skybuster20ga

my point being, we came home early for the reason that the bucks that are left NEED to live!! the problem w/ the food being so scarce was the over abundance of skippers and does to begin w/. mother nature took care of things by evening out the heard the last couple of winter but now it will take years to get the number of deer back to where it was and thats if we have some mild winters. i probably wont deer huntup to camp for the next few years. ill stay right in lovell.

on a high note, the rabbit hunting will be great agin this year i think as long as ytou can keep your dogs alive. more reports of mt lions just north of moscow killin the dogs. before bio's thought maybe a fisher but now they say its most likley a lion. a frined of mine who is also a guide up there has lost five already. he has tracking collrs and they are finding the head burried but the shoulders and bodies are gone. and i know a few old trappers who also have seen one or "some" in the area.

StillHunter90

I hunt Bingham, Moscow, and the Pleasant Ridge areas myself a few times a year for deer. I do a lot of Bear hunting there though. One of my friends lives right in Moscow on the Stream road. I havent been there yet this year for deer but judging by what you have seen maybe Ill stay away and hunt around home. Last year there was some monsters tagged in Solon at Bait Bolts and bullets, and a few at Williams General. I may try it Thurs, Fri, and Sat. as the rut will be starting to kick in. Not sure yet though. Keep me posted on what you see if you go back up this week.

skybuster20ga

our friends own BB&B and they have only tagged six!!! sure theres a few "town deer" we call em down around the houses on 201 and some over by the grave yard and a few up around rice hill which you cant hunt anywyas but the big woods deer that we go after are few and far between. i mean we arent new to the area by any means and hit all our haunts where we have killed some whoppers (my father has won 4 deer pools up there) and we just werent finding any tracks at all. not just tracks that would be shooters but any at all!!! save your gas money and dig up some new area. we hunted solon over around kelly mt and wyman pond mccarty rd then headed across the river towards pleasant and carry pond, rowe pond and over into lexington a little and back to moscow and we had some decent snow but we packed up early and came home. more deer and bigger deer or more healthy deer here anywyas this year and last.

good luck if you do head up. the only real good loggin operation we found was over around 151 and iron gate rd. that may help ya in a couple weeks

baileym62

im starting to find more scapes lately since we got a couple of inches of snow last week. maybe it pushed them to rut i dont know how it all works. iv been seeing tons of deer here all summer fall and just cant get them to do what i want since rifle season started. my buddys son got one opening day out of one of my stands, i saw her first and let her go she walked directly to them bang all over for her. since then nothing in the daylight, still getting pics on trailcams but in dark. have been seeing a bull cow and calf moose thouygh they get around and have been seen buy multiple people in one morning


my family has a camp off the spencer road and last year we spent thankgiving week there i spent i dont know howmany hours walking and cut three doe tracks that later i followed to find out they were the same deer. dont plan on hunting there again soon good luck everyone

StillHunter90

Thanks for that info Skybuster. It saves me the 2 hr ride and gas for sure. I do have a decent honey hole down my way that I am gonna give a shot anyhow. I cut a couple tracks the other day there, one of them a real good set. Hes got some weight to him as his walking track is splayed wide open and sunk into the ground a good bit. I also jumped a 7 or 8 pointer around 180 -185 lbs but made a mistake and didnt get a 2nd chance. Im more then likely gonna focus on that area rather then head to bingham this year.

Phil from Maine

Over my way the Waite General Store had only tagged 6 so far. The biggest was one that dressed 156 lbs.. So not alot of action this way either.. The last time I was out I saw a lot of scrapes that I think mostly was young bucks going at it during the pre-rut. I did see a set of a large buck with toes all rounded over nicely. He was hanging around a spruce swamp and there was no way that I was going into that. It was small brush and shrubs like cranberry bushes ect and spruce trees scatter all over it. It was roughly a mile wide and around 3-4 miles long.. Just not a place I was about to try and wander into. Hopefully saturday morning I can catch him trying to head back into there..

skybuster20ga

dont mean to discourage ya but theres no sense in kidding ourselves lol the deer heard is in baaaaaaaaad shape north of waterville

Phil from Maine

I am not saying it is not but there is places up here where there is deer.. A deer yard near here this past winter had an estimate of 200 and just across the lake another had estimate of 100.. Roughly 35 miles from here another had an estimate of 500 so there are pockets with deer hiding in them.. I do agree though overall the deer numbers are in bad shape. The deer yards from these hard winters are right in the skidder trails being left from the logging being done. For as far as food goes there is plenty of browse up here from new growth forests.. The deer and moose love them.. But also on a side note moose numbers are down as well. I am thinking the calfs are having a hard go of it as well during the winter months..

Here is a couple bucks taken from my trail cam this past summer LOL.. We might not have a lot of deer but they do get some wieght on them.. All anyone has to do is see one during hunting hours.. LOL..There is actualy 2 bucks in this pic. Just look at what you can see for a rack in the one near the left.. Sorry but it will not let me post pics any bigger than this...

Western MA Hunter

just got an email from wife's cousin that he shot a 254lb 9pt yesterday... haven't seen pics yet... up towards Jackman somewhere...

skybuster20ga

phil, that "browse" you speak of is NOT enough to get them through the winters successfully. most of the yards up there are cedar growths and plumb creek is cuttin them off like nothin at all. 100 deer in a yard 200 deer in a yard, heck those are barley a yard fopr up north. they were finding 200 to 250 dead in most yards two years ago. when they are starving already in october and november the certainly are gonna be starving in jan. and feb. new groeth forests??? haahhaha yeah right. what new growth forests?!! i wouldnt say they love them either, more like they have no choice! when there aint any backstraps on em in october you know it aint good.