2005 1st Weekend Deer Season Results

[wall-i-king]

We had 4 guys hunting in Theif River and ended up with seven deer for the weekend. 6 of them came on saturday and 4 of them within the first half hour of the hunt. They were 5 does and 2 button bucks. We really couldn't find the bucks this weekend but I am hoping to fill that tag this weekend. Sounds like some people were able to find them and for some people it was a really rough year. I guess that is deer hunting.

wall-i-king

[Stratosman]

jnelson,

Don't forget blackpowder too? Just tell her that deer season runs from mid Sept till Dec 31st.... and I'll see ya next year.

Sounds like you guys had a good shoot. Save any for us?

[BLACKJACK]

Was hunting in Meeker county and the day started slow for us, by Sat afternoon we didn't have any deer, we had run a buck and doe by the brother in law at 15 yards and he wounded the doe and missed the buck and then his gun jammed. Sat night I finally nailed a nice doe, should have had a buck, after I had gutted out the doe, I went back to my chair, 10 minutes later a buck and doe came over the hill and played around for 20 minutes, when he came into 50 yards, I took my best shot and missed!! So we ended up with one nice doe on Sat. Sunday, doing a drive and two deer - does - ran by my 83 year old dad and he nailed them both!!! With two shots! And then I nailed a fawn during the drive, so we were done, 4 for 5, all does, three mature and one fawn. We had one youth hunter with but she only made it out Sat morning, didn't see any deer, so her permit went unfilled. Ended up being a fun hunt! Burnt alot of powder!

[Hotspotter]

Stratos:

Yeah, saved plenty. With my younger bros getting married and using up more venison, we get alot for the table. I actually passed on a marginal shot Sunday thinking we had plenty of meat anyway. 80 yards standing straight away from me with a scope and accurate rig. I figured back of the neck/head or nothing if I hold a little high. Dead or a miss I thought.

Neighbor took a 120's class 9 point on adjacent land....would've been over that with a brow tine. 19" inside spread. Night before we saw a wounded buck that we figured to go P&Y chasing 5 does about 1/8 mi. north of my folks'. We watched him bed down 50 yards from us in the truck. He got up, chased the does, and he hasn't been seen since.....not by surrounding parties, or on anyones meat pole.

Passed on several small bucks, with my uncle taking a desperation 6pointer (frustrating) thinking we wouldn't get much for deer (Sat AM was slooooowww). Note my brothers old-timey addition to the photo. The coyote was killed by my crazy brother at 100+ yards after howling at it.

Joel

[bucks-n-ducks]

I was lucky to harvest a 10 point 120 class buck on sunday evening, 215 pounds field dressed.........I will post pictures as soon as I can firgure out how to do it.

[bigbucks]

9 for 13 guys, nothing big. three nice does, two 6's, two 7's, & a couple of small button bucks. I passed on a couple of small bucks, several deer were missed including a few longer shots at what looked like a very respectable 8 pointer.

Got another doe with my bow Thursday night, also shot the buck that was trailing it, but got a deflection on the tiniest little piece of brush & wound up with a leg wound, very frustrating. Hoping a gun hunter put a slug or two in him.

[DRH1175]

I hunted 225 by almelund. Saw 6 does first thing saturday another at 3pm. Shot 2. Coyotes got one. Dead otherwise. Not a single buck and rubs everywhere. 1 more weekend and rest of bow season to cash in. Pretty slow I thought so far. Rut seems to be a ways away I think.

[Dragonsm]

http://www.fergusfallsjournal.com/articles/2005/11/08/sports/sports03.txt

Wayne Roberts, my "Uncle-in-law" or whatever he'd be now that I am married, made the paper with his 21 pointer. I will have to post the pictures once I get it. Looking back on that thing....why did I chose to walk around the swamp on the right side instead of the left side!!!! He has put me on the walleyes...I should have known he'd have put me on the big bucks too. That was my luck....never "quite" in the right spot. None the less...a better guy couldn't have shot that buck!

Steve

[Dano2]

Got an 8 on Saturday morning, no real size, but still nice.

Sunday, first time this has happened hunting in this area, I always sit in the same spot in the morning, and I heard a very little noise behind me, just thought it was the wind, but here a nice little buck was standing there in the trees about 15 yeards behind me, MAN those deer are sneaky. We sat and staired at each other for about a minute until he knew something wasn't right and took off, I couldn't get a shot, my heart was pounding and raceing so fast, I couldn't function, heh, heh. Little later I shot a spike,It ran up the hill I was on the side of, about 60-70 yeard away, I whistled at it, and it stopped to take a look. I could have sworn it was a doe, until I went to get it. My friend didn't mind tagging it (well, he HAD too anyway) he wasn't getting any shooting in. Little later sunday, missed an easy shot on a nice doe, it was cooken pretty quick, and when I finally found it in my scope, it dissapeared behind a small hill.

