a group of about 20 turkey decided to roost above us. It was fun to watch.
I'll take a hunting break and see what happens after the new year. Our season finishes January 15.

Is anyone else still giving it hell? Looks like we are leading, but would be nice to get one more kill on the board. My IA shotgun season is over. I have one buck tag left for late muzzleloader. Not sure how much I will make it out, depends if we get some snow and if i can find a good food source.

Well guys, another weekend is upon us. If anyone is hunting please let us know how it goes.
I'll be spending the weekend with my family and knocking off a few of the 'honey-do's" from the never-ending list. I know that after Christmas I'll be dying to get out in the field in search of those bucks. I think I'm ready to knock one of them down.
As you guys know, Team 11 has quickly caught up and is pushing hard to overtake us. We've already had some awesome kills (all are trophys - WOW) and it would be nice to open that lead up again. Have a good weekend.
-remember, we still have that card in our pocket. :wink:

Hunted a little this weekend. Saw some does and a real nice buck. Got some nice bucks on camera. Gonna hunt Christmas morning. Hope you guys have a happy holiday. I'll put some pics up tonight. Lets kill one more.

I hunted twice over the last weekend and 2 hunts the week before that... Haven't been seeing much but it was decent weather to sit so I figured may as well be in the stand. Season is about over for me - looks like my chances to punch down a doe before season end aren't great.... Good luck to all those still hunting!

If we can get that last buck scored - we should be pretty much cemented into 1st place... :happy0001:

It's been awhile things have been hectic. I hunted the PA opener on my 200 acre family farm for 4 days back in early December. It took 4 days to find a legal deer (3 on one side). My dad and I were doing one man drives to each other and this young 8 pt came by. After I shot him he ran about 60 yards and fell hard into a creek bed. Broke his skull when one of his antlers got wedged under a rock and his body went forward. You can see how his one side is offset. I was able to move it around under his hide. Nothing special but it was only the second legal we had seen in 4 days and was my last day before I had to head back. Been out twice with the inline here in MD and no luck.

Sweet

Anybody still chasing deer with the bow? Looks like we are still leading by a buck, would be nice to add one more for security. Anyone know when the contest is over. I could look, but feeling kind of lazy now.

Kurt, I'll be out there next weekend. I have pretty good evidence that there's still some bone out there.
ALSO, I got some good news that Jimmy got his deer back from the taxidermist and will post his score soon! Awesome!

Go get one Mo. That's awesome news on jimmys deer. We're gonna hunt tomorrow also. Last day for us here in Kansas.

Alright... Finally got my mount back and found some time during the crazy holidays to measure him. Now, it was my first time taping a deer but i tried it several times and got the same thing every time except once and i was off a half inch.. so here it is lol.

Total----131 3/4 R---------------L

MB 19 ¾----------19

G1 3 ¾------------2 ½
G2 8 ½------------6 ¾
G3 8 ½------------7 ½
G4 4 ½------------4 ½


H1 3 ¾------------3 ¾
H2 3 ½------------3 ½
H3 3 ¾------------4
H4 3 ¾------------4

Inside Spread-15
Abnormal Pts- 1, ½-- both on right antler


Attachment 20370
He's the one in the middle
Attachment 20371

Attachment 20372

Nice deer Jimmy. I think it's all over but the cryin now boys and girls. Good season for team 3. We need to keep in touch over the summer.

We can do it on our team thread for that matter. We can just keep our team thread going if you guys want to.

We need to get him on the scoresheet.

Wow - great looking buck!!! Great addition to your trophy room!

Like Andy mentioned, just need to get him added to the score sheet. Need to post a picture with the full deer, bow and yourself along with the score breakdown you have above in the Score Thread. You can look at some of the previous entries for examples...

With many of the seasons just ending or ending soon - looks like we should be in good shape for the contest!

