**Returning Champs** BUCK U- Team 3
 

Team 3 Team Buck U

joejr69- checked in
Jimmyt
SouthDakotaHunter- Checked in
Mj469- Checked in
Theeasternfly (pa_yote_hunter)- checked in
zubba- checked in
betterbirddogs- Checked In
Kydeerhunter03- Checked in
whacker- Checked in
KCMO Cityboy- checked in
Bucktail_Bob- Checked in

Jenna you're listed on 2 teams so get your butt over to team 9. lol

Welcome back everyone. I say "why ruin a good thing"...and let's go with the same name and captain as last year. As long as last year's captain is OK with it.

I'll be hunting my home state of Iowa again this year. The buck/camera action has been pretty slow this year. Got a couple shooters, but not as many as I was hoping so far.

I see KYdeerhunter, your on two teams. Not sure how that happened. I'm pretty sure you where part of our team last year (since we won the contest, we keep the same team). If I remember right, didn't you have problems with the person's land you were hunting last year & not being able to shoot a deer he 'called'? Then you ended up not really hunting at all last year due to this? I don't know, maybe I'm confused.

Yea youre right lol I didnt even know we won! Shows how much I checked up on here haha I dont have a problem staying on this team tho.... I was just playing along :)

Got a new farm this year thats just me on it so....hopefully I can put a big buck in the dirt.

Fieldmouse has taken you off this team if i read it right jenna.

hey everyone how's it going? i'm stoked for the hunting season this year they moved are opener up to oct.1 not long now!!! i'll be hunting in my home state of ny.

I dont know whats going on lol If I am supposed to be on this team since we won last year then I will stay...seems like he was getting kind of mean about it and I never got notified to "make myself known" on team 3

Everybody feeling good!!?? Glad to see everyone back on the team this year. Jenna, glad you have your hunting arrangements worked out this year. Last year kinda sucked for you.
HEY, if anyone wants to be the Captain this year please speak up. I have no problems with letting someone else take on the duties.
I'm sure Kurt already has baby camo for his kid that he'll be taking with him out in the field, right?
Joe, you ready to take a bruiser this year?
I'll post a few pictures in the next few days of some of the guys I've caught on the game cams. I think I have 3 different 10 pointers, but only one that has any decent mass. He should score just over 150. Several nice 8 pointers too.
When you check in be sure and let us all know about what's been going on the past year. Would like to hear it all.

Hey KCMO, good to hear from you. I didn't want to stick you with captain if you didn't want it...so I hope my post didn't come across that way. If anyone else wants it, I'm cool with it. You did an excellent job last year, so I'd be cool with you again.

I either have issues or my wife has issues, but Stella actually don't have ANY camo. Can you believe it. She somehow finds herself a lot of pink in her closet, but no camo. Then again, I don't do the shopping, so I guess I really can't complain.

Nice to hear you have some good bucks showing up. We have a couple descent ones and a really ugly/wide 11 that I'd probably take, but nothing to write home about. How has everyone's area been with EHD. We haven't found any dead deer yet, but it is a scary thing.

The good thing is, at least we don't have to think of a team name...haha.

BB checking in, I have not been out to my spot since turk season so I have no idea how things look. Anyway, I'm heading out to my favorite sunflower field, today is the opener.

Hey guys checking in again. I've got several good deer spotted. Hopefully I'll get close to one. I'm looking forward to a good Kansas season.

Hey everyone, doing a quick check in.... Leaving for NM on an elk hunt in a week so going to be pretty busy the next couple of weeks but will check back when possible...

Good luck in NM SDHunter. You have to be pretty stoked. Welcome back everyone else. I was just thinking, has there ever been a 2 time winner of this contest. I'm kind of thinking not...so maybe we can do it this year.

Back a few years ago I was on a team called the "Dark Horses" - believe we were the first team to repeat....

With dukemichaels on the team?

Hey everyone, Whacker checking in. Hope everyone had a healthy offseason and are ready for a repeat.

I just got back last week from a early season antelope hunt in Montana. The short version is I ate a tag sandwich. I shot a few inches under one at 76yards the first evening on my first ever spot and stalk. I Had one of the best times of my life and not harvesting an animal had no impact on the experience.

Here's the long version:
After getting into Missoula, Driving 2 1/2 hours to the Big Hole Valley and setting up camp we decided to Take a look around the area we would be hunting. Out the gate we saw a single Buck about 100 yards of the dirt road. We parked about 1 /2 mile downwind of him in a creek bottom and began our stalk. We snuck along a sage brush covered barb wired fence row till we got 200 yards away. I then belly crawled the last 125 yards and holed up behind the only 2 foot sage brush in the cow pasture. The wind swirled and he moved quickly off to my left then stopped. I ranged him at 76 and aimed accordingly using my 60 yard pin knowing I wouldn't be getting closer. I shot about 4 inches below him and he was gone. That episode in its self made my trip.

The next day we went to another block management property. This area was more of gun area because of its layout. We saw a few Antelope but couldn't get inside 125 yards of them. Mid afternoon we hunted a water hole with great sign. Neither of us enjoyed sitting in a blind staring at our decoy so we did these for 3 hours and decided spot and stalk was what we were going to attempt the rest of the trip.

That evening we went back to the block parcel were I had missed the evening before. It was long after glassing we found another buck. We made a move on him and got to 90 yards before a vehicle came down the lane and opened a cattle gate and he went away from us and we ran out of time.

Later we went into town and were granted access to hunt a 30,000 acre cattle ranch. There were two large jags of Antelope both numbering around 60 each. The next morning we arrived at daylight and spotted them feeding in a few green bottoms. We made our plan and embarked on a 4 hour 3 mile stalk in which we crawled a solid mile of it. Sure enough we got to within 100 yards of the group. We had a doe and 2 fawns work to us to 50 yards but the group moved off. We played cat and mouse with them for the rest of the afternoon but couldn't get close enough after that.