Its ok when they beat you too every once in awhile.

All in all, much better year than the last couple, alot of small bucks runnen around, only saw one big one, but too far away.

[89Bronco]

We only got 2 out of 11 hunters. It was pretty quiet where we were. I saw one doe with two fawns on Saturday and that's it. Some of the guys are hunting during the week and I have two more weekends so I'm not worried, yet.

[CO1978]

how do I post a pic. i shot a nice buck

[1lkstage]

We went 5 for 16 in area 450 around Vesta. One big 8 and 4 nice does. Just another average year for us. Their were lots of distant deer seen saturday. Not much to be seen at all on sunday.

[CO1978]

Here is the 11 point I harvested on Sunday. Would have loved to take him with a bow but shotgun will do. This is my third shoulder mount to harvest in my 13 years of hunting.

Cory Oberg

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c112/csoberg/Oberg%20deer%202005/108_0898.jpg

[Ole #1]

That's one heck of a deer Cory.

Congrats!

[Captain B.R.K]

Nice Picture Corey!

Great stories everyone.

[analyzer]

I could puke. Saturday was both the most thrilling and most frustrating of my short hunting career, and now I feel like never hunting again.

Saturday morning, I was on private land in Lanesboro with my 17 year old son. I told him I wouldn't shoot anything I wasn't going to put on the wall, and that he could take care of getting the "meat".

Just after legal shooting hours, I had a decent 8 pt walk buy. I had a good 30 yard shot, but decided to pass and hope it would walk by my son. It didn't. I spent the next 3 hours wishin i took him down, but yet knew he wan't a trophy and waffled over wether i did the right thing.

About 10am I was getting bored with the stillness and decided to walk a 1/2 mile to our permanent stand. This stand is in a an oasis of trees in the middle of crop land. Surrounded by corn, it is unbothered by humans all summer and the deer have lots of scrapes and rubs throughout the acre and a half.

I haven't sat in that stand for a couple of years, as it tends to be unproductive when there's no crops. But this year, there was sign everywhere. The stand looked a little precarious, so I decided to climb up and check it out without my shotgun first. I had a feeling climbing up, that since I didn't have my gun with, that a monster buck would walk out immediately.

I got up there and she seemed steady enough. I just sat there for a few minutes, looking to my left, checking out a couple site lines and looking at two scrapes below. I probably sat there 15 minutes, when I thought, "this is kinda stupid, what if "the one" steps out right now, I'll be [PoorWordUsage]ed". I turned to my right to climb down and get my gun, look down...

and there he is.

20 yards out, the biggest buck I have ever seen, including tv, magazines, sides of the road whatever. Had to be 250-275... very old, very grey face. Have you ever seen those progressive pictures of 12 year old dear, where their horns start to decrease in size and do weird things?

This once had a main beam on the left that was as thick as my wrist, with 5 tines that were probably 12 inches long, really beautiful 5 pts on that side,not counting brow tine. The other side was really goofy. sort of a flat 4inch by 1/2 inch main sticking straight up, with no curvature, and only one fork, sort of like sticking your elbow on the counter and sticking your forearm straight up and forking your 4 fingers. Weird.

NO GUN.

All I could do, is watch him stare at me, for what was probably 3 or 4 minutes. He busted me, and we both sat motionless.

Eventually he slowly turned around, and walked away. I made a little "baaa" sound and he turned sideways and looked at me, then slowly walked away.

Unbelievable.

He was on private land, so I couldn't try to trail him or anything, or cut him off somewhere. I did head 400 yards up my side of the fence and sat in some bushes hoping he'd come across the fence at the far end. He was so big, fat and old, I'm not real sure he could jump anymore... man what a buck.

I spent Saturday afternoon, lamenting to the farmer who owns the property, that I'll never, ever see one like that again.

He laughed and said, "til tomorrow morning".

That was ironic, because that evening, I went back to the same standing, hoping desperately that that deer would have a short memory, and come back and say High.

Well, he didn't, but a very nice 10 pt buck that was very symetrical and nice 6 inch tines, which would've looked good on the wall, stood broadside for me at 45 yds...

Here's the part where i puke. When I shot, he took off like he wasn't hit, ran 200 yds away. It was raining and I was worried his blood would get washed away if I did hit him. I got down and looked at the site and there was white fur on the ground. Probably not a good sign. Normally I would've come back in the morning, but it was raining, so off I went.

I picked up a blood trail at 75 yds and when I rounded the bend, to my suprise he was standing up on the top of the ridge, looking at me. I got off a very hurried shot, and apparently missed. He ducked into the corn. I looked where he was standing and there seemed to be plenty of blood. No green or yellow stuff, which might indicate an abdomin shot, but he had already gone further than the typical 30 to 150 range of a lung shot.

