We got another good soaking again here this morning. We've gotten more rain in the last week than we did all summer. Got out & drove around the property with the boys for a couple hours & saw a few turkey & does with yearlings in tow. The Alfalfa is looking awesome, super green & lush, but the beans are on their way out.

That alfalfa has got to be a hot spot for ya!

Evening! Nice pix there, looks like a good buck! Yes, definitely next time around I will get the taping and measuring done correctly. My neighbor said he would be more than happy to help me out with that. Definitey got the itch now though thats for sure. Going to run out to the woods tomorrow quick to get somework done for my gun season stand. Going to avoid my valley this time around and let the camera hang till I get back from AZ in a week and change....

I have been really touchy with my cam too, i dont want to disturb anything by setting it and checking it. I still think spending time glassing from afar is the best way to go.

The hot spot that I'm hoping to hunt is questionable if I want to check the cam. next Saturday is opening day but Im not 100% sure if its evening or morning when its most active. So I may have to break down and check it. But the way I'm thinking, and this is kind of backed by some of my pics, is I'm spreading some of scent in a peaceful manner. All the days I've set my cams, I have deer within hours of setting it. So I'm kinda like the farmer just doing his rounds:s13:

I have been very skiddish after an incident that happened last year. I was walking down to a draw that i had never scouted or hunted to put up my trail cam up 2 weeks before season started. the wind was in my favor and it was about 1 PM, so i figured i was pretty safe. Well long story short, i jumped to 2 nice bucks bedding together right at the "Y" that i wanted to set the cam at, never seen them 2 again the rest of the season.

I have thought about that also, but the 1 really good thing about this certain cam is that I can drive my truck to within 5 feet of it now. Last week the farmer cut all the grass and baled it up so now I have permission to drive in those areas. And whats neat about that is alot of times when I do drive in I may kick up a deer in the treelines but I'll just keep going like I don't see anything and they stand there and watch me or slowly trot off. So it makes me think they are use to a little truck traffic. Hopefully from the farmer only though.

1 week and counting. Never wanted an upcoming week to go so fast in my life.

exactly 2 weeks for me, its almost like my mind and body know lol, i am starting to get the jitters and starting to have trouble sleeping at night. And the pot of coffee i just drank isnt helping, maybe 1 more pot will.

I've been having the same symptoms here of late. I curbed the edge by doing some more scouting. My brother n law & I walked our property yesterday looking for fresh sign since we've had about 5" of rain fall in the last week. The deer are holding tight to the woodlot. The trails were covered in fresh droppings, the wateringhole is nice & deep again. We found a ton of tracks from our shooters. One of our big deer we've named "Bigfoot" left his trail of muddy hoof prints for us to track his direction & he's holding up on the same ridge that he did last year. Unfortunitly he's as elusive to being in range of our arrow as Sasquatch is to a camera. Later we glassed the crop fields surround the woodlot from the road. The deer were there but again no shooters showed up in the daylight. We won't likely put eyes on him till we're topside in a summit. 22 days & counting till open season.

good to here your finding sign anyway. I am hoping i can get away tomarrow morning and evening for some scouting as long as the wife starts getting better. But i guess it isnt all bad, since i have been stuck at home i have been able to get all my gear ready and tune in my broadheads so everything is ready to go.

Give her a big dose of Tylenol Pm & hit the woods. Lol

Team Racks n Straps has made their first harvest of the year. Check it out.

did you that trail cam pic of that hog!!! wow

Checked cams today but didn't get anything to impressive. Lucky I checked my hot spot for 2 reasons. 1 when I pulled up i noticed a limb that somehow got into my shooting lane. Its gone now. 2, my cam was laying facing the ground. Something must have bumped it. I had it propped up on a dead limb since there was no where to put it. But I found a different angle to try now. Plus behind that treeline, the cornfield is still getting irrigated and it has alot of tracks. So maybe they are just skirting around it. Then just about getting home, I get a hole in the side of my tire. Guess I have to spend some money for a tire before I can get back down there.

Sorry I didnt realize that the teams had been drawn. I'm here and will be hunting on mainly public in Oklahoma. Our season opens Oct 1.

hey kelly, havent seen you since the turkey contest, hope things went better for ya this summer.

