hunting not killing report

[Catcher's Mitt]

I bowhunting this morning and over the weekend at Cotton Hill hunting club. that is the name of the lease I'm in. it is on the Mississippi River. the river rose 3 feet inundating about 1200 of the 1800 acres we have on the swamp side of our lease. The deer were on the move getting away from the water.

Saturday morning i missed a MS legal 7 point. plenty of excuses, but i won't being hunting with a safety harness again. I'm going tonight to replace my lost safety belt.

Monday evening i went swimming with the deer. to get down wind, I donned waders and cut across the woods to reach a funnel of woods (willow thicket) going across a field to the road. about half of the willow thicket was out of the water. the deer were not too happy about me getting in the water with them.. I heard deer bleating over 25 times. All slick heads it was some adventure though. of course my waders had holes in them. At one point i waded out of the woods to avoid the 1.2 million sticks that were floating around. every bush that was sticking out of the water had at least 10 spiders on it, with silk flowing in the wind. oh yea and there were alot of crickets trying to hitch a ride with me. I would feel something on my neck..........and was hoping it was cricket because i really am not to fond of spiders.

I walked out a little before dark for two reasons. Chilly and i wanted to stay just inside the waters edge. why you ask? well there are rattlesnakes and i was wondering where they might be. fleaing the water? coming to the water to feed on the fleeing mice, rats, chipmunks, etc. ? I didnt want to deal with any of that. I'm not too fond of snakes in the dark either.

This morning i had a high and tight illegal six point pass directly under my stand at daylight. legal 7 pointer never showed. Had to get off stand at 8 am to get to work.

Deer head count for the last few days: bucks 3; 7pt,6pt, and a spike. does;45 And somebody decided in the "board meeting" over the summer that we were not seeing enough does and the usual 25 we can shoot was lowered to 0. did i mention that Cotton Hill encompasses 6000 acres. the biologist that rode the lease over the summer told us that we did not have enough food and needed to double the size of our food plots. we did this but with all the rain we havent got them planted yet and now all these deer are coming out of the swamp. one good thing is that with all the rain and no frost yet there is plenty of greenery everywhere.

our usual doe alotment of 25 is a ratio of 1 to 240 acres. i know it depends on many varibles but what is the doe allotment ratio where you hunt? our soil type is Lower Thick Loess.

oh well it is early in the season and the rut doesn't hit until the first week in January.

Sorry no pictures of harvested (PC) animals for you.

[weekender]

very interesting read, what does a buck have to have to be legal? Keep us posted on your future adventures.

[DropinBack]

is that 1 does to every 240 acres of land? Where i hunt on the western shore of MD it is 1 deer for every 5 acres, in which 1/7 are bucks and on the easter shore where i hunt i would predict we have 1 deer for ever 9 acres and 1/3 or1/4 deer are bucks...

[Tenacious]

I really enjoyed that one Mark! I can't believe they said not to shoot any does, that's insane. How's a man going to support his family with no meat in the freezer? Sounds like the AJ's of hunting!!!! Keep the reports coming.

[WAHOONBOX]

COOL READ BRO....THANKS

[Catcher's Mitt]

clarification on the does. this will be my 5th year in this club. the last 4 years we have been allowed to shoot two does per family until we reached a total of 25 does total killed on the lease. or doe killing would be stopped if the water on the natchez gauge reached 38 feet or at the end of muzzel loader season which ends around the 15th of december. if either of those things occured the doe shooting was stopped no matter how many we had killed. i dont think but one year out of the 4 we killed the 25 quota.

we have a lot of deer. the 1 to 240 acres is 6000 acres divided by the 25 doe quota. we have probably 1 deer to 2 or 3 acres. i feel that a good heard would have a 1/4 ratio of buck to does and a 1/2 ratio is a great heard. we probably have over 1/15 ratio. that is why i'm a little crazy about us not shooting does this year. we need to thin them out with a vengence IMHO.

Mississippi changed it the buck legal buck restrictions. it has been 6 points. this year for the region we are in is a antler size instead of points. 12" inside spread or 15" main beam. so for the club we went from being able to kill does and anything with 6 points or better. now no does and buck with more head gear. it will seperate the men from the boys!

[Captain Michael Buffington]

funny stuff. What kind of harness was it. I hunt harnessless now but was considering buying that hunter safety system. The ones that come with my stand look like a pile of spaghetti and loud buckels.

As for the does, backwards is all I can say. I agree with you. What does the river level have to do with anything? On my place intensive doe killin has finally resulted in about a 2:1 ratio and I am ecstaticIt took 6 years to fix what the old timers had screwed up. I only have 600 acres to manage. You guys have some killin to do bud! Why is that so hard to drum into peoples heads? Good luck convincing them!

Mike

[Catcher's Mitt]

funny stuff. What kind of harness was it. I hunt harnessless now but was considering buying that hunter safety system. The ones that come with my stand look like a pile of spaghetti and loud buckels.

As for the does, backwards is all I can say. I agree with you. What does the river level have to do with anything? On my place intensive doe killin has finally resulted in about a 2:1 ratio and I am ecstaticIt took 6 years to fix what the old timers had screwed up. I only have 600 acres to manage. You guys have some killin to do bud! Why is that so hard to drum into peoples heads? Good luck convincing them!

Mike

The harness was one of the ones that come with stands. the problem was the buck got out in front of the stand and i couldn't bend from the waist so i squated and that threw off the geometry of the shot. They are probably great for gun hunting but suck for bow hunting.

The water coming up pushes the deer out of the swamp and into the hills. makes them too easy to kill i guess.

The vice president is a cattle man. . He said one time "where do you think bucks come from" and that if you kill does too late your killing bucks. The biologist already said we had to double the size of our food plots because we dont have enough food for the deer we have now. he is the main culprit we the doe fiasco. I don't think much of raising cattle crosses over to managing bucks. But what do i know.

Below is what i want to see more of on the club. And not killing does and killing young bucks ain't gonna get us there.

[Captain Michael Buffington]

The harness was one of the ones that come with stands. the problem was the buck got out in front of the stand and i couldn't bend from the waist so i squated and that threw off the geometry of the shot. They are probably great for gun hunting but suck for bow hunting.

The water coming up pushes the deer out of the swamp and into the hills. makes them too easy to kill i guess.

The vice president is a cattle man. . He said one time "where do you think bucks come from" and that if you kill does too late your killing bucks. The biologist already said we had to double the size of our food plots because we dont have enough food for the deer we have now. he is the main culprit we the doe fiasco. I don't think much of raising cattle crosses over to managing bucks. But what do i know.

Below is what i want to see more of on the club. And not killing does and killing young bucks ain't gonna get us there.

and I agree completely...

Mike

[brandon558]

very cool read man..good luck this year. sounds like a well managed place. let them bucks grow!