Hunting with the Savage MLII

[gunny]

Here i sit first year hunting with my 10ml II . I have today and tomorrow to hunt ,then its back to work. I'm itching to pull the trigger on 70 gr of h4198 with mmp black and Barnes Original. Problem is i have not seen a deer all of the 9 day rifle season and neither has my wife. The deer that are here have gone completely nocturnal. In my DMU we cannot shoot any does with any weapon. Even if i wanted to shoot a doe i have not seen a deer during legal shooting hours! This has got to be the worst hunting season that i can remember. Went out yesterday for the afternoon hunt and cut 3 sets of wolf tracks less than 100 yds from my house it just pisses me off. In recent years i would let up to 10 different small bucks walk-let em go let em grow philosophy. Its hard to imagine for me that the season is going to end this way. gunny

[Richard]

Keep your chin up Gunny! "Moma said ther'l be days like this, ther'l be days like this my momma said!"
Richard

[smokeeter]

why don't you try some pushes. try to get together with a few others and have some blockers and some doggers, you might have to get them up and moving in the daylight.
good luck.

[lunchbox]

I feel ya gunny. I usually see all sorts of deer in IL where I hunt and have not hardly seen anything at all except a few fawns. And it has been that way all season

[zakjak221]

Gunny,

"All dressed up & nuthin to shoot"
I hear ya, two years ago when I got my Savage ML-I shot a forkhorn cause I wanted to see how performance was--See how I am.
Our weather has been real crappy for deer season this year-windy,cold,rain,warm,foggy,full moon first season-you name it.
Never seen a buck,so shot two does.
Good Luck! Hang in there!

Mark

[deadon]

I had two nice ten pointers ,3 8s and a couple of nice 6s on trail cam til the rut. Since then only one deer within shooting distance in two mos and 5 days and counting. "I feel your pain" Rusty

[hunter]

Deer seemed a little spotty here in Ohio also. The only bucks I seen all week there were three nice ones all in one little patch of small trees and high grass. Of coarse I shot the smaller of the three. I only saw one nice deer from the next ridge, done a stalk and when I spotted the buck I thought it was the one I had seen. After the shot the other two moved in the open and one 50 yds away and just stood there for 20 sec. or so until I had the bullet seated and was reaching for a primer. If I had not seen that deer go in there I would not have thought there was one there, let alone three plus 2 does. A guy stopped by our camp and said he saw three big bucks running together, two bigger than the other, late monday but I was skeptial as to the size he said they were. Well the two others were very much as he described.

[gunny]

Well i saw my first deer tonight a fawn and a doe Its a start one more day to hunt . Thanks to all and words of encouragement.gunny

[Deleted]

gunny, I have talked to many people in the midwest this season and its almost the same story everywhere,very little movement. I managed a 140s buck in Ill during bow season and i figured the heat was the big factor, which im sure it was. first gun season was a full blown moon and still no deer. I went back last thur for the second gun and saw one deer in two days. when I left @ 2 am sat morning they were standing everywhere.... this has been one weird year for the rut, or the lack of one that i experienced...Bill

[10ga]

I bet them wolfs don't know doe season is closed and I'm sure they don't have a "letem go to grow" policy with the small bucks. Some predator huntin/trappin/snaring seems in order. There is a reason wolfes had a bounty and were extirpated years ago. 10 ga

[gunny]

10 GA It sure would be nice if the Feds would delist them and let the states manage them ''ONCE AGAIN" I hope all you guys south of me don,t have to experience this problem. The goal was 350 wolves in Wis That number now is wildly disputed, numbers range into several thousand state wide and expanding!There eating or attacking and injuring everything from Dachshunds to Quarter horse,s They are by far the biggest predator of Whitetail deer. I witnessed my local herd decline as a direct result of them being here. It just ludicrous we regulate have seasons on everything that swims or flies or walks except the Grey wolf . Any way my season is done for the year, i did fire the Savage tonight at an ant hill lasered 78 yds hit right where i was aiming ,got to love the Savage 70 grs H4198 BO mmp Black .Took chance and took it in and out of heated house ,no ill effects ;D yet. Still need to shoot it more this winter.gunny

[orionsoracle]

Hey Gunny,good to see some other Wisconsinites on here. The wolf issues really sucks,along with an under estimated black bear population{thanks to the DNR}. And now mountain lions also. It really does PO a guy. I live just south of Green Bay,and down here with the Herd management and antlerless kill,the deer are few and far between. Long gone are the days of abundant deer. Its sad. The DNR is always using a variety of excuses. Why cant they model there deer management like Minnesota or Iowa? Well good luck Gunny,perhaps late season bow hunting will be kinder to you. Mark

[chuck41]

Sometimes its chicken . . . . . sometimes its feathers.

Don't have the wolves here that I have heard of, but the state has imported cougar and wolves in some areas and there are lots of coyotes around. Have one club member that swears he saw a "wolf" and insists it would have weighed 45# or so. We get a lot of bear damage on our lease, but no bear season there. There is a season on them just 10 miles north but not where we are. If we see a really big coyote or "long tailed bobcat" I suspect most guys will waste them first and ask questions afterwards.

We shot a couple coyotes this year and tossed the remains out where we put the remains of deer. Even the buzzards won't eat those things!

[spaniel]

I've got no problems with wolves...I've got problems with tree-huggers who won't let them be properly managed like any other big game species! Left to themselves wolves will increase in numbers until they run out of food...ie until the deer/elk are GONE. Then slowly some sort of balance will be reached -- or one of the populations will never recover as we have changed the equation from what it was 300 years ago. In this day and age when we have totally messed up the ability of nature to regulate itself, naively assuming that this process will work to the benefit of either species, without our help, is nothing short of stupid.

I feel for all the WI hunters. We could use earn-a-buck in some other areas of the midwest where people refuse to shoot does, and WI shows that it can work, but WI also serves as an example of management gone wrong.

[orionsoracle]

Well stated Spaniel. With our QDM program,we started regulating our does on our property. I would have refused to buy a tag if the imposed an earn a buck again. Its a sad shame to see what I believe is the insurance companies who lobby for more deer to be taken to reduce their payouts for deer/car wrecks. JMO

[dannoboone]

Ranchers out west go by the three "S" rule.

1. Shoot
2. Shovel
3. Shut-up

They often leave out #2, just to aggravate the tree-huggers.