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Reagan1k
Certifiably Surly-
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Everything posted by Reagan1k
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I'm sure it's the same guy or guys. Someone got me set up to track hashtags on instagram and one of those was "urbanbowhunting". I started following from there. Will have to check out the Youtubes.
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Suburban deer are really interesting. They are allowed to come of age due to a lack of pressure and because of that there are a lot of big bucks taken in some very unusual areas. I keep track of some guys around Atlanta, Ga who hunt pockets of land in between subdivisions and they take some incredible deer. They can't get big if they don't get old. You can see the creases in that bucks left ear and know he's mature.
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^^^^^ much truth to this. Sculpt pockets of brush bordering their fence or create situations to encourage their growth. Don’t be afraid to cut trails meandering inside your cover. It doesn’t have to be a highway- just permitting movement if the cover is very dense. You can also use cuts and fallen vegetation to create natural funnels on your own property. We do this a lot around bow blinds to control ingress and egress so that we don’t have deer able to easily walk right under stands where scent becomes a problem. If they want to get to a feeder for instance, you can control how they approach it. Ariel photos or google earth brings a lot of this to life. You can see funnels and sanctuary areas that are not always evident on foot.
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For the record, I'm not a biologist and do not hold myself as an expert. I've learned plenty upthread already. All I know is what I've seen over the years. Take this with a grain of salt. Deer seek different cover at various time. Whether for actual bedding (day or night) or to get out of the weather, etc, there seem to be some themes. At night we commonly see them bedding in fairly open mesquite flats. During the daytime they seems to prefer thick cover like a cedar thicker but other times it may be an oak flat with lots of shade. I think what you are looking for is a variety of cover with varying density. Give them an excuse to be on your property regardless of what they prefer. At times I think they want to have plenty of vision and minimal cover (mesquite flats) and other times they seem to want to be in an impenetrable fortress like a young cedar stand. Take what the land gives you and build on it from there. Leave some areas really dense. In other areas you would want to open up the ground level, but leave a full canopy by clearing out under and around substantial trees. Open fields also have their place for both forbes and fawning. If you predominantly have only one of cedar, mesquite, or hardwood then work with that but create differing levels of thickness. If you've got a mixture of hardwood, mesquite, and cedar, then look for ways to improve what you have and amplify it. What you don't want is just one type of cover AND thickness, because they want variety based on their daily needs. The ag extension agent or a biologist would be the right person to consult for sure and it would be worth the time and / or money.
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I saw it and anticipated it. It’s a mix of ignorance, plain ‘ol Surly bluster, and denial or deflection as was said above. The percentages are not for me to assign. I’m rooting for the guy regardless of his future record at Texas. I’m certain his story will help someone. All of our stories do- either as a redemptive tale or one that is cautionary if we don’t do the deal. It would be really cool if he becomes a shining example of recovery and is able to share his experience as he sees fit.
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Herman did more to send those guys to Bama than Sark. Herman may win the reverse recruiting championship this year.
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Not true. Hire aside, this isn’t correct unless it was surly humor. In that case, carry on.
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I haven't seen a confirmation of this, but I've read in a couple of places that some obscure line in the most recent stimulus package will allow Korean lend-lease M1 carbines to be imported again. Could be bullshit, but the market could certainly absorb more supply based on the demand at this point. Prices have gone nuts on those suckers.
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2020-2021 season was below average for us in mature bucks. Numbers- not quality. We got hit with a lot of Hypogonadism a few years back and based on the numbers of mature velvet bucks we’ve taken this year and last- I think our total numbers in that age class were down.... with regard to unaffected bucks. We’ve had a high 140’s/low 150’s taken and another 11 that didn’t score great (maybe 140) but he was a brute with heavy horns that declined from last year. There’s a high 150’s 5yr old that’s going to make it. Not for lack of trying but he was only hunted with bows. However, we have an abundance of 130”-140” 3’s and 4’s so we’re chalking this year up an anomaly and hoping for a wet start to this year and that they all stay off the highway. 2021 and 2022 could be well above average. as @Spaulding Smailssaid.... time, money, and add patience. The hypogonadism is a variable somewhat unique to our place due to all the exposed granite, but we just deal with it and know that we “loose” a certain percentage of bucks from each fawn crop to that anomaly and work harder to not shoot any until they come of age.