Kelly, great to have ya here man. Welcome to the team.

Mottz, it sucks ya have to spend $ to get that tire fixed. Im sure ya had a hundred other thing in mind to spend that on.

So Kelly, what's the good word from Ok? What's your hunting situation looking like this season?

i was thinking about putting about 5 shots of crown royal in her tea then leaving after she passes out lol.

Ditto here too, I personally dont like to make too may appearances at any of my cam sites. I want to keep the impact to a minimum. There is enough human interaction on the outer periphery of my hunting areas though with making hay or moving cattle or cutting wood etc so the deer arent completely spooky which helps.....

I was hoping you'd show up kelly. Good to have ya on a team again!

Anyone scouting this weekend?

ill be heading out around noon to check the cam and maybe move it.

Get us some pics Bowman! I have to rely on my cams since there is too much corn up. And its 1/2 hour away so the fuel bill gets a little high when I make numerous trips to the area. I wish I could scout more though.

im headed out early this afternoon to check the camera, set a blind, and put in some bino time till dark. Hopefully split brow is still coming around the camera.

This was the guy i was after last year and i was hoping to see him this year but havent seen him at all. Im hoping the orange army never got ahold of him.

I'm trying to count that bucks points but it's hard to tell with the different kickers. How many points does he have?

Finally got the word from an old hunter we know & talk with at church. He has recently given up hunting due to health concerns, so we asked em if we could tend to his freezer needs for them & take a couple bucks for our trouble. Well he stopped me after church service today & gave us the go ahead for this season, with one stipulation, that we harvest him & his wife a doe before we take anything for ourselves. I really can't believe he said yes. So we'll be adding another 115 acres of Illinois river bottoms to our season now. I'm going out to his place tomorrow for a guided tour & to take a look at his wall hangers to get an idea of what we'll be hunting there. From what he's said, he's got some monsters on his wall. Now I'm even more psyched about the season than I already was. 8)

thats sick on point, unfortunately my camera batteries died and i only got a pic of a small doe but i put the other cam up in some thick stuff so hopefully i can get some antlers in the pictures put some apples and corn out infront of both cams so i should have something to look at next week when i check em.

That sucks about the batteries. I was hoping to see some antler from ya tonight. Oh well. And I don't know if ya know this tip, but if your gonna bait with apples, let em rot before putting em out. Deer love em some mushy old rotten apples. Plus it's alot more aeromatic than fresh crisp apples & the smell will draw em in from all over.

he's a 5x5 with a small kicker off his right side g2.

well this evening didnt go so well, only seen 2 does and the trail cam didnt have any good stories to tell either, just some mule deer and whitetail does and very small bucks. I did notice a big change though, it is raining acorns in the draws, so maybe that is the reason.

One word, "SWEEEEEET!!!". 8)

Are the acorns falling early there or do they always fall in Sept.? We don't usually have em drop so soon here, but I've already noticed em falling too.

Hey guys great to be here. Mottz hopefully we can have another successful season if nothing else making new friends on here. ;) and putting a little more venison in the freezer.

SD things are about the same but its looking up in several areas. I'm just glad the season is about start here to occupy my mind again.

The deer here seem to be more active than usual. Still in a little drought as most of us are. I haven't had a chance to get out to where I hunt since its about a 3 hour drive but they have had quite a bit more rain there than last year so the deer should be a lot healthier. It will still be a challenge as always but I wouldn't want it to be easy.

The acorns usually dont drop until about the last week in september, but it has been so dry around here that the leaves have already been turning this past week.

I know deer love white oak acorns but in my area i have bur oak acorns. I wonder if deer like them to or if they are too bitter?

Acorns are starting to fall here in NJ doesn't seem to be to many yet, last year you could hardly walk the woods roads without rolling your ankle on acorns. But the deer are deffinately rummaging around they already have the best crop trees tore up. I hate using apples as bait they give the deer the runs and attract flies. Nothing worse than climbing down your tree sticks only to put your hand in some nice runny deer poop from your boots

just remembered that i have a stand hung in another piece of woods not to far from the house that a buddy and i have hunted since we were 12 so hopefully with the use of his quad we can go in there and check it out and either pull my stand or trim up some lanes and maybe drop some bait. I really need to get a mountain bike or better yet a quad walking sucks