Bought it less than 48 hours ago, never opened the package, wrapping that folds over the top still sealed, hardly ‘used’ bullets. But it is their policy, so lesson learned and I’ve got some new bullets to try out, I typically shy away from anything polymer tipped, but that’s from centerfire cartridges, just not for me.

Many of the things above, but ALWAYS have a grunt tube with me, any time during the season.

My take, will some manipulate (or try to) the system, yes, but to think they aren’t already as it is is very naive. I for one will gladly use it. No longer do I have to change into different clothes so that I don’t have to worry about getting the dive bar stank out of my clothes (the place that is our local registration station is far from being a very hygienic place) and, quite frankly, the locals that I want knowing what was shot on our property the least will be the most likely ones to be there. Funny how every time we kill a nice buck early in the gun season wouldn’t you know there was a lot of additional traffic (meaning any other than us and the one neighbor) on the dead end township road that goes back to our land afterwards.

So yeah, I have no issue with this change, as far as an affect on SAK, do you really think they care what that spits out, they will do/claim whatever they want regardless.

yeah they were getting thin on em even when I was there the weekend after Christmas. They didn’t have any thumbhole ones which was my original pick, but after handling this one and then a thumbhole Omega I didn’t feel that much of a difference in the feel to me anyway, and I likes the weathershield coating the MR had.

The rubber ‘grips’ on it are really nice, helps out a lot. That’s a problem with my TC Black mountain, that smooth walnut stock is so slippery when wearing gloves its difficult to keep a good hold on it.

I was pleasantly suprised at how it shot, will be fun to really put it through the paces, but I’m going to hold off till we have more comfortable shooting weather and no snow to trudge through setting up/moving the target. Max range I can shoot in our ‘normal’ shooting area at the farm is about 400 yards, but I don’t plan to shoot that far with this gun.

Forgot to mention, of the 9 rounds, 6 were the powerbelt and 3 TC sabots. At 40 yards there was no difference in trajectory, but I will need to test at longer ranges.
(40 yards was the distance from where we set the table up to the edge of the yard and a real easy spot to put the target up, no real other rationale for using that distance)

So far it handles and points real well, I’ll make sure to update if I get to shoot it on Sat. I had thought about a thumbhole one too, but this one just felt ‘right’ when I was test driving them at the store.

Here is what I ended up choosing. CVA Accura MR (mountain rifle). Composite stock, stainless barrel with weathershield coating. The Bushnell DOA scope I wanted to pick up went off sale the day before, didn’t feel like dropping 2x the money on it so went with the Cabelas powderhorn scope, time will tell if that was a mistake. Picked up the Blackhorn breach plug for it and plan to run test trials with Powerbelt hollow-points and also TC hollow point sabots with blackhorn powder and either run with whichever patterns best or try out other loads if I don’t like results.
If the forcast holds I’m planning to go to the farm and give her the first test run on Saturday.

I’m in a similar situation as you (looking for a new MZ). Plan to start hunting the gun season at my inlaws next year (SE MN), rifled barrels are not an option for my shotgun (discontinued model), a descent in line MZ is by far the less costly option than another slug dedicated shotgun, well at least the slug gun I’d get. Heard lots of good things about TC, more than one person recommended the triumph, I have a TC percussion cap side lock MZ for when I want to ‘really’ muzzleloader hunt. That being said, when I add up what I would do with the triumph I’m right back at that dedicated slug gun price. So, I’m going to go with a CVA Accura V2, also heard very good things about that. My plan is to get the blackhorn breech plug and give the blackhorn 209 powder a try and I’m leaning towards starting off with the powerbelt HP’s and probably picking up some barnes and/or TC sabots to fiddle with till I find the best combo.
Will be a different experience for sure than my TC and 70 grains behind a patch and roundball. I plan to pick it up this weekend so hopefully I can report back on how it shoots in a week or so if I can get out to the farm to shoot it.

