Alabama bow season opening Monday!

Fisheadgib

Our three and a half months of deer season finally starts with bow season opening on Monday. I'm probably going up to the camp on Sunday afternoon and hunting Monday morning and afternoon. Anyone else plan on hunting on opening day?

Six-Gun

Best of luck to you, Fisheadgib! The only bow opener I made it out for this year was Maryland's, but it was a blast. I assume the reason you guys start later is that the weather is finally getting cool enough?

Teach

Me too- - - -I quit bowhunting and gave all my gear to my grandson. I don't know if he's connected yet, but he's got a good mentor- - - - -his stepdad has been a bowhunter for quite some time.
Jerry

Win73

Anyone else plan on hunting on opening day?

Monday I will be in my 17 fooot ladder stand with my crossbow watching the area between 20 and 30 yards from the stand that is covered with acorns. Two seasons ago I killed a doe there with my crossbow. I had eight does feeding on the acorns. When the largest one turned broadside to me, I shot it. Of the 13 deer I have killed over the last six years, it is the largest. Last year if a seven point buck had gotten about 15 yards closer, I would have shot him.

Fisheadgib

knitepoet wrote: »

My shoulders stopped my bowhunting 7-8 years ago =(

I'm right there with ya Paul. I haven't been able to draw a hunting bow for at least five years now. One of my hunting buddies has a high end Browning compound with an 80% letoff and I still can't draw that thing. This year I bought a crossbow and I'm gonna give it a try.

Fisheadgib

A short update on opening day. I sat in a ladder stand that was in one of our smaller foodplots that always had some good doe activity in it at dawn and dusk as it's adjacent to the biggest continuous patch of woods on our lease. The far end of the field is 58yds from the stand so the entire field is within crossbow range. I
was in the stand by 5:15am but it was not light enough to shoot untill about 6:40am. (it was overcast and raining) I had a deer step into the field before first light and watched it for about 20 minutes before I could determine that it wasn't a button buck and definitely a doe. I ranged it at 28yds so it was essentially an easy shot and I was already tasting that chicken fried backstrap. I aimed behind the shoulder and let fly. I heard the bolt hit home and then she was gone. I waited about another 20 minutes and climbed down to look for her and much to my suprise, there was no sign of blood or my bolt. I spent close to an hour searching the four different trails that she would have taken and found no blood on any of them. I was kinda disgusted about not being able to find a trace of her and knowing that I got a solid hit. I suspect that my bolt stopped in the off side shoulder and no blood came from the entry wound. To add insult to injury, after I picked my new bow up to walk back to the truck, my glove snagged a little on the limb and I found a small splinter forming. The thing has about 25 shots fired from it and has been handled carefully and never dryfired but since I couldn't hunt the afternoon with this bow, I decided to come home and go to work. Barnett has a new riser on the way but it looks like I won't have it in time to hunt this weekend.

beartracker

WOW! Sorry about the cross bow. I stoppped bow hunting 6 years ago and have thought about a cross bow but have not committed to one yet.

Win73

Well, I hunted opening day but saw no deer. What I did see might be why I saw no deer. There was a coyote roaming the area I was hunting. He was black. There is at least one other black one in the area. I got a picture with two black coyotes on one of my trail cameras.

5280 shooter II

Would any of y'all recommend a good website for bowhunting/shooting.....I really don't want to hear lamentations about how great their Matthews, Hoyt, PSE or Bear bows are.....I want nuts n bolts...I have a Diamond Bowtech, it's the Camaro of Bows, and I do pretty well with it....just looking for more insight.

Fisheadgib

That's actually a tough one. I had to read and sift through a lot of bias and personal opinion just to decide on a mid level crossbow to buy. Luis's explanation of the more expensive ones being more accurate actually clarified things for me more than most of the forums that I browsed. Everywhere I looked, forums leaned towards their sponsors products and individuals leaned towards the equipment that their buddies pushed on them. Some forums had old school guys with tons of posts saying "never use carbon fiber bolts in a crossbow" as they're too fragile and could shatter upon firing and drive shards into the forearm of the shooter. They also claimed that they would splinter in the game and contaminate the meat with fibers that would be ingested when the animal was consumed. All their buddies on the forums lined up to agree. This may have been a possibility when the early bolts were a handful of fibers wrapped in a vine and used leaves for fletching. Things have advanced since then. Another forum had several people claiming that a whisker biscuit arrow rest slowed an arrow down so much that they lost a huge amount of energy and were losing deer because of it. The guys that I hunt with swear by them as they can move around and shoot from any position in a stand and have the arrow stay put. We ran several shots over an Oehler 35 and found that they lost three FPS with a whisker biscuit. Big deal, I'm sure the people that warned against their use didn't really test the theory and were just making assumptions. The list of stuff goes on and on. That's what I like about this forum, if anyone posts any inaccurate info or data, someone else will be along shortly to (usually politely) correct them.

