reeltime

that's a really nice buck, nice story, congrats on the harvest.

nice looking buck, congrats.

nice bucks Ray, looks like you guys did very well on your trip.

thanks guys, man short night!! still in hunting mode and even though it was after 3am the last time I looked at the clock I was wide awake at 4:30, walked out the door and wow what a morning! cool, clear, and calm with a storm coming in tonight I think it would be a great hunt this morning! I cant wait to get back out there with the bow saturday!

Man I can’t sleep! Set back and grab your favorite cold beverage as this is long J The rest of the story…… A walk back in history of the season. I had this buck and 3 of his companions under my tree on oct. 15, what used to be the original first day of archery season. This year archery started on the 16th, I had a decent 10 point at 10 yards the first morning and due to brush I had no shot and actually I wasn’t real upset that I didn’t have a shot because I knew this big 8 was there also. The weather, actually the wind the first week and a half was playing havok with me because we were having an abnormal amount of SW winds and that made most of my good stand sites unhuntable. I learned the hard way NOT to push your luck and the motto of forget the wind just hunt is NOT a motto to live by! While you can cut down greatly your scent you will NEVER be 100% scent free and some bucks only need 1 wiff and your all done! I didn’t hunt my good sets the last week of Oct. so they would be good and fresh for the first week in Nov. when they should really be getting cranked up, I am a firm believer in don’t push it till the times right! I saw some good bucks week 1 November and was doing all day sets the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and all but an hour or so the 4th. On the 4th about 4:45 it was really raining and I had taken my arrow off the string when a doe and 2 little ones blew by me. I thought someone had gotten out of a stand and they spooked them but 5 minutes later that big 8 point walked right under me and all around me and I wouldn’t tempt fate in the rain. I knew then and after that NOT taking the shot in the rain was the right choice but man it was eating me up inside!! I know that most times you may only ever get 1 good chance at 1 particular mature buck and I was trying to convince myself that he had no clue you were there and you will get to see him again! I was to leave for camp in Pa. the next day and the next morning it was pouring rain again so I didn’t hunt I just packed the truck and headed for Pa. at noontime. That whole trip I just kept replaying the previous nights hunt and wondered would he chase a doe off onto another property and get shot or worse yet get hit by a car like so many other bucks have met their demise……. I was supposed to be in Pa most of a week, but Saturday morning I was on a very familiar ridge and as usual there were bucks there and I shot a nice 12 point after being in the tree 4 hours. Now it was decision time, I had some work at the farm to do but I just couldn’t get that NY buck out of my mind. Monday morning I caped out the 12 and did the butchering and closed up camp and came back to NY. Tuesday morning I was out and the first buck I saw was the big 8! I knew Wed & Thu were gone as I had work to do and the break wouldn’t do any harm. Saturday evening I had him again at less than 10 yards but being burried in a hemlock and last light I just couldn’t see my pin and I certainly wasn’t going to just “center punch†him! Sunday am it was hard s/se winds and that would be the worst wind for my hot stand! So I took the morning “off†the evening hunt might be ok, after showering and starting to get ready the wind picked up, not going, wind died, weather channel said less than 5mph wind, I am going! Got all my stuff together and it starts sprinkling, that’s it take off the gear and don’t push it! This morning I go outside at 4:30 and its dead calm! Showered got my gear together and off to the woods, slipped in nice as the leaves were nice and wet from the heavy showers last night, all settled in the stand and at 7:30 I hear a grey squirrel scolding a deer, I am intently pinpointed on the squirrel and movement! Antlers! NICE antlers! There he is! He walks north of me about 30 yards out then turns south and here he comes! I am fully thinking this is it! He is walking head drooped, eyes about shut, just plain whooped from chasing all night!! He gets to 10 yards and no shot turns west stops in 1 opening…..BUT his entire chest is behind a beech tree and all I can see is from the last rib to the tail! He trashes a small beech tree! Takes 2 steps and is covered with beech brush on the vitals and he proceeds to make a scrape and licking branch and then does his urine deal. Walks 10 feet and literally plopped down, I mean standing on all 4 one second and crash on the ground! 20 yards down wind and lights out! Asleep!! I couldn’t believe it, this buck is bedded 20 yards from me and no shot! Downwind and stone cold asleep! He slept for an hour till a young doe walked through and then he snapped awake and jumped up and chased her out of there and then slowly walked up the hill till he heard another buck grunting and chasing that young doe in the brush to my east and he was off to the races and all kinds of chasing as he was trying to run off that other buck. I could only hunt till 10 because of a noontime appointment, with that done I was back in the shower and getting stuff ready, tonight it was my good luck 1983 Penn State shirt night! I took a very slow walk to the stand as it had warmed up and the leaves had dried quiet a bit so it was noisy. I got to my hemlock with no deer spooked, sprayed everything down again and I just “had†that feeling that this was going to be the night! I even sprayed the climbing stick as I was going up the 30 feet! I had that feeling all day and I paid extra care on my scent control. It was WARM! I thought man I just cant catch a break! 2:00 nothing, 3:00 nothing, 4:00 nothing! Finally the sun got behind a western hill and you could feel the temp dropping! 4:30 I hear a deer to the northeast coming my way, 1 deer, he steps out and it’s a decent 8 point…..but its not him! He walks by @ 10 yards in the open I think to myself buddy if this was Friday you’d be in trouble! He mills around me for 5 minutes and then heads north into the grapevine thicket and finds a doe to chase around. I hear a deer coming behind me and to the south of me, I watch the edge of the hemlocks and I see that little doe from this morning walking with her tail out and fluffed up…..good sign!!! She walks right under me and due west now! Uuuurrrrrrrppp directly behind me! I knew right then it was him, he had a very deep grunt and it was always very short and sharply ending! Then I see a wall of tines! Yes its him! He stopped looked around because of all the chase noise and then walked behind a big beech tree and I eased to full draw as the kisser button found the spot and he stepped right into one of the few openings I have on that side of the stand and STOPPED broadside at 6 yards! I aint kidding my mind said “thanks for the memories sir†as the green pin was burning a hole through his lungs and the wasp tipped Easton was gone as I watched the orange and green fletching disappear right behind the shoulder. He jumped ahead 10 feet and then just walked southwest, my first thought was I KNOW I saw that arrow go through his shoulder! Well he walked about 50 yards stopped looked around and fell over. It was finally done, so much work, so much time, all the practicing, all the stand work in placements, a 2 year game of chess was finally over. I sat down and thought about all the encounters with him, what he means to me, and how much I truly will miss seeing his footprints and hoping every time I check a camera will he be on it this time, I now know HE wont be. He will provide good table fare and will provide me with a great mount and a memory that will last my lifetime. It was probably one of the most somber times I have ever walked up on a buck I had shot with the bow, so many close encounters, so many pictures, so many hours looking at him with the field glasses, I kinda knew what he had but didn’t “know†for certain….I said a quiet thank you as I finally picked up his head for the first time and realized he was all I had expected and then some, and he was HEAVY and minga he stunk! This buck means more to me than any other deer I have shot and lord knows I have shot a pile of them. The start of the season last year I vowed that IF I were to get him it would be with my bow, all last archery season, gun season, muzzleloader season I hunted with the bow. 13 encounters with him last year and it was never “right†so I let him walk, man did I catch grief from some of my buddies! “you gotta kill him with a gun before someone else†“I would never think of carrying a bow in gun season“…. I told them I made a promise to myself that I would only take him with my bow and that’s what it would be or tag soup! I was fully prepared to eat the tag this year if need be but willpower, determination, preparation, and attention to detail all came together 4:45pm 11/15/10 in my favorite hemlock stand.

