buckeye

I would like to see and hear what you consider your biggest accomplishment in the deer woods.... Fill us in with photos and details of the event, the more detail the better.... Long time until next season and this is just the kind of "fix" I need..... [8D]

Back in the2000 seasonI made the decision I was not going to shoot another young buck, I was going to strictly hunt for a mature buck.... I stuck to my plan and passed opportunities at many yearling and 2.5 year old bucksthe first two years with a couple glimpses of mature bucks (no where near my stand though) and came up empty handed at seasons end....

I never lost confidence or swayed in my decision going into the third year of this commitment and was rewarded for those three years of "hard work" and persistence on a cool crisp day in mid Octoberat 9:30 in the morningwith my first ever shot opportunity at a mature buck... I made the best of it, and it only fueled the addiction even more. He isn't my biggest, but hedefinitely holds a special place in my memory.


We look a lot of pics with a disposable but they did not turn out, they were double exposed These are just a couple that I have of him from that day.


[/align]

I know no one like the tailgate pics but it really is all I have..... The other buck my stepdad shot the same day over in PA.




Your turn!

mauser06

my biggest accomplishment thus far has been taking my first bow kill..a buck to boot.

im pretty much wet behind the ears when it comes to DEER hunting. ive been a deer hunter since i was 12(now turning 21 in a couple weeks) so thats 9 full deer seasons under my belt. this year was the 2nd with a bow. rifle hunting in PA is a totally different animal. when i hunted with dad we setup in funnels and areas where deer got pushed into...thickets that deer felt safe in..places normal people simply wont go...they came through and we took the first legal deer we seen. we were meat hunters. didnt kill anything with antlers, or SEE antlers while deer hunting till i was 15 i think...my 4th season. then i got into doing drives with my buddies...most all of them ONLY take bucks...success rate varies year to year..some days we have large numbers of guys..some days we barely have enough to put on the smallest drives..i find it very fun...wether im a driver or sitter...alot of work goes into our drives and planning and scouting as well...and our typical group size is less than 10..usually 6 or so pushing areas that 20 guys couldnt cover effectively...so it makes it fun...its a fun way to hunt and get out with the guys and its a team effort. i took 1 buck with them..and 4 does i think.

i always knew about scouting, deer sign, reading terrain etc etc...dad always taught me that stuff since the time i could walk..but last year i found out quick how little i knew about deer hunting from a stand. i saw some deer...even got a shot at a buck...but sightings were low and buck sightings were real low. think i saw 5 bucks all season, only 1 of which was legal...and alot of the does i saw were the same ones..didnt see much more than 10 different deer in a whole bow season and i hunted hard.

this year i started putting it all together. did more scouting. did more prep work...worked on scent control...focused on not hunting a stand more than once a week. stayed out of my known "hotspots" unless the weather and conditions were favorable...i was into bucks from opening morning till AFTER i killed mine. opening morning i had a chance to tag my buck but muffed it up when my arrow fell off the string because i never put it on my rest...after that i continued to see deer and bucks pretty much every time i hunted. i forget the numbers..i know the buck i killed was the 5th one i saw and it was only the end of the 2nd week. saw alot of deer i couldnt identify and by size and body language id say the majority of them were bucks. after i killed my buck i stuck with it as much as i could and saw atleast 1 more buck and another unidentified deer that im pretty sure was a buck cruising for does...only busted 2 deer that i know of...1 i was walking out because of a wind storm...the other was the morning i killed mine and walked into it in the dark...

he aint a monster...but im proud of him...proud enough that he is at the taxidermist!





funny thing about it all was i killed him at my buddies camp. i didnt hang the stand. i didnt do the scouting. i KNEW there was alot of deer up there and helped my buddy take his stands down the year before...i do alot of grouse and flintlock hunting up there..i knew that stand was in a good spot and when he asked where i wanted to hunt i told him that stand...he said its usually an evening stand but its my choice...think it was the 3rd or 4th deer i saw that morning and saw one after i shot...evening stand

i just went up there to give my honey hole at home 1 more full week to cool off before i hunted it again so it would have been unhunted for 2 whole weeks...funny how things work out sometimes...but all my scouting and work paid off in my other areas...i was into bucks all season and like to think that i would have got another shot at another legal buck if i kept hunting...never hunted the honey hole at home after i killed mine. there was a big wounded 10pt using the area...i didnt wanna see him and know he was wounded pretty badly and not have a buck tag...wounded deer that drag legs when they walk just tear me up....

txjourneyman

Helping my nephew get his first back in December.

Charlie P

My biggest accomplishment doesn't have anything to do with a kill. It's getting my son anda couple other kids interested and involved in hunting and fishing. I have also gone into a couple classrooms and given a demonstration on turkey calling,explained how and why the birds communicate.

HuntingBry

Mauser, I never get tired of seeing that first picture. That is the epitome of a happy hunter.

My biggest accomplishment thus far was my 06 buck. I took it on private land that gets heavily hunted. Over the course of a few seasons I narrowed down the stand sites until I came to the tree that I killed this buck from. I knew that it was a core area for some big bucks because I had seen several nice bucks in the area and there were some very impressive rubs. When I shot this buck on Friday the 13th 2006 I made a very good 32 yard shot, but the arrow stayed in the deer and I didn't see him go down. I made the decision to back out and ended up helping my buddy find his biggest buck that he also shot that night. The next morning he helped me find mine. The buck only went 60 yards on the double lung shot. Just the fact that I put everything together, pretty much on my own, and made a great shot and good decisions in harvesting the deer makes him my best accomplishment thus far.

Me and the buck:



My buddy and I with our bucks:

125py

In 2002, I killed 2 140 class Pope & Youngs in 24 hours. They were both taken off of private un-managed land (well the only management I was doing at the time was not killing anthing smaller than 125). They were killed about 3/4 mile apart on different landowners properties. One property was 40 acres and the other was also 40 acres. The buck on the right was killed theeveningbefore Thanksgiving and the buck on the left was takenThanksgiving day. At the timeI had a 8 yr old High Country compound bow. The buck on the right was a 25 yard shot andran 75 yards and the buck on the left was a 7 yard shot and ran40 yards.

Vabowman

I would say it is not a kill either. I have have killed big bucks, but I think my accomplishment is the fact that I see more deer every year than the year before. I must be doing something right. Almost every time I hunt I see deer.

buckeye

That is great to hear.... Congrats to you and yours

BUT... I asked...

Feel free to share a story for this as well if you would like.

PA Bow/Flinter

Mine is the first buck I ever killed. I killed the buck with my bow and it was also my first bow kill. I spent all summer scouting and and picking the best places for stands. Archery season rolled around and on the second day of the season I had him walk by. I made a decent 15yd shot and with a little help from my uncle, I dragged my first buck out of the woods.

It was my forth year of hunting in general and my forth year bowhunting....I was 15 at the time.

rybohunter

26 consecutive bowkills over 11 years without a miss or lost/wounded deer.