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Awful dead on here-sooo

What is your average bow shot distance on whitetails?

I killed 9 last yr and nothing was over 17yrds the closes one was 4 yards.

Here over the last 15 years I would say my average shot is about 12 to 15 yards. My shots this year were less than 15. Except for big buck I missed in the December 28 - it was about 32 yards - why from here on out I won’t go over 25 and maybe not that!

Eight and twelve. Have killed most deer at 15 yards or less even with the compound.

You remember that study done years ago, Jack? It was published in Bowhunter Magazine. IIRC, the average with a bow in the eastern U.S. was 17.3 yards.

My longest was 60 yds about 5 yrs ago the closest was at 2 yrds in '78most have been under 20 yrds My 2 this year were at 18 and 15.

About 8 yards. I’m good at 8 yards. Lol can shoot em at 12 but like 8

Been dead on here BTW. Lol

Yes Jimmy I remember that, LOL. I started this post just to wake everyone up :) Power outages, Ice storms and slick ice covered roads. Yeah I've shot 1 deer over 20 yards in last 20 years, he was 24 yards.

My bow is so slow the deer won’t be there when the arrow gets there At 24 yards Jack lol.

Keeping in mind I shoot a compound, this year probably 20 yards. Killed two at 26 to 28, the two in Missouri were less than 15. Looking back, most of my shots have been 23 to 35 on average. Funny thing though, I have never missed and have always recovered every deer I've shot from 36 to 47 yards (6 or 7 deer).

In about 48 years of bowhunting and probably 90-100 deer +/- ?? I’ve killed 1 at 30, one at 27, one at 24, rest have been 20 yds or less, with most between 10-15 yds

So you see as evidenced here it is a close range sport.

Dang these TV guys have it wrong then JR, saw a guy shoot Mule deer at 94 yards.

I normally set up for 20 yds and under. I've shot a few over that but most of the ones I've shot were10-15 yds. Shot 3 this past season at 15; 5 and 10 yds.

I don't shoot the fastest bow, have a Mathews No-Cam, but with the speeds of the new bows yardage is not the factor it used to be. I'm super comfortable up to 37 yards if the deer isn't nervous. Started bow hunting in the early 80s when bow season was only 2 weeks, started bow hunting only in 96. Since 96, I've killed approximately 60 deer with the bow. Mostly does prior to 2007, then I joined MAHA back around 07 and have take a really nice buck each year except 2011, 12, and 18. The longest shot I've taken while in the association is 34 yards. Because of the lack of timber, hunting out west has reduced my shot distances considerably. I'd be the first to tell you I'm not the best shot amongst my small list of friends, at the same time I have been the most successful at taking animals and it's not even close. Don't take that as bragging, I don't understand it either, but true it is. Somewhere along the way I've developed a rhythm I use and because of that I feel perfectly comfortable in my shots.

Hardcore Coues deer bow hunters in places like AZ routinely kill those deer at 50 up to 100 yds. It’s spot and stalk in desert hills. Just unable to get closer without being seen . It’s a different style of hunting . When I was there elk hunting us guys from the east were feeling good about our 50 yd groups, then the AZ guys started shooting and they were getting 6 inch groups at 100-120 yds. We kinda slowly backed away with our heads down .

Heck, I can't see well enough to group them that tightly even at 50. I've shot at 90 to 100 but the best I could muster was just hitting in the kill zone, my hats off to them. I did buy me recurve last year, I wanted to try to finally kill one with it but I never got confident I could make a less than 25 yard shot with consistency. Maybe this year, I hope. The other problem, I felt the recurve was too loud. I added some silencers, twisted the string to increase the brace height but I felt it wasn't enough. Maybe I just need to set down with one of the old pros and get some pointers. Probably will start shooting it again soon, it's been a lot of work to find my confidence to hunt with it.

A long time ago I read an article about fly fishing which seem to hold true in bow hunting. A man first learns to deer hunt and the first goal was to kill deer, many deer. After a period, it's about the quality of the deer meaning trophies. The next step is how you take the deer meaning the weapon you choose. Some here are at that point now, I think I am now past the point of quality and stepping into how. I often wonder if there is a final step of how and quality. I'll pose that question on Gobbler and any others of that ilk.

