Deer Hunting
Deer Vanishing
From 24hourcampfire.com My answer: I don’t know if this applies, but here is what I’m experiencing in SW Bracken County, KY. First off, investigate the harvest numbers published by the state. I started tracking KY’s deer harvest numbers for my county and the surrounding area 25 years ago. What I see is steady growth peaking in 2015. This pretty well matches the numbers in my county and the county directly to my west. The counties elsewhere in my region peaked out much later and overall my county’s numbers have not kept up with the growth to others in my region. … More . . .
KY Deer Hunting Totals 2025
From Facebook This post has already been read 286 times!Views: 4 Related posts: The Savage Speaks Again Whitetail Deer — What is Overkill Anyway? On Hunting Pressure and Going Nocturnal Deer Camp 2015 — Ineff is Ineff What’s Wrong With Me? What makes a good deer rifle? Playing the Wind or J-Lo and Steve find each other? What makes a Deer Rifle?
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PA Considering Moving Deer Opener
The Pennsylvania Game Commission is considering moving the Deer Opener back to before Thanksgiving. Here’s the press release. I expect there will be a furor over this almost as big as when they moved the Deer Opener to Saturday from Monday. The believe was that this was such an ingrained part of the culture that it could not be altered. Families had spent generations having wives and kids out to camp the weekend before season. BOARD OF GAME COMMISSIONERS TO CONSIDER 2026-27 HUNTING SEASONS AND MORE AT JANUARY MEETING January 15, 2026 HARRISBURG, PA — The Pennsylvania Board of Game … More . . .
KYDFWR Announces November Deer Results
Kentucky Dept. of Fish and Wildlife Resources post the following on Facebook This post has already been read 514 times!Views: 5 Related posts: From the KDFWR: Outstanding outlook for the hunt KDFWR Turkey Study Underway KY Non-Resident Fees Hiked KY: Record Harvest for Modern Gun Deer Season KY Expands Crossbow Season What makes a Deer Rifle? Deer Hunter receives largest fine in Ohio history Shotgun Vs. Rifle
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Deer Season Post-Mortem, 2025
Overall, I’d say this was not such a bad deer season– not great by any stretch. Moose and Foxtrot Charlie both had no luck. We missed out on a truly great day. Monday of Opening Week, we had snow at the farm. Everyone had their excuses for not being there. For my part, I’d realized that hunting alone was no longer a viable idea and went home to rest. Looking at the telecheck numbers, Monday was a monster. Lots of big bucks were taken in Bracken and the surrounding counties. Ooof! It makes sense: peak of the rut, big front … More . . .
Report from Deer Camp — The End
If I had to give you the ideal Rifle Season. It would include a buck on Opening Weekend, two weeks of enjoying a prolonged autumn, and a doe taken on the last Saturday, sized just right to fit in the freezer. The rest of the camp has mostly the same thing happen. Enough goes on the pole on The Opener that everyone feels relaxed about the approach of the end. That was everything this season wasn’t. Moose walked out with nothing. Folically Challenged got zilched as well for three days’ effort. His only success was the 10 lbs of pork … More . . .
SuperCore Bags a Buck
Sometimes, deer hunting is not about getting the biggest rack. Sometimes it isn’t about anything more than making it out and making it back. If you can buy that, then SuperCore was my hero yesterday. I was hunting Midway. The food plots out there have finally filled out a bit. The deer are liking whatever it is I planted out in the Garden of Stone. There are five different mixes out there, but they all look the same. I’d hunted since first light and seen absolutely nothing. I heard one shot that sounded fairly close about 0815. That turned out … More . . .
Angus Scores Buck Opening Weekend
When I committed to building the additions to deer camp, I knew there would be at least one Deer Opener that would deeply impacted. This was the one. This was the Thoughtful Spot just before we convened on Opening Eve, 2024: Here is what The Thoughtful Spot looked like coming into the 2025 Opener: Notice the dark clouds. Pouring rain and thunder rolled in at Noon on Opening Eve. We had to move the festivities to the front porch under cover. It was only SuperCore and me in attendance. Everyone else came down after dark. Angus’ Buck Angus came into … More . . .
Early Muzzleloader Season, 2025
This is the obligatory KY ML Season post. I notice that there are several already on this date over the years. I won’t bore you with anything but the essentials. First off, per usual, no wildlife was harmed. That nearly goes without saying. I can’t tell you the exact year where we stopped taking ML season seriously. I can tell you why: I could go on with the reasons. However, we’ve leaned into it. SuperCore, Moose, Angus, and I showed up. We went out. We loaded our front-stuffers. We went out to our blinds. We enjoyed the good weather and … More . . .
