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2012 Deer season thread

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gsd:
Didnt see a damn thing. Now i'm back in Lincoln for a couple days then back home for Thanksgiving.

JimP:
@Bluejay- I miss hunting the Mulies ..... not many left where I hunt Furnas and Red Willow counties, though I did see 6 of them this year (5 doe and a small 2x2 buck)....

CitizenClark:
On opening day, I was playing single dad for my five month old son while my wife was in San Jose on a work trip. I went out to Yankee Hill WMA on Sunday morning, was a little late getting in place (got to my spot north of the lake just a couple of minutes before sunrise), and I only saw one deer--a buck running away from me into a treeline about 250 yards away as I was walking out. There are houses in that direction, and I was standing, so there was no way I was taking a snap shot. After I got to the spot I wanted to hunt, waterfowl hunters about 300 yards south of me apparently started having some very good luck and it started to sound like an artillery range out there.  I didn't see another deer that day, and called it at around 11am.

Being a dirty rotten bureaucrat, I had Veterans' Day off work, so I went out again Monday morning. I was out a little later so I just walked the area, mostly on the southeast side of the lake. I didn't see any game that day other than rabbits and squirrels.

I went out again this past Saturday morning, and this time I was in my spot looking out onto a field by about 6:30am. Right as the sun was coming up, two hunters in orange and carrying their rifles decided they didn't like hunting so much after all and they walked out into the middle of the field I was watching and just stood around talking (I could hear their voices from almost a hundred yards away). I finally gave up on that spot, gave them a frustrated gesture, and started walking west from my spot, then south following the lake around. I saw another hunter walking west out of the area with his dog, to their left was a stand of trees, and on the other side of those trees I saw two does running away from the hunter, through some brush, and out onto the road. Again, I could have thrown a shot out there at them, but from a standing position with my heavy barreled rifle there wasn't much chance of hitting them, and I didn't want to fire across the road they were running towards. I walked the rest of the way around the lake (sometimes through the brush, but a lot of the time right on the waterline). There was a lot of deer sign along the water, but I didn't see another deer that morning. I found a nice elevated spot on the west side of the southernmost part of the lake, and after hanging there for a while hoping against hope, I called it a day and made my way around the rest of the lake and back to my truck on the east side of the area.

I returned to that spot on the south end of the lake that afternoon, and this time I went south from my parking location. I crossed the water and saved myself some walking by going across some (slippery) rocks. Well, with my pack, my rifle, etc., this was a bad idea. I lost my footing, and rather than plant my muzzle in the sand (or ding it off a rock), I came down on my right knee, tore up my pants pretty good, and hurt my knee badly enough to not want to move for about five minutes. I also managed to break the oft-criticized plastic trigger guard on my Savage 110FP. Anyway, once I finally got to my feet again, I made it the rest of the way across the water, climbed the bluff where I wanted to set up for sunset, and as I made it to the top of the bluff I saw a buck about forty yards from me. He took one look at me and dashed off into the heavy brush. I set up against a tree on the bluff and hung out there for about three hours hoping to catch a deer coming down for a drink at the end of the (warm) day. No luck. I did get to enjoy a beautiful Nebraska sunset, though:


While walking around out at Yankee Hill, I found two dead deer. Well, one of them wasn't much more than a quarter, with a full leg, pelvis, and part of the spine and nothing else. I found a small doe that looked to have been down for a week or so. She was pretty scrawny, and I wasn't sure if she died of disease or just managed to get lost in the bush after taking a shot from a hunter.

All in all, I enjoyed being out in the woods, but I also decided that for next year I need to find some private land to hunt. I saw at least a dozen hunters out at Yankee Hill this past weekend. Certainly I saw more hunters than deer. Maybe I'll have better luck in January when there aren't so many people out there chasing the deer around.

JimP:
If you are looking to hunt public land, without the heavy hunting pressure, then the whole month of December is muzzloading season.  Modern inline muzzle loaders are nearly as effective as abolt action centerfire ..... for one shot.  That's all you need, right?

rudy:
I'm a student here at UNL.  I've been here since August 2010, but this is my first year hunting in NE.  I made some friends on campus that hunt and they've showed me some good spots.  My buddy and I went out firearm opening morning on public land that didn't allow rifles.  He was using an inline muzzleloader and I had a shotgun.  We were at our spot at 4:30 a.m. after a 35 minute walk in the dark.  I'd never seen the place prior to that day, so it was an interesting walk...  Anyways, we sat on a hill looking down on a deer trail that ran north/south between two wooded patches.  We saw 5-6 deer, but none came close enough for a shot.  All crossed a fence to private land and we didn't see them again.  We left around 10 a.m. as we both had to work in the afternoon.

We went out to the same spot again the following afternoon, sat from about 2:30 p.m. until dark.  Saw a medium sized doe and fawn.  Took a crack at the doe saw the shot strike the ground well above the doe's back.  Scope must've gotten knocked around, I guess.  Learned the lesson that I should really shoot it after it's sat in the case all year...  Sighted it in during the week when I had some time to kill.

I sat the following Saturday in the same spot from about 3 p.m. to dark.  Didn't see a thing.

I went out Sunday morning, last day of the season, was in my spot about 6:00 a.m.  Saw around 10 deer, nothing close enough.  Moved spots, saw more deer, but all were running on the other side of the fence on private land.  Moved spots again, about 20 minutes later, a small doe walked up about 20 yards away.  Decided I wanted some meat in the freezer since it was the last day of the season.

Nothing really to write home about, but at least it was easy to drag back to my car, ha.



I didn't think the area I hunted was too overly thick with hunters, maybe because rifles aren't allowed?  I saw other hunter's vehicles and such, saw a couple out in the field, too, but they were at least 200+ yards away with no direct line of sight.  I only saw them on my way out on opening day.  I saw some upland hunters with dogs when I came one afternoon, but they were leaving as I was going in.  All in all, it was a fun experience.  Although, it was pretty darn hot the day I shot my deer, 60 F or so.  I'm not use to that, coming from MN.

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