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Finally put it all together this am. Nothing but pure luck. With daylight savings time I walked into the woods almost right at first light. As I walked in the whole woods stank. You know, that smell that punches you in the nose and you get excited. Plus saw two scrapes where I bent limbs for a licking branch. As I got about 50 yards from my stand, bam, deer blew and ran away. I was heartbroken. So I thought my hunt was screwed up for good. But, needed my mental health sit so I climbed the tree. Not even 15 minutes later I hear what sounded like a freight train coming from my right. Then I started hearing several grunting sounds. I looked over when he finally came into view and felt my heart at the top of my throat. Then the shaking started. I mean, I’m 43 and been in the woods a while. Was a Sergeant 03 in the marines. But this animal rattled me. I’ve never seen this in the woods. Ranged him at 42 yards. Picked up the crossbow to sight in. Couldn’t stop shaking. Dropped down, took a few breaths. Still can’t stop. If it was a bow I might have rattled the arrow off. Closed eyes, deep breath, exhale- natural respiratory pause, then it went. Ran 40 yards,stopped and coughed. Blood shot out his mouth and fell down. 20.5 inch spread. 203 lbs. and a taxidermist is in my future. I love this thread every year.

Every day in the fall we all wake up and wish we were in the woods. I look out the window of the hospital I work at while my trailcameras send me pictures of target bucks randomly walking by my treestand. If I was only there? I had an agreement with the warden that if I woke up the kids, made them breakfast, rake all of the leaves to the road and clear the gutters I could do the night hunt. High demands, but I have been hunting all week. I said DEAL. So I woke up early and did everything I needed to do and left for the night hunt....at 11:30am. She thought I was nuts. It was 26 degrees out and snowing when I left. I was down the road and in the stand by 12:15pm. I just had a weird feeling. Have been seeing a lot of bucks cruising between 1-3pm. It was cold as hell out but the wind was blasting me in the face and he came out at 12:50pm. I thought he was going to walk away and then I grunted, but pointed away from him. I’ve never seen the hair on the neck of a deer stand up like his did. He was pissed and started strutting right into the shooting lane I was hoping. As soon as he nudged into the lane I grunted to stop him. He stood perfect broadside 30 yards and I put a swhacker into his pumphouse. He ran about 50 yards and stopped. While standing there he started wiggling his tail frantically and fell over. It happened so fast I didn’t start shaking until after the shot. This thread is awesome and was hoping to have an opportunity to contribute a story. Lucky I guess. And I can’t wait for opening weekend stories. It’s like christmas with guns. Good luck everyone 🦌 🍀

I think I will buy a 6.5 in savage axis. A few of my buddies from my platoon love this caliber. They recommended it cause I have to go to lower cal cause of my neck surgeon won’t allow the 30-06 or my 12 guage. I guess 95 grain varmint bullet is great and the 120 grain flattens whitetail. I was thinking 243 but he talked me out of it. Looking forward to it. Thats a beautiful gun

I’m thinking 243 savage with 100 grain and a recoil pad. Double as varmint gun too. Win win. Then cva optima v2 with 100 grain if needed to still fill tags by the time my hits. Then eventually get back to my 30-06 with recoil pad. Did shoot bow and sight in. Looking forward to season.

Well aware. I’ve used that same argument at village meetings for taking care of the problem. They didn’t seem amused. It’s too bad. I had to spend over $21k for land and I could fill my tags 🏷 in the back yard. That’s life I guess.

Our kids have a few friends coming around the house lately. Getting them use to it young.

I never actually wore a neck collar. The surgeon told me it would set me back with muscle strength in my neck. I tried pt before to try and avoid the or but the damage was done. Im just hoping that in Sept i will be four months post-op and if i could pull my bow back or rifle recoil without damaging the fusion. I dont want to have to do this again if I could avoid it

Had two level neck fusion May 9th. Wondering if anyone had this done and how long until they returned to bow/rifle hunting? My doc and the pa don't really understand more about recoil than the bow questions. Had to miss turkey season, hopefully be ready for archery. Considering a 243 for lower recoil and eventually kids could hunt with it. If I cant hunt then whats this all about. Any info or suggestions would help. Thanks

I have always been locked in every year on this thread. Looking at everyone else shooting nice deer I was a little envious of everyone that had succeeded with filling that tag. Three years of tag soup. I've been celebrating the last few days but I lucked out on monday. Its weird because I shot a buck on this day 15 years ago, the day I went on terminal leave from the Marines. My wife always thinks we are all nuts for going out into the brutal extremes of weather for the chase of whitetail. I explain to her that its worse than a disease. But when I was overseas it was thinking about the fall and whitetail deer that got me through. Filling a tag once every four years is worth it for that one moment. Our kids will understand. Now I wait a few years to take our kids out. Threads like this help. Thanks to everyone for contributing.

I bought land two years ago. Being new I talked to the neighbo

Thinking about getting one of these. See them quite a bit. What caliber and pellets do you use? Get my kids into it when tgey get a little older.