Deer Season

Plant.One said:
sounds like about the numbers on my dad's place. our resident herd is ~75-100 animals. or at least thats the high count we typically see out in the big field in the evenings anyway. we have roughly 140 acres (just shy of a sq half mile) but share that herd with several connecting neighbors who make up our mile square section.

its so bad here in Michigan they've dropped the price of doe tags to $5 each during the new extended antlerless season (jan 2-12th), and they're again allowing the use of any legal firearm during our traditional muzzleloading season (dec 6-15th) . they've also extended the early/late antlerless seasons to public land (used to be private only)

so you can essentially take a doe from nov 15th until jan 12th with a firearm, as well as an early doe weekend sept 21/22

archery is from oct 1 all the way thru jan 31 (in limited counties, the rest end jan 16)

sadly we're only allowed 10 deer per hunter each season (ie 2024 total combined seasons), up to 2 of which can be antlered.
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I'm in SC. We didn't have any way to enforce a limit until about five years ago maybe? It was very normal for some people to legally kill 15-20 deer a season. Our season runs from Aug. 15 - Jan. 1. That's with anything from a .22 to a 50 bmg. Probably around five years ago my area had a dip in the population. I still don't really know what caused it. We weren't finding dead deer laying around or anything, they just weren't there. Maybe it was nature's way of correcting the over population. Since then they have boomed back. This year was another bumper crop of fawns. My cameras show a LOT of fawns with twins this year.

Our biggest issue has been meat hunters vs trophy hunters. We have so many people that will let a fat doe walk by, but drop the first 4 point they see. Yet, they also say that they only want meat. For years and years that DNR reported that most of our bucks were killed before they turned 2 years old. The tags and limits have made some people more selective and IMO you can tell, but we will never have Midwestern bucks.
 
Not sure what our deer per square mile density is, but I’d guess 75+.
We hunt two properties with limited hunters, a 2500ac and 5000ac track. Between my son and I, we take approximately 10 does combined with archery and then another 30-40 each with rifles. It’s not hunting at that point, it’s management.
Bucks are archery only for us, but we have to take does for management reasons. Believe it or not even with all those deer taken and donated, we still have folks wanting deer at the end of season.
Properties aren’t even managed for deer, but when you manage for quail, everything prospers. Letting bucks live to 5.5+ can generate some decent antlers, nothing Midwest or Texas size, but decent for GA. We do try and take a management buck each year in addition to what we consider a trophy age/antler wise. Some years we don’t have a “trophy” so we’ll take a couple management bucks.
Management bucks are those 8’s 4.5 or older that aren’t ever going to amount to much. They can also be those wide antlered bucks with tines no longer than 5-6”.
Sometimes passing bucks hurts us, but when it works out we get a chance and some nice trophies. Nice trophies for us anyways. My son has had the opportunity longer than I have and he’s taken a 154” P&Y and a 172” B&C. I’m still waiting for a P&Y but did get a 168” B&C. A lot of our management bucks get to 140”+. We had an old 8pt that scored 142” and he didn’t have a tine over 6”, lol. Mains were 25” each and had over 40” in mass.
 
DoubleLungRage said:
I'm in SC. We didn't have any way to enforce a limit until about five years ago maybe? It was very normal for some people to legally kill 15-20 deer a season. Our season runs from Aug. 15 - Jan. 1. That's with anything from a .22 to a 50 bmg. Probably around five years ago my area had a dip in the population. I still don't really know what caused it. We weren't finding dead deer laying around or anything, they just weren't there. Maybe it was nature's way of correcting the over population. Since then they have boomed back. This year was another bumper crop of fawns. My cameras show a LOT of fawns with twins this year.

Our biggest issue has been meat hunters vs trophy hunters. We have so many people that will let a fat doe walk by, but drop the first 4 point they see. Yet, they also say that they only want meat. For years and years that DNR reported that most of our bucks were killed before they turned 2 years old. The tags and limits have made some people more selective and IMO you can tell, but we will never have Midwestern bucks.
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Something I noticed about trophy hunter's, they are only trophy hunter's till time is running out then revert to meat hunters. I'm a meat hunter but if I blunder into a nice buck I would shoot it too! That's my ego getting in the way. Besides that, you can eat a big buck, heard lots of guys say so!
 
Polock said:
Besides that, you can eat a big buck, heard lots of guys say so!
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Only ever had one buck that was not edible and he was chasing does at the moment he met his demise. Well, and then there was the one I tried to butcher myself; learned why they call it butchering that day......that one was the toughest thing I ever tried to eat.:ROFLMAO:
 
With deer it depends on what they eat and how much. Last year I got a beautiful muley buck and he was delicious. How ever we have a ton of agricultural land out here and they are eating lots of grain all year. When you butcher them they are packed with fat. Very well fed. As far as the butchering goes, the more you do it the better you get. With the wife running the vacuum packing machine and the electric meat grinder, I can crank them out pretty fast. Of course I have butchered all sorts of live stock. The one animal that really is a pain to butcher is a bear. What a pain in the butt.
 
Season started 9/6 for MD where I hunt. I didn’t go, I haven’t even sighted my xbow in yet. Weather was actually much cooler than past years.
Nothing like sitting in a redneck blind in boxers, def more like a sauna. I’ve learned to wait a few weeks. Foliage is extremely thick anyway and not possible to see more than 20-30yds tops. Throw in No-See-Ums, chiggers and ticks and it’s rather miserable until early October.
PA where I live is useless unless you have private land. State Game lands are downright dangerous. “If it’s brown it’s down” applies heavily and guys will empty a full magazine on a running 50lb deer.
Heck my shooting club even has several running deer target events in preparation. Opening day of rifle sounds like WW3.
I never understood it or hunted that way, but it’s a way of life here.
 
