Congratulations to your son! Didn't see a tail yesterday myself, but there's still a couple weeks left up here.

If there's a lot of brush, take the heavier bullet. Slugs and sabots are great to penetrate the little trees and bushes here. We just use rifles for the long, open shots.

The mast crop is exceptionally bad this year. Earlier in the year I could see the reminants of acorns EVERYWHERE, this fall... Nothing.

Just read an article in the paper talking about the same thing. Last year caused an increase in the squirrel population and this year they are starving.

My boys and I will get out the .22 and 20ga shotguns and see if we can help out those suffering squirrels in a bit....

Next week i'm taking a couple of days off and giving the deer one more shot with the bow. The property I hunt really has nothing to hold deer or funnel them with the acorn crop as bad as it is. (given their likely direction of travel towards the nearest cropland). It will likely be an exercise in futility, but who knows...?

Rifle choice
 

Personally, I would take the .300Win. Mag if I were to be hunting any bear. LOTS more knock down power. The .257 roberts would be just fine for deer. I hunt with a 6.5 Grendel AR (100g Hornady interlock) and it does the job admirably. I also use a .308 Win. just my 2 cents worth.

Ron

That's pretty cool, isn't it? Mine was pumped too. Congrats.

I'm jumping out of my lane for a quick post on this thread.

I cannot describe the heat I take at the office for holding the view that the Duke was one of the greatest American actors to appear on the sliver screen. My position remains unchanged: what other actor has taught so many what it means to be an American?

Now, I'll get back in my lane.

ATR's triple Thursday
 

Got three Thursday with the .54 muzzleloader. 2 does ran by me, the first one went down and about 15 minutes later her friend came back to check on her and joined in the fun. In the evening, I took my 8yo nephew out with me. He did great and even experienced his first gray squirrel alarm. The little guy ran across 6 trees to see what was sitting down in his woods and then let us know he wasn't happy. The little buck was the third taken, the two does were hanging by this time. Nephew enjoyed hmiself, stayed still, and didnt complain about the cold and wet. After the muzzleloader smoke cleared, he was still shaking like a leaf, and asked if we could go again in the morning. He's hooked!

Pardon my face camo, my "makeup artists" have a combined 7 years of age and did a bit of playing . Nephew was afraid he'd spook the deer without his paint on, so we had to go back to the house to grab it and get him all done up too. 150 pounds of meat in the freezer. The flank steaks will go to jerkey, and the hearts made excellent anticucho (recipe from this site) over brown rice. :p

Last kill of the season
 

He went down @ 261520R DEC 08. Already looking forward to next year. This one was definitely the best of this years deer season ( 4 kills total). Unless the urban season has something to yield.:D

Hunting a field standing behind a hay bale. 135# doe at 200m with a Remington 700 .300 Win Mag with fluted Sendero barrel and 6.5-20x50 Leupold scope. Field dressed in the dark. Now at the butcher for steaks, sausage, and hamburger.

I took a Whitetail doe yesterday evening at about 35 yards with a 16" AR using 75gr. TAP. Heart shot and she ran uphill about 35-40 yards in a gnarly cedar thicket and fell dead. 5.56 most certainly did the job, but that small exit wound made tracking of blood sign difficult at best, with the only blood having been at the sight of the impact and where we ultimately found her balled up. I saw a very nice 8 pointer yesterday morning but he was at about 105 yds walking dead away and I did not have a stable rest from which to shoot, nor did I want to chance a,"Texas Heart Shot" with the 5.56 . This was my first deer, and she field dressed out at #65. Unfortunately no Pics.

Good times,
Blake

Well I finally managed to down a deer last week of season, nice sized buck that had shed. Then I started planning a 10 day Elk trip to CO right up till the wife reminded me of the promise to take her some place warm and lazy for vacation. So no Elk this year

Congrats!

Maybe you could get someone to stand in for you so you could go get that Elk?:D

Well considering her idea of a vaction is the NC coast in the summer, i think id gladly take a stand in

You know, I think the real person making that decision would be your wife. Especially since you wouldn't even be there to watch. :D