One Deer

[Buckrub]

I just watched over a week (11/21 to 11/29) of all day (daylight only) pictures from a Primos DPS (Like a Plotwatcher) on my main shooting lane at my main deer stand on our lease in Dallas County. It takes a long time to see all that, even at top speed. This is a period I was gone elsewhere, or hunting another stand, all but 11/29.

I saw one deer.

Period.

[Bwana]

Don't claim to know much about deer or hunting but if it was me I would hunt elsewhere.

[Big Muddy]

You've proved what the biologists have always said....feeding corn makes deer go nocturnal around a deer stand.
I've seen deer around feeders in daylight hours, but that's what they say, anyway.
Or, maybe Ark. deer are camera-shy.
Either way, I'm with Bwana....hunt some place else. ;)

[Buckrub]

Unless that is an invitation, it's where I have large amounts of time and money invested.

But I will hunt the farm more as soon as I can get more stands, and better stand areas.

I saw 9 deer all year. But another guy saw more than 60.

Who knows.

[Bwana]

So are you still putting money into the Beta video players?

[Buckrub]

No. But I put money into my house, that I own, even as the neighborhood starts down. I own it, I've invested time in it, and I like it. I can't just say "Well, there are nicer houses out there, I'll just go move into one".

It's just not as easy as being in a down cycle and saying "Well, I will just go hunt elsewhere". I own 1/10 of that place. I have put almost 20 years of work into it. And I killed two deer, one was a nice one this year. I kill deer every year. But the numbers are for sure down, and that's a bummer. I admit it.

This is a camera on ONE lane out of 9 for that one stand. It is ONE stand out of 40. It is 7 days out of 50. I can't say this is proof of anything. Like I said, one guy had deer on him everywhere he went, all year.

[LJ3]

It could be proof you have the camera pointed up in the sky.

[Big Muddy]

I've witnessed this, all my hunting life....there are some guys, like your buddy, who are "natural deer magnets"....deer seem to just "find" them....then, there are other guys who are "natural deer repellers"....deer just seem to inherently avoid wherever they are at....call it what you want to---good/bad luck, good/bad mojo, snakebit, charmed, deer-whisperer, fubared, etc., etc....but, the phenomenon DOES exist in the hunting community.

In the '60s, when the Delta still had a vast acreage of bottomland hardwoods, everyone around here hunted in a big hunting club up on the Quiver River....there was close to 100 members....deer were not plentiful like today, but there was a huntable population....we used horses, dogs, drivers, etc. to flush and move the deer towards the stand-hunters.

One of my Dad's good friends, Allen Faulkner, was one of those "natural deer magnets"....no matter what deer stand he drew from the daily stand-bucket, he would always either kill a deer, or deer would run past him....after several years, it got to be a real topic around the clubhouse, and everyone always wanted to draw the deer stands next to Allen, so maybe his luck would rub off on them.

I was about 13 years old, and remember vividly, one morning hunt when Allen, who was an electrician, had arrived late at the clubhouse, due to a service call....all of the deerstands had been drawn, so Allen drove out to the general area of the hunt, and walked out into the middle of an old cotton field, a safe distance away from all the other hunters....there was a huge red oak stump in the middle of the field, which he climbed on top of, and had a good view.

My Dad and I were part of the horse-driver group (actually, I was riding, Tony, the mean little bastard,Shetland pony)....about 9 am, we jumped a nice little 4 point, which promptly hauled-butt straight for the east end of that cotton field, and running towards the west....that deer ran the entire length of that big cotton field, exactly two rows to the left side of Allen's stump....BANG!!!....Allen dropped him with one shot from his old pump .30-06.

The horse-drivers were responsible for dragging the deer kills out to the nearest main turn-row, so they could be loaded and taken to the camp house skinning rack....while we were making our way thru a small woodlot to Allen's dead deer, we jumped another bigger 6 point buck, which headed in the opposite direction from the cotton field.