Megalon said:
With deer it depends on what they eat and how much. Last year I got a beautiful muley buck and he was delicious. How ever we have a ton of agricultural land out here and they are eating lots of grain all year. When you butcher them they are packed with fat. Very well fed. As far as the butchering goes, the more you do it the better you get. With the wife running the vacuum packing machine and the electric meat grinder, I can crank them out pretty fast. Of course I have butchered all sorts of live stock. The one animal that really is a pain to butcher is a bear. What a pain in the butt.
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I've never understood why people try to get the "gamey" taste out of wild game? Tons of people I give meat to will ask me, "how can I get the gamey taste out". My reply is always the same, "buy beef".

I've eaten Black Bear twice. Cooked two different ways by two different people. Didn't really care for it either time. It seemed greasy and stringy.
 
DoubleLungRage said:
I've never understood why people try to get the "gamey" taste out of wild game? Tons of people I give meat to will ask me, "how can I get the gamey taste out". My reply is always the same, "buy beef".

I've eaten Black Bear twice. Cooked two different ways by two different people. Didn't really care for it either time. It seemed greasy and stringy.
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I only killed one bear that was in Montana while I was stationed there. Took it to a butcher i Kalispell and he cured it somehow and tasted like Canadian Bacon, was great. Been here in Oregon mostly ever since and hear about the great bear hunting but all the years I lied in Oregon I have only ever seen one bear!
 
Polock said:
I only killed one bear that was in Montana while I was stationed there. Took it to a butcher i Kalispell and he cured it somehow and tasted like Canadian Bacon, was great. Been here in Oregon mostly ever since and hear about the great bear hunting but all the years I lied in Oregon I have only ever seen one bear!
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We are getting a lot more bears in SC now. A guy I know sent me a few pics of a monster a few days ago. I don't know much about bears, but he said that one would go 500 or more. I know its head is the size of a 5 gallon bucket.
 
My grandmother wanted a Bear every fall, she would skin it and strip all the fat off it and render it down, bear fat has no salt in it, my Grandmother wanted it for pastry's and pie crusts, and her and the girls hair, Granddad used it on leather, saddles, harness, and boots, we didn't eat bear meat, about the only thing that will eat a bear is birds, put a bear in the chicken pen and it will be gone in a couple of days. Murl B.
 
We kill about 400-450 Whitetails every year, mostly Does and management Bucks maybe 3 or 4 trophy bucks, Culling Whitetails turns into a job after the first 100 or so. Murl B.
 
Murl B said:
My grandmother wanted a Bear every fall, she would skin it and strip all the fat off it and render it down, bear fat has no salt in it, my Grandmother wanted it for pastry's and pie crusts, and her and the girls hair, Granddad used it on leather, saddles, harness, and boots, we didn't eat bear meat, about the only thing that will eat a bear is birds, put a bear in the chicken pen and it will be gone in a couple of days. Murl B.
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I've killed one bear. Ate the backstraps as steaks - pretty good. Turned most of the rest into sausage just like a pig - turned out great.
 
A friend brought some smoked Alaskan bear and salmon to a pot luck game dinner and that bear was inedible as far as I was concerned. Only time I ever tried bear. :sick:
 
Murl B said:
We kill about 400-450 Whitetails every year, mostly Does and management Bucks maybe 3 or 4 trophy bucks, Culling Whitetails turns into a job after the first 100 or so. Murl B.
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When you have to kill for management purposes, it becomes work after a while, lol. We only have to take less than half of what you take, but it’s still a lot of work trying to meet the numbers in the allotted timeframe. It’s even worse when you’re trying to chase down a target buck and still reach the quota.
 
I’ve eaten black bear meat twice. It was actually very good both times. I have definitely heard that not all bears are created equal. My cousin’s Canada spring bear shot over bait was terrible tasting according to him. Maybe NY fall bears taste better after destroying cornfields all summer?
 
hunt0168 said:
I’ve eaten black bear meat twice. It was actually very good both times. I have definitely heard that not all bears are created equal. My cousin’s Canada spring bear shot over bait was terrible tasting according to him. Maybe NY fall bears taste better after destroying cornfields all summer?
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It's the same way with hogs. From my experiences a river hog will taste different than a hog that came from an ag. area.
 
I'm in Michigan so things are a bit different than those west of the MS river. "Deer tag" for me is whitetail only and I don't really start getting serious about hunting them until late October. I start my food plots with the farmers in the spring (corn/soybeans) and continue with brassica plots in late July/early August, then cereal grains in late August/early September. Late plots are struggling with a late summer drought up here. Everything else was great up until now. I'll put cameras out in August and set stands late August/early September.

Sidenote, we have a youth hunt up here next weekend. I got my oldest daughter (10YO) to shoot my 300 BO (Suppressed and subsonic loads) and she was really excited to try hunting this year. Now just this week in preparation for the hunt she has developed an incredible fear of the rifle. She will not pull the trigger regardless of anything I tell or show her. I'm fearful that we will not make it out this year. Maybe next year :(
 
Our archery season opens tomorrow and I was hoping for a chance at a velvet buck…he rubbed last night apparently, lol!

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Got a dove shoot in the morning. May go sit tomorrow afternoon.
 
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