Gun Hunter Report?

Things sure have changed. Hard to believe there aren’t any opener reports yet.

I passed up this buck yesterday had a bead on him at 22 yards, I was looking for something bigger and I could only see three points on one side and could not tell if he was a legal buck. 5 minuets before I saw this buck there was a shot on the other side of the gully from me then the buck showed up. The buck walked by me very slow and I wondered if he was hit or not but could not see anything from my tree to prove that one way or the other. The shot was at 7:30AM, after the buck walked by my stand it went into the neighbors corn field. Later that morning when I got down from my stand I walked to where the buck had walked past my shooting lane in a cut corn field and followed the path the buck took all the way to the property line, the was no blood anywhere to be found. Later that night I get a call from one of my hunting partners who was hunting that land and he told me the farmer hit a buck with his combine and the buck was stuck in the combine! My friend helped the farmer get the buck unstuck he had to run home and get a sawsall to get at the antler that was stuck and cut it off to get it out! Turns out it was the same buck that walked by my stand that morning and had been gut shot. Even though I was holding out for a bigger buck had I known then what I know now I would have put the buck down, dam shame I hate to seem them suffer like that.

Report from Pine County (Hinckley/Sandstone area).

Very difficult conditions for the opener. As usual, the amount of hunting pressure in this area is very high, so adding in the high winds and the crunch of opening weekend hunters makes for a slow start.

Overall, the number of hunters in this area, IMO, is down significantly. I think the cherry picking hunters who swelled the ranks back when the deer population was at its absolute peak 10 years ago have now decided to stay at home. We checked in at 4 smaller properties (80 ac or less) near us (ones without a shack/cabin) to see if anyone was even hunting them and found all 4 to be empty on opening weekend.

We saw deer and passed on a number of forks and spikes. Two big bucks were taken on the ranch adjacent to our property, but they were some distance away so not the bucks we’ve been seeing on our cams.

The excitement for the weekend for me was having a large bobcat walk literally directly under my stand yesterday in the late PM. Wow. Never have seen one before in the wild, but I will certainly be hoping to see him again come bobcat season!

The pace of shots heard Sat and Sunday indicated a slow start to the season. I think the deer largely stayed in the bedding areas and we haven’t seen any signs of peak rutting activity yet.

Grouse

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Report from Pine County (Hinckley/Sandstone area).

Very difficult conditions for the opener. As usual, the amount of hunting pressure in this area is very high, so adding in the high winds and the crunch of opening weekend hunters makes for a slow start.

Overall, the number of hunters in this area, IMO, is down significantly. I think the cherry picking hunters who swelled the ranks back when the deer population was at its absolute peak 10 years ago have now decided to stay at home. We checked in at 4 smaller properties (80 ac or less) near us (ones without a shack/cabin) to see if anyone was even hunting them and found all 4 to be empty on opening weekend.

We saw deer and passed on a number of forks and spikes. Two big bucks were taken on the ranch adjacent to our property, but they were some distance away so not the bucks we’ve been seeing on our cams.

The excitement for the weekend for me was having a large bobcat walk literally directly under my stand yesterday in the late PM. Wow. Never have seen one before in the wild, but I will certainly be hoping to see him again come bobcat season!

The pace of shots heard Sat and Sunday indicated a slow start to the season. I think the deer largely stayed in the bedding areas and we haven’t seen any signs of peak rutting activity yet.

Grouse

“Ya sure it wasn’t just a hose cat????….they look a like!

Pretty slow on the east side of the Pond… windy as all heck saturday, seen 3 does. Sunday afternoon they started moving a little, we got 1 doe. 5 more to go