some damn nice pics jesse, id like to see your bowtech laying across his chest for a photo.

So to keep with pace, lets hear about our individual hunting properties.
I'm hunting Mason county Illinois. My hunting parcel is 450 acres of high ridges, deep draws & its covered in briar thickets & mature white oaks. Its 425 acres of timber in a sea of beans & corn with a small pasture in the wood lot.. Its holding more deer than we can hunt, so we have set to shooting alot of does & cull bucks while waiting for the old slammer bucks to slip up & walk into a trimmed lane. The acorns here fall the size of golf balls. The property has two spring fed creeks running the length of the property & an inactive cattle pond just inside the tree line bordering an abandoned pasture. This place is buck heaven & I only share it with 3 other bowhunters. We haven't hunted it with firearm for 4 years now. We've put in around 12 sets now & we've been trying to not all hunt the same times & we try not to sit the same set twice in a row. Its going to be a great season I do believe.

So what about the rest of ya?

my hunting area is pobably about 4-4.5 square miles. 75% of it is cattle pasture with rolling hills and draws all connecting to a spring fed creek covered in plum bushes at the bottom of the big valley. there is about 28 oak tree draws that also have alot of brush leading up the hills from the creek. most of the draws lead up to flat plains with a mixture of wheat, sunflower, and corn fields that is also part of my area. I bow hunt and rifle hunt the property. I am the only one that bowhunts this land but everybody and their dog rifle hunts it, so it is usually pretty damn good in the early season and alot of chaos in the late season. Take the good with the bad i guess.

Well, ya better bust a biggin before the cavalry shows up for firearm season then. And your hunting grounds sound mighty fine also.

yup that is why i have been putting in more bino time than trail cam time. it seems to work better that way. If you ever want to swap grounds jason let me know lol.

Umm no! Lol... I moved to Illinois from Ky for one reason, Illinois Whitetail. Though I don't doubt South Dakota isn't amazing, it just isnt Illinois. Lol

thats definately the truth, I think eastern sd has bigger bucks than western sd. The best part about western south dakota is i can hunt antelope, mule deer, whitetails, turkeys, sharptail grouse, and pheasants within 10 minutes of the house lol. I like variety packs.

Well, anytime you decide to come hunt Illinois, let me know & I'll be sure to trim a set out for ya. Ill also have the Mrs set an extra spot at the dinner table for ya. 8)

as long as you stay under hadley creek prices lmao.

Lol, I only want one arm, not an arm & a leg both. And they can probably promise you a shooter. I can only promise a long drive home. Lol

My hunting ground is a strip of trees around a creek that is right now dry. But the land itself with all the crops is about 1 1/2 miles long by 1/2 a mile wide. Neighboring properties have alot more thick timber but the deer use my land as a travel route from 1 property to the next.

Sheesh you guys got my heaven out there. My land is new to me and right behind the house. i got a 20 acre orchard grass field behind the house that nothing but turkeys come into, there was a big sweet corn field through the little section of woods so that's where most of the deer were all summer out of sight. The land buts up to a state forest so i got an endless amount of woods. Its mostly oak flats with thick briar patches scattered around. I still got a lot of exploring to do. Around here its really hard to pattern the deer before the season everything is woods not many fields or high spots to glass just flat ground full of oak trees and pine trees. Not that great but you gotta make do. Ill see if i can get an aerial shot for you guys just to show you how much timber there is. I love that we have so much activity in the team already. A little background about myself; been hunting since i was 10 i am now 23 the past 2 years i haven't done much hunting at all due to the spring and fall being busy times at work. I work at an Asphalt plant where i operate the plant itself so i can be on the computer all day long.:biggrin: I did find a dead 3 pointer Sunday when i went for a walk right by one of the ponds in the woods. Another friend i work with has found 5 dead deer on his land all around the water including 2 nice 10 pointers. I think we are having a minor blue tounge/EHD outbreak so hopefully i don't find to many more dead ones. I plan on hunting hard now that my spot is right outback i got a few ideas to put me on the bigger bucks. they like to hang in the marshes where no one can see them in the cat tails and phragmites and i have good acces to that where it would be difficult to get to from anywhere else so hopefully it pays off and i can put something on the board for us.

Boy oh boy its raining again! And its a cold, heavy rain. The deer outta be loving it after the dry summer we've had.

The problem with my area is the deer dont hold a pattern very well. They seem to use different draws day to day to go to and from the crop fields. So every time i go out i stand on top of a big hill looking over several draws and just kinda scratch my head and play the inni minni miney moe game lol. luck of the draw i guess

You need to get out there & find the big bucks bedding areas & you'll find those areas by walking the woods & knowing which sign to look for. And if you can't find ol' bruisers bedroom, you might find the does bedding areas a bit easier & come rut you can count on the bucks to visit them there.

Risnerpse checking in.

Bowman, your land sounds like a real treasure. I've hunted several parcels adjoining public lands & if you can provide the public land herds a safe, low pressure bedding area in the tall grasses & maybe a small food source, you'll hold the deer. If that's not an option, I've always liked to use the back door to the public lands & let the public push the deer in my direction. At any rate, ya won't know where the deer hold up until ya get out in the timber & do some heavy scouting. Put in the long hours scouting year round & you'll find the deer.

