JeramyK

I can' t wait for the rut to fire up. I know there will be some nice bucks taken this year.

NorthernHunter

I' ve noticed a decline in sightings while I have been in the woods the past few weeks. I nailed a doe about 3 weeks ago, and since then nothing! Some call it the October lull and others call it the calm before the rut. Things will pick up soon with the pre-rutt and colder temps.

wimp

Sorry, I can' t read

What area of PA do you come back to? I agree that can make a huge difference in the numbers of deer.

bowtechgirl

Don' t know about everyone else but I am not seeing deer like I did last year. Don' t know if it is because we had draught last year and I was set up in one of the only good feeding areas but they aint' there this year.

tazimna

I' d have to say my deer sightings are drastically up this year. Very common to see 5-15 each sitting. Was fortunate to stick a 6 pter and a doe 3 weeks ago. had shoulder injury and sat out for past 2 weeks healing. Against doc' s orders, went out and sat last night. Stuck a fat doe at 20 yds, ran 25' , then expired. Shoulder hurt so bad didn' t think I could climb down stand. Saw 11 scrapes in my stand area, so it' s gonna be fun hunting next 15 days here. LET THE GAMES BEGIN. Happy Hunting! Steve

Rack-attack

MY 2003 EARLY SEASON GAMEPLAN BLOWS CHUNKS

Only my third year hunting October - I think I was just lucky the last two.

This year my weaknesses have been shown - but next October - watch out

Come on November

bscofield

It' s been so dang HOT here! [:@]

I' m just waiting for the area to cool off a little! Then we' ll see what happens!

by23856

Wimp,

I' m from Harrisburg originally. I go back and hunt rifle in Huntingdon County on my Uncle' s farm land. It' s all drive hunting though, and even though they always put me on point since I paid $100 for my license and only have a day or two, it still doesn' t compare to bow hunting by a long shot.

I grew up gun hunting and went several years through my teens without ever seeing a buck. Part of that could easily have been me since I had no concept of how to sit still then. After I got out of the Marine Corps in ' 88, I starting working at an Archery shop in Hummelstown, bought a tree stand, and had learned to sit still while in the Corps. Through my 20' s I began a streak of 6 consecutive years of getting a buck, but they were all small, thin racks of 6 points or less. A six pointer with a 12" spread was considered a great buck in the area I hunted. Probably bigger ones existed, but I didn' t know how to hunt them and it never occured to me to let the small ones walk to get bigger. Probably wouldn' t have helped anyway, since the farmers and Amish shot them all year long anyway, claiming crop damage.

Now I' m in a small town south of Omaha and the bucks I' m seeing are 8 and 10 pointers with spreads of 18" +, and the mass of their antlers are unbelievable, at least to me, having only ever hunted and bagged bucks with tines no bigger than my pinkie finger- and I have small hands. Their bodies are also 80 lbs bigger. They look like horses to me. My dad teases me that they have to be big so I can hit them.

My wife doesn' t understand my new enthuiasm in hunting and why I am so thrilled about these big bucks. I try explaining to her that I have never seen bucks this big before, although I always read about them in the magazines. Despite what I say, she still doesn' t get it and barely tolerates it. Wait till she hears my folks bought me the ASAT for an early Christmas present...[X(]

wear

Ditto BSCOFIELD. We had cool weather around the 1st of Oct. but that has been it. I' ve got one in the freezer and plenty of room left.

davidmil

To be honest... I just haven' t hunted much this year. I hunted 55-60 days each of the past 2 years. I started on crop damage in July and probably don' t have more than a dozen hunts in this year. Right now I' m nursing a cold picked up in NY. If I were healthy I would have been hitting it hard the past couple days. The time is getting right. Good time to do some horn tinkling etc.

Plus, I think a lot of folks just don' t post all their hunts right now. Take my hunting partner. He' s on these boards, usually the technical section. The last I knew he had taken 11 or 12 deer with the bow this year. I don' t think he' s posted a single one.