If you have the ability with the original picture file to zoom in and not get severely pixelated (I tried saving and zooming in on the piture and i couldn’t get a descent zoom) you should be able to see the bases fairly clearly. Had on shot on my cameras last week that I’m 90% sure is a shed but. IR flash (in my picture) didn’t help for a good image but if it wasn’t the antler base he had something else on his head in the perfect place to look like one.

Saw a show the other weekend with a tip portion of the show that I will have to try. Prior to fletching arrows the guy would mark an unfletched arrow (he did it so it was on the top of arrow as it was nocked) and then shoot the arrow (must have only been 5-8 yards from target). He would look at where the mark was so he could determine the direction the bow naturally wanted to spin the arrow. He then would fletch with the offset so that it helped the natural spin. He did say at the end that it probably won’t make for a noticeable difference to anyone but competition target shooters, but, what the heck anything to help tweak the system.

As to the original question, I have not gotten one this year, last one I got was in 2009 or 10 I think.

Interesting idea, I fail to follow on how this would reduce pressure on an individual unit level though. If unit say 59D has the rifle season on day ‘X’ to day ‘Z’, all the hunters in that unit will still be hunting the same days. Now if your on the edge of a unit that may change some as the unit across the highway isn’t getting pressure.

I could see it backfiring, in that you may get a fair amount of hunters (especially if they still pass out buck fawn, ohh, I mean antlerless tags like candy) that will now hunt multiple seasons in multiple Zones and in theory per square mile per day of season you have ‘more’ hunters in the woods as these hunters now don’t have to choose one place/season to hunt, unless each unit/season has its own tag and you can only choose one, or at least have to pay full price to get multiple zones/seasons (if that’s the case I could get more behind it).

I like the line of thinking, just not sure its going to help the herd or the experience except for a few groups.

I wouldn’t mind going to a 1 buck/year system, if I could fill it with my bow and not even have to step into the woods during the 9 days of lead rain, wouldn’t bother me a bit (granted I could do that now, but if your going to dangle the chance of a second buck in front of me, I’m gonna give it a try(hasn’t happened yet in 20 years though, but I’m pickier on the bucks I shoot). Knowing out DNR we would have to issue twice as many buck fawn, dang it that’s twice, I mean antlerless tags to make up for it though.

In case someone hasn’t caught on yet I have serious issues with the current definition of ‘antlerless’ also. They ought to make buck or doe fawn one of the options you have to fill out (unless they do now, I’ve ate nothing but tag soup the last 2 years), at least then you’d have to publicly announce that you shot something that just stopped sucking on moms teat 3 months ago. (I know of 4 (buck fawns, 3 others that were doe fawns, plus any I don’t know about) shot on properties surrounding ours this year so I’m not quite over it yet).

How about the CVA Accura? Anyone have any input good or bad about that one?

scratch that idea altogether, he’s only selling the bare bow and I don’t want a new one bad enough to either spend money on new accessories or to have to strip mine down and re-install.

Here’s some pictures of it if it helps gauge. You can see the missing paint on the lower cam, that’s pretty much the only ‘damage’ to the bow and its just from 6 season of being pulled up and down to the treestand.

I see the pictures didn’t come out as crisp as they looked when I took them.

I’m setting up in some of the thickest areas we have on the property. This is a yearly thing for the last 7-10 years, every year it goes to crap on our place in November except for 1 or 2 days according to my cameras, always days I am at work of course, it was Monday this year 3 different shooters on camera in broad daylight.

Come late November as the rut winds down we start seeing the feeding patterns again.

Other than crappy luck I think the larger problem is that our woods are ‘maturing’ out for the most part and there are adjoining properties logged within the last decade that the does prefer. Early fall is when I see most of my bigger bucks because our place is the ’causeway’ to several food sources (corn, alfalfa (ag fields) and some wild apple patches), but when its go time and buck get the does corralled up in their bedding areas, poof – gone. Makes November very frustrating. We planed to go in and trim out 5-10 acres this past spring but the arrival of my son combined with the way winter dragged out that didn’t happen. I think once we get a couple areas (we will log ourselves so it will be just small areas spaced out each or every other (or some pattern) year) cut and they get a year or two to thicken back up with new young growth I think I will start to see a return of the Novembers I remember as a kid just starting out hunting 17 years ago.

