There is a reason people from PA flock to IL.

Rob, Is there any chance that someday management practices will change in PA? Is there anyone interested in QDM? QDM took a while to catch on in southern -central Wis. Now I'm seeing more and more QDM signs hung up. Where I grew up a tight racked 8 pointer was a great buck. My grandpa killed a lot of bucks and he has a lovely collection of spikes and forks hanging above his workbench. When I started hunting I never passed up a buck. Things have changed because people have changed. At least some of them.

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Drop ya know what is aggervating. Sometimes its the simplest things that take years before it clicks, and you say why didnt i think of it that way before I have two stand sights that i have hunted for years. Im in the right location and have seen many many bucks from these two stands and killed a 155" er in 2005 from there.Finnaly as i stated above, it clicked and i now know why this stand is so good. Im hunting the back corner of a long thicket about 100 yards wide and 500 yards into the woods. The bucks will 90% of the time come out of the corner of the thicket im hunting by my stand look around for awhile and go back in. I finnaly decided that what they are doing is walking the length of the thicket on the down wind side scent checking for Does. When they come out of the corner by my stand thay are on a slight rise and able to visually check the open woods all around by sight for Does. they look around for awhile then go back in the other way. Two bucks taught me this this season, a nice 8 point and an even nicer 9.I called them pete and repeat, twice daily during morning sits they would do this routin twice.

If your close enough to deer bedding areas they really do come out during the day for a snack.
I've seen as many of my deer at 1-2PM, as last light!

I learned quite a bit about a certain buck that I've filmed two summers ago and trail camera since he was3.5...hes at least5.5 now...last Sat while heading into a ground blind with my recurve in hand..I finally saw him/bumped intohim on his feet moviing down a mountain towards some doe family groups in the bottoms..he was on a mission, moving head down on a trot.....I luckily was standing in the ONLY snow (3 inches) we've hadthis entire months ofNOV and it was gone the next day...anyway when Isaw him and instead of chasing him with a bow in my hand.. NOT gonna work cause he saw me..I didnt push him and watched him fade into the timber down the ridge and I immediately go on his track like a hound dog andback tracked hisfootsteps way up a ridge, out through a nasty cedar thicket full of blow downs and found 5 different bedding spots.. rubs everywhere and of course the perfect thermals/windsl for him to lay up in there all day and pick up anything coming up the mountain to him and to his backside...a ton of brush and blow downs making a wall for any hunter to ever try to sneak in on him from above.. No wonder I havent seen this buck on the hoof in two years and only inSeveraltrail cam pix in the DRY summers when his only water source forces him tocome to it..helives in one ofthe almost unhuntable hideouts up in that big northern thick timbered mountainside I have ever tried to tackle..

OBTW, hes looks awesome... in hard antler hes got the really dark almost black antlers.. I found one area an inside edge betweened the old logged timber, the clearcut and the ceder thicket that his tracks passed through that makes like flat bench..saddle sort of all in one..IbelieveI can ambush him in thereif we get cold enough temps to force him to get up andfeed before dark. I wont be able to huntbut the very lasthours of daylight right when the evening thermalschange and go downslope..I will have to approach once that wind switches or if I get a southwest wind..since hes in a northern face...He likes to feed in an old clearcut about 200 yards from his thicket. He did a lot two years ago when he was much more visible than he lets himself be now, and from the tracks and trail cams I have up in there he still does just later at night.. I expect him to shed his antlersup in there as well.

on last thing.. that ground blind I was headed into .... well once I bumped the big boy and was able to back track exact path..... I could see how hes been sidehilling below my ground blind enough that over the past two seasons or at least this one, he could have walked by me many a time with me never knowing.. I also dont mind invading his bedding area like I did last Saturday, he had a lot on his mind.. horomones.. He will back to this area again I can almost gaurantee it. Hes a heck of a nice big main framed 5x5 with a little kicker on his brow..

That's some AWESOME information you learned there, Troy!! Thanks for sharing -- there was a lot we could learn from that post!

Yes, but I own that same gun in the Carbine model. It's OK to own one.

Everytime I find a big buck bedding area I could repeat what you just said. I alway think to myself - this buck picked the prefect place to survive.

Do you think it's because he knew you were there?

You cant shoot a deer on the couch