That evening we went and glassed the area from the previous evenings in preparation for our last morning the next day. We spotted a group of 33 and got ready for the morning.

The morning came and sure enough they were there in two groups. We set out to get down wind of them and started on a 2 mile circle. Some cows in the process wouldn't move off and eventually they spooked them as we got close. We started a quick step to get down around a hill and then up the other side to cut them off. About 20 minutes later we had almost climbed to the top of the ridge when they popped over it 95 yards from us. All we could do was lay flat and let them move off because we were caught in the open. The moved off and onto property that we could not access. We were a bit bummed but looked over the ridge and could see the other group of 10 feeding below. We went back down the hill and found a drainage ditch that followed the front side and into the green are they were feeding. We got setup 125 from them down wind. No sooner we sat down in the ditch my buddy says here they come. They had been bumped by the only other hunter we saw the entire trip who had tried to stalk them from the upwind side and in the bare open.

That was our last chance.

Even though I didn't harvest one, the scenery, vastness, people, friendship and the beauty of being out of cell range made for an experience I'll never forget. It was hard to get back on the plane yesterday.

some pics from the trip

a few more

Welcome back Wacker. Sounds like a a good trip west.

Jenna, any luck during the Kentucky opener?

Sounds like you had a great trip Whacker!! In my humble opinion, spot and stalk antelope hunting is as tough as it gets! The eye sight those guys have is just amazing!

I also made a trip out west chasing goats two weeks ago. Was able to close the deal on one in WY. Area I was in isn't known for trophy goats so I was more than happy to take the 1st respectable goat I had within range...

Congrats on the goat! No luck for me this weekend...had a doe within range but her fawn kept getting in the way for a good shot. She is a regular so I am hoping to tag her tomorrow :)

Hey guys! Checking in. Been busy the last few weeks because the wife and I had our first baby! That has kind of settled down and now I can start looking toward deer season.

Congrats EasternFly. That's cool. There are a lot of fun. Definately a change in priorities, but still a lot of fun. And good timing to get it in before deer season.

Congrats south Dakota on the goat. I'm jealous. Congrats on the new baby also eastern

Hey Eastern, congrats to you and your wife. What kind of baby was it? a boy? girl? goldfish? I'm sure Kurt can give you tons of advice if you need it.
Wacker, that sounds like a real exciting trip. Glad you were caught up in them most of the time. I know I've had my fair share of tag soup. Thanks for posting the pictures. Looks like an extremely challenging environment.
Great looking goat, Dakota. Again, just like Wacker, doesn't look like you had much cover to work with. Nice job! Good luck in NM. They have some giants out there.
Bucktail, give us a report from your sunflower field. I hope it's looking pretty good.
Hey, did anyone get a new bow or anything to 'supplement' the season? I'm not changing a thing except I'm looking to upgrade some of my video gear. Looking to get a better tree arm, fluid head, and mic. I just need to pull the trigger. That's hard to do sometimes.

Thanks Guys. We had a little girl. Brooklyn McKenna Smith.

I've got a terrible habbit of buying bows. Let's see. In January I sold my Bowtech Invasion and bought a Bowtech Insanity CPXL that I set up for targets and a Bowtech Admiral for hunting. After not liking the CPXL, I sold that and bought another invasion. After turkey season, I sold my Admiral and bought a Obsession Lethal Force. The Lethal Force is a super sweet bow & I found myself only shooting that and not shooting my Invasion, so I sold the 2nd invasion. So yeah, I'm junkie. But it will take a lot for me to get rid of my Lethal Force. It is fast, forgiving, dead in hands, zero shock, balances well, and is a shooter. Obsession is a young company, but they contract their engineering work to Kevin Strothers. There are mixed reviews on Kevin Strothers, I don't read into them too much, because one thing that can't be denied is they guy can design sweet bows. Just look at what he did with Bowtech, Elite, and Strothers. Other than that, not too much else new this year.

We need to change our name to returning champs on the title of our team thread.

Eastern, congrats also to you and your wife. SDH nice goat. As for the sunflower fields, 8 of use were done in less than 2 hours. Also, check out these North Carolina bucks my kid sent me. I walked the property when I was down there last Christmas and found this spot, these bucks are 28 yds. from the stand we hung up. NC opens this upcoming weekend, IL opens Oct 1, it’s a 12 hour drive….its tempting!

:jaw: Dang, 12 hours? That should only take you about, well, lets see, ONLY 12 HOURS!!!

Its about 12 hours for me also. lol

12 hours is a 'hike' for sure... But can certainly see how its tempting :-)

Great bucks!

Nice bucks Bob. And good choice of beer.

Agree - Let it be known.

Season opens tomorrow. Barring a thunderstorm I'll be hunting till about 8:30 a.m. then prob the evening also. Same island I killed my bow buck on last year, Public and bow only. They moved up the season a week this year to give us a shot at velvet. I've never had the chance and being that we can shoot multiple bucks here in MD I may have to let one fly no matter what. So I am apologizing now for a possible small racked velvet buck haha.

Whacker, have fun tomorrow. Velvet would be sweet!

Good luck Whacker. I hope you connect.

So, how do we go about changing this tread title to Buck U - Returning Champs? Is it someting Jenna has to change since she started the thread?

Yep, that's how it works!
Looks like I'll be spending a good part of this weekend going through all my gear and clothes, making sure all is ready. Would really like to get some points on the board early this season.
Let me see if I can dig up the last Avatar for Team 3. It could use some work

Bob, someone needs to go get that deer in NC really soon before he goes nocturnal.