Thinking about getting a muzzle loader, we are a 200A zone, so it closed last sunday. Never had a chance at a deer closer than 100 yards, and all of them running...

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We finished on Sunday... 2 moose in 2 minutes. Loading the moose turned into an episode, we couldn't find a good ditch close by and my tailgate is stuck on it's hinge so it didn't come off. Ended up 1/4'ing the larger of the 2 and then used 2 come-alongs (hand winches to you city folk) to load it. 3 hours of f'ing around to get 'em in the truck. Now we have the rest of the week off so we're going to bum around the house maybe slide up to Edmonton for a day and pick up some sausage making supplies from Halfords.

I heard it was a crummy season from multiple people. As I said, I almost gave up on Friday. We still have a lot of corn in which doesn't help.On the bright side, no positive CWD tests!!

 
Both CWD and the physical workload of harvesting 2 moose are terrifying thoughts.

Another elk down this weekend, this one cow/calf, purely a meat hunt. As much as they frustrate me, elk are special. They are frustrating to hunt (finding them), whether hunting horns or just meat, and always give a good challenge. I am officially done for 2017 hunting (ok, at least big game). Lots of processing to do and we will be eating lean organic protein for the year.

Nice. I have spent a total of about 3 hours sitting in my tree stand in my back yard this season. Work and other crap keep interfering. I am also at 7.5 months of waiting for my PAL to be renewed so that I am actually legal when I go out.

I have had my camera set up by my stand most of the season. There have been lots of white tail does and cow elk, the only antlers have been very little spikes. In my area right now, all deer have to be 4 points, and elk are 6 point, so nothing shootable yet anyway. December 1 it switches to any white tail, but archery only. If I can find the time, I am allowed one buck (no point requirement) and one doe.

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Starting from scratch...

Spent a few hours over the weekend hunting with my friend. He has a few tree stands set up in the trees part way up the mountain behind his house, about a five minute walk. Friday afternoon, saw a little spike whitey. I could hear another one in the trees to my right, so I didn't shoot hoping a bigger one would come in. No luck. Saturday afternoon, nothing but squirrels. Sunday, we changed to a morning hunt instead of afternoon. Light rain, nothing was moving. We could hear shotguns down in the valley having their way with the geese, but didn't even hear any rifle shots. After a couple hours, my friend was getting bored so decided to rattle a bit. Less than 2 minutes later, a big-bodied 4x4 came walking in, looking for a fight. He lost. Single shot (by my friend), took out both lungs and the heart. Only made it about 20 yards. Rough estimate, 200 lbs pre-gutting, I get half.

I still have 4 days left to get a buck with my rifle, and then 20 days of any whitetail with my bow, and still have two tags to fill.

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Starting from scratch...

Looks like my hunting season is over, hoping to get one trip out for roosters around new years but we will see if that happens.

I bought a used muzzle loader online for $85, came with some bullets, powder a case and some breech plug grease. A couple nights after buying it I was giving it a good once over and found the set screw for the rear site was stripped. I ended up adding a scope to it as I could not find a replacement rear site. This is the first year scopes are legal in MN for ML season, the thing shoots really nice and has a good loud boom.

Any how, I got out for opening day and proved my incompetence with a rifle and how much holder over is needed. I couldn't make it out for the second weekend but I did take the last thursday and Friday of the season off to fill my tags. We didn't get anything during the regular firearms season, and I didn't do any hunting the year before so we were all out of deer meat.

I chose to hunt a state forest that has no motor vehicle access and is in a "managed" deer zone so I had one any deer tag and one antler-less tag. On Thursday I hiked out 3 miles to where I wanted to sit for the morning, on the way out in the dark I followed a lot of coyote tracks. These eventually gave way to some wolf tracks, which had to be pretty fresh as the snow fell on Monday. I sat for a bit Thursday morning and didn't see a thing. I figured the wolves probably had the deer on edge so I did some walking and exploring. I found a nice older stand that I sat in for a bit. Shortly there after, I had the opportunity to learn that the holdover @ 75 yards is not the same for a muzzle loader as it is for a shot gun slug.

