Everything posted by 686
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Hunting ‘23/‘24: Bag ‘em and Tag ‘em
We crushed it today. 9 does between 5 of us. Got the food plots in. Used a rented no till drill for the first time, just need some rain now. Filled feeders, football, wild game and steaks on the grill.
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Hunting ‘23/‘24: Bag ‘em and Tag ‘em
Brought 4 guests out to our place. Sat for pigs tonight but no luck, hoping to slaughter some does tomorrow AM. Rented a no-till drill and am planning to plant ~ 5 acres of oats, peas and clover mid day. Then hunt PM and cook dove, venison, and steaks. Should be a good day.
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Hunting ‘23/‘24: Bag ‘em and Tag ‘em
It seems like the limits are local by store. I’d call ahead, but the academy’s and Bass pro/cablelas around central Texas have been selling shells by the case no problem from what I’ve seen.
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Hunting ‘23/‘24: Bag ‘em and Tag ‘em
Yeah I had basically put planting a food plot out of my mind but now that we got 5” of rain I feel like I missed a good opportunity by not putting seed in the ground a few weeks back. If soil conditions allow I may try to get something in the ground this weekend.
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Hunting ‘23/‘24: Bag ‘em and Tag ‘em
@Herbie Hancock yeah he is thick. the drought was horrible for us this year; we have lots of does with ribs showing and this SOB has a gut on him. We have decent genetics on our little low fence central Texas place - we had a 3-4y.o. 14pt two years ago, and some little drop tines as well (we didn’t shoot them, so either the neighbors did, or ? but haven’t seen them this year). When I see “inferior” older bucks like this I tend to be tempted to get them off the habitat. Primarily though, we need to lower the population density and shoot lots of does for awhile and the herd would have better body condition. I have a 238” whitetail on the wall from a high fence hunt I was invited on as a guest, and I doubt I’ll ever shoot anything bigger than that, and I’m just enjoying the process now. I also like to pick out good cull/shooter bucks for friends/family to take (that are trophies for them); or ones I might take with one of my kids with me so they can be part of the process/put their hands on a nice buck.
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Birding
I don’t know much about birds, but had a fun encounter with this one at the shooting range. Long sharp talons.
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Hunting ‘23/‘24: Bag ‘em and Tag ‘em
I filled some feeders and setup a pop up blind at a new feeder location today. Saw a big 6 pointer I haven’t seen on camera. Might be a cull candidate, but a 6 that size is kinda interesting.
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Hunting ‘23/‘24: Bag ‘em and Tag ‘em
@Pdawg88 nice work staying patient and going back for him in the morning. Archery highs and lows are too tough for me to shoot bucks these days - I may try to get a doe this year with my bow. I shot this buck with my bow a few years back and the blood trail petered out after ~100 yards or so. I was sick to my stomach for a week until I saw him again on trail cams. My dad got him with a rifle two weeks later. The scar was the exit wound. High entrance wound must have only got one lung is all I can figure. There was no scarring or bruising on the muscles from the archery wound when we cleaned him.
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Hunting ‘23/‘24: Bag ‘em and Tag ‘em
Awesome buck! Archery tackle? Did you feel like the shot was good and just didn’t want to bump him or where you doubting things all night?
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Hunting ‘23/‘24: Bag ‘em and Tag ‘em
Can you cover the 1/3 mile in the dark early Friday AM, get posted up in a good spot and wait? Where do you think they bed down mid-day?
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Hunting ‘23/‘24: Bag ‘em and Tag ‘em
@JCHIL I’m only seeing 3.5 as well. Beautiful buck.
