Right on Pike River. The same process I went through. And by the time I got drafted, I didn't have to have someone tell me which way to point that gun.

Today here in Michigan, you can deer hunt at the tender age of 6!!! The mentality of the DNR here to get them started early.

The deer rifle season is down over 20% of licenses. Bow season is up (earlier and warmer). Plus its gone from a recurve to compound to a rifle style bow (cross bow).

Just to make it EASIER for everyone.....! Now when muzzle loading season is on, you can use any rifle you wish...…! Why is it muzzle season?

It makes it easier for the city people to participate and be able to show the guys at the office!?!?!

When I was a kid fishing with my grandpa, I was always scrounging up different lures and whatnot. I remember showing him a new buzz bait I'd sold enough cans to buy. He told me son, most fishing lures are made to catch fishermen, not fish. Took me several years to understand what he meant same applies to hunting, in my opinion

Kind of a form of bragging in this thread lots of I's

cube and can it is great stuff canned venison


a meal ready to eat in minutes

I am a bad person and canned ground (this is a major canning sin) I could make the drop biscuits and they needed 12 minutes in the oven , in that 12 minutes I could pop the top on a quart of canned ground venison get it warming and use the jar to start the gravy with flour and water , when the oven beeped 12 minutes the gravy was nearly done

meal on.

Nahhh, you should be alright if you hunt from a shack on private ground.

while i can shoot much further , I have never shot a deer beyond 150 yards most under 90 yards

if I am picking the perfect deer cartridge 308win is it for me

that said I used my 1966 Rem 742 in 30-06 last year , yes it is loaded to 308 velocities , why cause I don't need more and the gun has some weaknesses I would like to keep using it I bought it when I was 14. I was letting my son use my 308.

most of my deer have actually come with 12ga and rifled slugs from a smooth bore. not really ideal but works well within it's limitations.

you must understand that some people are trying to buy being a better shot. while you can take everything that wasn't you out of the equation it may help if you were what was broken from the beginning it can't help that much.

some of the people trying to buy being a better shot , shoot from a bench only ever because they like to see little bitty groups , this doesn't help you develop as a person

learning to shoot sitting, standing and kneeling even if it is mostly with a 22lr builds you and your ability

my sons first year of mentored hunting was when he was 11 , he had a Mossberg M500 20ga with 26 inch bird barrel and I mounted a 2-7x32 nikon on it for him and we got sighted in it was plenty accurate for deer inside 75 yards .

he hated me so much but once he was on and warmed up I set out 5 targets on stands at different distances we walked down towards the targets that were a white paper plate on the cardboard backer with a big number written in marker on each I would call off a number I would give him about 6 seconds to shoot before I would tell him it had run off no shoot. as he got better I lowered the time I would give him, I was being sooo unfair

watch the target and bring the gun into your sight as you shoulder it one fluid motion safety off , up to cheek in to shoulder , aim and squeeze

buddy deer don't hang around and wait for your perfect aim , we need to make you faster so that they seem slower

you don't have to hit the middle of the middle of the paper plate , just hit the paper plate as smooth as you can smooth is fast ans fast is smooth

his first deer was when he was 12 it ran right at him stopped as soon as it saw him about 25 yards he punched both shoulders and it was down , then he got it , that was what he was practicing for. it was the last drive of opening day.

he has shot a deer every year since 2019 was his first rifle deer and buck a decent 6 point with the bolt action 308.

he had given me a hard time ,"dad, we use 2-7 power scopes on shotguns why are you putting one on the new 308?"
because it will be plenty for hunting distances
"but dad it can shoot so much further than a shotgun"
yes and 7 power is more than enough to shoot 250 yards and you shouldn't be shooting past that without a lot of practice so you will be fine.

He shoots his deer at about 100 yards from sitting on a stump beside a small hay field , " dad , it was perfect at 2X I could see and I put the cross on his shoulder and I could see him go down still through he scope" yes, I guess you had to see it for yourself. I am not so crazy after all am I

What are you talking about?