Mooselette Bags Her 1st Deer
A guy like me has passed some milestones in his life: marriages, births, your son’s first deer. Mooselette and I passed a big one yesterday together. She killed her first deer. Yesterday was the Yute Opener in KY. They’ve extended the early season so it runs for a whole week, clear into Muzzleloader Season next weekend. Mooselette is fortunately off school for a couple of days this week. We figured we’d press hard and get her a deer for sure. We did not have to press too far. Saturday morning, we were out at Hollywood. Mooslette carried her new 25-06. … More . . .
Trip to the farm
Moose, Mooselette, and I went to the farm over the weekend. There was lots happening. When I pulled up Friday noon, there were more truck parked along the road than I’ve ever seen. It looked like an auction or something. It was the concrete contractor making maximum effort to get ready for the basement floor pour. That’s coming this week. I did not spend a whole lot of time hanging about. My focus was out in the fields. The food plots had finally gotten rain–2 inches over 4 days. I hopped on the ATV and rode out to see. I … More . . .
Food Plot PIX
After I got done documenting the basement pour with the drone, I had a chance to fly it out and take pictures of all the food plots. So far, there has been no germination, but there’s more rain coming. This post has already been read 2649 times!Views: 18 Related posts: Deer Season Post-Mortem, 2017 Mr Whelen Tags a Doe Should I Reload? PT I Food Plots 2025 Consistent Success With Bucks The Savage Speaks Again Deer Season Post-Mortem, 2018 Campground: A Treestand Profile
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Food Plots 2025
I don’t know if y’all have caught on, but we have been seeing an overall reduction in deer numbers during the past several seasons. I was talking with my neighbor last year and blamed him fully for it– but in the nicest way possible. You see, he moved in a few years ago and occupies most of my western and northwestern boundaries. Almost immediately, the deer started responding. In previous years, his was the land of the Orange Army, a bunch of ATV-riding hunters that would crank up their engines 15 minutes before The Opener. By 0900, all the deer … More . . .
Catching up on Food Plots
We’ve been down at the farm quite a bit recently. It’s time to get caught up with y’all. We’re chugging along getting the food plots in order. We have a target of 32 1/4-acre plots to get done. 24 are mowed. 21 are tilled. 11 are fertilized. I’ll be letting you know more as the project progresses. So what are we planting? Click on pics for links What I decided to do was order a bunch of Buck-on-the-Bag seed mixes from Amazon and https://www.sportsmansguide.com , taking advantage of big sales in May. I’ve divvied up 8 acres of the 40 … More . . .
New KY Deer Stats
I was looking on the KDFWR site to see if the fall rules had come out and happened upon this page. Check it out. Deer Hunting Stats It has all sorts of charts and maps and such about deer hunting in KY. One chart that caught my eye: Bracken County has the 3rd highest buck harvest per sq mile of habitat. Whodathunk? This post has already been read 7480 times!Views: 8 Related posts: The Role of Personal Ethics in Hunting Shamanic Guide — Approaching a downed deer So you want a new deer rifle for Indiana What makes a Deer … More . . .
Which Way the Wind Rose?
I found a cool tool. Ever wonder which way the wind blows at your stand? No, I don’t mean sticking your finger up. I mean, statistical historical data on exactly how often the wind blows from a given direction near your hunting location. I’m talking wind roses. Here are the steps: Here is the result for picking my nearest airport, LUK, and a date range of 11/8 to 12/1, the limits of the Kentucky Rifle Season and 0600 to 1900. I think it’s easy to see most of the wind comes from the South-Southwest. It almost never comes from the … More . . .
O.T. and the 25-06
I’ve never fully written down the experience of acquiring the rifle from O.T. I probably should have while it was still fresh. The details fade over time. What I can say now is that the trip was easily the most poignant experience I’ve had in 40-some years of hunting. I’d known O.T. for over a decade. We’d grown to be friends over my regular visits to get my mowers, etc., worked on. We had a deal where I’d leave off my chainsaw blades to be sharpened and then come back in a week and sit and talk with him. Finally, … More . . .
Going in, Dark or Dawn?
