So, what next for the deer hunters & shooters among us?

Trojan911

As the deer season has ended my .308 will be consigned to the cabinet for a while or until the season opens again.

I can't justify shooting rabbits or foxes with it due to cost & probable total obliteration of Mr B. Rabbit. Although I'll more than likely buy in some cheap FMJ's & plink some targets to hone the skills for next season as I need to dedicate more time to shooting deer. I have been told I'll get a Sec42 to hunt but that is a couple of months away.

I have the semi auto shottie to keep me occupied in the meantime but as I will cease shooting foxy on Paddies Day, unless called apon, it looks like clays might be an option until crop season kicks in.

So, what are your plans till the next season?

It wasn't me!

Get new permissions, study deer populations and movements on my new land, buy a new rifle, spend time practising with it before September, spend some of the summer months whacking bunnies on the hills, plenty of target shooting competitions with the .22 and suchlike. Good times aplenty.

Vegeta

Clays, targets and call outs are probably what I'll be doing

Looking at my shooting gear and improving bits and pieces.

This year I am going to try and build a hide for duck shooting. buy a load of decoys for the lake. Get some new goose, mallard and other duck calls

Try my hand at pigeon shooting this year too. Have new permission in Cork who will need this big time when the time comes.

Moving into a house at the moment though so all my time (and money) is going on that. Fingers crossed I don't get fired next week


oh and this too

study deer populations and movements

Trojan911

It wasn't me! wrote: »

Get new permissions, study deer populations and movements on my new land, buy a new rifle, spend time practising with it before September, spend some of the summer months whacking bunnies on the hills, plenty of target shooting competitions with the .22 and suchlike. Good times aplenty.

Diary full so.....

Vegeta wrote:

Try my hand at pigeon shooting this year too. Have new permission in Cork who will need this big time when the time comes.

Got to be done, great for fine tuning the skills as they are a fast bird. I have plenty of crop land for that in Cork, but missed out last year for reasons I can't remember. The plastic decoys are well worth the investment. The buddy has a mechanical swingey round decoy thingy, brings the pigeons in fast & furious.

Sika_Stalker

well be building a new tower, fixing up any high seats that need to be done, looking over some new ground and gernerally trying to judge populations health of the deer,
ive also been given a rifle by the father becouse he bought a new custom howa,so ill try and get a licence for that.

Trojan911

Sika_Stalker wrote: »

well be building a new tower, fixing up any high seats that need to be done, looking over some new ground and gernerally trying to judge populations health of the deer,
ive also been given a rifle by the father becouse he bought a new custom howa,so ill try and get a licence for that.

Ya, my deer hunting partner has plans to do the same and fix/tidy up our existing hides.

What rifle did you get btw?

It wasn't me!

Trojan911 wrote: »

Diary full so.....

Ah yeah, got to keep busy! really looking to get out for my first season next year though.

Sika_Stalker

Trojan911 wrote: »

Ya, my deer hunting partner has plans to do the same and fix/tidy up our existing hides.

What rifle did you get btw?

a sig shr970 in .270

brieny1000

Sika_Stalker wrote: »

well be building a new tower, fixing up any high seats that need to be done, looking over some new ground and gernerally trying to judge populations health of the deer,
ive also been given a rifle by the father becouse he bought a new custom howa,so ill try and get a licence for that.

would that howa be a 22.250 by any chance.. if so its a nice bit of kit.. thought long and hard bout it myself

Sika_Stalker

brieny1000 wrote: »

would that howa be a 22.250 by any chance.. if so its a nice bit of kit.. thought long and hard bout it myself

no no its a wsm but i know the one your talking about

greenpeter

Pigeons pigeons and more pigeons and the training the pup, his acelerator is working very well but his brakes are useless

Dusty87

got great land with fields of corn, full of pigeons when the time comes. I mean full. Going to try my hand at cooking some. also in the process of making a larson trap, my first one so probably be fairly rough:o

Sika_Stalker

Dusty87 wrote: »

got great land with fields of corn, full of pigeons when the time comes. I mean full. Going to try my hand at cooking some. also in the process of making a larson trap, my first one so probably be fairly rough

isnt it always the same in life...... women, cars, guns.... the list could go on.:cool:

Dusty87

aint that the truth ha ha

kerryman12

I plan to spent the time trying to get premission to shoot over some new ground in KY.