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Hunting ‘23/‘24: Bag ‘em and Tag ‘em
Are you in NM? Man that bull in the back looks good to me. You have a great setup and are smart to play the wind
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Hunting ‘23/‘24: Bag ‘em and Tag ‘em
A friend’s mother-in-law made the unfortunate decision awhile ago to hand-feed and try to make a pet out of a wild buck fawn, which is now a ~ 2.5 yr old. The buck went off on her last week in the yard. Crazy to say, but she’s probably lucky she wasn’t killed. After the hospital trip and getting the m-i-l back home, my buddy called the GW and sent some video of the buck. Warden gave him the go-ahead to put the deer down. Crazy stuff. Buck tore up the old lady’s arms and legs bad. Trying to spoiler this in case you’re eating while reading:
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Hunting ‘23/‘24: Bag ‘em and Tag ‘em
Good for your dad! Getting after that many does is work. A nice high fence place with a big doe MLD quota I was invited to a few times had what I’d call a “does and bros” weekend for opening weekend, where guests were welcome, but bucks were strictly off limits and you had to shoot at least one doe. I’m trying to get about 5 - 6 guys out to our family place opening weekend to try and shoot 10 does at least. We should probably shoot more than that. Our ratios aren’t as bad as yours, but they are probably 5 does : 1 buck. My dad won’t shoot does either and doesn’t like cleaning deer generally, which adds work to my plate.
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Best Pocket Knife?
@fattyflattie I want to get a fixed blade in magnacut, just haven’t pulled the trigger yet. The Montana stuff is nice but pricy. Buck did a special trial magnacut run and I screwed up and thought about it for a day and they sold out.
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Hunting ‘23/‘24: Bag ‘em and Tag ‘em
Knocking doves down with a 410 is impressive! I decided to replace the feeder that coons messed up entirely with a stand & fill. My dad is 73 this year and still gets out and fills feeders standing on the truck bed rail. He fell off a trailer and fell getting out of the bobcat recently. I’ll probably replace all the elevated feeders with stand & fills if this style works out. This is the 600# EZ Feeder from All Seasons, $499. I really like the mechanism design. I pulled some cards, need to take care of a boar and shoot a bunch of does. Have a couple of decent bucks.
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Hunting ‘23/‘24: Bag ‘em and Tag ‘em
Made it out for just a little while tonight. Saw a decent buck for our place. Shot a few birds and checked feeders. Going back with a west Texas Feeder supply unit with the eliminator plate on this feeder ; coons wrecked this plastic mechanism.
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Hunting ‘23/‘24: Bag ‘em and Tag ‘em
Hoping you can connect on one.
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Hunting ‘23/‘24: Bag ‘em and Tag ‘em
@mooseoutfront is that a 60-incher? Looks enormous. I was hoping we’d see some posts from you in this thread, thanks!!
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Do you FIRE? Financial Independence, Retire Early
It definitely looks like the accumulation phase could suck from working super hard and living like a pauper, and the RE phase could suck if you still live like a pauper to make the money stretch. Any interesting anecdotes from your journey?
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Hunting ‘23/‘24: Bag ‘em and Tag ‘em
Haha, yeah it was a classic photo composition : ) The iPhone 14 ProMax takes amazing golden hour photos. That is no filters/editing. I have a decent eye for a photograph, and probably took 6-8 pics getting the best light/composition; but it’s an awesome camera. Here’s some from a summer road trip out west: This is actually the full moon rising over White Sands NM:
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Hunting ‘23/‘24: Bag ‘em and Tag ‘em
Teal hunt around Winnie
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Hunting ‘23/‘24: Bag ‘em and Tag ‘em
I haven’t read up on these doves in particular, but any invasive makes things harder for the native competitors by consuming resources the natives could use. I think that is tpwd’s main impetus to keep their numbers down.
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Hunting ‘23/‘24: Bag ‘em and Tag ‘em
@NotActuallyALonghorn that reminds me to preemptively go over calendar stuff with the wife. She always loses her shit in December complaining about hunting time.
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Truck Nuts
I got 293k miles out of my 2014 Ram diesel, but it was time, as things were starting to go out, and I don’t haul for work anymore, and wanted something to fit in the garage so I traded it in on a 1500. This truck has the adjustable air suspension which I really like, the side tool boxes which were also a must, 3.92 rear end, and the 5.7L with the 150hp electric regenerative motor. It’s like driving a go kart compared to my 2500. At highway speed, the suspension lowers down and it drops an air dam in the front, really quiet and aerodynamic. Got it up to 105 on the toll road and it wanted to keep going, it feels like you’re going slower than you are. Heads up display and powerful headlights are a huge upgrade for me. For off road you can raise the suspension up ~2” above normal ride height, worked great filling feeders at the ranch. The suspension auto levels, so it didn’t squat or have any issues with 900lbs of corn and gear in the back. I need to pick out some all terrain tires. Other than that, it’s a great fit for my current life arrangement.