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I don’t have any experience in small tracts @Spaulding Smails but I have seen some that I thought were managed well. They focus on making their property a sanctuary for game and allow the surrounding owners to experience then consequences of their decisions not to manage. Depending on the geographic layout, either make your perimeter a sanctuary and feed/hunt the interior, or vice versa and make the center a sanctuary and hunt the perimeter. Get creative with your feeding and time it both daily and seasonally to bring deer into or keep them on the property to feeder and then lay up. You won’t be able to control movement during the rut, but the rest of the year you can impact movement and bedding if you are creative. It won’t be perfect but it can result in a few deer making it to maturity, and then you may be able to use that as proof to change attitudes around you. Really you’re playing the long game with them.... both the neighbors and the wildlife.
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Here’s some from our place throughout the last several years. Down by Willow City Loop close to F’burg. Low fence
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It’s often forgotten that whitetail were virtually wiped out during the time when many of our fathers and grandfathers were growing up. It was rare for them to see any deer, so I get it. Don’t shoot the breeding doe. Those days have long since past, but the mentality can take a long time to adjust. A lot of us do things and believe things simply because that’s what we were taught or experienced. I don’t judge anyone’s stance because I don’t know from where it originates, but I will discuss and debate it based on current facts.
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There's a lot that goes into the mindset of not shooting doe. Much of it was machismo dating back decades, some of is geographic (guys from low deer density areas starting to hunt higher density counties, but a lot of it was financial. A lot of you are too young (probably) to remember the old day hunt / doe permit days of the Hill Country, but that led to 90% of the problems Central Texas had with herds of small deer and only young bucks. From at least the 50's through the 70's and into the 80's, many ranchers in Central Texas ran day leases. You paid $50-$100 a day to hunt and that gave you rights to shoot one "deer". However, TPWD also had a "Doe Permit" program that they ran state wide and they only gave land owners a certain number of permits for doe harvest based on the county population surveys. Some counties got X doe per 100 acres. Others may get none. You couldn't shoot a doe unless you had both a doe tag, and a doe permit.......You had the tag, but the landowner controlled the doe permits. I still remember them - White paper documents that had to be signed by the land owner and the hunter to accompany the deer. So.....Landowners leasing to day hunters would lease for $50-$100 a day but if you shot a doe, you had to pay extra for the doe permit. Bucks were wrapped into the daily fee, but not the doe. Hunters, knowing they were only on the land a few days a year had the choice; Pay $50-$100 and shoot a buck of any size, or shoot a doe and pay maybe twice that. With no stewardship incentive, the day lease hunters would shoot anything with bone poking through the skull rather than shoot a doe and have to pay extra. Multiply that mindset times 50+ hunters a year per ranch and the fallout was inevitable. This led to ranches that had incredibly high doe populations, no mature bucks, and massive stress on the land's carrying capacity. Back then a 3 yr old 14" wide 8pt was cause for celebration, and most hunters shot a yearling buck or maybe a 1 yr old fork horn or 6pt. When the doe permit program died and landowners were either pressured or incentivized by hunters to move toward season leases, the population had a chance to normalize. It took decades to retrain older hunters or bring in newer hunters who exhibited patience and practiced good management. You still have hunters who don't want to wait on a lease to develop a sustainable population of mature bucks. I guess they act this way for fear of being kicked off right when the mature bucks are of age, or just being short sighted and not understanding the potential of the land. However, Hill Country hunting is light years ahead of where it was 40+ years ago and everyone is better for it. Horn hunters have a chance to harvest some true trophy bucks, and meat hunters have the opportunity to aid in the management of the population through required harvest numbers.
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ClassicFirearms.com has Tula coated steel 9mm fmj for $0.50 / round. That’s not too bad if you want 1000 rounds for the range and don’t want to stalk Academy for 3 boxes at a time.
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Coyotes "investigate" gun shots in areas where they get used to hunters and gut piles.
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Spent the 26th and today making some calls to other drunks and checking on them. Two guys that had fallen out during the last few months have quit again; committed to attending our meetings that start back live tomorrow. Both mentioned that others and I had continued to check in with them even after we knew they were off the wagon. They mentioned what an impact that had on them and reinforced / reminded me about carrying the message to the still suffering alcoholic. We never know which seeds we sow that one day take hold when the soil is right. I've got to stay close to my core sober network, but what grows my sobriety is that 12th step and carrying the message. I may never see a particular drunk get sober, but if I do the work the right way, they may recover down the road whether I'm there to witness it or not.....and it pushes that next drink father from me each time I do it. I have got to do more of that - less self, more outreach.