will submit the story later as I still got some cleaning up to do and finally be back to an attached person...... this buck has been eating me up this year! finally 4:45 tonight everything came together and I said a quiet thanks for the memories just before I shot.... both elated and really somber knowing I wont be able to try and outwit this one anymore.

we got to camp friday evening early enough to hunt but it was raining so we just got camp situated. went out for a ride just before dark and saw 1 nice 8 point a few miles from camp. saturday am it was pretty windy at 4 am. too windy to hunt the ridge I was thinking about hunting so i figured that with the wind I would head to old reliable hollow. But after a shower andafter getting a base layer on when I stepped outside the wind had died! change of plans!!!!!!!!!!!! got a big garbage bag and filled it with all my clothes that I was going to need for the day, sprayed everything down b4 I put the stuff in the bag . got the climber in the truck and was off to one of my favorite ridges. climbed out of the truck at 5:45. with a long walk and a planned all day set it was tee shirt and sweat pants for the walk in with the climber on my back, a bag of hunting clothes in one hand and of course the bow in my other hand. finally arriving in there with no deer spooked on the way in I noticed some things changed and my normal climbing tree was not going to be good. so I found a good maple with a y about 30' up. hooked up the stand and then went and laid a big half circle scent line passing my tree to the left. it took me till 7:10 to climb up the tree, being silent with a climber can take time, reaching up and resecuring the safety strap each time. finally whenI reached the Y I got the hand climber/seat secured, got everything set and with it being about light enough to shoot everything was in slow motion and being very careful not to make any excess noise. 8:00 I catch movement out the ridge from me in the blackberry patch and can see its an adult deer by itself. figured it to be a buck but couldn't see antlers so I knew if it was it was not a big one. for the next hour he just milled around and still not seeing antlers I wasn't 100% sure it was a buck. then I see leaves flying and a tree whipping back and forth, I chuckle thinking yup this youngster is all gooned up and feeling his oats this cold spitting snow morning. about 9:45 i see him on a fawn doe as she is doing circles through the bushes and then she heads down over the hill but the little buck as I can see now comes right down wind of the scent trail and he is locked on and here he comes. THIS is where I almost screwed myself! I get the bright idea to video this 4 pt on the phone. as i am videoing him he walks right down the scent trail past my stand stops looks back and about that time I look to the right and here comes that 12pt! I cant type what went through my mind! but he was taking the same path as the 4 point and that would put him right behind a bunch of really big oaks. I set with my climber seat positioned so that I am just about standing but with just enough weight off my knees to be comfy. I get stood up and draw in one motion just as he steps out at 6 yards. as he was coming towards me I saw 4 points up on the main beam so he was legal and thats the last I looked at the antlers, from that point on it was boiler room only!! I think that 4 point must of seen me cause the 12 locked up and I knew it was now or never as this was about to fall apart right quick! I burned a hole through and lined up the pin from entrance to exit and adjusted a little to make sure I got both lungs and drove the arrow right through the edge of the spine, through the lungs and out the ribs. Down he went and never moved! I called back to the farm and said bring the cart Pat knows where. he got there just about 11 and we were headed back to camp.

nah ray maybe only 99 times he went for a mile ride on the cart and a 2 mile ride in the truck is all. but there were some folks over to see him through out the afternoon yesterday. I gotta chace mom off the 'puter.

no time for the story but I got a goodun this morning here at the farm in pa! 12 point at 6 yards!

big congrats to everyone that has scored on deer so far this season and good luck to those still in the hunt. to beat the best eyes ears and noses in the woods with a bow is quite an accomplishment. later

