GIG is up

Got a call yesterday afternoon from my buddy (landowner of land that MEGATRON runs around on). He said my sisters husband saw a HUGE HUGE HUGE buck up by the house this morning. I played dumb, said I hadn’t had anything on camera yet, must just be passing through.

I thought great. Hopefully they don’t open their mouth to everyone in the county. Last night, 4… count em 4. trucks circling the section I was in right at dark!

Now just hoping he hides and they loose interest and I don’t get shot by a poacher because I always get dropped off so as to not draw any attention to the area.

That sucks man!! I tend to share more here than most because our crowd isn’t “local” to my hunting grounds. I rarely share anything on Facebook for this very reason. Why can’t people just respect each other. Stupid horns make people crazy.

kooty wrote:

Stupid horns make people crazy.

+1

Horn Porn.

Welcome to my world. All my neighbors allow access to friends, family, milkman, ups driver, postal workers, and anyone else that stumbles by their property. Most that show up are greedy meat hunters. “If its brown, its down” mentality. Little chance of a whitetail surpassing 3 yrs old with the over the top harvest tactics they use. I’m all in favor of someone putting some meat in the freezer and having an opportunity. But taking multiple does and little bucks has proven itself as devastating to maintaining good genetics within a herd.

Yep, hopefully they’ll lose interest after they don’t see him for a few days. But unfortunately the new reality in most areas is the competition is going to be fierce. Lots of hunters who will be chasing drastically fewer deer.

5-7 years ago, hunting the second weekend of MN Zone 1 was like having your own private deer season. There was just nobody out there because they all shot does and small bucks opening weekend and went home.

I’m predicting that enthusiasm for deer hunting in general is going to take a major nose-dive after this season in MN. I’ve spent the whole spring and summer on the back roads in Pine County, what used to be one of the highest densities of deer per square mile anywhere in MN.

The numbers are down so dramatically that it took most of the summer for me to finally admit that it just wasn’t a case of me being in the wrong place, wrong time, etc. There just aren’t any deer to see. Fields that routinely had 8-20 deer in them every night are now empty or have 1-3 deer in them.

I think there’s going to be lots of long faces after the opener this year when reality sets in. In areas where there is a multi weekend season, it’ll be interesting to see how many people show up on week 2.

Grouse

So when a giant buck emerges in Farm country is it common for people to come out of the woodwork wanting a crack at that individual animal?

Yes, some just to catch a glimpse of the buck, others with more devious plans.

Depending on the the crops, in the flat land, if the deer are on their feet there’s a good chance you can see them. You can see for several hundred yards in all directions maybe more in spots. And you can access the squared sections of land via roads on all sides. Deer around here wont run from moving vehicles unless you step on the brakes and stop……. wonder how they learned that?!!

Deer hunting farm country is so much different than Big Timber. Some of the guys I know intentionally plant “screen cover” along the roads on their property just to prevent people from looking in and seeing something tempting. When “road hunting” small game is legal… some people think its an open invitation to walk right in.

suzuki wrote:

So when a giant buck emerges in Farm country is it common for people to come out of the woodwork wanting a crack at that individual animal?

Absolutely, my parents farm I hunt on is a mile back on a gravel dead end town road, they are the only permanent residents on the road (one guy at the end fo the rood is there every other weekend or so), so aside from us and the neighbors farm equipment, not much traffic. In the fall there are always a few shiners, but in years that one of the better bucks has been making himself visible enough that word spreads through the town drinking establishments, shiner traffic increases exponentially.

We have some weird behaviors in the whitetail culture. Some people are all about antlers and bragging rights. I experienced a lot of negativity over the years over the bucks that i shot and hunting properties. From this, I stopped sharing with my friends and other people that i don’t trust trail camera pictures, harvest pictures, etc. Outside of hunting, however, these people are good people. But when it comes to hunting, I don’t share anything. There are a select few people that know about the 158″ that I shot last year. It’s going to be weird explaining it when they see him on my wall…..