From 24HourCampfire.Com Here is my answer: Back when I was bow hunting, I tried to be in my stand an hour before first light. That was waaaay too early, but I was schlepping in a climber and doing the ascent. I wanted as much time for the woods to settle back down. Gradually, I started cheating it forward. Here it is, 40-some years in. My last bow hunt was in 2007. I stopped using climbers about 2001. I stopped cheating it forward at about 15 minutes before first light or about 45 minutes before legal hunting. That’s for getting out … More . . .
Bizarre Poaching Story
Here’s a real corker from Iowa: https://www.agweb.com/news/business/farmland/game-horns-iowa-poachers-antler-addiction-leads-historic-bust This post has already been read 4127 times!Views: 9 Related posts: Food Plots 2025 Catching up on Food Plots Caught 2 poachers, but they got let go What makes a good deer rifle? I Just Don’t Get it Escape from Planet 4 MOA– Part 1 On Hunting Pressure and Going Nocturnal Campground: A Treestand Profile
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KY Deer Harvest Totals
The numbers are in from the KYDWFR biologist: Bracken County accounted for 1666 deer up from 1622 the previous year. It’s still well off the 2326 deer harvest in 2015. This post has already been read 3384 times!Views: 6 Related posts: What Happened to the Turkeys? Turkey 2020 Post Mortem Deer Season Post-Mortem, 2024 KY: Record Harvest for Modern Gun Deer Season Deer Season Post-Mortem, 2018 Campground: A Treestand Profile Back from Hiatus How to hold deer while staying at the hotel?
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The Differences Between Hunting and Target Shooting
I was asked on Quora: https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-key-differences-between-hunting-marksmanship-and-target-shootingHere is my answer: Dorf D’Impaler Writer and Pro-staffer (2001–present)2m Imagine a shooting match where the actual target, a ball, was hidden behind an indistinct piece of shag carpeting. You have to determine the ball’s location from the folds in the carpet. The light is bad. The carpet is moving. You’re cold. The coffee is gone and you’ve got to pee. If you succeed, you get to go home. Before you go, you shake everybody’s hand, and somebody takes a picture. Everyone wants a copy. You get to watch football for the rest of the … More . . .
Deer Hunter receives largest fine in Ohio history
Central Ohio NewsDeer poacher imprisoned, receives largest fine in Ohio history by: Adam Conn Posted: Dec 16, 2024 / 10:00 AM EST Updated: Dec 16, 2024 / 07:45 PM EST SHARE COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – A man arrested for illegally shooting and taking possession of a single white-tailed deer was given a prison sentence and issued the largest fine in such a case in Ohio’s history. According to the Ohio Division of Wildlife, 28-year-old Christopher Alexander was sentenced last week in Clinton County Common Pleas Court for unlawfully shooting an 18-point, trophy white-tailed buck in November 2023. Alexander, of Wilmington, … More . . .
Deer Season Post-Mortem, 2024
We finished up the season Sunday. The Shamanic Dream Team took 6 deer, tying the previous camp record. Overall, action was light. However, unlike last year, there was a payoff for being out there and being patient. I snuck a peak at the KYDFWR telecheck site; Bracken County’s numbers are out of the basement, and they are back on top of the Northeast Region. That is good news. There has been a general lack of good racks showing up on neighbors’ cameras. The big boys seem to have gravitated to those parts of the county with more agriculture. There is … More . . .
Report from Deer Camp: Week 2 of 2024
Moose and I reconvened on Friday afternoon. We still had doe tags to fill. He went to Jagende Hutte. I went back out to Midway. For me, it was a typical mid-season boregasm in a cloudy gloom. For Moose, it was something else entirely. All I can say is that I heard a shot from over his direction around 1700. When I didn’t get an answer on the radio, I figured he might be busy. When Moose picked me up that night, he had quite the story. Sure enough, at 1700 he had seen a doe at what he estimated … More . . .
Report from Deer Camp: Opener 2024
The short of it is that the Shamanic Dream Team came in from the field Saturday evening with two bucks making it to the poll.. Moose shot a 7 pointer at Lazy Boy. Supercore blasted a spike buck early Saturday afternoon. It started pouring rain, and no one had the urge to go out Sunday. Foxtrot Charlie showed up in time for dinner Sunday. He went out Monday and Tuesday and has so far scored nothing. I nailed a buck Tuesday AM at Midway and went back to town. How it began I had been down since Wednesday. I have … More . . .
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