Quote:
Originally Posted by 58thecat
Attachment 139755
A few on the wood shed too...saw a 5X5 150 class last night, no luck this morning, needed to,warm up and eat then out I go...
|
All that leg work is paying off for me too, I saw 8 bucks this week while still hunting. All of them were in thick timber at under 50 yards, most of them I saw before they saw me, which means I've gotten a little better even in the last couple years.
2 of them I probably should have shot, we got a moose this year however and I'm fine with not tagging one unless its a personal best, plus I don't really want to stop hunting yet anyways. I will say this however, trying to confirm antler size when hunting this way is a pretty tough thing to do. Since you're never going to really get a tine count or anything like that, my rule of thumb is to look at the ears first, then compare everything to the ears. Even still, when the encounters are close, short, and adrenaline fueled its tough.
I let one walk yesterday because I wasn't able to get good look at his rack, when he finally scented me and spooked I went over and looked at his running track, over 25' between bounds on flat ground. That one hurt a bit. The king of the forest doesn't necessarily always sport a 150" rack, he dresses out around 200 lbs or better and is smart as heck from surviving predation every single day of his life. When I manage to sneak up on him I take the shot and thank the hunting god's he was having a bad day. Yesterday I let him walk instead.