I don't like handgun season. . .

[Armored farmer]

Wardenwolf


As a solution to your problem, why not get into handgun hunting.

There's alot of enjoyment to be had by getting up close and personal with your prey. It is pretty nice to have your weapon on your hip and your hands free for binos etc.

It is also very rewarding to take game with a weapon that provides a challenge. That is why I hunt with a recurve, .54 Hawken, .45 Blackhawk, or a single shot slug gun. (rifles aren't allowed in Illinois)

I live in farm country where deer hunting is BIG sport. It is not uncommon to hear and count 80-100+ shots in the stillness of opening morning of gun season. Other hunters using legal methods may well be something you have to cope with......

If you can't beat 'em.....join 'em

 

[Armored farmer]

On another note...
I was on a sporting clays range a few years ago, when I tripped the trap to watch the flight of the target at a new station... it hit the ground a few feet from an unwary doe blissfully grazing on some grass. She spooked a little then whirled around to investigate what had made the noise. As she moved back to the area where the target had landed...I (being the joker that I am) tripped another target which sailed right to her and struck her in the flank. Apparently, at that moment, she remembered that she had somewhere else she needed to be.
If a deer chooses to live in the woods of an active sporting clays range, I don't know how much effect an occasional handgun hunter would have.

 

[Arkansas Paul]

I often hear things like this from people who affix a lack of hunting success onto something other than themselves.

I'm thinking Rembrandt nailed it.

 

[hammerklavier]

This is all very easy to explain...

.... Lastly, I haven't found shooting so scare deer much. Several cases in point:

1. I shot a deer out of a herd with a 22-250 at a range of about 360 yards. The herd didn't depart the area until I approached to within about 100 yards.

They only smelled one deer tag on you.

2. I was shooting a 7mm/08 handgun from the bench at a target 100 yards down range. I had taken half a dozen shots when a doe came walking calmly out from behind the target back stop.

Hey, she knew it wasn't deer season.

3. I had taken a long shot at a raccoon with a 300 Win. Mag. and missed. Five or 10 minutes later, out came a buck which I didn't miss.

He figured you must be a bad shot because you missed the raccoon.

 

[hardluk1]

MCgunner Not all or many many states do have handgun seasons but just realized last season Illinoise does but only in certain areas. The spot were hunting i can use a BP or handgun but in a january special hunt. But only straightwall cases over 30cal. or bottle neck under some really short customs length, no semi autos but i can shoot a scope. Much better chance earlier on but hay it's another chance to go hunting. Hunting real heavy bottom land so a revolver over a smoke pole offers me the best chance at a nice deer at that time of year. In the NC mountains by the time rifle season comes around you might not see to many nice bucks. Long bow season here and the rute tends to happen during the late bow season. Darn I guess the noisy bows scared the deer off ,argggg. In florida growing up we hunted swamps and i for got to ask the deer if they prefered shotguns, rifles or handguns. Rut was over sometimes before the season even started in south florida.

 

[Grumulkin]

"They only smelled one deer tag on you."

It's possible. I had already used up my other two.

"Hey, she knew it wasn't deer season."

You have a point there. I think the thing that gets deer upset is when one of their kind flops around before dieing. If it's a bang flop like the 360 yarder or if it has been a few months since they've been shot at, they aren't spooked by much.

"He figured you must be a bad shot because you missed the raccoon."

What he should have figured out was that he as a deer at 300 yards was a much larger target than a raccoon at 300 yards.

 

[Arkel23]

Handgun season has nothing to do with spooking game. Most folks go tromping through the woods, smoking a cigar, after splashing on their aqua velva, singing / talking / whistling and are surprised when a deer doesn't approach them to be shot...

I'm sorry, is this not how you hunt? With some people saying they never heard of a handgun season, I don't think we can even use handguns for deer.

 

[hardluk1]

Don't forget rideing around on there atv's

 

[ArmedBear]

Most folks go tromping through the woods, smoking a cigar, after splashing on their aqua velva, singing / talking / whistling and are surprised when a deer doesn't approach them to be shot...

That's a very clever form of deception. I'm surprised you hadn't heard of it.

A deer hear/smells/sees someone like that, and figures he can't hit the broad side of a barn if he's sober, and he's nowhere near sober. So the deer lets you get a lot closer than someone who seems like a really good hunter.

That's how you sneak up on a sly old buck that has lived through many seasons in the woods: you trick him.

Don't forget rideing around on there atv's

I love those guys, myself. Figure out where the ATVs can't/don't go, and you'll find herds of deer. Seriously.

 

[HGUNHNTR]

I have never heard of a handgun hunter complaining about all of the blasted archery hunters spooking deer.

