Deers 2015

[Dougfish]

What that guy did is akin to hunting over bait. 

[RiverbumCO]

Which is totally legal in NC. 

As per the mineral thing...deer pretty much stop using them around this time of year so i doubt he was sitting near the mineral lick.  Basically it helps them survive during tough winters when there isnt much greenery to get vitamins from, which in turn gives them a headstart on growing a big rack.  It also helps does produce better quality milk for youngins.  Not really cheating at all, just improving the health of the herd.

Im sure Al will chime in. 

Another sidenote for baiting, most of your mature deer are not gonna visit a cornpile during daylight hours, thats why so many young bucks get killed in NC and why so many claim NC cant produce monster bucks.  They shoot the 2.5 year olds before they get to be old dogs.

[Jfey]

As per the mineral thing...deer pretty much stop using them around this time of year so i doubt he was sitting near the mineral lick. 

To quote bossman... Jis saying

"They will come to it every day," he said. "I take it away a couple of days before I'm going to hunt, and when I put it back out, they smell it and come running."

I don't really care one way or the other, just curious what the stance was.  Either way, its a nice deer.

[RiverbumCO]

I think homey is great at marketing hisself.  "Put it back out they come running in."  I could be wrong but that shit does not happen or else somebody would be a billionaire off of that. 

[Yallerhammer]

Bum, I'm with you-I put out mineral licks, but the deer quit using them before the season opens. And another reason NC doesn't have big deer like the midwest is that we have a totally different subspecies of deer, the soil and agriculture isn't the same, either. Most NC bucks would not be tv show trophies by any means if they died from old age. I live beside the national park, and I see deer that get as big as they can. There are some nice ones occasionally, but most will never break 115" before they die.

Plus, teenage bucks taste good. 

[RiverbumCO]

Well, fortunately for me the NW corner of the state consistently produces big deer.  I guess our genetics and agriculture just add up to big bucks.

[RiverbumCO]

The salt is the major attractant.  They need the salt but the minerals are what really helps with overall health.  I dont know anybody that actually hunts over minerals during thw season.  More of a way to get trailcam pics in the spring and summer.

[Al]

Finally got out of my deer stand long enough to post a response

Actually IMHO RB, YH and TF have been spot on.  Some states allow baiting and some do not. I hunt in NC and VA and that is the case - NC does and VA does not. Up in VA they sell all the same stuff they do down here and I am sure lots of folks hunt over bait but I do not. I'm hooked in with the VDGIF and can not afford to see my name in the paper for a violation - besides that it really isn't necessary. Up there I do well by targeting natural food sources and travel funnels.

I do have a mineral block and throw corn on the edge of my lawn 9 months out of the year but that all stops on Sept 1st and does not start again until the 1st Saturday in January. I keep a camera there and it is a good way to survey the herd - I really like the photos in January because it tells me what bucks made it through the season. It also tells me how many does I have around and which gives me idea of how many I might want to attempt to take (had one recent shot with 6 does in same photo so I will not pass any this year)

I have access to three private spots here in NC and I do use bait and a mineral block at two of them (I keep the mineral block out year around) - at one spot there is a big soybean field so I think my corn would be a waste of money.  The reason I bait at the two spots is both are small properties and in order to draw deer from the surrounding property I sweeten things up with bait and mineral blocks. This has limited success. IMHO corn works good early in the season. If you only hunt one or two sites and hunt a lot you will end up over hunting a spot, ie spreading your scent around and the deer will either avoid the spot or go nocturnal. The worst case scenario is belonging to a hunt club were everyone has a bait pile - it does not take long for the deer to figure things out and go nocturnal. You will go through lots of corn and see lots of photos but not many deer during daylight.

Corn piles lose their effectiveness once acorns start to drop - corn will actually go sour or start to sprout if we have a good acorn drop. At my two spots where if use corn I use it early on and then abandon those spots until late in the season. I replenish the corn about the 10th of December and have found bucks will come to it because they are trying to recover from the rigors of the rut - late season is all about food. I have shot some wall hangers right after Christmas.

Big bucks are tough to kill - they are mainly nocturnal until the build up to and during the rut. Case in point one of my spots has two or more nice bucks. I sat there this morning and did not see a thing. I pulled my camera card when I got down and found 633 photos taken in the last 6 days - every one was at night. Here is a sample



Down here in NC, especially where I live it is so flat it is difficult to locate reliable trails - the deer just spread out and go where ever they want. Up in VA it is much easier because deer are lazy and make much more use of terrain features. Learn to recognize these funnels and you will do well.

[RiverbumCO]

Deers are fun.  Al, check out Midwest Whitetail, its an online webshow biweekly during the season and its pretty damn good compared to the crap on tv.

[benben reincarnated]

Well, the deer wasn't a NC harvested deer after all...

http://www.northcarolinasportsman.com/details.php?id=5351


Thompson posted on his Facebook page on Sunday night that a non-typical buck that he measured at 208 inches net non-typical – more than 30 inches larger than the existing state-record archery kill – taken by Nick Davis, an Elkin hunter, were actually a set of antlers from Pennsylvania that had been screwed into the skull plate of a small buck killed in North Carolina.

[ptfranze]

The shit some people will do for attention

[RiverbumCO]

I told yall there is no magic attractant that deer come running to.

[Mudwall Gatewood 3.0]

The son put up a cam this year.  He's recorded 5 different bucks (one is a 9), plus a nice bear.  He's hoping to see the offspring of the one he killed 2 years ago; it was the last really big one we've seen. 

[Yallerhammer]

Well, the deer wasn't a NC harvested deer after all...

http://www.northcarolinasportsman.com/details.php?id=5351


Thompson posted on his Facebook page on Sunday night that a non-typical buck that he measured at 208 inches net non-typical – more than 30 inches larger than the existing state-record archery kill – taken by Nick Davis, an Elkin hunter, were actually a set of antlers from Pennsylvania that had been screwed into the skull plate of a small buck killed in North Carolina.

Good God. Horn worshipers are strange.

[ptfranze]

Here is what happens when you lie about stupid shit...

http://www.northcarolinasportsman.com/details.php?id=5366