That was classic! Team 13 posts a nice buck to take the lead then Jimmy gets his posted and we have it back. Awesome! Great pictures of the mount Jimmy. That straight-on shot looks like a replica of our avatar.
Guys, I went out on Saturday and saw a couple of doe and then had an 8 pointer walk by, but I let him walk. He would have scored about 110, give or take and he walked right where I wanted him at a 25 yd shot. We are trying to let those young ones grow a bit and he should be pretty nice next year or the year after. Besides, Jimmy posted that last one and all the pressure was off!! I'll have a short video posted of this guy soon. I keep getting an error message when I add a trail cam video that was taken a week earlier of him so I just might pull that part out of the file that I'm putting together. If I can sweet-talk my wife into another trip I'll give it one last shot this coming weekend.

Jimmy,
That is a nice addition to your wall. IL has a late gun season in less than 2 weeks, I’ll be wheel gunning for some meat.
It’s cool walking out to stand with just your pistol.

Hey team,
Hope all of you had a great New Year's celebration. Mine was pretty low-keyed.
Thought I would have posted my short video of the buck I let pass last week. You can see it HERE. Also a trail cam of the same guy is video 9 on that same site.
I was trying out my new GoPro 960 video camera that my wife gave to me for Christmas. It's pretty sweet, but it's ultra wide angle so the deer will be pretty small. There are two clips in the video from the GoPro. Learned from some mistakes shooting with that camera which is mounted to a headstrap, similar to a headlamp. I'm really looking forward to using that camera more in the future.

This will be my last hunt this coming weekend. I might be hunting some property that I haven't been to in 3 years. My hunting friend has captured pictures of a couple of mature bucks there. They aren't huge but they appear to be 4 1/2 - 5 1/2 year olds from the picture. What do you guys think about the age of these guys. Why the white hooves?

Either one of those two would be nice mo.

I got a new camera for Christmas too. Its a Kodak playsport. It looks like a cell phone. Pretty neat. I just put out mineral licks this past weekend. Growing big deer starts right now. Good luck this weekend. Lay one down.

'atta boy Jimmy. Nice buck. I'm liking the scoreboard now.

Nice pics mo! My buddy harvested a mature doe here in ohio a few years back with the same white hooves. Very unique lookin deer. I wonder if its an age thing or genetic thing.? Anways thought I'd share that with ya and good luck this weekend! Goin out myself for late muzzle in hopes of filling the freezer for the winter. 60 degrees here today! Where the hells the snow!?!?!?

Well guys, it looks like I get a D- at the Buck U this year (come on! I get some credit for trying!!). Had my tag soup for lunch today. I really had a fun season hunting with a few of my good friends and sharing some of it with all of you here. If we hold on to our lead I'm really looking forward to defending our crown with all of you next year - so don't leave!!
So I'm entitled to one story for this season. Let me tell you how good of a person my neighbor is.
Mike lives across the street from me and has a couple of nice properties that we have been hunting on.
This weekend we both hunted in our favorite stands on Saturday morning. I saw 3 does and 4 bucks, all of the bucks were not legal or could grow a couple more years. I don't believe Mike saw anything except for a few turkey. For some reason we both got the urge to hang new stands in our final and desperate attempt for a successful Saturday evening and Sunday hunt. My new stand location didn't produce anything as it was really situated for the morning activities that I had seen throughout the season. Mike, on the otherhand, had a doe come in at 4:00 and decided to smoke an arrow through her. He texted me and I suggested he just wait til dark to track her down. He still had one tag left. Within 30 minutes he had a really nice buck come through. Every time he would try to shoot the buck in an opening it would keep moving so he let down his bow after it walked off and sent me a text saying the place was pretty active, and oh, "a huge buck just walked through". He was a little upset at himself for not taking a shot when he had some brief opportunities. After we retrieved his doe that night he told me he wanted me to hunt in that stand on Sunday morning so that I could get a chance at shooting that buck he saw earlier that evening. He felt bad that I hadn't taken a shot all season long and besides, he had decided to take his doe in to get processed at a nearby facility. I didn't want to encroach on his newly found hideout, especially knowing he wanted a second chance at the buck too. He insisted, and since he is the boss I told him I would give it a shot. Well, to make a fairly long story short that buck did come out of apparently nowhere at 9:15 a.m. and I hastely positioned myself on the platform of the treestand. I didn't get a great look at him but I could tell he was starting to walk away from me so I pulled out the doe bleat and let it rip. He turned around and walked pretty quickly towards me, angling slightly to the right. He looked like a nice buck with good mass and I never did count the tines knowing he was legal. At thirty yards he was in a small opening and I figured it was now or never. I quickly let an arrow fly and as the tracer sped about an inch in front of his chest my heart dropped even quicker. I knew my chance was over as he ran back behind some dense cover about 40 yards away. He stood there for a while. I noticed another set of legs with him and they both continued walking away as if nothing happened. My one shot that I had taken this year and it sucked!! I knew I had overgripped my bow and the arrow went to the right - the same thing that happend when I shot my elk last year (but it was still a lung shot - those elk are huge). The elk hung around long enough for me to stick one in him again for insurance. I replayed the shot again, probably a few hundred times, in my head. The whole event was so fast. I only had time to turn on my video camera and hit the record button. No chance to move the camera so my only footage is him walking through the corner of the screen before I shoot and running back the opposite direction in the corner of my screen after I shoot.
I met up with Mike at lunch along with another friend and his son who was hunting for the youth season on his property We exchanged stories from the morning hunt. Then we start talking about afternoon plans. Mike insisted that I hunt that same area to finish off what I started. He said he wanted to hunt another area that we had been seeing deer in lately. I couldn't believe it. I knew he wanted that buck too, but he couldn't let me finish out my season without a deer on his property. I don't think I know anyone else that is so unselfish and giving. Maybe I should have said "no" and hunted elsewhere, but I didn't. I hunted that stand and enjoyed every minute of it despite not seing a thing. Mike had fun shooting at some turkey running through the other location he decided to hunt at. We are both looking forward to next year.
Mike is a great friend of mine.