Friday I headed back out to the same stand, but elected to start walking at sun rise, something about the fresh wolf tracks weighed heavily on my mind. I slowly worked my way out to the stand. After about an hour I had a yearling come running down the draw to my right. Then noticed momma was down in the aspens below me. They walked in and I shot the doe at 15 to 20 yards. The yearling ran off to where I had missed the day before. I reloaded the muzzy, texted a coworker confirming I could have 2 antler-less deer on my tags, the yearling still stood there, and soon it laid there.

That was when the work really began, I was 3.5 miles from my car and spent the next 6 hours getting my deer out of the woods. All that work for a doe and a button buck, but I got my deer meat and a full freezer.

WRT muzzle loaders, I am shooting 100 grains of triple 7 pellets pushing 290 grain Federal Bor-Lok copper solids. What a lethal combo, after shooting 2 deer and having them drop in their tracks all I can think is how unethical the slug hunting we do is. We found one of the bullets while butchering and it looks just like the promo photos of a perfectly petaled bullet.

Now it is time for ice fishing.

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Bringing this back up to the fore.

Minnesota bear season starts Saturday and I know many other states have seasons started or getting under way in September.

Who's got big hunts planned?

This year will be my first attempt at a black bear, after 2 weekends of dragging bait 2.5 miles back into the woods, I am questioning my decision making matrix.

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Pheasant hunting for me. I'm gonna take my father in law to some farm in WI. South Dakota would be nice but might be a challenge with schedules.

As far as deer hunting, not for me this year. I have tons of deer left from last year and with CWD in the area wife refuses to let anyone else but me eat it. So I have no reason to hunt.

I read an article that the local DNR is baffled by how much the deer are moving, several GPS tagged deer have traveled over 40 miles as the crow flies this summer. Not good for their CWD containment attempts.

The whole CWD thing is a head scratcher, so much is unknown.

We are almost out of deer, but just filled the freezer with halibut. Hopefully my in-laws can get settled into their new house before I am totally out of freezer space.

My focus this year will be bear, deer and ducks. Maybe some grouse in the mix, I'll chase roosters when its too cold to sit for deer.

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Dove starts in 2 days...then Grouse..then Deer and the Imports will start in Oct.

Dove is delicious, and you should have a good season, they seem to be very numerous this year up here. We are seeing more and more of the Eurasian collared doves, which don't migrate. I foresee them being an issue in our more agrarian areas, especially where wheat and other small grains are the cash crops.

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This season really snuck up on me. Work/family/etc has kept my head down for the past few months so just got my bow back from the shop the other day and I'm feeling good out to 40 yards or so. Opening day for archery is actually today and we have zero plans to get out of town over labor day weekend so I will likely be getting out 2 of this weekends mornings to chase white tails around north central idaho.

Looking forward to archery but really looking forward to rifle season (Oct 10) up here. Have plans to go out for 3 days with a buddy in the Saint Joe National Forest (knarly landscape and thick woods) to hopefully put some meat in the freezer.

We have those Doves here also.....Nasty sounding noises and slow fliers. No limit no season as they are listed as an invasive species.

Got in lots of bow practice over the summer. Bow Elk starts next week for myself, son and daughter. 15 year old daughter's first archery elk season. Elk bicycles all tuned up.

Springer spaniels just got their shave-down haircuts for pheasants.

Organizing the duck decoys as well.

Awesome time of year!

Today was opening morning for Muzzleloading (Primative) season here in GA. I was out in a ground blind well before BMNT and staid out there till about 1100 est. No deer worth shooting wandered in front of me but it was a GREAT fall morning sitting in the woods--and now its time for beer, venison sausage, and Football ! Yeah!

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Steve

No deer hunting for me this year, but the daycare's husband invited me out coon hunting which is his passion.He has prized coon dogs and his record is something like 20 in a single night.

Anyone here do coon hunting? I got a .22 which isn't sighted in, but I can either get it sited in soon or just go without a scope. Not sure what to expect, but could be fun. Not sure how I feel staying up so late to hunt (he works night shifts so is used to it).

Still not sure about shooting an animal simply for its pelt, but I don't plan on eating coon.

Well I went Coon hunting for the first time last night!!