paul1972

i have been told by someone official that the proposed changes to the firearms laws are far more sweeping than anybody thought possible and affect all branches of the sport...clay shooting and deer stalking ect,,,target shooting will be very hard hit the only form the minister for justice and the garda commisioner approve of is the olympic disiplines and all other forms will be so curtailed as to make them impossible to continue with ,,,even though there is no sound reason for doing this.......clay shooting will also suffer as clubs will be responsible for removing the spent lead shot from the land the club is situated on and a ban on the use of lead shot anywhere near waterways or lakes,,,deer stalking will be very restricted as stalking will only be available to those who can afford to lease land or clubs who will control deer for farmers under strict conditions as to calibers allowed and becoming a sport for the elite once again ,,,,,also they want to restrict the ammount of firearms you can hold to two with restrictive security conditions which include monitored alarms and even more expensive gun safes , semi auto rifles over .22 cal and semi auto shotguns will be out ,,, the person who said this feels it will pass in april due to the fact everybody thinks the proposed changes only involve pistols and revolvers and nobody is kicking up about it ,, nobody is sending e-mails to their local politicians or any of the ministers ,,,also the shooting bodies are keeping quite hoping their diciplines will be left alone but none will .... please say this cant be so....

Vegeta

Paul, you have already posted this here and I moved it to appropriate section (Shooting)

You have dragged this post WAY off topic. Please keep the conversation in the relevant thread.

dwighet

I`ll be getting married in the off season.."NO WAY" will I be doing that in deer season...
Its all about priorities!!!!!!!:D:D:D

No6

run now while you still can!! or put on the cammo and hide!!!!:D

qik1

dwighet wrote: »

I`ll be getting married in the off season.."NO WAY" will I be doing that in deer season...
Its all about priorities!!!!!!!:D:D:D

You kept that quite, did you tell the soon to be misses yet???????
I hope Martina and I get the invite. CYA Sunday

dwighet

qik1 wrote: »

You kept that quite, did you tell the soon to be misses yet???????
I hope Martina and I get the invite. CYA Sunday

you sly old dog...

dwighet

No6 wrote: »

run now while you still can!! or put on the cammo and hide!!!!:D

she`ll find me..she has the springer well trained

Sparks

Lots of posts on politics moved to the main forum.
No politics in here guys, please. I know we run close with some HCAP comments and similar stuff sometimes, but out-and-out politics is easily over the line.

paul1972

Vegeta wrote: »

Paul, you have already posted this here and I moved it to appropriate section (Shooting)

You have dragged this post WAY off topic. Please keep the conversation in the relevant thread.

no probs sorry about that still struggling with this computer it was done by mistake

Double Barrel

What NOT to do in the off season...


This story has been bouncing around the web for the better part of a year.

Actual Letter from someone who writes, and farms. ??? :rolleyes: ** Emphasis Mine.

I had this idea that I was going to rope a deer, put it in a stall, feed it up on corn for a couple of weeks, then kill it and eat it. The first step in this adventure was getting a deer. I figured that since they congregated at my cattle feeder and do not seem to have much fear of me when we are there (a bold one will sometimes come right up and sniff at the bags of feed while I am in the back of the truck not 4 feet away) that it should not be difficult to rope one, get up to it and toss a bag over its head (to calm it down) then hog tie it and transport it home.

I filled the cattle feeder then hid down at the end with my rope.. The cattle, which had seen the roping thing before, stayed well back.. They were not having any of it. After about 20 minutes my deer showed up, 3 of them. I picked out a likely looking one, stepped out from the end of the feeder, and threw my rope.

The deer just stood there and stared at me. I wrapped the rope around my waist and twisted the end so I would have a good hold. The deer still just stood and stared at me, but you could tell it was mildly concerned about the whole rope situation. I took a step towards it. .It took a step away. I put a little tension on the rope and received an education.

The first thing that I learned is that while a deer may just stand there looking at you funny while you rope it, they are spurred to action when you start pulling on that rope. That deer EXPLODED.

The second thing I learned is that pound for pound, a deer is a LOT stronger than a cow or a colt. A cow or a colt in that weight range I could fight down with a rope with some dignity. A deer, no chance. That thing ran and bucked and twisted and pulled. There was no controlling it and certainly no getting close to it.

As it jerked me off my feet and started dragging me across the ground, it occurred to me that having a deer on a rope was not nearly as good an idea as I originally imagined. The only up side is that they do not have as much stamina as many animals. A brief 10 minutes later, it was tired and not nearly as quick to jerk me off my feet and drag me when I managed to get up. It took me a few minutes to realize this, since I was mostly blinded by the blood flowing out of the big gash in my head.

At that point I had lost my taste for corn fed venison. I just wanted to get that devil creature off the end of that rope. I figured if I just let it go with the rope hanging around its neck, it would likely die slow and painfully somewhere. At the time, there was no love at all between me and that deer. At that moment, I hated the thing and I would venture a guess that the feeling was mutual.

