2010 Northern Virginia Buck Photos
08-28-2011, 03:20 AM
#31
Spike
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Manassas Virginia
Posts: 37
I do not like to talk about where I hunt. It is top secret. I do not need more hunters around me. I take no offence that you asked. I do not hunt individual bucks although I could and it would be more rewarding. I hunt good spots. The same spots can be capable of producing good bucks year after year.
You can look for multi year rubs and scrapes. You can reorganize trees that were scared up years ago and you can see scrapes that have old rotting stubs of at the on the licking branch where a buck broke off part of a licking branch years ago.
The more the area is closed the better it is. I hunted 2 miles back in 11A with my dad in 1970. I developed a good bow spot back there back in the early 90’s I biked in between 11A and 10C. They moved the 11A boundary and my spot got gobbled up by 11B. In recent years, I had to make the effort to learn a new spot in 11A. It is only open 2 or 3 days during the bow season and 2 or 3 gun day before Christmas. Sometimes it is closed all year long. You have to drop everything and go in when it is open. It took about 5 years (6-7 visits) to get some spots working for me.
There is a rule that sometimes applies and that does not apply to Quantico very much. That is “the fewer the deer the bigger the bucks.” Fewer deer make for better food and fewer hunters and the buck does not exhaust his winter fat reserves chasing the does all winter un till they all get breed. And not get exposed to hunters while chasing does. A doe will go into heat every 28 days until she is breed. I do not seek out low deer populations, but I do not let low deer populations discourage me too much.
You can look for multi year rubs and scrapes. You can reorganize trees that were scared up years ago and you can see scrapes that have old rotting stubs of at the on the licking branch where a buck broke off part of a licking branch years ago.
The more the area is closed the better it is. I hunted 2 miles back in 11A with my dad in 1970. I developed a good bow spot back there back in the early 90’s I biked in between 11A and 10C. They moved the 11A boundary and my spot got gobbled up by 11B. In recent years, I had to make the effort to learn a new spot in 11A. It is only open 2 or 3 days during the bow season and 2 or 3 gun day before Christmas. Sometimes it is closed all year long. You have to drop everything and go in when it is open. It took about 5 years (6-7 visits) to get some spots working for me.
There is a rule that sometimes applies and that does not apply to Quantico very much. That is “the fewer the deer the bigger the bucks.” Fewer deer make for better food and fewer hunters and the buck does not exhaust his winter fat reserves chasing the does all winter un till they all get breed. And not get exposed to hunters while chasing does. A doe will go into heat every 28 days until she is breed. I do not seek out low deer populations, but I do not let low deer populations discourage me too much.
08-28-2011, 02:44 PM
#32
Fork Horn
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: stafford virginia
Posts: 338
I got a question for you Bike riders. What is your setup? Do you use a climber? what Brand? Bikeman you say you have stayed on stand all day, what do you carry in with you.
I did not hunt Quantico last year I felt I had a real good chance at a few good bucks on some private land I hunt. It turn out to be my worst season down south. Up in NoVa was much better.
I plan on spreading out my hunting this year with Quantico and a few WMA. In these area using a bike can get you back away from all the hunter that don't want to put the effort. Most of my rides would be evening hunts so I should not be carrying a lot. What do you do in recovering your deer?
The rest of the posts have been Great I give QuanticoKid A+ on asking you guys for help/or advice Most of his post go with no replies Quantico Hunters just don't talk or try to help. I have follow most of your posts just because of the years you guys have been on Quantico. As with QuanticoKid I also don't want someone to just say go here or there, It is a bigger reward to scout,plan,hunt and succeed on your own. What I get out of your post are how to hunt the area,coverage,terrain and hunting pressure. So Thanks
Could Send me the link to your article in Virginia Fish and Game..I am always looking for a good read.
I did not hunt Quantico last year I felt I had a real good chance at a few good bucks on some private land I hunt. It turn out to be my worst season down south. Up in NoVa was much better.
I plan on spreading out my hunting this year with Quantico and a few WMA. In these area using a bike can get you back away from all the hunter that don't want to put the effort. Most of my rides would be evening hunts so I should not be carrying a lot. What do you do in recovering your deer?
The rest of the posts have been Great I give QuanticoKid A+ on asking you guys for help/or advice Most of his post go with no replies Quantico Hunters just don't talk or try to help. I have follow most of your posts just because of the years you guys have been on Quantico. As with QuanticoKid I also don't want someone to just say go here or there, It is a bigger reward to scout,plan,hunt and succeed on your own. What I get out of your post are how to hunt the area,coverage,terrain and hunting pressure. So Thanks
Could Send me the link to your article in Virginia Fish and Game..I am always looking for a good read.
