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Hunting 24/25: big bucks and a lot of ducks!


markstanco

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Good luck, man!  So happy for (jealous of) you.  If you can, chronicle as you go.  Can’t wait for pics!

The four of us got to my buddy’s cabin this evening. Got our gear sorted and ready to go on horseback tomorrow AM. About 55 lbs per guy going on horseback (110 for each pack horse) and about 25 lbs on our backs. No cell service in the wilderness area, so I’ll be out of touch for awhile but will take pics and report back when we get back to town. Saw elk out grazing this afternoon in Chama when we were driving through, which gives me some hope that we’ll see animals out during hunting hours.
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On 10/9/2024 at 8:36 AM, cknight said:

Man of all the strange things that can happen. I was waking to my stand Sunday evening and had a mesquite thorn go all the way through my boots and puncture my foot. It's been 3 days and that sucker is still swollen up like a football. I want to hunt this cold front next week and hope it heals by then.

TLDR; I hate mesquites

 

Few years back.  Thankfully I have really high arches.  Felt "something" in the arch, thought it was a rock.  Cheap ass Academy hikers with a soft sole.  Even when it's hot, I'm wearing cowboy boots or Solomon hikers with a tougher sole.  ZERO tennis shoes.  Even for the kids.  Hard stop.

Mesquites are a beech.  Wish I could napalm them all.  

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11 hours ago, 686 said:


The four of us got to my buddy’s cabin this evening. Got our gear sorted and ready to go on horseback tomorrow AM. About 55 lbs per guy going on horseback (110 for each pack horse) and about 25 lbs on our backs. No cell service in the wilderness area, so I’ll be out of touch for awhile but will take pics and report back when we get back to town. Saw elk out grazing this afternoon in Chama when we were driving through, which gives me some hope that we’ll see animals out during hunting hours.

Good luck and thanks again for sharing🤘
 

Be safe and watch for bears. 

anchorman brick GIF

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On 10/10/2024 at 1:45 AM, 686 said:


The four of us got to my buddy’s cabin this evening. Got our gear sorted and ready to go on horseback tomorrow AM. About 55 lbs per guy going on horseback (110 for each pack horse) and about 25 lbs on our backs. No cell service in the wilderness area, so I’ll be out of touch for awhile but will take pics and report back when we get back to town. Saw elk out grazing this afternoon in Chama when we were driving through, which gives me some hope that we’ll see animals out during hunting hours.

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I just now saw where TPWD has expanded doe days this season to pretty much the whole first month of the season for most East Texas counties. This is a great move, albeit slow in coming. Slowly but surely the general public is becoming more and more educated about basic deer management. When I took Wildlife 101 in 2004, the average age of a buck killed in East Texas was something like 1.9 years old. Since then we have seen antler restrictions and expanded doe days over much of the area. Harvesting a mature buck is no longer a rare occurrence for the average hunter. 

 

We still have a long way to go, with the ever shrinking plot size where people are hunting and the "I'd better shoot him now before the neighbors do" attitude, bu I believe the general public is seeing enough results to overcome resistance to regulations that should have been made years ago from a strictly management perspective. 

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Heading up to my lease on Friday for a final pre-season work weekend. Got a few remaining repair/upgrade projects left to knock out before the season starts and of course top off the feeders.  And what do you know, it just so happened to line up with the weekend that my MIL and wife's Aunt are coming to visit. Darn the luck!

Man, with the way the weather's been going lately, I'm starting to get worried that it's still going to be daytime highs in the mid-80's by the time opening weekend rolls around. Unseasonably warm weather seems to have altered the feeding schedules out at our place. Game cameras have been picking up animals coming out way later than usual in the past 10 days or so. Feeders go off around 7 in the morning and 5:30 in the evenings and the majority of the camera action has been well after dark since the calendar flipped to October. Saw what appears to be a solid 8 or 10 a few nights ago at 10 pm. Big pack of hogs at 2:30 am...etc.

Just curious, what time do the rest of y'all feed?

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19 hours ago, Ragde said:

I'm at 8am and 4pm in prep for a 7/3 feed after time change. Too lazy to actually just go change it.

3:00?  That seems crazy early.  Is this just a feeder you watch for enjoyment or one near a stand?  I'm 7:00 / 5:00 (post DST adjustment).  Keep it simple.  I hate when a feeder goes off too early in the morning.  You can hear them crunching corn and can't see shit.  And, in the evenings, I try to avoid climbing in the stand after the feeder's gone off.  I hunt after work on occasion, so it's tough to get there too early. 

I too subscribe to the "set it once" mentality.  I used to hunt with some old timers that seemingly needed a meteorological calendar, owners manual and abacus to figure out what time to set feeders.  Many an argument ensued, and it got pretty comical.  We had one guy that thought he had it all figured out.  He went and changed every feeder the week before DST.  I hunted the following weekend and couldn't figure out why the feeders didn't go off.  He had somehow moved the morning earlier and the evening later.  So, the feeders were going off at 5:30 AM and 7:30 PM.  

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21 minutes ago, Spaulding Smails said:

3:00?  That seems crazy early.  Is this just a feeder you watch for enjoyment or one near a stand?  I'm 7:00 / 5:00 (post DST adjustment).  Keep it simple.  I hate when a feeder goes off too early in the morning.  You can hear them crunching corn and can't see shit.  And, in the evenings, I try to avoid climbing in the stand after the feeder's gone off.  I hunt after work on occasion, so it's tough to get there too early. 

I too subscribe to the "set it once" mentality.  I used to hunt with some old timers that seemingly needed a meteorological calendar, owners manual and abacus to figure out what time to set feeders.  Many an argument ensued, and it got pretty comical.  We had one guy that thought he had it all figured out.  He went and changed every feeder the week before DST.  I hunted the following weekend and couldn't figure out why the feeders didn't go off.  He had somehow moved the morning earlier and the evening later.  So, the feeders were going off at 5:30 AM and 7:30 PM.  

I hunt a weird valley in a dense creek bottom that gets dark early. Ive heard gun shots well before and well after possible for me. I have a gravity feeder at spot that i bow hunt.

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35 minutes ago, Ragde said:

I hunt a weird valley in a dense creek bottom that gets dark early. Ive heard gun shots well before and well after possible for me. I have a gravity feeder at spot that i bow hunt.

Makes total sense.  Second largest buck I ever shot was 1 PM while out on a walk.  Whatever works!

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I think I'm gonna adjust when I head out this weekend. Currently at 7:00 and 5:30. Probably move morning feed back and evening feed forward by 20 minutes each. This time of year you start losing close to 100 seconds of sunlight every day. By opening weekend, it won't officially be sunrise until close to 7:40. 

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10 hours ago, Spaulding Smails said:

He went and changed every feeder the week before DST.  I hunted the following weekend and couldn't figure out why the feeders didn't go off.  He had somehow moved the morning earlier and the evening later.  So, the feeders were going off at 5:30 AM and 7:30 PM.  

I actually did the opposite last year on one feeder. After hunting Saturday evening of Opening Day, I went and adjusted the clock for DST at the stand I was planning to hunt the next morning, except I went one hour in the wrong direction. Feeder went off at the exact moment as I was climbing out of the stand to go see why I hadn't heard it go off. D'oh.

Edited by Storm the Field
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