chowder

Wow, Ray- you get a little sharper every day Tom, thanks again for your literary joust! Nice piece of work. -Andy

Good going Shawn! Nice buck you got there, congrats! -Andy

Outstanding! Congrats!

White tail bucks are physiologically 'ready to breed does when their antlers are hard and become less reproductively aggressive when they begin to lose their antlers. Consequently they are as a group willing and able to breed over a relatively long period of time.Whitetail does have a relatively short true standing heat of about 24 hours but will attract the interest for 2 1/2 days on either side of her true heat. If a doe does not get pregnant she will cycle again in 28 days. White tail does tend to cycle fairly tight inside specific geographical areas because they have been selected by nature to do so. White tail does w/ good nutrition have a very high conception rate of somewhere around 85%. This means that relatively few bucks can maintain a population of whitetails within a certain area. Consequently we can see that 'the rut' is actually a spectrum of breeding events that could be described quantitatively as the classic bell shaped curve. The beginning of the rut is the first part of the curve where a relatively few does are in heat, the fat part of the curve is where most of the does are in heat and the end of the curve is where the last few does are bred. As an avid hunter and somebody who has been in 'deer country' farming for quite a while I would say that my experiences mirror the physical reproductive facts I have described above. Bucks are ready to breed does before there are many does in heat , they are then as a group ready to breed as many does as possible in the 'tight' part of the breeding season, they then become gradually less focused on breeding does till the shortest days of the year which does not really present a problem because there are so few does coming back into heat because their conception rate is so high. Everything I have come to see and know about White tails suggests strongly to me that although there may be a small population of does that may roughly cycle a 2cd time as a group, I believe it is more more important to understand that the average buck is still looking for open and cycling does before and after the fat part of the breeding curve. This what makes him reckless and vulnerable. Just remember guys that reckless and vulnerable also means unpredictable which is why patterning works best both early and late in the season and focusing on high buck traffic or seeking corridors works best during the peak of the rut.

FL-18 w/ zoom has worked well for me from 100'-8' FOW. I also have a Vex alumaducer mounted in the hull of my 16' which lets me use my vex easily for open water jigging.

Hard to beat Tom's setups, check em out http://www.atommiktrollingflies.com/misc.htm

Ray, thanks for your insightful post & hope you LOUALL have a good Thanksgiving whenever you get to celebrate it! -Andy

Not to take anything away from the bugs cuz they do a heck of a job for sure but we've been doing euros for years w/ a turkey cooker outside, works great if you don't mind some funky, dirty work & pretty quick too! My buddy makes some pretty nice wood mounting plaques w/ scroll work ,etc. that are very reasonable if anybody is interested in going the low budget route. -Andy (the thread robber)

From one Andy to another I hope you have a great B-Day!

It would help if you guys used this thing called a 'MAP' P.S. Ray, are you going to come back out too and teach me some more about deer hunting?

Wild horses couldn't keep me away. I'll have to see if I can find ya again. Ok Bob, we'll leave the light on for ya- just say the word!

Now that the 2cd gen is stocking the freezer I can afford to be a bit more of a watcher than a killer and it feels great. This is what I saw; Sat am- 2 does moved thru then 1 more ran thru chased by a basket rack.Quit at 8:30 to get eldest to work. Sat pm- 3 does feeding. Then later watched a good 8pt pt escort a doe into a brushy area. Sun am- Saw a number of does come thundering thru my stand area. They had obviously been pushed out of a wooded area to the west of my property boundary where there was a tremendous amount of shooting. Quit at 9 to go out to brkfast. Sun at 1PM- My sons and I were putting the finishing touches on a new stand when a doe came running along the other side of the hedgerow we were putting the stand in. As the doe turned thru a barway she crossed to our side turned to go back where she had come from and almost ran us over. She was trailed by a nice 6 pt who stopped as he came thru the barway and stood 20 yards away staring at the three of us. He must have been trying to figure out if she was worth trying to go thru the 3 of us to get to or not. Ultimately, he finally went the opposite way into the woods.

Jeez, how did I miss out on this thread! HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY BOB p.s. If you can remember how to get here I've got some venison sausage for ya!