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Any fans of older Winchesters? Pre-64 Model 70's are my deal. This is fairly amazing - worth a look and read if you like classic, scarce rifles. 1949 Winchester Model 70 Super Grade .35 Rem New in Box I'm guessing it will go well north of high estimate.
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Guys like Urban and Saban don’t start their consideration of an opportunity with thoughts of what it will do for their legacy if they fail. They see a challenge and trust they can make it work- whether that’s Texas or the NFL. They don’t start handwringing over legacy and thoughts of failure. That’s not how they’re wired. Whether he jumps to the league or not, his being worried about legacy if he fails isn’t in his top considerations.
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I'm sure the cattle would love to see me hauling seed out for food plots. That's a non-starter unless I hit that lottery tonight and can move the cattle off after securing title. Our place is pretty diverse in terms of cover, native food sources, and terrain so we have areas that are thick the juniper/cedar and other areas where there is none. I've seen some areas where its basically a waste land other than green blobs everywhere and that's no bueno for game.
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From personal observations I hate them in the macro sense. They provide some good cover but they suck a ton of water out of the ground and choke out other beneficial vegetation. We’ve started cutting them away from our oaks as we can to keep them from crowding out the mast production.
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Yeah- it has some negatives. What we are doing is adding some wire cottonseed feeders inside feeder pens where we have regular spin feeders. This year we filled a few of them through May and then let them play out to avoid the sterilization issue. We have a few areas that are remote and we know a lot of deer don’t travel to the central protein feeders (based on cameras and visuals) so we are using cotton seed in those areas for a little boost. Nothing heavy- just a few months worth to supplement.
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Protein: I've used Bode Feed, Lyssy & Eckel, and Llano Feed and Supply. We view it as purely supplemental and free feed. We don't have the budget to be a primary food source due to the acreage we'd need to cover. Free feed makes more sense for us. That way, when they don't want it, the feed isn't wasted on a repeating cycle. Ramping up cotton seed this year - Experimented this year. We don't hunt our protein feeder areas and don't feed that in areas we do hunt. Protein starts on or about January 15th and goes through October.
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Deer Management for big bucks: “Big” should be removed from the vocabulary and replaced with “Mature” in my opinion. Big is relative-maturity not so much. Maturity equals full potential and that’s all one can ask from a given property. The #1 factor is time (age). Regardless of the area one hunts, until you allow a breeding year’s worth of bucks to reach 5-6 years old, you don’t even know what the land’s potential is. If you stop shooting “big” bucks and only shoot mature bucks, the dynamic shifts. The laws of nature and Ford bumpers dictate that a smaller number of bucks make it through to the next year- year after year. Add hunting to the mix and most hunters don’t have a chance at a truly mature buck because they shot the “survivors” at 3-4 yrs because the were “big”. If you want the largest horns a property can produce, you MUST give that property the time to show it and that only happens when you allow the bucks to live long enough to display that potential. Pitfalls like uncooperative neighbors, poachers, etc. abound, but time is the one factor that must be allowed for in order to experience the potential of a land tract. I’ve seen low fenced “Hill County” land that wouldn’t produce a single 120” buck 20 years ago now crank out 140-150” deer annually and the occasional +160”. The only change is that the “rules” went from 8 point or better to +5 years or better. The land and deer didn’t change. What changed was the mindset of the hunters and the methodology of the annual harvest. It takes a few years to stack up a living population of 5 and 6 year old deer, but once you get there, it is sustainable.
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My feelings won’t be hurt if this gets shit-canned, but the discussion is somewhat different than the “Hunting 20XX” threads that are created every year, and good ideas are lost in subsequent yearly threads. I’m particularly interested in this more and more vs. the harvest of animals and would like to contribute and read other contributions. What are your experiences, product reviews, and tips on things like.... Managing for whitetail horn development, quail populations, etc. Feeders, feeding, feed suppliers, and food plots Blinds, tripods, tree-stands, etc. Camp set-ups, trailers, storage, water tanks MLD, low fence, high fence, large/small tracts Culling, buck/doe ratio, harvest amounts per acre. Apps for hunter communication, maps, topography Game cameras and scouting Hope to add my thoughts shortly. So much of my “hunting” is now more management than actually pursuing game, I hope this topic can be a permanent clearinghouse for a lot of information.
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Nothing to see here. Turns out someone’s wife got a vacuum cleaner instead of jewelry for Xmas.
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