When I started bowhunting the name of the game was to get them as close as possible and shoot em in the go fetcher :)

Well when I was young I just shot anything that came by, most of it wasn't deer cause I didn't see many of those. Bow season was 2 weeks long and I mostly used it as an excuse to spend more time hunting. I would have never believed I'd be passing deer up most times. Now, I wouldn't shoot a deer with a rifle unless there were some extenuating circumstances. I usually shoot a couple does here, then go out west and take a nice buck and doe. After that, I wish hunt for a massive 180 inch monster which I never see. Sort of like hunting for big foot.

I would agree with most of what you say. I would add the 3rd stage can be either method or size of deer one is hunting for. Years ago it was any deer, then it was any buck, then it was an 8 pt. Now it’s a certain size buck. I know and understand everyone is different and that’s ok. It’s what makes one happy. But I do believe that many hunters are a lot more selective in what kind of buck they want to hunt and shoot today than in years past .

A lot more hunters are archery only, some prefer to limit themselves to longbows and recurves. That’s cool too

10. But I shoot trad and am very picky.

I’ve never forgot that term Jack. Gofetcher. Lol

Gobbler is right about that. Those are tough to get . I have hunted them twice and didn’t take a shot. It’s funny when you think you can shoot there are guys out there that are unreal.

But I like to bowhunt and don't rifle hunt. I hunt several states. But here is the kicker . I like to eat deer meat. So I need to kill deer to eat deer meat. I kill deer meat here and go elsewhere for big deer. Just percentages. I like to hunt and kill deer. I guess I never went through all those stages. LOL. I might hold out for that elusive 180 class in Pendleton county next year.

I do have a complex about shooting an animal and not eating it, part of the reason I only take 3 or 4 a year. I usually burger a couple deer, jerky another one and create at least 20 pounds of summer sausage. The burger I share half with my son who is in college and appreciates having the meet. Speaking of summer sausage, my wife and I feel we've perfected a recipe making it at least as good, maybe better, as Hillshire Farms. During Christmas we actually purchase cheeses and she creates baskets of sausage, cheese and different crackers to share with family and friends.

I like deer meat too. I like doe meat better than buck meat. In last 5 years including friends we took 8-10 does each year off our farm . In last 5 years we’ve taken 4 bucks. This past fall was the first year in 30 years we didn’t take a single deer. Didn’t see or find a buck we wanted to kill. Population was down. We had EHD year before last and I think we lost a lot more deer than what I initially thought.

Hmm, my place is fairly close to yours and I'm not sure I saw i the same way. The first week I saw what seemed to be normal movement then the acorns started dropping. Once the dropped, I'd agree but checking my cams on the food plots I still saw a ton of movement. I even sat in a patch of oaks before I went out west and I had numerous deer in their feeding all day long. Once I came back 2 weeks later their was significant reduction but cameras were still showing good night time movement. Starting in January I started seeing some really nice bucks during daylight hours and the does were all around again. During that lull though, I had more than my share of yearlings in the plots and in the pasture all day long, just yearlings. It was much different than a usual year but I'm inclined to believe it was more the acorns to blame than the EHD. I didn't find any dead deer either, this spring will be tell tell sign as I turkey and mushroom hunt.

It was spotty in Monroe county. It follows creek drainages . I’m close to Wolf creek which drains into the Greenbrier just below Alderson. Alderson area was one of the heaviest hit areas and it came up the wolf creek drainage areas . At least that’s what the district 4 biologist and NRPofficer told me . Sounded like NW Monroe county got the brunt of it

I honesty can’t tell doe meat from buck meat . If prepared right it’s hard to tell. I even made some jerky recently. Some from a buck some from a doe. No one I gave it to could tell which was which.

My taste buds are the same I can’t tell the difference between the two - it all taste like good venison to me!

Speaking of EHD it struck here in parts of Berkeley County as well - had several farms just several miles away where they were finding over 20 plus dead deer this past year. I walked around here and never found any dead deer and but one of the bucks I killed in the Fall probably had it but thankfully recovered. He was in good shape but his hooves were cracked all the way through.