The good quality stuff is not cheap, and the cheap stuff is worthless! I've used both these suppliers for whole herring, alewives and bait strips; http://www.fishonbait.com/index.php?opt ... 1&Itemid=6 and http://shop.gltsupplies.com/merchant2/ To be honest w/ you though I think you will find that most of this stuff will work when most of the rest of the arsenal is hot but doesn't give you much advantage when the fish are negative. The only partial exception to this rule I've seen so far is live alewives on neutral smallies and even that isn't set in stone. Good luck! -Andy

Tristan (T bone) turned 16 a couple weeks back and he was bound & determined to hunt alone in his own stand with 'nobody around'. In checking out the scene I could see he calmly made sure this 8pt walked through brushy cover into the only clear shooting lane, stopped him and sealed the deal with a well placed shot thru the boiler room with a good old 870. The buck only went about 20yds.

I've certainly had lot's of people conduct 'research' on shoulder shots here but, thankfully, so far none of this archery research work has been done on bovine scapulae

Not sure why we gotta reinvent the wheel all the time but I guess it's human nature to think there's gonna be a magic bullet out there that will solve all problems. Probably the nature of those of us who get too absorbed into one specific activity from time to time Anyway, just wanted to add my 2 cents to this thread, so here it goes; In my opinion there is nothing wrong w/ expanding bhs but there's nothing wrong w/ fixed ones either. Since expanding bhs have more moving parts it is predictable that they can produce a more varied result when used. The variance that I have seen encompasses results that are sometimes better and sometimes worse than fixed bhs. I've been hunting deer w/ a bow for 35 years (taking 2-5 deer/year for most of that span)and call me what you will I like consistency in a bh even if that means that sometimes I don't get maximum performance. A few years ago I experimented w/ grim reapers,rage, Hyper Shoks, and a few other expanding bhs for 3 years and in the end I just came to the conclusion that I didn't need the variation I saw when they contacted bone in general. Now I'll admit I'm a whimpy, older, guy who has slowly backed down to 60lb on my current bow, a 31" draw Matthews Drenalin, but I've got news for you- we're all on the same trajectory guys! Anyway, I've come to terms with consistent, average performance in broad side, shallow quartering towards to steep quartering away shots using fixed bhs. For the time being I'm using the smaller Slick Tricks and as long as I can get a couple deer out of each bh w/ out changing blades I guess they aren't too expensive or time consuming. Just my 2 cents, -Andy

For what it's worth that Islander has been gone from Jason's driveway since April sometime.

Scott, my thoughts and prayers are with you and your family. -Andy

JK- Thanks for the Fed link & I think I will try an IC choke on one of our model 2000 Autos. Borderline- Anything on BC 'going right through a coyote at 60yds' would be appreciated. It seems like kind of a tall order to me but since my boys usually 'cover' my back when we're setting up on predators maybe we should consider swapping out our traditional 3" 00BK loads for BC which does have a 225 fps muzzle vel. advantage. -Andy

Not sure what to make of these BC commentaries but it would be very helpful if those of you with access to credible BC user problem reports could provide us w/ a link to the info so we can read the reports ourselves. Thanks, -Andy

Most of the scrapes you see are made by young bucks who are typically inconsistent and pretty clue less about the whole breeding business. Unless you hunt the Adirondacks I don't think I would hunt scrapes unless you are pretty certain about a daylight pattern. Without educating the deer, try & get a sense from the scrapes (and the rubs) how the bucks travel to and from doe bedding and feeding areas and set up on those high percentage routes. Remember it's super important to take into account how you can make low impact entrances & exits to and from those buck travel corridors when you pick the spots to hunt those high percentage routes. Good luck & enjoy the adventure! -Andy

Good going Greg! -Andy

Killed an older heavy 7 on Sat am-no swelling at all. Have seen a few other 2 1/2s sniffing beds and checking scrapes but no chasing,etc. I would think that the bucks, and consequently the does too, will begin to become considerably less predictable by the end of the weekend and especially into next week,so if you are looking to try and take advantage of a traffic pattern to arrow one you should do so sooner rather than later! -Andy Quote Legacy (Rob); I have witnessed zero chasing but every doe i have seen in the past 5-6 days seems to be on edge and far from relaxed P.S. Yo Rob, all mature does are on edge almost all the time - ask your wife about this after you have had a few kids. It's most of what keeps a species going

BD you have a good one! -Andy