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Anyone got a deer or bear this year? Our season opens this weekend, wondering how folks round the country are doing.

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Three days early muzzleloading season here, seen plenty of deer but no shooters, now too wait on late November deer perhaaps things will be different then.
 
20211019_115503.jpg

My buddy took this bull earlier in the week, on a hunt in Oregon.
We had to cut the hunt short due to work obligations. Only able to hunt 4 days of the 9 day hunt.
He used a GPR in 54cal, and put a .530 patched ball clear thru the bull at 50 yards. Bull made it 100 yards.

Deer hunt starts in 3 weeks. Can't wait.
 
FishnRod said:
View attachment 101007
My buddy took this bull earlier in the week, on a hunt in Oregon.
We had to cut the hunt short due to work obligations. Only able to hunt 4 days of the 9 day hunt.
He used a GPR in 54cal, and put a .530 patched ball clear thru the bull at 50 yards. Bull made it 100 yards.

Deer hunt starts in 3 weeks. Can't wait.
Click to expand...
Wow! That’s awesome, nice bull.
 
I really wanted to take my muzzleloader this weekend but it was private land, only about 60 acres where the neighbors could be less friendly to a tracking job. So I opted to to take the centerfire. All the same, 90 min into my Friday night sit, a nice cinnamon-colored black bear emerged from under a bank down beneath me. She was walking away from me and out into the open at about 60 yards & then paused. I don't know why but she turned around & walked back the way she had come in, giving me a shot at about 50 yards, which I took. In the fading light & drizzle of rain, I didn't want to delay too long in tracking so I put my seat back in the truck & proceeded to look for blood. It took me a while to find it. But once I found blood, it led to more blood and then even more blood and then the bear with its eyes gleaming in my headlamp. She had expired within about 30 yards of where she stood at the shot. I'm guessing she was about 200+ lb and has been mighty good eating this weekend.
IMG_5829.jpg

Again, not a muzzleloader shot. But certainly within muzzleloader distances & I'm confident that I could have taken her just as easily with my Hawken. I'm hoping to get back on that property for some fall turkey once that opens (with my smoothbore). And in another month, I'll be deep into the backcountry with either my Hawken or the smoothbore chasing coastal blacktails for a few days. It has been a very good year hunting here in CA.
 
Nuthatch said:
I really wanted to take my muzzleloader this weekend but it was private land, only about 60 acres where the neighbors could be less friendly to a tracking job. So I opted to to take the centerfire. All the same, 90 min into my Friday night sit, a nice cinnamon-colored black bear emerged from under a bank down beneath me. She was walking away from me and out into the open at about 60 yards & then paused. I don't know why but she turned around & walked back the way she had come in, giving me a shot at about 50 yards, which I took. In the fading light & drizzle of rain, I didn't want to delay too long in tracking so I put my seat back in the truck & proceeded to look for blood. It took me a while to find it. But once I found blood, it led to more blood and then even more blood and then the bear with its eyes gleaming in my headlamp. She had expired within about 30 yards of where she stood at the shot. I'm guessing she was about 200+ lb and has been mighty good eating this weekend.
View attachment 101096
Again, not a muzzleloader shot. But certainly within muzzleloader distances & I'm confident that I could have taken her just as easily with my Hawken. I'm hoping to get back on that property for some fall turkey once that opens (with my smoothbore). And in another month, I'll be deep into the backcountry with either my Hawken or the smoothbore chasing coastal blacktails for a few days. It has been a very good year hunting here in CA.
Click to expand...
Was the bear baited or just come along
 
DStovall said:
Was the bear baited or just come along
Click to expand...
Came along. But to a regular spot — about the only water source within a half mile or so. The property owner told me when I got there that somebody had shot a deer at that spot just a few days beforehand. So it’s possible that the scent of the gut pile was still around. I had set a trail camera to monitor this access point when I arrived just a couple hours beforehand and I’m sure I left some scent on the ground. Lots of possibilities. Why do you ask?
 