Looks like we did it guys. I've been in the contest for quite a few years and never won it. Won the turkey contest a few times, but never the deer. Periodically through the summer, check into the team thread to stay in contact. And of course let's repeat next year since we get to keep our team. Congrats everyone.

Can we get any replacements for kydeerhunter who never really had anything to do with our team.

Oh yeah I almost forgot.

I would like to thank my momma, but most importantly my lord and savior Jesus Christ. Without him its not possible. Id like to thank mathews, grim reaper, summit treestands, reconyx.cameras, I know I'm leaving someone out. Oh my teammates. They're beautiful. God willing we'll be right back here next year.

On a serious note. Get out there and start scouting. Get your cameras up. Find them sheds. Get your mineral licks out. I saw several nice deer after I killed mine in Kansas. I'm looking forward to next year.

Great job everyone! I'll check in through the spring and summer. I'll get out one more time here in MD before our season ends the 31st just for fun.

Nice job team!! I've really enjoyed being on this team and reading about everyones season. Next year I promise to put SOMETHING on the boards. I'm already excited about next season and defending our title.
So here's my latest dealings. I've been taking care of my wife in the hospital for the past 10 days. She broke her neck in a freak accident on January 17. That morning I had taken her to a surgicenter for foot surgery to fix a couple of bunions and 2 hammer toes. On the way home from that surgery I left her buckled in the back seat of my Yukon while I ran into the grocery store to get her some juice that she asked for. I couldn't have been in the store more than 3 minutes. As soon as I got inside the store my wife quickly got nauseated and had to throw up. She unbuckled herself and opened the car door, threw up a couple of times and then passed out cold without warning. She fell out of the car and landed on her head. I found her face down and not moving. scared me to death. She finally came around and I held her down on the pavement until the ambulance got there. She will eventually be okay but it's gonna be a long recovery. She developed a blood clot on Friday and the docs are now trying to get her blood thinned properly. It's a really slow process. I've worn myself down over these past days but have had help from relatives that have come into town to let me go home during the days and get some rest, so Ive got my second wind now. I'm just glad this didn't happen during the hunting season....that would have been HORRIBLE!
Gotta run, you guys take care........looking forward to next season.

Extremely sorry to hear about your wife, I hope she has a full and speedy recovery!

X2! So sorry to hear about your wife! Glad to hear the Dr's are saying she's going to be OK!

Holy **** mo. Hope she heals up quick. That's just bad luck brother. Hope she heals up quick.

nice job team!! sorry i didn't get to add to our total.maybe next year.wish eveyone a safe and good year.