Deer hunting was much more enjoyable before deer cams.
Deer hunting was much more enjoyable before deer cams.
I run cameras here at home I'll admit but, I just remember a time when you didn't know what was out there did care how old and hunted sign. I hunt some public every year that does not allow cameras and it just feels different can't really explain it. Look forward to that trip every year.
Didn't*
If that deer was old you wouldn't see him often.
No older than 3.5.
3 years 262 days 14hrs and 26 minutes depending on when you read this. He ain’t that old but I’d kill him for eating my corn pile.
Yeah, but do you consider a dog to be a filthy animal? I wouldn't go so far as to call a dog filthy but they're definitely dirty. But, a dog's got personality. Personality goes a long way.
You might take out a dozen before they drag you from your home and skull fuck you to death. Marsh Chicken 6/21/2013
Exactly. Couple of hammers. I hunted some great land in the midlands and upstate for 30 years. I hunted in good dog clubs when I was younger, and I hunted a lot of small so-so tracts to low-pressured premium tracts ranging from 100 acres to 2500 acres to many square miles. I had very good opportunities at 130” deer exactly 3 times during those 30 years; one dog driving near Wateree dam, one bow hunting a killer tract in Fairfield Co., and one just north of Camden on the Wateree river. I’m a decent hunter, and I’m luckier than most when I step into the woods.
I once bought into the idea that a large chunk of SC land that was not over-pressured and on a good management plan could see a big improvement in buck sizes over 5-7 years. Then a friend of mine had major business success and ended up sitting on $20 million. He and a Bud bought -2100 prime acres next to a small tract they had owned and hunted for years. They proceeded to implement a strict management plan including habitat manipulation and intense supplemental feeding…no expense was spared.
I hunted there a good bit over the next several years, and I can attest to the effort they put into that place. There were few people hunting there, up-and-comers were given a pass, the proper number of does were hammered each year, and an occasional “cull buck” would be taken if it was wacky enough in a “bad” way.
After 5 years, I shot one of the 130” deer I mentioned earlier…shoulder bone hit and deer lived. That deer was ~145” and was 8+ years old. Gray face, droopy ears, and just looked like he’d be happier dead. Other than that deer, no one else I know of ever shot at or killed any 130” or bigger bucks. Plenty of 110-120” bucks were seen and passed, but you could not tell any appreciable difference was made despite stupid amounts of money spent to feed them…not even on trail cams.
The biggest deer I know of that died on that property was -135” 10 point that one of the owners had been hunting for a couple of years. He had him on camera and had him patterned, and had him to himself. He passed on him the year prior as ~125” 10 pt. The next year, he had pics showing a whopping 10” of growth…maybe. The first time he went in to hunt him that year, he found him dead under a tree that had blown over and pinned him to the ground on his walk to the stand. I could almost read the amount of money he spent feeding that deer and could almost tell you the time he spent thinking about and working to kill that deer simply by looking at his face the day he found him dead.
I’m just saying that they coulda kept hunting their original small tract and had the same SC success AND could have bought several 100-200 acre tracts in multiple Midwest states, killed multiple 140”+ bucks each year, and would have saved enough money to buy a new truck every 3 years for the rest of their lives with the money they put into trying to grow trophy SC whitetails.
You can stumble into a whopper or three in SC, no doubt, but I wouldn’t be passing a mature old buck or a 3.5 or 4.5 yo 125-135” deer with thoughts of him blowing up into a 150”-160” bucks of a lifetime. I also wouldn’t be “culling” spikes or 3.5 yo 115-125” bucks simply because they didn’t grow brow tines or have weird racks. Shoot, wouldn’t you rather shoot a 130” 6 point no-brow deer than a 130” 8pt with 4” brows? Think about that….I never understood 90% of the cull buck ideas folks throw around.
In summary….shoot what makes you happy and don’t over-invest anything other than your energy and time in the stand trying to kill slob bucks in SC.
Last edited by WhitewaterDuck; 11-24-2021 at 04:01 PM.
“I can’t wait ‘till I’m grown” is the stupidest @!#* I ever said!
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