Koog, do you want to share that summer sausage recipe? I too make summer sausage but am always looking for other recipes. thanks

yea summer sausage recipe

I'll get back to you on the recipe, my wife handles that. JayD, I see what you mean. That's a tell tell sign. Gobbler, I knew it hit down in Alderson 2 years ago pretty bad. Maybe I just missed it at my place. I'm seven miles up from Alderson at Broad Run, not far from the head of Wolf Creek. Funny, they always say it's preceded by hot dry period and we were no where near dry, rained every day it seemed but I did run into those no- seeums that transmit it.

Now the summer sausage: Note: my wife has her own recipe for the cure, it's called Prague Powder. It's 6.25% sodium nitrite, 93.75% salt. You can purchase your own cure if you can't figure it out.

This recipe is for 15 pounds of deer, 8 to 10 pounds pork fat/trimmings

Grind your deer meat up with about 2/3 of pork fat and trimmings. Add 1 teaspoon of the cure per 5 pounds of ground up meat. 1. Add 2/3 cup of salt, 2. 2 tablespoons of mustard seed or a little more if you like mustard seed, 3. 1/2 cup of pepper, 4. 1/2 cup of sugar, 5. 3 tablespoons of marjoram, Mix it all together and put into a bus tray. It needs to age for 5 days, each day you need to turn it over. Keep the mix covered with cellophane.

After 5 days or more, send it back thru the grinder with a sausage stuffer on the end. Cover the end of the stuffer with the mahogany skins (which have been soaked in water).

After the skins are stuffed and tied off, place the sausage rolls in your smoker (or oven). Supposedly cook till the center is 160 degrees, but we always had the fat to render. This time we cooked it 140 degrees in the center so the fat wouldn't render and it worked much better. You know it's rendered when you find grease puddled up on the bottom of the sausage tube. When that happened in the past, we just removed the mahogany paper and sliced and pressure packed the meat. So that's the trickiest part causing it to fail, not that it ruined the taste. We also used smaller sausage skins around 2 inch in diameter too. You can check the center temperature with a turkey thermometer by sticking right in the end. Afterwards, we pressure pack them in rolls of three and freeze it, if you don't it will shrivel up and form mold unless you eat it all within a week or two. Last thing, when you finish smoking it, cool it down in a cold bath.

We usually make about 20 sausages, but this was the first year every thing worked out 100%. It was by far the best in taste and consistency, and it rivaled anything I ever bought at the store. The total time in all was about 2.5 hours with a lot of wait time and some refrigerator space for a few days. So the next time you grind up burger, pull 15 pounds aside and give the sausage a try. I don't know about you guys, but I have to figure out ways to eat up 3 or 4 deer a year, and sausage and jerky will sure do the trick and you won't feel guilty for harvesting a deer and not consuming it.

Koog, yeah we’re real close . We found a few dead ones and smelled several more

That's to bad, he looked like he was going to be a nice one too. I haven't seen or smelled anything though turkey season will tell me if I lost any. I don't trod thru the woods much during deer season, but I do during turkey. Last year I found a nice 8 with a 4 point down at the creek along with about 4 does. This year I'm getting several nice pics now that the season is finally over, so far just what I expect now that acorns are finally gone. Maybe it's because there are no cow ponds near, the dear water from a clear stream up near the head. That's deeply disturbing though. I was up two weekends ago and I saw some of the best numbers of deer driving up from Rich Creek to my place and back. Deer I wasn't seeing when I said the acorns had them locked up. But your correct, I have not seen any to no deer going to Alderson the last 2 years. Maybe I dodged it, but maybe I'm being too optimistic.

Gob, I went out yesterday and walked the creek (head of Wolf Creek) and did not find any dead carcasses. Still getting plenty of pics with a good number of bucks, actually more racked bucks than any year since I've been here (2012) by far. Must of missed the spot, at least this year.

That’s good . I did have several bucks last year but all young. I’m hoping the future looks bright . Monroe has some of the best habitat in the state . Maybe after Covid settles down later this year we can meet and have a cup of coffee . We’re not far away from each other

Anytime Gobbler, not much of a coffee drinker but I'd be delighted to meet.

I came up to my cabin today and saw over 75 deer. Didn’t know what to think. It’s the most deer I have seen since 2004. And those were all in the count I hunt in.

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