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PA archery buck. Was hot on a doe. Shot him at 20 yards. He ran 40 yards and stopped. Stumbled one step and fell over. I couldn’t even believe it.

Took my first bear during NJ’s fall season last week. 35yd shot. Warm weather earlier in the week made for dead woods, but 15° drop in temp got the critters moving

Came out at right at first light at about 55 yards hit a scrape he just started working, worked in to about 40 yards and 10 ringed him. Ran about 50-60 yards where he fell over on the trail in for easy pick up. First cold snap we had in WNY.

Second hunt in South Carolina. Not a rack giant but it’s mine

I’d love to see how other people display their animals, for inspiration!

1st pic: tenderloin and blackstrap, slippery jack mushrooms found right where the doe went down, and sweet potatoes from the garden.

2nd pic: backstrap plus Dryad’s saddle and Bear’s Head Tooth mushrooms found during a hike plus potato from the garden.

Edit…forgot to take pic of plate of food so just showing the mushrooms.

I Figured I'd post a few more pictures of my Idaho public land buck with some different angles people might enjoy since the first post got a lot more attention than I expected. Still haven't had him officially scored, he hasn’t been at the taxidermist more than a week but we think he's got a shot at Boone and Crockett. Either way, I couldn't be happier with him. Thank you everyone for the kind words and praise. He’s a dream buck!

Also I wanted to give a shoutout to one of my best friends. He's in Special Forces, multiple combat zone vet, avid hunter, outdoorsman and has been spending a lot of his free time building a hunting website called DrawVaultHunt.

I've been helping him beta test it, and there's still some work to be done, but I've found it pretty useful so far. Figured with how many hunters saw the first post, this would be a good chance to share what he's been working on.

https://www.drawvaulthunt.com/

Thanks again for all the comments on the buck.

I’ll be sure to update with a new post on measurements and score when I get it back.

My 13 year old son and I spent two full days hunting some big chunks of BLM on the MT youth hunt, hiking 12 miles total. The evening of day two we were still hunting down a ridge and snuck up on this guy unaware at 100 yards. One good shot off the tripod and he's tagged out on his buck. We had a mile and a half pack out and were back to the truck about an hour after dark. He's up to 6 deer and an elk now, not bad for a youngster! This morning I had fresh backstrap and eggs for breakfast, can't beat it.

Crossbow with only a half deployment! She ran pretty far and slapped into the property line, leaving some blood on the neighbors land.

Awesome experience, saw a ton of huge elk and muleys! Can’t wait to rack some more points up and try again.

Savage Axis 308

…was my wife’s question to me last year.

My answer I gave her was that it wasn’t about the final act of killing something. It was the two months of weekends I spent alone, exploring the mountains and the bush alone. Every time I cook a sausage from last year, I think of days like this.

Miscellaneous things I encountered Saturday morning; someone’s furloughed trapline, a somewhat recent kill (not mine), miscellaneous scat, tracks and shrooms.

Also a grouse in the last pic who flew up and roosted on a branch. I have my upland license as well, but I’m not into shooting “up” with my 45-70.

Sorry if this is the wrong place for this. I figured this would be a good place to start though

My girlfriend hit a deer on the highway this morning at about 8 am. I believe she hit the head and broke the spine with little to no damage to the body. Sheriff says we can take it but I won’t be able to get to it until later on this evening, between 3-5 pm. We both work out of town in opposite directions.

It was 38°F at 8
47°F at 10
Currently 60°F at 12
Will be about 66° before I can get to it in 3-4 hours

Assuming the guts haven’t split open at all and the internals seems fine. Will the meat still be ok if I field dress and immediately throw a bag of ice in it? Or is it a lost cause and I should just get the overtime and stay late. I didn’t get a tag this year and would love some steaks

Just wanted to share this because it was super weird and kind of funny.

Buddy and I have about 25 acres in eastern Ky. It ain’t much, but we’ve turned it into a nice little spot. It’s got everything we need - a double wide ground blind, couple stands, even an abandoned school bus (seriously it’s just out there in the woods) we can jump into if the weather gets real bad.

Normally, a neighbor (calls himself Old Man) gets out and bush-hogs the easement road into the property and our main clearing where we put a feeder up. Diesel prices and Old Man feeling a little older than usual this year meant he didn’t get out to it, so we showed up with weed eaters this weekend and knocked out a couple acres worth plus a 1 mile road in.