08-28-2011, 03:38 PM
#33
Fork Horn
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Manassas,VA
Posts: 301
Okay I totally understand I would never try to take a Hunters spot I'm very respectful and understanding. I thank Grizzl and Barry for the advice and I will use what I know and what info you have given me into scouting and hunting this year on Quantico and I hope to see one or both of you guy's on the Trophy Wall.
Bushanic, I use a mountain bike painted camo sprey pant around the house and I welded a platform the to back frame to sit my Summit Viper on and bought two KolpinŽ Rhino Grip XL with Handlebar/Rack Mount on BassPro and they work great now I bike way back into the areas that are closed alot or just to get away from all the people
Bushanic, I use a mountain bike painted camo sprey pant around the house and I welded a platform the to back frame to sit my Summit Viper on and bought two KolpinŽ Rhino Grip XL with Handlebar/Rack Mount on BassPro and they work great now I bike way back into the areas that are closed alot or just to get away from all the people
08-28-2011, 03:40 PM
#34
Fork Horn
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Manassas,VA
Posts: 301
Thanks for the advice Grizzle and Barry I realize that Quantico guys don't want talk to much and I realize a good spot is a good spot just trying to enjoy hunting those big bucks I have a real passion for hunting Thanks again.
08-28-2011, 04:55 PM
#35
Spike
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Manassas Virginia
Posts: 37
I did not write the articles. David Hart need to write some articles about hunting military bases and he was given my name. And later he did more articles about me in several other magazines. I did a Google search with the words (Barry Henningsen David Hart buck) and came up with hunting article http://www.sportsmansguide.com/Outdo...=140569&type=A
Some of the articles seem to be missing. There was one in Buck Masters, Deer and Deer hunting, Virginia Game and Fish and maybe some other articles. So you can have at it with the searches. I am not sure if I deserve all of the publicly. But I do feel that I am in the top 20 on the base out of about 1000 hunters. David changes some of what I tell him so what you read may not be exactly from me.
Last year was the best year ever for big bucks on Quantico and I wished I had not spent as much time doing the Fairfax County park hunts. About my setup: I do not do things like normal people. I have issues in that I can not stay awake. And I can not sit in a normal seat. I use a Lone Wolf climber with an old design of a wooden platform and it uses a v bar instead of a belt. It has not been in production for over 15 years. Anyway I put the seat climber over my head and I sit on the platform. It is great for sleeping and there is nothing in the way for the bow to hit regardless of shot angle. Now this makes it extremely challenging to get to a standing position. I take off my slip on boots in the stand and put on many socks and hunt in my stocking feet. I pack in my clothing in a homemade duffle bag and change into clean clothing that are some what scent free and my clothing has no buttons , zippers, Velcro or any other noise makers. In the cold weather I wear 5 or more pairs of camo sweat pants and tops. The outer most layers are size 3x and I use oversized long sleeve camo t-shirts on top I am able to move and get to a standing position without any noise. I use a home made suicide belt as a safety belt. It is quite and I can hunt facing the tree. I prefer to hunt facing the tree, The belt keeps me from falling out, but if I am stuck hanging on then I will most likely die. I take my big bucks up close like 2 yards and 3 yards and 6 yards and 7 yards and several at 10 to 15 yards. I can dance on my stand without alerting the bucks. You want cover in the tree, but I sacrifice cover for location. 12 yards is the preferred distance. In regards to sleeping I snore the deer in. Just kidding, but I do wake up when they get with in 20 yards as I can hear them. I prefer to be in the thick stuff where I can hear them before I see them. When it is thick like that the deer ( when a ways off) can not seem me fidgeting in the tree. And I do not move when I am half asleep and using my ears instead of my eyes. But I miss too muck. On the rare occasions where I get a good sleep I can see what I have been missing.
In my pack I have a saw, flashlight, food, water, urine bottle, glow tacks toilet paper, batteries and two 55 gallon trash bags just incase I get caught in the rain. One bag is for a makeshift rain coat and the other bag for clothing and equipment. And there is sometimes an umbrella. I use a homemade bow cushion. My bow always hangs on the tree and I use a sock stuffed with whatever and a string through it and it ties around the tree so that my bow will be cushioned and not rock in the wind or rattle when I go to pick it up.
Approach to the tree is most important. My trees are prepped in advance with all tiny bushes cleared from the base of the tree and on my walk way so that I can get in and leave with out crossing a deer trail and without touching any brush. This is not a clear-cutting operation. You want to keep all that you can. And my shooting labes are very small and are more like holes. You only need a 3 foot holes to shot through. From the deer trail, put your head at the height of the kill zone and look to where you would be in the tree and cut tiny holes for shooting lanes.
About close in shots of 2 to 4 yards. Most people mess them up and wound the deer. The shot must be practice and you need to know where to hit the animal and get the arrow to travel near the heart. I could write a page on the close in shot.