Anyway your point is invalid, if the deer can't see you, hear you, or wind you, then how is a previous encounter with a handgun hunter going to matter. It isn't. The simple fact is YOU spook the deer, not a previous encounter with another hunter. Are you suggesting that if the deer hadn't been previously spooked at close range, they could wind you and not run away? There aren't any deer in my part of the country that aren't afraid of people already.

 

[MCgunner]

I think he's complaining that the handgunners drive 'em into more remote areas an they can't just shoot 'em off the road. Waawaawaa.

 

[HGUNHNTR]

^ I was thinking it, glad you said it!

 

[HB]

I just hate it when hunting is too easy...

HB

 

[buck460XVR]

I think he's complaining that the handgunners drive 'em into more remote areas an they can't just shoot 'em off the road. Waawaawaa.

^ I was thinking it, glad you said it!

........same here. My experience is that the average handgun hunter is a much better HUNTER than the average rifle hunter. Thus overall, they tend to disturb the deer less than rifle hunters. A early season handgunner bumping a deer is no different than a grouse hunter/squirrel hunter/hiker/berry picker bumping a deer. Maybe we should keep them outta the woods til after rifle season also....... Rifle hunters checkin' out their stands and looking for new ones the week before the season opener probably disturb more deer than all of the others in the woods combined. Besides, deer do not readily associate gunshots with danger. Many times on opening day I have watched deer feeding with a multitude of gunshots going off within a few hundred yards and the most they do is look up. On numerous times, I have shot hundreds of rounds off at our personal gun range only to have deer come out in the field and feed next to the targets within a few minutes of us vacating the area. Claiming that early season handgun hunters drive all the deer into remote areas that are in-assessable to rifle hunters sounds like a "good ol' boy" excuse from an unsuccessful hunter.

 

[hardluk1]

HGUNHNTR If it was me your takeing about bow hunting ?? jokeing ???? I hunt every type of hunting i can for them tasty deer.

 

[Blue Brick]

Well the only times that could potentially happen is during the HAM javelina hunts because those are the only hunts in the state that allow people to use handguns but not rifles.

Hanguns can be used for most every hunt.

 

[Blue Brick]

Page 96 and 97 and Page 112 R12-4-304 and page 113

http://www.azgfd.gov/pdfs/h_f/regulations/HuntingRegulations10-11.pdf

 

[wankerjake]

Well the only times that could potentially happen is during the HAM javelina hunts because those are the only hunts in the state that allow people to use handguns but not rifles.

Hanguns can be used for most every hunt

I'm well aware that handguns can be used for general hunts. He's talking about handgun only hunts before "rifle" (general) hunts. HAM hunts are the only time this exists, and they aren't even handgun only.

 

[Zip7]

My experience is that the average handgun hunter is a much better HUNTER than the average rifle hunter. Thus overall, they tend to disturb the deer less than rifle hunters. A early season handgunner bumping a deer is no different than a grouse hunter/squirrel hunter/hiker/berry picker bumping a deer.

In my experience, deer aren't too worried about hikers, berry pickers, guys driving tractors, etc. but they are more spooked when they detect some person being really sneaky. It's almost like they are surprised and alarmed by it, and that makes sense in a way, because deer see us way more than we see them. Most people a deer sees are not hunting, or they aren't acting like deer hunters.

I'm lucky enough to have spent a lot of time around some of the best whitetail hunting lands in the south, and for the most part what I do there is run coon dogs at night, which involves riding around in a vehicle, busting through the woods with a light and two or three loud dogs, shooting a .22 pistol a LOT, and so forth. I see MANY deer at night, mostly they just lay there or stand there and watch me go by. I have almost stepped on bedded deer before they will move. I've been invited to some very choice clubs many times and have not driven their deer away, but just mention coon hunting with dogs around some people with lesser quality places, and they go off on me like I'm the ruin of deer hunting everywhere in the south.

I was running a bush hog along a ditch the other day at a prime hunting camp, and I drove up on a very nice 8 point bedded down in the bottom of the ditch. I was looking in the ditch for cottonmouths to shoot, and I happened to see this deer looking up at me. I stopped the tractor and he bolted, but only ran a few yards and stopped to watch me drive on. He was 15 yards away at most.

I see more deer every year than most serious rifle hunters do, and I have heard my fair share of theories on how all the deer get spooked by this or that and they become nocturnal, or whatever. As far as I can tell it's BS. I suspect 9 out of 10 rifle hunters don't spend a lot of time observing deer, especially nice bucks. Deer change their habits as the season changes, and the weather and wind changes as the season changes too. If you don't know deer, and you figure to hunt a stand when the wind isn't right for it, or because there were deer all over it two months ago, most of the time you won't see any. Many people who do this feel the need to blame lack of success on something.