Six-Gun

Fisheadgib -

That's exactly what I found in a lot of the archery forums: tons of fanboyism trumping honest assessments of the gear available. I'm not ashamed to admit when something I own doesn't live up to another product's capabilities, but Heaven help you if you don't stand behind your product, come hell or high water, in the archery world. It's almost as bad as Ford vs. Chevy vs. Dodge in the truck world.

My case was an isolated one with my Horton Crossbow vs. my buddy's Parker rig, but I'll tell you what...there's no doubt that in my case, I would've gladly spent some extra dough to get what he was getting out of that crossbow. It is what it is: his crossbow is flatout better than mine and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Good luck finding that kind of honest assesment on most of the archery forums I've Googled.

Razorbacker

Fisheadgib wrote: »

I'm right there with ya Paul. I haven't been able to draw a hunting bow for at least five years now. One of my hunting buddies has a high end Browning compound with an 80% letoff and I still can't draw that thing. This year I bought a crossbow and I'm gonna give it a try.

It wasn't just my shoulders but also I had to have my elbow cut last December. But in stead of a crossbow, I just backed my pull weight down to 60 lbs. But I can see a crossbow in my future at some point.

Fisheadgib

Well thanks to a young lady named Delila at Barnett, I only lost one weekend of archery season. I got the warranty riser in on Thursday, mounted it and resighted it on Friday morning, ran one quick service call, and headed to Alabama for the evening hunt. Friday afternoon I jacked up in a bottom that had a lot of does run through last year and there was a lot of hog sign also this year. Right before dark I had three racoons waddle out in front of me and I had to bloody the bow. I wanted a couple of racoon skins and we have way too many racoons on the property anyway. I shot the fattest one and the other two just ran about five feet up a tree next to it. I wanted to plug them both but I didn't want to waste a bolt and broadhead shooting into a tree. Saturday morning I watched a young six point grazing in a small field that I had shot a few does from last season. Saturday evening I sat in the same stand and had another six point walk out to graze and I'm fairly sure that it wasn't the same one that I saw in the morning as the rack was shaped quite a bit differently. Both of those bucks may grow up to be nice trophys in a couple of years if they're left alone. I was hoping for a doe to walk out so I video'd the buck for a while. I had to wait till it was pretty dark out to leave because he was pretty comfortable and I didn't want him to see me climb down. Sunday morning I jacked up in the woods and didn't see anything and did quite a bit of scouting later in the day. It looks like the hogs are much thicker than they were last year as not one hog was killed last year and three have been shot so far this year along with three that were caught in the trap on friday.

BigDanS

Nice.. so no venison this year from bow hunting but it sounds like lots of pork shoulders / pulled pork, back straps and sausage.

D

Fisheadgib

BigDanS wrote: »

Nice.. so no venison this year from bow hunting but it sounds like lots of pork shoulders / pulled pork, back straps and sausage.

D

Au contraire mon frere, we have two more weekends of archery season before gun season opens and I'll be going to the camp every weekend until the end of February. I'm pretty sure that I'll bumble into a doe by then. Sticking a trophy buck with an arrow is a big challenge as does and youngsters are pretty easy to come by on our place. Bigger bucks are mostly nocturnal on our place and we usually only see them moving in daylight during the rut.

BigDanS

Fisheadgib wrote: »

[/FONT]Au contraire mon frere, we have two more weekends of archery season before gun season opens and I'll be going to the camp every weekend until the end of February. I'm pretty sure that I'll bumble into a doe by then. Sticking a trophy buck with an arrow is a big challenge as does and youngsters are pretty easy to come by on our place. Bigger bucks are mostly nocturnal on our place and we usually only see them moving in daylight during the rut.

Vous parle Francais tres bien....

D

orchidman

Cool video Fish. Thanks for posting that up. :up: