Hey folks,

Been reading this wonderful forum for a while and just joined up. I've taken a couple of deer from the ground in my lifetime but due to a lack of decent hunting grounds, most of my hunting has been for upland birds and waterfowl. I'm 53 and it's high time I hang a rack on my wall!

A good friend just acquired a 100 acre parcel surrounded by big woods and we have been floored by all the deer sign. It was formerly a deer grounds as there's a small cabin and several rotting wooden tree stands here and there. In fact, we're just about finished scouting as we've captured five different bucks on my trail cam....along with several bears! It's fun to collect pics but at this point I'm thinking it will be best to stay out of there since nothing more from the cam will influence where we set up. We'll just have to see how things go down after we begin to sit on stand. We've caught two big eight pointers on cam but only at night still. Let's hope the ladies get them making a daytime mistake!

We've had several active scrapes being visited and have founds TONS of old rubbed trees. Just found the first active rub the other day but it was really small....perhaps made by the spike horn we photographed...expecting many more in the weeks leading up to our Dec 2nd opening day of gun season here in Massachusetts.

We put up my buddies' two man ladder stand and I bought a Summit Goliath climber so we can move around. We have a few different locations identified for that stand. He bought a scoped .50 CVA inline that we have shooting decent groups at 100+ yards so his ladder stand overlooks the more open area while poor 'ole me with my 1187 smoothbore will be in the thicker woods. I have a Bushnell red dot for it and am now seeking a cantilever barrel mount. Having a hard time finding just the right mount....e-mail sent to Gallard co. someone was kind enough to link here. Still waiting to hear back but since I'm a shop teacher with a machine shop, I may try to make my own. I understand that the receiver saddle type present problems with accuracy and interfering with the action.

So that's my introduction; very pleased to join the site and have enjoyed all the pics and excellent advice. I hope I'm able to post a pic of my first buck in about a month.