I decided to trail him in the corn. It was easy when he went perpendicular to the corn, as stalks were knocked down, but when he ran down the rows, it was a little tougher. There was no blood on the ground, but rather spatters and smears on the stalks on the left side of the rows.

I tracked him for an hour and a half, through 400 yards of corn, but it was getting dark and I didn't have a flash light. I decided to break off and check in the morning

Sunday morning, I picked up the trail, no it wasn't washed away, (Contact US Regarding This Word), and followed it for another 100 yards. I came to the edge of the corn, where it meets another corn field that was cut, and the trail vanished. No blood anywhere. I spent all morning on my hands and knees trying to determine his direction of travel. Nothing.

There aren't many hunters in the immediate area, and with 100's of acres of corn still up, the task seemed impossible.

What am I suppose to do?

I feel sick to my stomach. I can't sleep. That poor thing is probably dying a very slow painful death.

There's not much in the way of woods around. There is some about half - 3/4 of a mile away, but I tht they'd lay down closer than that.

Anyone have any ideas for me. How do You forgive yourself.

And how do I see two trophy bucks in the same day, and have nothing to show for it.

I checked my gun on a target from that same stand, and found i was shooting 8 inches low, and 4 inches left, fairly consistently. I guess I'm just a horrible shot.

Please forgive me.

[Lunker]

I'll try to post my pic here, hope they come through. This deer came in the rain, three hours after sunup opening morning. After seeing a smaller buck chasing, I knew the rut was on. He came in behind me hot after a couple of does about 30 yds off. Couldn't get him to stop when I grunted, he was focused. He bred the doe, then ran into a thicket without offereing me a shot. Waited for about 15-20 minutes before the does came back out and he offered me a shot. Didn't look like a big rack from the side, but as he ran away post shot I saw he had a pretty nice spread. Antlers where covered in pulp from rubbing. Shot was about 70 yds broadside, solid through both lungs. He didn't react much, and I took a second shot that hit him in the neck. Made it about 100 yds. 9 pointer, my best deer to date. Quite a thrill.

[crop]

It was great hunting as usualy on our land up north 14 deer for 9 guys with 4 big bucks. Cant wait till next week end the big boys were just getting going and we will really nail them. I love to kill deer

[83walleye]

Great pics and stories. After hunting opening weekend for the last 35 years, I had to forego this year's opener to do family things. BUT, I get to go out today. Can you say fired-up? Thanks to all for the peptalk/pics. I am a driven man...

[woody1975]

6 guys went 2 for 6. One 5 pointer and a button that looked like a big doe walking all by itself. Had other opportunities, but thats why they call it hunting and not killing.

DL

[toughguy]

Got a nice doe opening morning in 154. What a great morning to sit in the woods. One of the best in recent memory for me. Might head back for the final weekend.

[CommonSense Guy]

Hunted neer Longville. Saw a decent buck. My buddy shot a nice 7 pointer that was right on a doe. My Dad was hunting near Hibbing and shot a bruiser. Big wide 9 pointer with a 21" spread. The buck easily weighed 220lbs field dressed.

[LOW_Hunter_11]

I was hunting up in Lake of the Woods and i shot a decent 8 pointer and together are party shot 2 big 8 pointers and 1 big 9 pointer in 2 days so you could say we did ok that for a total of 6 people

[shamalex72]

Hunted by Pillager Saturdy and Sunday with my dad, neither of us seen a deer. I've been going out after work during the week around Fort Ripley, havn't seen any there either. I was seeing them bow hunting but now they disappeared.

[jacobj12k]

Hunted near Staples and as could be expected the warm weather lead to less deer movement where we stand hunt. Saturday only produced 6 deer past my stand, a doe with a four pointer following her in circles and figure eights below my stand, 2 yearlings and a doe and fawn. No shooting for the three of us Saturday.

Sunday was quiet as well. I still hunted around the swamp and was able to attract some deer with my bleat and grunt calls. The deer were running toward me in the water outside the thick brush I was in. They were within 30 yards before I could see a doe which was followed by a nice buck which I shot. I heard a third deer run off but didn't see it. I'll save space and save the story of going back to the truck to get waders, tracking the buck and eventually recovering him. Through my hard work in the swamp I was rewarded with the largest buck I've harvested, a very nice 8 pt.

The walk in from the woods on Saturday made the weekend when my friend came across a buck that has been dead for quite some time. It was decomposed and had no meat left on him. The rack - 11 points , maybe a 12th scorable point that we gross scored 190 1/4". Unbelieveable deer! Very unfortunate it was killed before one of us could see him on the hoof. He was about 100 yards or more off the highway so I suspect he was hit by a car. I'd post a pic of the racks but I'm not sure how to post pics in these forums.

We'll be back up there this weekend to try to cull the herd a bit.