Nuthatch said:
Came along. But to a regular spot — about the only water source within a half mile or so. The property owner told me when I got there that somebody had shot a deer at that spot just a few days beforehand. So it’s possible that the scent of the gut pile was still around. I had set a trail camera to monitor this access point when I arrived just a couple hours beforehand and I’m sure I left some scent on the ground. Lots of possibilities. Why do you ask?
Click to expand...
I was just wondering because it’s real hard to get them where I’m at without baiting but I don’t want to use bait. So I’m looking for other success stories without bait haha
 
DStovall said:
I was just wondering because it’s real hard to get them where I’m at without baiting but I don’t want to use bait. So I’m looking for other success stories without bait haha
Click to expand...
Here in CA, baiting for anything is illegal. So is hunting bears with hounds. Most bears are taken by deer hunters who happen to stumble on bears (or bears stumble on the hunters). That was me last year -- I had set for the last evening hunt opening day of the archery season & a young bear trotted by instead of a deer. Got my first bear and my first big game animal with a bow that weekend.

The hound prohibition is still a rather new thing (<10 years ago). So our populations are expanding and sometimes give more opportunities for hunting than deer. We have a lot more deer than bears but since our seasons are mostly all before the rut, finding a legal buck can be extremely difficult, which is kind of the point. I see legal bears more often than legal bucks nowadays. There's a state-wide quota but we haven't taken anywhere near that quota since the hound prohibition.

I look for them near water -- especially in the early season when it's warm. I love hearing about where deer have been taken because there is almost always bear traffic nearby soon and for several days following a deer harvest. This year, I followed somebody's drag line that was littered with the tracks of at least 3 different bears coming/going, including a sow and a cub. The tracks and line in the dirt from the deer being drug took me to the exact spot where they gutted the animal -- indicated by LOTS of raven tracks and blood stains in the soft dirt. That was about 1/2 to 3/4 mile and is not a testament to my tracking skills so much as a description of how obvious & heavily trafficked it all was. It's not like grizzly country where every "BOOM" is a dinner bell for a bear. But after getting my buck a couple weeks ago, I was really thinking hard about whether I should hang out in some rocks overlooking my deer gut pile before heading home from the mountains. I didn't -- too tired from the pack-out. But I tipped off some other hunters in case they wanted to do it.

If a bear has been around, you'll know it by scat, torn up logs & ground bee nests, claw marks on trees, etc. Then it's just a matter of seeing them out in the open during the season, which I think is 80%+ luck & happenstance. But luck is a game that can be played, too. Low odds means that we just need to increase our exposure (spend more time in the woods) to turn an off-chance into a high probability over time. Then we can use what skills we have to not screw up in getting close, making the shot & recovering the animal.

For this bear, it was one of at least 3 that have been hanging out on a friend's property where his elderly mother lives. One, they tell me, is over 400 lb. And they have been getting closer to the house, getting into things and scaring her quite a bit. My friend was almost begging me to come up and take one. I took my longbow up during the archery season & spent a day looking around & sitting over the pond but didn't see anything other than fresh scat. This time was far too easy.

Best of luck to you!
 
Took a doe with a stick and string Saturday afternoon on my first sit of the year... Muzzleloader season starts November 6th can't wait my son is in from the Air Force for 2 weeks we'll get to go together before he heads to Korea for two years really looking forward to spending time with him in the woods
 

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Loja man said:
Hey, that’s a great buck!!! I was out over the weekend but didn’t see anything!:-( I’m in Garrard county.
Click to expand...
Thank you…that was my luck last year…..in Hart County here…, they were in the oaks over this way…
 
Well our season in NJ hasn't opened yet for ML, but we are seeing more than our share of Blue Tongue disease. On the farm I hunt, maybe 50 acres, 7 deer were found dead along a small stream or creek. Not a good sign for sure.
 
Quite envious of the early BP seasons in other states. Here in ohio we had a special early season in October on Salt Fork wildlife area, and Wildcat Hollow for years...like a sea of orange, very thankful everybody only had one shot. Then a few years ago, a statewide doe only season they did away with after 1 year.
 

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