With the winds and rain last week I gave my best spots a break for 5 days hoping that the tradition of week 1 November would hold true and the area would of settled down. I was not to be disappointed! Saturday with the NW breeze I was back in my hottest morning set for NW winds, saw 23 different doe's and fawns! but no bucks! Saturday evening I decided to set that same stand, something I rarely ever do ( going to, leaving, then returning to the same stand for the evening) I had never sat that stand for an evening hunt and had no idea what to expect. Saw 6 doe and 3 different bucks all smaller. Sunday morning I watched a buck tracking some doe's that had walked by in the dark, he had his head down tail up wagging back and forth like a beagle on a rabbit, certainly too small to shoot. Sunday evening it was raining and the grandkids wanted to go trick or treating so my evening was already spoken for. Monday I sat dark to dark, saw 9 deer all day 4 bucks, 2 shooters but none close enough for a shot. That stand is in a funnel for doe traffic and I knew with patience it would pay off. I was back in that stand @ 6:30 Tuesday morning finally with a lot less wind! 8:15 I hear a deer slowly milling through the beech trees, but with the leaves still on the lower brush I could only make out bits & pieces of a decent bodied deer. finally he stepped out in the more open brush and I could see a decent rack knew it was one of the 8's but didn't know which one........turned out to be this one. the one facing away from the camera. he walked by at less than 10 yards after a doe had come through and then commenced to chasing her for the next 3 hours all around me. it was pretty slow midday and wasn't until early evening I saw a doe with a fawn that couldn't of been more than 6 weeks old! That little bugger couldn't weigh 25 lbs! and was covered with spots. saw 9 other doe and 2 bucks. Finally climbed down at 6:45 after another 2 unknown deer were passing behind the stand. Wednesday was probably my slowest morning only seeing 2 doe after daylight but I did hear a buck chase a doe through behind me about 7am. grunting up a storm. I never heard or saw another deer till 1pm. when a small button buck walked right under me. about 3:00 action started picking up as I could hear deer milling through the beech and a doe with 2 little ones walked under me. There were squirrels EVERYWHERE!!! all of a sudden whoomp right in front of the stand there is a huge barred owl on the ground with his wings extended standing over where there had just been a squirrel!! He proceeded to tear his prize apart for his evening meal. When a deer started getting close he flew up in the hemlock in front of me about 6 yards away, NEVER heard his wings! They call them silent killers for a reason I guess. The day ended with seeing 11 deer, 10 doe & fawns and 1 buck. Thursday looked like it might be iffy for weather, I climbed up at 6:30 and soon had deer coming through, I saw a wide 8 with short tines about 8am, then at 9 had a big 6pt come in and milled all around me for 1/2 hr then bedded down 50 yards from me till 11 when it started sprinkling. He got up and walked farther back in the woods towards the hemlocks. I figured it would be a good time to get out and go do some barn chores and fix a couple of our wood piles and basically give me a mental break from setting in stand all day. I was reshowered, fresh camo and back in the tree by 2:00, I wasn't back in the tree 10 minutes when 2 doe came by.. then nothing till 4 when 2 more doe came by. it started a light mist but the woods were still quite noisy and I could hear the turkeys tearing up the forest floor searching for beechnuts. By 4:30 it was starting to rain steady and soon I couldn't hear the squirrels that were right under me, I knew that sign was not good especially when bow hunting. It was almost 5 and now it was raining pretty steady and when the water was dripping off my hat I reached over took the bow off the hanger and took the arrow off the string and put it back in the quiver. No need for any type of temptation, pouring rain, arrow, bloodtrail....just not a good idea to tempt fate! No sooner did I hang the bow back up, cause I certainly didn't want to risk getting out of there at prime time and spooking a buck. I had a doe with 2 little ones go by me at mach 3..... I thought well either someone is leaving their stand or uuuuurrrpp dang! nope its a buck chasing! here he comes right to the tree! for 5-6 minutes he mills all around me! for 3 minutes he is perfectly broadside at 4 yards!! it wouldn't