Pat Curtis

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!?! Lower to mid-70's for the weekend and beyond?!?!?! It's the first week of NOVEMBER?!?!?!?!?!?!

Doesn't look like I'll be ice fishing this year....[>:]

Indiana Whitetail

It will cool down in time for Every Idiot With a Shotgun Head For The Woods Day. (Thats what i call opening day of gun season)

Pat Curtis

Weekend warriors....

bigbuckOO

I had the half racked spike in for a visit again tonight. Thats 3 times i have had this same deer within 10 yards of me. Tonight i noticed he appeared to have a growth of some sort beneath his eye, it was black in color, i thought i saw it last time he was in but it was a little too dark, tonight i deffinitely seen it, something happened with that little guy.

Highlight of my night happened as i was leaving though. I saw a truck that had stopped on the road at the beginning of the drive to where i hunt. I thought maybe there were some deer they were watching out in that field with the single tree i have been talking about. I looked out there and couldnt see anything. I went ahead and got out of my coveralls and got in the truck and headed down the drive to leave. Get half way down the drive and an absolute monster runs right out in front of me across the gravel drive and out into the cut corn. He must have been of the bottom slope of that field where i couldnt see. Its been a weird year, this big guy was right out i nthe open less then 30 yards from the road. Im beginning to think my best stand location is on the back of my tailgate. I couldnt count all the points, but he was tall and real heavy.

bigbuckOO

Let another one walk tonight. An angry 7 pointer. He should be a nice deer next year if the weekend warriors dont kill him next weekend. He was rubbing trees and made a few scrapes. There were 2 does in his vacinity and he paid no attention to them. He was more interested in my grunt call. I was able to get some new land in Fulton County today, bad part about it is some other guy hunts there and the property owner doesnt want us both in there at the same time. So i have to call everytime i want to hunt and hope the other dude isnt there. Im not sure its worth the hassle. Hopefully he works weekdays and i could hunt there on days i dont have class.

Indianahick

Hmmm, According to what I found this is interesting. In Illinois during firearms season (split 6 day), maybe muzzleloader is included in this too. Archery was not mentioned only firearms. Illinois hunters harvested 114,113 total deer in 2004. Indiana with its oh so long season and muzzleloader harvested what looks to be 101,105. OOOpppss does that mean Indiana actually takes less deer. Indiana firearms season was almost split evenly between bucks and does. Bucks were between 2-3 thousand more.

Makes me believe that a there is more wooded land in Illinois than Indiana, Secondly I think that they have a better buck to doe ratio, ergo more feed for bucks, more food means bigger deer, bigger antlers for you puke and yuck hunters. So if you want big antlers for your den walls (personalized shed in my case) take more does. If you do not want to eat them give them to hunters feeding the hungry and know that your donation is really helping someone and not filling others pockets.

Pat Curtis

An old friend from High School (**sigh...6 years ago**) is a local DNR officer in my section of the state. He told me this past spring that the 1 buck rule has had poor results (compared to what they expected), and will be gone once the 5 year plan is up. Other possibilities include antler restrictions (which in other studies, namely Penn..have shown slight improvement of size at best). The total # of deer killed has gone way up from year to year..in every hunting season (this year is no different thru urban archery and early archery..plus more antlered deer have been taken so far this year than '04..even with a week left of hunting! I believe it's the weather..especially fri/sat/sun..those have been GREAT this year so far).

Another interesting tidbit was that even though we are killing more deer from year to year, the total # of deer are actually growing. I found that interesting due to thefact of less land to hunt b/c of residential/industrial/business practices, on top of the growing # of kills.

1 more bit of info I remember from the conversation: Although the # of deer taken has increase, and new state record bucks are taken every fall, the mean size of deer in Indiana has decreased over a pound from '03-'04 (I'm really not sure how they figured that out...I'm guessing by capturing tagged deer and weighing them periodically?). Look for more restrictions on bucks...and more liberal efforts on does...to get the ratio close. Bottom line he said, is hunting is not for trophy's..but to stablelize #'s of deer.

I also can't stand the guy...just wanted to add that...lol(sorry Jon ) He also used to post in the 'bowhunting' forum last year..but haven't seem him yet this year.

Buck Huntin Girl

Pat, did you get the Sunday Journal Gazette? I was reading the Outdoors section, and of course it's main focus is on deer season since shotgun opens up Saturday. Last year Indiana was only 30 deer short of an all time record harvest! The DNR guy in the paper was pleading with people to encourage hunting, bring new hunters into it, and support all hunters... It was a fairly good article, I wish he would have put a plea into land owners to allow us to use their land without hesitation.... HMMMM...

watchamakalit

That is the biggest issue I think we all face is getting the landowner permission.

Indianahick

There are some farmers that welcome all hunters that want to hunt on their land. But then again those that do have not had Idiots drive their trucks thru the farm fields and dig huge ruts with oversize tires, or thru their unpicked fields to put up their stands. I once seen a truck driving thru a standing corn field to get to the woods. Why he was driving that way I do not know. You could park on the main road and walk down a small levy to reach the woods. That is where I was when I seen the truck and driver. I took great pains to be there when the farmer was picking and described the truck as to color and type to the farmer. Guess what the farmer actually knew who it was. Oh yeah hunting was closed on that area the next year. Lots of not trespassing signs and no permission given to anyone.

One thing that is hurting the working hunter is the leasing of property. Not that I am totally against leasing but I sure can not afford them.

You can tell that the number of antlerless deer are on the increase by watching the number of antlerless permits allotted for each county all of the counties around here have increased by one. And I still have not seen anything. Darn.
As to the one antlered deer per hunter per year. My guess is that it was caused because there were several years that you could get an anlered deer with each type of license that you purchase. Archery, Shotgun, Pistol, Muzzleloader and then you could get some antlerless tags for each also. I personally heard several talking at a get together about shooting several bucks each. I asked them why and their response was simply I can get a license so why not there are plenty out there.

Urban hunts-probably like the state park hunts needed because the deer are eating all of their habitat. Starvation and disease would soon follow.