The buck ran past several deer-standers, and later, we added up 52 missed shots, being fired at that buck....the buck hit the big bend of Quiver River, and made a complete circle back towards the west end of that big cotton field, running east, or from the opposite end that the first buck had traveled....that buck ran the entire length of the cotton field headed east, exactly two rows to the right side of Allen's stump.... BANG !!! ....dead deer.

Allen killed both of those bucks, while standing on top of that stump, out in the middle of a naked cotton field....you could see him from a mile away....there's no doubt in my mind that if any other hunter had been standing on that stump, those bucks would have run to the next county.

Allen was also a "natural crappie magnet"....he could catch crappie outta a wet cardboard box....he died a few years before my Dad, but every time I ran into him someplace, we talked about those good ole hunting club days.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, another club member, Robert Sledge, Sr., was a "natural deer repeller"....he NEVER saw deer, let alone kill one....however, in the mid-'70s, we had our first doe season....Mr. Sledge finally killed a doe!!!

The funny part about his doe kill was he got so excited that he had hidden the deer, and completely covered it up with leaves....he said he did that so "nobody could come steal it" before the horses got there to retrieve it....the problem was that after we got there with the horses, he was still so excited, he couldn't even remember where he had hidden and covered up the deer....it took us over an hour to find the dead doe....and so help me God, he got that doe mounted!!!....his son, Junior, still has it hanging on his office wall, after Mr. Sledge died.

That's the only doe that I've EVER seen mounted !!! ;)

[airbud7]

Love it Muddy^...thanks for the share...

[Buckrub]

Yee Ha. I absolutely LOVE those old stories. Thanks man. That's a good one.

There are lots of reasons to deer hunt. Deer hunting is actually one of them.

[Buckrub]

I will say..........I never did hear the theory that feeding deer corn makes 'em nocturnal. That's a new one on me. We had one stand where they ate a ton of corn, and got shot a ton of times!!! :) You'd put it out and they'd come out the next day to die! I always figured the corn made 'em stick around close enough, within reason. Who knows.

This stand had a big legged bucket feeder and I put it out in middle of a clearcut to draw 'em out of the woods. They never ate it. I'll move it closer next year. This stand is very unique in its placement. You'd have to see it. It's in the middle of two separate worlds, one of which is the Dead Sea now. I think that's what's to blame here.

Oh, and another thing I thought of.
This camera doesn't take good pictures of that. It's 200 yards away down a narrow lane. These cameras are good, I've discovered, on actual wide open food plots, where there is lots of sunshine. If it rains, or foggy, or shady, you can't see much of anything.

Not making excuses, our deer numbers are way down. But so are everyone else's that I talk to. Someone somewhere is killing lots of deer, but the density of the harvest has moved way north. I SHOULD be hunting in my back yard. I see 9-10 every other day come walking through the yard.

[LJ3]

I have had far more than my fair share of luck with bucks over the years. I think there is something to the "energy" one emits, aware or not.

[quercus alba]

I fully believe that animals are in tune with their habitat to an extent we can't begin to fathom. We as humans can walk into a room filled with tension and immediately know something is wrong without a word being said. Imagine how sensitive a wild animal is to a vibe that something is different. I believe some people have a calmness in them that one can sense if they're aware enough. Sounds like Mr. Faulkner was one of these

[Big Muddy]

You are correct, QA....Mr. Faulkner was a man's man....soft-spoken and never a harsh word about anyone....give you the shirt off his back, too.

[Big Muddy]

I would be negligent, I guess, if I didn't tell ya'll about Mr. Pete Woods, too....another of our old club members....he was VERY short in stature, and was an old retired military guy, who drove his old WW2 Chevy-O.D. green military car, right up to his deer stand.... he carried a small ladder in the trunk, so he could climb up on the roof of that old car, to get a better hunting view.

He wasn't a "natural deer repeller"....he just couldn't hit sheeit with his old military mauser....he'd empty that old rifle on a deer, whether he accidently hit the deer, or not....everyone could tell, when it was Mr. Pete, doing the shooting at a deer....always sounded pretty much like a machine gun.

