Recent content by SwampCat

Here in arkansas, typically the county with the cwd deer and the next county over gets included in the cwd zone - with increased season and bag limit

How close are either of those cases to you?

I have 14 adjacent landowners and half of them have a feeder/feed location within 200 yards of my property. That deer would have been dead long ago around my place👍🏻

Maybe a group of us AR hunters need to come up there and smarten them up. I live on my place, am out almost everyday, have hunted more than normal this year, and have not seen any one of six mature bucks - even just riding sxs or on tractor. Of course, after ten years of living here, my hogs...

Yes - 100%. We have cover. Our problem, is getting them out of cover - that s why deer dogs are legal. Food plots are number one key management tool here - get them out of cover. In one way, it is unfortunate, with all our cover and number of mature bucks we have, they dont grow antlers like...

Yes - about four months out of the year - but only about two months of that when the antlers are still actively growing. I do it as much for the does as the bucks. Late summer is our stress period. I realize if I supplememted from march through july, it would be much more beneficial - but I...

Yes - I get the point and I agree. We have a wall full of 130 to 150” deer and a couple bigger. A 140” deer is a rare deer here. Me and a big land owner neighbors compare buck pictures and one year we counted what we considered to be 12 mature bucks and had one bigger than 140 - and he was a 4.5...

My opinion here - I think the south was late to catch on to the “trophy” management craze because in the midwest, a “trophy” in the eyes of a southerner can be grown by accident - an average iowa 4.5 year old deer would probably be a trophy to a Southerner. Us folks in the south had so much to...

100%. At least in the south, in large part, we have mature bucks not because of game and fish regulations, but because of private land owner management. I will give credit to g&f, at the insistence of hunters, the 3 pt reg made a lot of hunters understand that passing a buck was not the end of...

The problem with much of the south, in general, our land will not grow the same caliber buck. Our average 5.5 year old buck is 118”. That picture of mine has two 4.5 yr old bucks and one at least 6.5 yr old buck. Probably average right at 118. What would those bucks look like in kentucky...

25 years ago, all we killed were 1.5 year old deer - mostly spikes and forkhorns. This past weekend, my son, his wife, his three daughters - 7/15 yrs old, and a 15 yr old boyfriend came to hunt during the last weekend of straight wall season. The biggest deer on the right was one of our six...

I usually use my tractors buckets and jack stands

I am one of those who is all about the does. If the deer numbers seem to be increasing somewhat - and the population is acceptable - I would probably take a doe or two. If it is static or decreasing - I would be hesitant about starting to take a doe or two. I went through this for eight long years

This is exactly what I saw at my place. The goal was a balanced herd - a 1:1 buck doe ratio. The bucks quickly bred the does and left. It also turned out, at my place- a 1:1 buck doe ratio does not work as far a enough does to bear enough fawns to replace ALL mortality. I should have allowed my...

Be surprised how many bigguns are killed by someone smoking a cigarette The most successful guy I know hunting a local public area drives around a day after a heavy rain and looks for the most tracks crossing the road. Hunts about fifty yards off the road. Says that is about the distance the...