Why didn’t we start the process sooner, never connected the dots till last year.

I kind of wondered about that, I would be using the same arrow with the new one too, but thought maybe a buyer would like to have arrows that matched (for me at least) to get started and then get something different if they wanted.

I certainly hope you are correct for both of us.

This has been an ongoing thing on our place though, usually get descent action in the late Oct. build up, but then when its go time and others are seeing, our place becomes the dead sea. I think a major part of it is that our woods needs to get ‘trimmed’ in areas to create (or re-create really) the bedding areas that were when I first started hunting and are now ‘maturing’ and the ground cover is reduced. The plan is to take the first steps towards on the tail end of winter this coming season.

But it never seems to fail that the one you want will be flaunting itself in front of the camera (or my parents eyes in this case since they live on the property) when you can’t be there. I’m not exaggerating that from where she said this guy was this morning is 60-75 yards from the front door of the house at max.

But, that’s what keeps me spending endless hours perched like a squirrel in a tree so its not all bad.

I don’t expect to get top dollar for it, I had some guys telling me 300 max with all the accessories and I thought that was low balling it a bit so wanted to see what others thought. I’ll have to remember to take a picture.

If that ZXT didn’t feel so good to shoot I really wouldn’t even consider selling it, I have really enjoyed this bow, it has definitely sold me on Mathews.

Figured a picture would probably help, unfortunately its at the farm till I get back there friday.

Nothing illegal about sitting in a treestand after shooting hours. As I’ve been told just don’t have an arrow nocked or gun loaded. If you can’t get out but can move enough to lower your bow to the ground that would make it pretty obvious too. Or case it in a soft easy to pack case.

Two weekends ago I sat in my tree a half hour past quitting time as 3 deer came in just at dark and walked out on the only real path I had out of the valley.

As for deer in the field, if your really stealthy and use the wind it is possible to walk right by them in the dark. I’ve done this many times, though I have always had a cut cornfield to sneak around them on which you can walk and hardly make a peek there (was chopped so no stubble left in field). I’ve started now on a couple stands I have that require traversing about 500 yards of field to get to the tree line and then another 200 to 400 yards to the stand(s), driving the ATV out to the treeline. There is a tree just on the other side of the old pasture fence in some overgrown pasture (that buffers the field and woods) I hide it under and then walk in the rest of the way. Being farm country the deer don’t seem to care too much about the ATV when I leave at night, even the ones right in my path just trot off far enough to get out of the way and then just watch me.

The ones that get me are every now and then when you don’t notice one as your walking out. Had one a couple years ago that my exis from the woods was thru a downed spot in a pasture fence and I then skirted along the edge of a corn field (not cut yet). I didn’t see/know there was a doe about 2 rows into that cornfield right near when I cross the fence. As I’m stepping out into the field edge she let me know she was there, think I jumped about 10′ into the air and was still shaking from the adrenaline surge when I got back to the house (which was still a good 500-600 yards from where the incident occurred).

My first was due Nov. 23rd last year, he came on Nov 17th (opener of the gun season). If your wife is anything like mine I got called back home from the stand (about 1.5 hours from the time I climb down the tree till I’m home) both the weekends prior to his arrival because she thought she was going into labor. Knowing that now, I’d have stayed home and gone fishing or worked on house projects those weekends.

in my experience with cameras it seems to be based on each deer’s personality. I’ve got a buck I guesstimate to be 5 years old this year that for 2 years now I get one good shot of him, then the next picture he’s high tailing it outta there (camera on a 2 shot burst, IR flash). But he will do this to the same camera in the same place multiple times so its not enough to get him to avoid the area anyway. I’ll get other ones that get curious and each pic the deer is closer and closer, until all that’s in the picture is their nose. And some still could seem to care less. If I could put any pattern to it I would say the older bucks and does are the more cautious ones when it comes to the flash, at least the IR flash cameras I’m using.