7:30 I get the call from my friend to go out. 8:15 I have shot my first coon. It sure is fun, but there were times the brush was so thick that I wanted to let the coon get away. Within one hour I had scored 2 pelts, a yearling and an older one (~25lbs). Our dog was apparently much better than most coon dogs as he came back as requested if he got to far, heeled very well and never had to be on a leash. My friend has raised and trained many coon dogs so I am going off of his experience.

Still not sure how I feel about shooting an animal for its fur and not meat, but too late for that. The skinning part is disgusting (not to mention my thought of contracting rabies). Also wonder how many ticks I have on me. I think the roughest part is I'm not a night owl, we called it a night at 10pm but I was wide awake till midnight and now I'm hurting.

I think plenty of people eat raccoon. Funny story, an old fogey whom is long departed told a story about serving raccoon to his daughter in law. She was absolutely appalled to eat such a dirty animal like a raccoon. his response to this, "Raccoons wash their food before they eat, that ham you are eating came from a pig that rolls in its own shit."

Any who, maybe find comfort in knowing you might have saved someone a damaged quarter panel or a chunk of a farmer's crop with those raccoons.

Next weekend is Minnesota regular firearms season. I am pretty excited, we were out in our deer zone Saturday looking for pheasants. No pheasants were harmed. Modern farming practices are sad to see and its impact on wildlife is painfully obvious.

Yesterday my boss texted me and asked if I wanted to goose hunt last night. We saw a ton of geese but the wind wasn't in our favor and the used a different flight path that wouldn't bring them to the field we were hoping. Oh well, I did connect on a hen bufflehead which has to be the smallest duck I have ever shot.

Bear season was a bust, tons of work, tons of fun, lots of frustrations. We had bears show up within an hour of us leaving our baits, but never saw a bear in the flesh. That is in the same state forest I will muzzle loader hunt which starts the Saturday after turkey day. Might have a better chance of watching wolves than deer based on the amount of scat on the trails.

Good luck with the smoke pole Steve.

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I'm viewing it as a renewable resource vs stuffing someones jacket fill with oil based polyester. Though I don't know of anyone who has a raccoon jacket (or hat).

don't end up looking like Jimmer Megamanee.

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Opening day for WI gun season!

It's always a "race" between my son and I to see who gets on the board first. This year the boy takes it in a big way...with his first buck:



Browning X-Bolt Medallion, .300WSM
Bridgeport, WI

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Carl Matson

Resurrecting an old thread. Long post to follow.

September 1st was opening day of bear season in Minnesota. Last year was my first year giving it a go and was rather unsuccessful with regard to killing a bear, it was still shit loads of fun.

This year, I took a few things I learned from last year and had a little different approach. I hunted a state forest with no motor vehicle access and used a fat bike with a trailer to haul bait 3.5 miles back for the 2 weeks leading into the season. I had maybe a dozen different bears hitting my baits, so anticipation was high for opening day.

I got out to my baits around 11 am, got rained on for the ride out and was wet to the bone. Having a change of clothes was much appreciated, even though my boots ended up being soaked through. I walked the final half mile into my stand and got set up in a climber stand. After 30 minutes I decided I really needed clear a couple small trees to have a better view and shot if a bear came in. I was pretty sure this extra activity was going to spoil the day for me. At about 3:55 I turned around from looking off into the ether behind me to see a bear standing on the trail. The first actual bear I had ever seen while hunting!

I took a few minutes to watch and make sure no cubs were with this bear. Then I wavered on whether or not to shoot, I could tell it wasn't a huge bear, but was certainly legal and had the signs of a decent animal, small ears and not leggy. At that point I realized it was not quite 4 pm and I could be out of the woods by dark.

I touched off the first shot through my new rifle with out wearing ear protection (hello ringing ears). I had a good hit on the bear and it was stone dead in a few seconds, through and through double lung, no tracking required. This is when the real work began, skun and quartered, stuffed into game bags, it took 2 trips to get everything back to the truck. All loaded up and heading home almost 5 hours after the shot. Processing the next day was another 4 or 5 hours (there is a lot of damn meat on a bear).



Christensen Arms Mesa
6.5 creedmoor pushing a winchester 143 grain ELD-X
Hinckley, MN (Kind of)

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That...is...freaking...awesome! Nice work!!! 6.5 Creed? Ain’t that a little overkill? What do you think it weighed?