I've primarily hunted the same 450 acres for the past 4 years with an occasional hunt here or there. We scout 365 though. We know this property as well as the deer do. We've named all the draws & sloughs, the two creeks, the abandoned pasture & even the ridges. We've got topo, sat.,& terrain maps on the wall here at home with pins & labels covering every acre. Hell, when the deer begin to favor one trail or change up their bedding areas, we know & adjust our map pins & treestands accordingly. I've scouted this parcel so often that I know it like I know the floor plan to my home. Now if I could only teach the local heard to pose for me while I arrowed them. Lol

Hey Risner, welcome to the team & thanks for checking in. Introduce yourself & make yourself at home.

We've been pretty active thus far, so do some reading, catch up & join in.

on point you are right our shotgun season here in NJ is 6 days long and every yahoo and their grandma is in the woods i know ill be in the right spot that week. I have been sweating my arse off all summer walking around the woods at least 2 times a week after work so i got a semi good idea of whats going on, i think...:biggrin: Im really excited about this season coming up being its the first season ive deer hunted in 2 years my shooting is on point i just need some cooperation from the brown ones

I have 4 seperate bachelor group bedding areas figured out so far this season, problem is when the start moving in the evening they seem to use different draws to get up to the fields. I had the split brow buck pretty well pegged where he would cross a dam every evening but after the rancher let his cattle in that all changed and now i'm back to square 1. The good news is when Mr. split brow went to the other side of the property he ran into my trail cam so i think i can get his new routine figured out again.

Well, seems I've got some more free time on my hands so I'll keep pushing our posting numbers. And to add to the conversation I'll ask this, " how many days on average do yall spend afield during a typical whitetail season? And if your a whitetail nut like me, you've probably already calculated how many days you expect to hunt this year & have them marked on your calendar already. So what's your projected number of days afield for this year. Set a goal & make it happen. 8)

I myself average between 70 & 80 days afield out of a 107 day season. I anticipate this to be my average again this year. Though some days I've only the time to sit a few hours in the morning or evening, I put 30 or more days of dawn till dusk hunts in during the season. My wife just said recently that she & our boys better spend more time with Daddy because come Oct. we won't see him again till Jan. 8)

Now if everyone will participate, I'd like to keep track of our teams stats & estimate & later record our combined & consecutive days afield. So keep us posted as to when your hunting. Sounds fun huh? Lol

Normally my sits consist of sun up to about 9 or 10 then back out by 230-3 till sundown only ever sat in a tree all day once and i didn't see anything but squirrels:confused0024:. i Hope to sit at least sat and sunday mornings and evenings then whatever i can squeeze in during the week after work. My schedule changes daily depending on the orders and what kinda problems we run into with the plant/on the job but the latest i go in is 7am so morning hunts are out of the question during the week

Hell Jared, if I only hunted the weekends & occasionally during the week, I wouldn't be leaving my stand between 10am & 2:30pm on sat. & sunday, that's like 120 hours of hunting right there which averages like 10 extra days of hunting to your season that youre missing out on. Plenty a good whitetail have heard their last "THWACK" between the hours of 10am & 2pm. 8)

i will try to last i get restless and my ass starts to hurt after 4 hours or so and all the squirrels start looking like target practice. Plus as of yesterday my girlfriend was put on bed rest for the remainder of her pregnancy so the early season all day sits are out of the question.

What do ya folks think of using this graphic as our Team avatar? She has my vote!


http://www.tshirt-reviews.com/images...A12610B-md.jpg

my vote is a yes!

As captain I'm going to go ahead & make the executive decision & say that lil ms. sweet ass is going to be our team avatar. Anyone wanting to object can speak up but they should really expect the rest of us to make fun of them for the remainder of the contest. Lol

looks good enough for me

Looks good!

The outdoorsy look in the background is beautiful. Thats why I will accept this as a team avatar:s13:

I usually wont start hitting the woods till at least the 2nd weekend in October however that may change up a little now since they put the kibosh on the stupid 4 day antlerless gun hunt in October. Best news yet, lotsa cheesehead bowhunters love that they stopped nonsense. I already have my leave scheduled from 3 Nov thru 12 Nov to cover the rut hunting here in WI....
Oh yeah, got a few more pictures to share if anyone is interested

If we are interested, what kind of question is that, you got the best pics yet. Hell yeah i want to see em

I think that is the same buck at 3 different times on the 21st of Aug....

that is an amazing buck, Is that G3 on the left side split? I never understood why these big buck experts want typicals, my dream deer is the one with the most trash on his rack.

yeah he has stuff all over... Not sure if its split or not. I just checked my cam yesterday and I am sorting through the pictures now. I do know I have a buck on the 2nd of Sep that finally has solid bone now, no velvet

yea monday evening i went out and sat on top of a hill with binos and seen 5 bucks, 4 still had not even started rubbing their velvet off and 1 had rubbed all his off.

yeah I would imagine its only a matter of time. Finally going to cool off up this way this weekend. The shorter days and cooling off should get em scraping that velvet off....