Despite the gash in my head and the several large knots where I had cleverly arrested the deer's momentum by bracing my head against various large rocks as it dragged me across the ground, I could still think clearly enough to recognize that there was a small chance that I shared some tiny amount of responsibility for the situation we were in, so I didn't want the deer to have to suffer a slow death. I managed to get it lined up to back in between my truck and the feeder, a little trap I had set beforehand. Kind of like a squeeze chute. I got it to back in there and started moving up so I could get my rope back..

Did you know that deer bite? They do! I never in a million years would have thought that a deer would bite somebody so I was very surprised when I reached up there to grab that rope and the deer grabbed hold of my wrist. Now, when a deer bites you, it is not like being bit by a horse where they just bite you and then let go. A deer bites you and shakes its head, almost like a pit bull. They bite HARD and it hurts.

The proper thing to do when a deer bites you is probably to freeze and draw back slowly. I tried screaming and shaking instead. My method was ineffective. It seems like the deer was biting and shaking for several minutes, but it was likely only several seconds. I, being smarter than a deer (though you may be questioning that claim by now) tricked it. While I kept it busy tearing the hound out of my right arm, I reached up with my left hand and pulled that rope loose.

That was when I got my final lesson in deer behavior for the day. Deer will strike at you with their front feet. They rear right up on their back feet and strike right about head and shoulder level, and their hooves are surprisingly sharp.. I learned a long time ago that when an animal like a horse strikes at you with their hooves and you can't get away easily, the best thing to do is try to make a loud noise and make an aggressive move towards the animal.

This will usually cause them to back down a bit so you can escape. This was not a horse. This was a deer, so obviously such trickery would not work. In the course of a millisecond I devised a different strategy. I screamed like woman and tried to turn and run. The reason I had always been told NOT to try to turn and run from a horse that paws at you is that there is a good chance that it will hit you in the back of the head. Deer may not be so different from horses after all, besides being twice as strong and three times as evil, because the second I turned to run, it hit me right in the back of the head and knocked me down.

Now when a deer paws at you and knocks you down it doesn't immediately leave. I suspect it does not recognize that the danger has passed. What they do instead is paw your back and jump up and down on you while you are laying there crying like a little girl and covering your head. I finally managed to crawl under the truck and the deer went away.

Now for the local legend. I was pretty beat up. My scalp was split open, I had several large goose eggs, my wrist was bleeding pretty good and felt broken (it turned out to be just badly bruised) and my back was bleeding in a few places, though my insulated canvas jacket had protected me from most of the worst of it. I drove to the nearest place, which was the co-op. I got out of the truck, covered in blood and dust and looking like I’d just come from a bar-room brawl. The guy who ran the place saw me through the window and came running out yelling "what happened"

I have never seen any law in the state of Kansas that would prohibit an individual from roping a deer. I suspect that this is an area that they have overlooked entirely. Knowing, as I do, the lengths to which law enforcement personnel will go to exercise their power, I was concerned that they may find a way to twist the existing laws to paint my actions as criminal.

I swear, not wanting to admit that I had done something monumentally stupid played no part in my response. I told him "I was attacked by a deer." I did not mention that at the time I had a rope on it. The evidence was all over my body. Deer prints on the back of my jacket where it had stomped all over me and a large deer print on my face where it had struck me there. I asked him to call somebody to come get me. I didn't think I could make it home on my own. He did.

Later that afternoon, a game warden showed up at my house and wanted to know about the deer attack. Surprisingly, deer attacks are a rare thing and wildlife and parks was interested in the event.. I tried to describe the attack as completely and accurately as I could. I was filling the grain hopper and this deer came out of nowhere and just started kicking the hell out of me and BIT me.

It was obviously rabid or insane or something. EVERYBODY for miles around knows about the deer attack (the guy at the co-op has a big mouth). For several weeks people dragged their kids in the house when they saw deer around and the local ranchers carried rifles when they filled their feeders. I have told several people the story, but NEVER anybody around here. I have to see these people every day and as an outsider, a "city folk," I have enough trouble fitting in without them snickering behind my back and whispering "there is the dumb-butt” that tried to rope the deer.

http://www.snopes.com/critters/farce/ropedeer.asp

Trojan911

Double Barrel wrote: »

What NOT to do in the off season...

Ok..... (scratches "roping a deer" off list).....

Grizzly 45

Kind of puts paid to the" Decoy deer "article up in Mayo/Donegal,posted elsewhere here.:)

Sparks

I'm charging you for the cost of getting the tea off the monitor. Funniest thing I've read all day