have been so bad if it was one of the little bucks but nnnnnnnnnooooooooooooooooooooo its gotta be the one! I had to set there and watch rainwater dripping off his antlers!! this one. mother nature screwed me big time, I can only hope that by passing him up yesterday the deer gods will look favorably upon me and give me another chance when the conditions are right! I know it woulda, shoulda been a slam dunk shot at 4 yards BUT anything can happen! make a bad hit and not recover him woulda been absolutely sickening for me, more than I was so sick over all that time having him right there but having to will myself into NOT doing something stupid.. with the rain today I am not even gonna try it,,,,don't tempt fate!

Jerry, I just watched the video, it looks like in video # 2 about 1/4 of the way through the video he snorts once. I have been using camera's since the old 35mm days, probably 7-8 years. probably have over a thousand pics of deer. like quite a few of my pictures your deer is keyed on that camera. They know something is up, most times I set a camera the best series of pics is the first week on a good travel route, as time goes on the buck pictures decrease, especially on mature deer. I pulled all of my cameras for 2 reasons, #1 I don't want them to walk away with a trespasser & #2 I don't want to spook any of the bucks I know are there through summer scouting. It gets very tempting to keep the camera's out because its nice to see the pictures BUT it may be doing more harm than good. if you are going in to check pictures more than once a week that is going to leave a LOT of extra human scent around, and that is something mature bucks especially ones that have escaped a few close calls will generally not tolerate. my plan would be this; -at this point I would not hunt that spot till the conditions are perfect for that spot. little to no wind, if there is any wind make sure its a sustained wind direction ( you certainly don't want to hunt it on a swirling wind day) - I would set a stand where you have a decent high percentage shot. - make sure you have good background cover, don't rely on leaves as they will be gone soon. multiple trunk trees, multiple trees close together, trees covered with grapevines, multifloral rose etc. are a good place to set up, hemlocks are another good one. -do not clear shooting lanes, remember you are IN their house! cutting a bunch of shooting lanes to a deer is like me coming in your livingroom and moving your couch and tv and me expecting you not to notice it!! -be VERY scent conscious! while you can never become 100% scent free you can cut down the scent level that will be far more tolerable to deer. - always take a shower with some type of scent free soap. - I used unscented hunters specialties deoderant. - your camo should be washed in scent free laundry soap and air dried. - I never wear a camo suit more than 1 set without rewashing it. - use scent killer spray on yourself, your bow handle, boots, pack. - I keep all my suits in big plastic bins, EVERYTHING is washed in scent free soap, from socks to coveralls. I have sweatpants, teeshirts, camo shirts, camo chamois shirts all in containers. When I drive somewhere I wear regular clothes and once there I spray down and change into all the scent free stuff and then spray down again. - only dress enough to be comfortable for the walk into the stand, nothing will kill a spot faster than being all dressed to hunt and by the time you reach your stand your sweating like crazy. once you reach your spot and cool down you can put on the rest of your stuff. - IF you lay a scent trail be sure to end it where you have a shot, and always where you put him in your favor to the wind. until the rut kicks in heavy I would use a "roam" scent, once the big boys are gooned up I also lay a trail with silvertop. I also keep all my deer scent stuff separate from each other, ( scent bottles in a ziplock bag, scent wicks in a different bag, and drag rope in another bag) starting next week is a good time to do all day sets, I have seen and killed more bucks from 11-2 than morning or evening once the chasing starts. it takes willpower to set like that or what I do is take the climber and hunt a bottom in the morning and then at 9/10 am get down walk a couple hundred yards to a ridge and set up again for the rest of the day. wow, didn't mean to ramble on, and don't mean to bore ya with redundant info. But if it helped you out any and you have any questions shoot me a PM or give me a hollar, I have been at this game a long time.. later & good luck.