Good post.

I'm still hunting in the first camo bibs I bought in 1990 for turkeys, and Sportsman's Warehouse brand raingear when it's wet. My wool stuff is from my first moose hunt in the late 90's and my bow is older than that.

But all this gear must be good for some part of the economy. Maybe I'm just cheap, but I'd rather spend my $$$ on the experience than the gear.

Pete

Haha Pete, I also still wear 80's camo for turkeys. For Deer, it doesn't matter, we have to wear orange.

Seems pretty typical to me.

I blame the gear trend mostly on all the media, the shows and podcasts and sponsorships. Here's how it works: somebody starts a hunting show, or podcast, or magazine column or mail-order videos back in the day. When they get popular, the product marketing companies offer them money to do gear endorsements. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that, but it can be deceiving for the novice viewer. A young guy wants to get into hunting so he starts watching shows, YouTube channels and listening to podcasts, and he hears these successful hunters talking about name-brand gear all the time. It results in an inferred message that the success is related to the gear.

In my opinion many of the iconic media hunters of today are doing a disservice to new hunters when they talk more about gear than the things that really matter- scouting, marksmanship, landowner relations, ethics, etc.

I would love to see a show where they interview a bunch of famous hunter and ask them how they started out. I would bet than many, many of today's media stars started out with $20 of military surplus or some leaky hand-me-downs.

The current hunting media is pushing DIY public land hunting way harder than the private land giants on a leash standard of 10 years ago. Western big game draws are getting harder and harder to draw as more people flock to the DIY public land hunts.

Quit your whining and hunt the way that you want to hunt. If somebody else wants to drop 10k a year on new gear then good for them. It supports the industry and throws more money into the Pittman–Robertson act fund that benefits all of us.

Good point!

You boys that "have never killed a deer over 150 yards" must have never hunted them on pool table flat wheatfields with nothing to hide behind but a stunted cedar tree, dirt clod or clump grass. Shots out to 300 yards are fairly routine around this part of the world with 400 - 500 not being unheard-of most years. My first deer ever was 325 yards and died where he stood. I was 10 years old and had practiced at those distances until my dad was confident I could make the shot. Have killed deer in the canyons with bow and arrow and black powder as close as 8 yards. But around here when the rut is on the deer head for flat country and big fields with adjacent grass to bed in. Long distance is about the only way to get it done unless you are confident that you can army crawl across almost bare ground to get within 150 yards

Heck I'm well on the other of that spectrum and glad for it. I would hate to live in such a place. I think my longest shot was 75ish yards.

Grew up hunting heavily wooded areas where shots were close. Where I live now it’s mostly wide open AG fields. Still get some shots that are close but plenty are going to be 300+. I don’t hunt with a 6.5 creedmoor but I enjoy using some oddball stuff. Not completely off the wall but stuff that doesn’t walk into most deer camps regularly. I’ve gravitate towards a handful of custom rigs that are more accurate than I’ll ever make them shoot. Having said that, it’s not the arrow. It’s the Indian that makes it all come together.

the rifle i grab depends on the mood im in. old recurve is my bow. never could get the hang of a compound

What's wrong with that? I hunt private mostly and I only have to walk about 200 yards from the truck at most to get to my stands. If I don't shoot anything by 10 during gun season I'll end up walking about 2 miles slow walking through the woods.

With this hunt that lack of effort wasn't going to get it done.

We have the odd field or grassy marsh but I'll bet 90% of our gun season deer in our bush with group hunts are pounded down inside 35 yards. On the move mind you and usually ahead of hounds.

My first deer was the last day of Wi deer season about 4:00 PM when we jumped a three point buck my brother had wounded about 3:00pm. The deer jumped up i shouldered the gun, mind you a 20ga mosberg three shot with the clip and polly chock. Gun up deer down. Then thegame warden came walking in as I was carrying all three guns while brother and dad dragged the deer. The warden was nice. By the way this was the only deer we got that year. I love the 20 ga and all my sons shot there first deer with that Mossberg 20ga.