Quiet bunch here lately..................

[Ponydog]

I have just about wound up cotton scouting, and am ready for hunting season to begin , ( for me anyway)....anyone been out enough to tell if the summer drought , and the late cold snap really has affected the wildlife in the area?   Just wondering.    I have been out some, but not enough to tell . 

[BobT]

Ponydog,
I was thinking the same thing my self! I haven't been out too much, I did manage to take a nice "dry" doe on the 16th. with my bow. I saw 10 deer between about noon when I got in the woods and dark. 1 small buck, 1 buck of undetermined size (just a glimpse of his rack) 3 does and 5 fawns. The fawns are loosing thier spots and look healthy. Acorns are spotty in the places I've been to, either pretty good or none. The squirrels are cutting walnuts but I haven't been squirrel hunting yet.

Bob

[Ranger J]

I imagine a lot of us have been too busy putting up deer stands, scouting for sign and trying to figure out why that load that shot perfectly fine last year has gone south this year to do much writing.  That is the case with me.  I finally have all the stands up although a couple still need a little adjustment.  I have not see much sign such as scrapes or rubs yet although I am seeing a lot of deer.  The 150 gr CL shot fine in my 308 last year and is all over the place this year.  This year 165gr Hornadys seem to do fine.  Go figure!

RJ

[Ponydog]

Guess that is why we need to hit the range now, get rid of that old powder.........I tried this in my sons Handi rifle  (243) last year.......I shot a group of 100 grain Rem cor lokt  ( 3 shots each ) 3 times.......THEN , I shot a NEW box group, before I even considered changing the clicks on that scope,,,,,,,and yeah , I feel your pain...........I started hanging small waterballins on pushpins......watching them explode was fun....then  when all that last year stuff was gone, I sighted in.........to me, the only thing that changed , was the wind.....I hardly had to change a thing....

[rocko]

Been real busy . Been trying to hunt when not working a bunch. I killed a coyote with my bow last sunday but thats been it. Ive been reading here regulrly just not had time to post. Everyone take care and be creful. Ill try to get my coyote story posted up soon . Dont forget to post your pics and stories up here guys.


chad

[Ranger J]

The MO Dept of Conservation has been kind enough to build a really nice new public range about ten miles as the crow flies or eighteen as the road runs from me.  My wife and I have been taking advantage of it to get our guns all sighted in for the upcoming deer season.  During a previous visit my wife's beloved 1894C met with an accident that will cause it to have a new barrel installed from Marlin.  This will not be done by the up coming season so I have been trying to find one of my other guns for her to shoot.  She finally settled on an 1894 in .44 mag.  She started out with some Mag-Tec 240 SPs and the gun shot them fairly well.  Even though the gun has a nice Limbsaver recoil pad on it she did not like the recoil as  compared to her .357.  The factory loads are somewhat tamer than my usual Hornady XTPs loaded over some H110.  I had a strap on shoulder pad and put that on her but even with that she didn't like to shoot a lot of bullets out of the gun.  She shot well considering everything but just didn't enjoy it like she did with the.357.  I guess I will try to load some soft loads, maybe with Red dot for her to shoot at the targets.  I assured her that when she shoots at a deer she won't feel the recoil from the gun at all, at least I never did.  I got the .308 shooting well again.  Evidently all it needed was a round around 2900 fps instead of the 2600 fps I had been using.  Now if the deer will just co-operate when season gets here.

RJ

[BobT]

Ranger J,
Did you see the HUGE deer tracks coming down off the 200 yard berm? That is a really nice range, I have been there a few times myself. Will probably go again this weekend. Every time I have been there those tracks have been there, I sure would like to get a peek at whatever made them! I'm afraid that with the opening of the area for any deer that it will sound like a war zone during rifle season. it was bad enough anyway.

Bob

[Ranger J]

I haven't looked much at that range as 200 yards is further than I can see much less shoot. In the brush where I hunt 100 yards is about the longest distance I can expect to get a shot.   It wouldn't surprise me that deer frequent the range as if you look at the vegetation on the berms and around them it looks like they sowed it with a food plot mixture.

RJ

[single action]

Got a gobbler with my bow opening day, 6" double beard. I have been hunting squirrel and deer sign for the last 2 weeks. The bucks in my area are just now starting to make rubs, i have found 4 or five. No scrapes yet. The acorn crop is really spotty, alot more red oaks than white oaks. What white oak acorns I can find are small. Can this be caused by the freeze and drought, or is this just an off year?

[Ranger J]

White oaks 'bloom' and make a new acorn every year while red oaks take two years to produce an acorn.  The late freeze nipped most of this year's white oak acorns in the bud so to speak.  As the red oak acorns were started last year we will have a somewhat normal crop of them this year but not much next year. This comes down to a two year period with lower than usual acorn crop.  Not good for the acorn eating critters either way.

RJ

[Ponydog]

Maybe the oaks I have encountered, were the two year ago variety....all I know , is in the river levees....and small creek beds, that were dry up until about Thursday of last week.......were full of acorns here in SE Mo...dont know if the last few storms shook them out....or what ......now Pecans.....different story ....those are small..and hard, and worthless ( to humans) ...as far as cracking and enjoying.....critters might find them just right.......gonna always have that one ground blind, in plain site of the.."clean area" that I tilled back in September.....tilled, a dose of roundup.....and a bag or two of Biologic .......and it has done well, even in the shade of that grove of oaks and pecans...now I gotta just get lucky ....