salmonite, yes the 2 big ones are on a doe with a couple little ones 33canuck,, you JUST about spoke true words!! It was much windier than I like for bow hunting saturday morning but my one stand is usually perfect for a NW wind in the morning. the only problem was the deer didn't follow the "script" I was covered with turkeys all morning and between all the calling and scratching and movement from 40 birds around me it was making it difficult to concentrate on deer sounds and any movement. 8:00 I catch movement off to my left about 60 yards down the swamp its the littlest of the 2 fawns with 4 ropers ( longbeards ) she starts chasing the turkeys around and then the bigger of the 2 fawns comes out to join the fun. Soon after that the doe steps out and makes a few jestures to tell the kids to knock it off!!! They settled down and then all 3 began to feed up towards me. Not good as they are headed right towards my scent stream, but they will likely pass at less than 10 yards and with being up 28 feet I should be ok, between the scent control I take and being up so high I am hoping I am gonna be OK. As I am watching the doe and 2 little ones pass under my stand, literally! I am watching them through the slats in the base of the stand I look up and here comes that same 10 point that I had the pictures of the day before!!! If he will follow the same path as these doe's it will be a slam dunk shot at 5 yards or less!!! well not only did they not follow the script on what trail to come in one HE decided to walk right through the brush at 10 yards and for 20 minutes within 10 yards of me and I never had a shot! while frustrating as it was it was also fun having a big mature buck that close for so long and him never knowing I was there! The season is long and I got plenty of doe's there to hold them and sooner or later either that big 10 or big 8 is going to make a fatal mistake.

OOOOYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! when they changed the opening of archery from the 15th to the 3rd saturday of oct. I didn't like it cause some years it was going to take away one of best dates! oct. 15th has ALWAYS been a good day for me, 4 yrs in a row I killed a buck on oct. 16th plus or minus 5 minutes of 6:00 pm! I have killed probably 30 other deer on the 15th over the years. I went and grabbed all my cameras out of the woods a little while ago and low and behold my hottest stand set was visited this morning!! hopefully he follows the doe's in tomorrow morning again!!!!

I found the community scrape was opened back up and set up another camera on the scrape. 59 pictures in 4 days all of deer. how is this for a close up? didn't get any pictures of the big boys this round, but I did find an 8" tree they worked on, plus about 40-50 other littler trees all rubbed up from all the different bucks there.

thanks guys, I shoulda put in there that I had to take a snapshot with my crappy cell phone off the tv.... the units were supposed to come with a usb cable but didn't and the 5 different usb cables i have kicking around are not right for the game camera. BTW its a moultrie camera, on the tv the picture is clear. cant wait to see what I get on the camera next trip to the woods. Jerry the pics were from last week.

hey Gary, I got the only good tree in the area for a stand he is one of 4 bucks in that sequence, 2 other decent 8's and a 6. so far I have 8 different bucks on the camera on the same farm.

he is only 5 yards from my stand

but these 4 guys did! was nice to see them but there aint a long spur in the group. inch to inch and an 8th was the biggest so they are all safe with me for another few years.