I have a home made mount for the bow on the front of the bike. Broadheads must be secure and I put my stand on my back with a duffel bag strapped to the stand. When I get a deer I take all of my equipment back to the car and then go back with the bike and tie the deer to the bike. The deer hangs close to the ground so that you do not have to fight the weight. I have an article about biking the deer out that I can send it to you.
Some of the articles seem to be missing. There was one in Buck Masters, Deer and Deer hunting, Virginia Game and Fish and maybe some other articles. So you can have at it with the searches. I am not sure if I deserve all of the publicly. But I do feel that I am in the top 20 on the base out of about 1000 hunters. David changes some of what I tell him so what you read may not be exactly from me.
Last year was the best year ever for big bucks on Quantico and I wished I had not spent as much time doing the Fairfax County park hunts. About my setup: I do not do things like normal people. I have issues in that I can not stay awake. And I can not sit in a normal seat. I use a Lone Wolf climber with an old design of a wooden platform and it uses a v bar instead of a belt. It has not been in production for over 15 years. Anyway I put the seat climber over my head and I sit on the platform. It is great for sleeping and there is nothing in the way for the bow to hit regardless of shot angle. Now this makes it extremely challenging to get to a standing position. I take off my slip on boots in the stand and put on many socks and hunt in my stocking feet. I pack in my clothing in a homemade duffle bag and change into clean clothing that are some what scent free and my clothing has no buttons , zippers, Velcro or any other noise makers. In the cold weather I wear 5 or more pairs of camo sweat pants and tops. The outer most layers are size 3x and I use oversized long sleeve camo t-shirts on top I am able to move and get to a standing position without any noise. I use a home made suicide belt as a safety belt. It is quite and I can hunt facing the tree. I prefer to hunt facing the tree, The belt keeps me from falling out, but if I am stuck hanging on then I will most likely die. I take my big bucks up close like 2 yards and 3 yards and 6 yards and 7 yards and several at 10 to 15 yards. I can dance on my stand without alerting the bucks. You want cover in the tree, but I sacrifice cover for location. 12 yards is the preferred distance. In regards to sleeping I snore the deer in. Just kidding, but I do wake up when they get with in 20 yards as I can hear them. I prefer to be in the thick stuff where I can hear them before I see them. When it is thick like that the deer ( when a ways off) can not seem me fidgeting in the tree. And I do not move when I am half asleep and using my ears instead of my eyes. But I miss too muck. On the rare occasions where I get a good sleep I can see what I have been missing.
In my pack I have a saw, flashlight, food, water, urine bottle, glow tacks toilet paper, batteries and two 55 gallon trash bags just incase I get caught in the rain. One bag is for a makeshift rain coat and the other bag for clothing and equipment. And there is sometimes an umbrella. I use a homemade bow cushion. My bow always hangs on the tree and I use a sock stuffed with whatever and a string through it and it ties around the tree so that my bow will be cushioned and not rock in the wind or rattle when I go to pick it up.
Approach to the tree is most important. My trees are prepped in advance with all tiny bushes cleared from the base of the tree and on my walk way so that I can get in and leave with out crossing a deer trail and without touching any brush. This is not a clear-cutting operation. You want to keep all that you can. And my shooting labes are very small and are more like holes. You only need a 3 foot holes to shot through. From the deer trail, put your head at the height of the kill zone and look to where you would be in the tree and cut tiny holes for shooting lanes.
About close in shots of 2 to 4 yards. Most people mess them up and wound the deer. The shot must be practice and you need to know where to hit the animal and get the arrow to travel near the heart. I could write a page on the close in shot.
I have a home made mount for the bow on the front of the bike. Broadheads must be secure and I put my stand on my back with a duffel bag strapped to the stand. When I get a deer I take all of my equipment back to the car and then go back with the bike and tie the deer to the bike. The deer hangs close to the ground so that you do not have to fight the weight. I have an article about biking the deer out that I can send it to you.
08-28-2011, 05:16 PM
#36
Spike
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Manassas Virginia
Posts: 37
I was reading what I wrote and realized that left something off. I change in to my hunting clothing 100 yards from the tree. At the base of the tree I let nothing touch the ground. Even my rope is held in hand with gloves and I let the rope out as I go up. And I do not touch the tree in any way for the first 10 feet. And I change out my cheep cotton gloves every day with clean ones.