Even with his military experience, Mr. Pete was a very excitable and twitchy sort of guy....I didn't actually see him do it, but several hunters who were in close proximity to him, DID see it.

He started shooting at a deer, while standing on the front part of the car roof....he was shooting and walking at the same time, toward the rear of the car roof....he kept shooting and walking on the car roof, until he ran outta roof, and just walked right off the back of the roof, and busted his azz on the ground....they said he jumped up, re-loaded that old mauser, and kept right on shooting....never cut a hair on that deer!!! ;)

[Buckrub]

I need to come down there this spring and camp and fish, and hear some of these stories first hand. I have a FEW my ownself.

[Buckrub]

We had a guy, and I'm sitting here trying to remember his name. He was "Water Commissioner" (whatever that is) at DeWitt, and about 5' tall at best. This is back when we had no truly warm clothes. I wore Big Smith Coveralls (still hanging in the attic) and the "insulation" was a liner of some sort of red 'silk' material about as thin as paper. But we wore 'em. He was so short, that he had to roll his up almost to the crotch. (I know the problem!!!). He always called 'em "Big Britches".

To this day, when it is about to get cold, I still say "About time to find our Big Britches".

[Thumper]

Lynn's uncle (Tommy) and his two boys (good hunters) used to make an annual trek out to Utah (I think it was) for a mule deer hunt. They'd take their camper and get as far into the back country as possible and spend a full week. They'd always talk about how "lucky" Tommy was as he ALWAYS came back with a monster. One year, Uncle Tommy had some sort of surgery on his foot? ankle? and was going to have to sit the season out, but agreed to take the boys and just pull "camp duty" while they hunted. All they could talk about was how they would FINALLY be able to kick dad's ass deer hunting!

Well, they got to Utah and set up camp. The next day, the boys left Uncle Tommy at camp and headed out on the 4-wheelers to their hunting area. They got skunked that day and returned to camp that evening to find a huge mule deer buck (forgot how many points, but a VERY nice buck) hanging outside the camper! After the boys headed out that morning, Uncle Tommy was cleaning up the breakfast dishes and this buck came wandering up the side of the hill right into their camp. Uncle Tommy had watched him work his way up the trail and shot him a short distance from their camp! Even with his foot in a cast, he was able to drag him over to the camper and get him cleaned. He kicked the boys asses AGAIN that season! :D

[airbud7]

Lol... Uncle Tommy said, Boys......You can't touch this!...

[hotshot]

great stories!

[BarryBobPosthole]

Imagine me with a dissenting opinion. I think 99% of whitetail deer are probably dumber than most other mammals in the wild. They are ruminants and about the only thing they have going for them is the 360 degree vision that most prey species have and a good damned nose. The trick to that 99% is to simply be where they are. Period. The 1% that are trophy bucks are the smart and tough ones. They don't have any super powers but they sure as hell know how to pattern hunters. that's why they don't get killed.

Just MO.

BKB

[Buckrub]

Imagine me almost agreeing with you.

Now imagine a world full of peace and love and nekkid wimmin and free popcorn. Anyway, I almost agree wid ya.

Dumber? Um.....maybe they are, but 'skittish' is sorta what keeps 'em alive. Many think that's smart, when it's really just preservation by an animal that has no offensive powers (other than antlers which vary too much to be relied on genetically as a weapon against all predators). They RUN, is what they do. As in RUN AWAY. From everything. Always.

[BarryBobPosthole]

That's what all ruminants do. Wild cattle, antelopes, gnus, caribou, deer. But they do the same thing day after day after day week in week out. Some predator comes into their world, like QA said, they alter their pattern to avoid the predators. But they're gonna do what they do regardless. We kind of give them more brains than they actually have. I've had groups of six or seven does walk right up to me and sniff me but not run off as long as I sat stock still. Bucks don't do that, they're even skittisher, if that's a word. But there's just certain things that trigger that skittish behavior and for the majority of them, that ain't all that hard to get inside of their defenses. I'll put most bucks in that category too when there's pussy on their brains. But there's that 1%......that's where the real hunters come in.

BKB