I don't know of anything used, I would recommend calling Tim at Krenzer marine in Sodus Point and have him order a Jasper engine for you, Jasper has a good warranty and they stand behind it! They can also check the exhaust manifolds, If it wasn't properly winterized I would suspect they are cracked as well. Timmy at Krenzers is a great guy and will certainly help you out, he has a very experienced crew working for him as well.

don't let a little ice scare ya This was Scott and I last year in duck season dealing with a little bit of ice. believe me it won't be like this, actually as of today the biggest part of the bay looks to be about ready to swallow what little ice there is out there. On a side note, at 8 am this morning there were 2 people out on the ice on the south east side,,,ice fishing!

you can launch out of Sodus point at the coast guard station. There is little to no ice on the shoreline, from the boat launch you are within a couple hundred yards of the lake. there is still ice on the bay which if it breaks up can plug the channel but its all pretty dark and punky so I would think that even if some did break off you would still be able to work your way through it to get back.

while it may be a nice to read article its all based on "scientific" numbers. With no mandatory check stations and even if there were there is no way to accurately state deer harvest numbers nor an accurate herd count. I was hoping I would be wrong when they began the talk of allowing rifles in the southern tier. I made the statement then that in doing so and not cutting back on the antlerless tags or at least cutting back the combined season people were going to see a rapid decrease in the population along with the rifle change. All those years of shotgun season a deer at 200 yards was safe, with a high powered rifle thats a dead deer! Along with the advancements of black powder guns and allowing them in the "muzzleloader" season it essentially gives people an extra week and an extra antlerless tag. So pretty much in the southern tier there is now about 5 weeks of rifle season. a large number of the muzzleloaders on the market today are fairly accurate out to 150 yards and in the hands of a person that has done their homework and spent time on the shooting bench that range can reach out to 200-250 yards, basically about the effective range of a 30-30 centerfire rifle. with the coyote and bear predation along with the vast number of antlerless tags and the liberal seasons and weapons its pretty easy to see why the deer herd is being decimated. I have hunted in Pa. since 1977, I still have outdoor life mags from then, the Pa. game commission touts the numbers 1 million deer hunters and a deer herd of 1 million. I can tell you the first day of "buck" season it sure seemed to be a million hunters! There were orange pumpkins behind every tree, we saw deer in herds of 30-40 at a time and it was nothing to see 200+ deer the first day. The shooting was unreal!! Today they claim the numbers to be roughly 1 million on the herd and the hunters, I can tell you there is NO way even close on either number. You don't see the people or the deer any more. The bottom line on the numbers game is simply this,,, NUMBERS sell licenses! stating an inflated herd number and kill number tells gullable hunters, man I gotta hunt there look at how many deer they kill and how big of a deer herd there is. With the antler restrictions and the liberal antlerless tags Pa. gives out the hunters have decimated the deer herd on a vast majority of the "public" land. The same thing is happening here and will continue to happen as long as the DEC gives out the tags. I guess my point with all of my ramblings is this, While the DEC can give out numbers and some hunters believe them and some area's there are good deer numbers there are area's that the numbers are down.The bottom line is the DEC can give out all the permits they want, it then falls in the hunters hands. If the area you are hunting doesn't hold many deer then just because you have an antlerless permit doesn't mean you have to fill it. I cant tell you how many times I have read " I didn't see a deer all season and then the last day I saw a doe so I shot it"?? this just blows my mind, along with the statements of " well if I didn't shoot it someone else woulda shot it" The only true statement is IF you shoot it you know for CERTAIN its dead and wont be reproducing again next year! While not every deer you pass up is going to make it through the season, those that you pass up at least have another chance to make it.

I borrowed a buddy's digital camera since I knew I wouldn't be able to put in enough film to get all the pics , I had 570 pictures in less than a week! here are just a few pictures. a little guy is spooked mid headshake nice snow camo can ya see me now?? my backs itchy

Rodbuster, yes the launch is open, there is just enough space between the snow piles to fit a trailer. some ice was moving around from the bait shop over towards the chute. With the temps they are calling for on Saturday and Sunday I would think its going to have some south in it if not straight south. Good luck and by all means be careful, you will likely be the only one out there and neither the coast guard or sheriffs have a boat in or ready to go in.