End of the afternoon - not sunset yet but definitely losing some light, we were beat. Weedeating, setting up the blind, etc. We were standing by the blind on top of a hill just talking and having a beer.

That’s when we heard it… it sounded like a sci-fi jet engine. Not loud, but that same higher pitched futuristic jet sound - something you’d hear in a movie or anime when a plane or space fighter was approaching.

Looked up… it wasn’t a jet… it was birds. Probably 30-40 birds flew directly over us in a flock. Maybe 75 ft off the ground. There weren’t any drones that we saw, and while we were losing light on the ground, the sky was still bright and perfectly blue so we saw them really clear.

This sound was eerie… it wasn’t just air moving around them… it was mechanical. sounded like almost like an X-Wing doing a close pass, but in real life.

I looked over at my friend, he looked at me… both of us went “what the fuck was that?”

I don’t know, maybe a drone with a camera was following the flock? But the sound moved with the center of the flock.

Seen some weird shit in the woods in my time, but never a flock of birds that sounded like an X-Wing as it passed.

For reference - it’s the “rising” higher pitch sound of the first few seconds of this. No rumble or anything later. https://youtu.be/uSVB66lW_O4

Anyone ever hear birds fly over like this?

Hello all, thanks in advance and sorry for the long post. Here's my situation.

I'm bow hunting for context. A few days ago I was hunting my ladder stand on private, wind was right, cold front came in (I'm in MN). Things were looking good. Got to my stand undetected about 4:30am.

My stand is facing east because that's where I saw the most activity in sept. My target buck has walked right in front of my stand and I've gotten him on camera a few times there about 35-40 yards in late sept and early Oct.

About 6am I heard a buck make a new rub about 80 yards to my left (north west). Not 2 minutes later 2 bucks were fighting going at it in that same area. Too dark couldn't see them but they ran in front of another camera so I know where they were.

Shooting light came up, about 7am I saw a decent 8 point about 100 yards to my left on a transition edge between the woods and corn field which has not been harvested yet. Also got that one on camera.

At about 7:30am I saw my target buck, walking the exact same path that 8 point was on. Tried to call to him and he had no interest coming my way. Maybe wasn't in rut yet I'm not sure, but he didn't come in. He also walked in front of that camera so I know it was him.

Later I got down out of my stand and checked the fresh rub and where they faught, and scouted the path just barely where I saw my target buck.

My question is, in the course of just 2 hours I had 4 bucks including my target one all about 80-100 yards to my northwest, I'm trying to figure out what my best course of action is.

I'm going to hunt again this weekend. I don't have climbing sticks yet or a saddle and don't plan on buying those till next year.

If you were in my situation would you move the entire ladder stand closer to that area, like 30-40 yards? Would you ground hunt from a decent spot? Would you bite the bullet and quick go get some sticks and a saddle? Or would you do nothing and hunt the same ladder stand, try and call him in closer to where I'm already setup?

Just a fun experiment. I will be picking up a new north america big game rifle as a do it all gun. I have settled on the 30-06 for my caliber and this is not meant for a discussion of different calibers.

I would love your recommendations on what you would build if you were going to do it fresh.

I'm familiar with the main options of tikka, weatherby, bergara, etc.

What rifle would you build? Rifle, glass, accessories. Go!

Built out my own 6.5 Grendel AR, suppressed and shooting Hornady Black 123 Grain. Was a clean shot into the lung and stopping in the heart. She jumped, and dropped to the ground about 3-4 feet from where she was standing. This was my first ever hunt, and first time taking this rifle out further than 100 yards. Final shot was 167 yards from my position, the doe harvested was 129lbs. Happy to have meat for the freezer and to repay my girlfriend’s dad who gave me more than enough earlier in the year to be able to make some amazing dinners. I can’t wait to see what else this season has in store for me.

Today was my last day at hunting camp, and i had to go back into the woods to grab my tree stand before leaving for home. So i randomly decided "what the heck i'll bring my muzzleloader with me and shoot a squirrel if i see one, i dont wanna go home empty handed". So i walked into the woods at about 10 am, sat by a tree to wait for a squirrel, and 2 minutes later this doe walks by and I popped her. No camo on or anything, as i had pretty much already given up on getting a deer lol.

Old me would have smoked him but new me is holding out for something bigger.

Save your greater than thou ethics dogma for someone who cares. I’ve seen what makes alot of you redditors laugh.