08-29-2011, 01:39 PM
#39
Fork Horn
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Manassas,VA
Posts: 301
Interesting but cool Bike Man, I'm supersticious and I find the glove changing and 100 yard clothing to be quite interesting to kill big bucks on Quantico I defiantly realize you have to go way outside the box of the normal 50 yards and in Quantico Hunters cool article I realize you might not feel like you deserve the "fame" somewhat but you deserve it becuase it takes brains and skill to do all those thing's and still see the big bucks on Quantico most guys hunt Quantico and never see a big buck lible multiple in a season
08-29-2011, 10:19 PM
#40
Spike
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Manassas Virginia
Posts: 37
The scent control that I do is for the close in shots. It is to control what is left on the ground. It’s for when the deer gets less than 15 yards from the tree. For 20 yard shots the ground scent is not much of an issue. I have found that if I do not ware gloves when I handle my rope then my rope will stink with in two days of hunting. I wash my rope several times a season. I check the smell of my rope often. I also wash my pack. You would not believe how smelly the cotton gloves get after one day of hunting. If you had brand new shoes and new socks and then tested them to see if your socks or if the gloves stunk more after one day of use, then you would find that the gloves smelled 10 times stronger than the socks. You touch your oily face and your hair and you eat food etc. Maybe some of you scratch your butt or whatever. The point is that your hands transfer a lot of odor.
On some trees that I hunt out of, I put brush up close to my tree to make a horseshoe shaped barricade as this keep the deer from getting too close. It does not need to be horseshoe shaped. And it only needs to gives you a 5 yard barrier. I will let my rope lay on the ground when there are no trails with in 5 yards or if the spot is not that important to me. You can be careless with scent control and still take trophies. But with all the hard work that it takes to get an opportunity to present its self, do you want to blow 25% of the opportunities on being careless. I have sat on a log to change some clothing and then saw deer smell my scent on the log from 20 yards away. I have seen where I put up a stick as a distance marker and had touched it with my bare hands and a deer smelled my scent on the stick from 20 yards away. About 10% to 20% of the deer that I see eventually smell something. Anything that you can do to shave the odds in your favor is a plus.
It’s all about maximizing your time. Some people are happy to just be in the woods and that is ok. If you are out to improve your hunting then you should measure your success rate. I use (how many hours to get your deer), (How many deer did I see), (how close did they get), ( now many went over my trail without smelling something), (how many could I have shot), (how many were bucks), ( how many were 8 pointers ) and (how many were trophies)
I remember about 20 years ago when I was not clean with scent at all. Like I rarely washed my hunting cloths. A trophy was coming straight in on me. At 15 yards out the buck smelled a little of my ground scent and he turned broad side and walked away. He almost gave me a shot. I only needed him to have come in 3 more yards. And a few days later in the same tree, I had another trophy that was coming in quick and he was going to pass with in 5 yards of my tree and I was waiting for him to pass and then I was going to give him the quality quartering away shot. He bolted at 5 yards and ran like a bat out of hell. Scent on the ground cost me both bucks.
I have taken a very nice buck at 2 yards and another very nice buck at 3 yards. I could not have done this without good control of ground scent. Some people talk about how far away they can shoot there deer. I put a lot of value on how close I can take my deer.
Controlling scent helps with not spooking the close in deer and not spooking the deer that you see. What is more important is (are you seeing enough deer?) and that has little to do with controlling ground scent near your tree.
On some trees that I hunt out of, I put brush up close to my tree to make a horseshoe shaped barricade as this keep the deer from getting too close. It does not need to be horseshoe shaped. And it only needs to gives you a 5 yard barrier. I will let my rope lay on the ground when there are no trails with in 5 yards or if the spot is not that important to me. You can be careless with scent control and still take trophies. But with all the hard work that it takes to get an opportunity to present its self, do you want to blow 25% of the opportunities on being careless. I have sat on a log to change some clothing and then saw deer smell my scent on the log from 20 yards away. I have seen where I put up a stick as a distance marker and had touched it with my bare hands and a deer smelled my scent on the stick from 20 yards away. About 10% to 20% of the deer that I see eventually smell something. Anything that you can do to shave the odds in your favor is a plus.
It’s all about maximizing your time. Some people are happy to just be in the woods and that is ok. If you are out to improve your hunting then you should measure your success rate. I use (how many hours to get your deer), (How many deer did I see), (how close did they get), ( now many went over my trail without smelling something), (how many could I have shot), (how many were bucks), ( how many were 8 pointers ) and (how many were trophies)
I remember about 20 years ago when I was not clean with scent at all. Like I rarely washed my hunting cloths. A trophy was coming straight in on me. At 15 yards out the buck smelled a little of my ground scent and he turned broad side and walked away. He almost gave me a shot. I only needed him to have come in 3 more yards. And a few days later in the same tree, I had another trophy that was coming in quick and he was going to pass with in 5 yards of my tree and I was waiting for him to pass and then I was going to give him the quality quartering away shot. He bolted at 5 yards and ran like a bat out of hell. Scent on the ground cost me both bucks.
I have taken a very nice buck at 2 yards and another very nice buck at 3 yards. I could not have done this without good control of ground scent. Some people talk about how far away they can shoot there deer. I put a lot of value on how close I can take my deer.
Controlling scent helps with not spooking the close in deer and not spooking the deer that you see. What is more important is (are you seeing enough deer?) and that has little to do with controlling ground scent near your tree.