2024 Deer Season Stories/Pics/Etc.

[16colt]

I guess need to give up hunting. Lost a nice buck a few years ago during blackpower season that I thought I made a good shot on and last night, I lost one w/ my crossbow. Should have been an easy shot and I thought I hit him good. Arrow went through, but very little blood to be found. Looked for him until late last night and again today. No new signs of blood. I’m just sick about this one. I just hope my shot was bad enough that he’ll live.

 

[dlbleak]

I guess need to give up hunting. Lost a nice buck a few years ago during blackpower season that I thought I made a good shot on and last night, I lost one w/ my crossbow. Should have been an easy shot and I thought I hit him good. Arrow went through, but very little blood to be found. Looked for him until late last night and again today. No new signs of blood. I’m just sick about this one. I just hope my shot was bad enough that he’ll live. View attachment 521728

That sucks big time. I’ve lost a couple and it makes for a couple sleepless nights. You play over the whole scene in your head. Did I do this, should I have done this etc etc.
Call a dog tracker out. From what I have seen, it’s a great group of people that seem to be pretty close knit. If one can’t help, they give you info for another tracker.

 

[retrieverman]

I guess need to give up hunting. Lost a nice buck a few years ago during blackpower season that I thought I made a good shot on and last night, I lost one w/ my crossbow. Should have been an easy shot and I thought I hit him good. Arrow went through, but very little blood to be found. Looked for him until late last night and again today. No new signs of blood. I’m just sick about this one. I just hope my shot was bad enough that he’ll live. View attachment 521728

@Oklahomabassin can probably recommend a tracker.

 

[OKRuss]

Oklahoma Bowhunters Association has a FB page and post names along with a map of the trackers.

 

[BearSitsInTheWoods]

I’ll give y’all my honest thoughts on the solunar table, and it really doesn’t matter to me whether you buy into it or not.
Living 500 miles away from my hunting land and not having the financial ability to spend all of hunting season up there, I have to use the resources I have available to plan my trips to hunt. Patterning bucks using cellular game cameras and the solunar table are what has produced the best and most consistent results, but neither is an exact science. However, if I have a choice between coming up on a weekend of 1 star days when peak movement shows to be mainly at night or 3-4 star days when movement is supposed to be in the daylight, well, that’s a no brainer.
In 20 seasons hunting up there and using these resources, I’ve killed a couple 130 class bucks, a couple 140 class, six 150 class, two 160 class, four 170 class, and a 180 class.
I’ll edit to add that hunting on private land where I have total control and am basically the only one hunting helps increase my odds of success, and I have a wife that understands and supports my love for deer hunting.

Yeah we get it trophy hunter.
In real life though you brought this up a few years ago somewhere else and it peaked my interest. Your experience has the photos to prove that this might be something worth looking into. I can’t imagine driving 500 miles but the quality of bucks you take tower over anything around here. 15 miles from where I am they take monsters, nothing with mass just spread. Maybe we just don’t have the habitat. I don’t hear a ton of gun shots during rifle but there are enough that it’s regular.

 

[BearSitsInTheWoods]

@Oklahomabassin can probably recommend a tracker.

Watch for birds maybe?

 

[retrieverman]

Watch for birds maybe?

That sounds good in theory, but has it ever really worked for anyone?!?
I’m convinced coyotes get to a carcass faster than buzzards.

 

[dennishoddy]

That sounds good in theory, but has it ever really worked for anyone?!?
I’m convinced coyotes get to a carcass faster than buzzards.

I shot a doe with my bow on a McAlester Ammo dump hunt walking down a two track. She jumped into some major tall grass about 5' high. Saw one drop of blood and that was it. I walked patterns in that 3 acre grass field seeing nothing for several hours. Decided it had to have been a bad shot. The arrow was not recovered.
Getting back into the stand for the evening hunt, saw blackbirds diving into the grass in one spot.
Got a line to walk from the stand to a tree on the other side and walked right up to the doe. I'd been within a few feet of it a couple of times, but never saw it.
That one-time, birds did help.

 

[BearSitsInTheWoods]

That sounds good in theory, but has it ever really worked for anyone?!?
I’m convinced coyotes get to a carcass faster than buzzards.

You’re right as far as a few miles from here, you’ll have nothing but a carcass. My 10 years here never even heard a yote. Just nagging women.

 

[retrieverman]

Yeah we get it trophy hunter.
In real life though you brought this up a few years ago somewhere else and it peaked my interest. Your experience has the photos to prove that this might be something worth looking into. I can’t imagine driving 500 miles but the quality of bucks you take tower over anything around here. 15 miles from where I am they take monsters, nothing with mass just spread. Maybe we just don’t have the habitat. I don’t hear a ton of gun shots during rifle but there are enough that it’s regular.

You can’t kill big bucks if you don’t hunt on a place that has big bucks. If I never hunted anywhere but east TX, my biggest buck to date would be a 140 class I killed in 1997. I’ve killed quite a few 125-130 class bucks which is a really nice mature buck for my places. Antler restrictions in TX has given alot of young bucks a chance and has made a difference, but where I hunt doesn’t have the genetics or food quality to grow big racks. It just is what it is.
For several years, I got obsessed with hunting up there to the point I completely quit deer hunting here other than taking my daughter, but I finally came to the realization a couple years ago that the challenge of getting on a 130 class in east TX is exactly the same as getting on a 150-170 class on the Salt Fork. I’ve had to adjust my expectations, but I now enjoy hunting in east TX again.
Over the last couple or three years, the drive has started getting to me, but I’m not ready to throw in the towel yet. My youngest son actually called yesterday and wants us to look at a piece of hunting property in Kansas, but I told him I wasn’t interested in buying anything else that far from home but would be happy to help him get it set up with stands and feeders if he bought it.