# Velvet Free ?



## garhtr (Jan 12, 2009)

Seems a little early but my Backyard bucks were rubbing a.m. both are velvet free.








Good luck and good hunting !


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## Muddy (May 7, 2017)

Not unusual at all. They are usually hard by the first week of September around my area.


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## Carpn (Apr 5, 2004)

Yep . It's about that time . Several buddies have sent me pics of hard horn deer the last couple of days .


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## garhtr (Jan 12, 2009)

Just funny I saw both those bucks Sat and both were in full velvet.
I have seen a few during squirrel season in velvet and heard of a few Ky deer killed in velvet. 
Good luck and good hunting !


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## Kenlow1 (Jul 14, 2012)

Saw a nice 10 pt. last nite in a bean field-he was still in velvet? Like stated, by end of 1st week in Sept. they should all be hard horned.


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## DL07 (Jul 21, 2011)

We had several bucks on trail cams last night. They all were still in velvet


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## G-Patt (Sep 3, 2013)

Tomorrow is the squirrel opener but ain't gonna lie, I have bucks on the mind. That is a good looking buck, garhtr. Are your bucks pets or are they on the radar for the upcoming season? I have a hunting buddy who has a difficult time hunting his backyard bucks. They're kind of like pets to him, LOL!


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## garhtr (Jan 12, 2009)

G-Patt said:


> are they on the radar for the upcoming season?


Maybe but that section would be bow only. There was a much better one hanging around that would definitely be on my radar 
I like to get a doe early and save my buck tag for Mzzldr but I won't pass on a good buck with a bow. 
Good luck and good hunting


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## buckeyebowman (Feb 24, 2012)

G-Patt said:


> Tomorrow is the squirrel opener but ain't gonna lie, I have bucks on the mind. That is a good looking buck, garhtr. Are your bucks pets or are they on the radar for the upcoming season? I have a hunting buddy who has a difficult time hunting his backyard bucks. They're kind of like pets to him, LOL!


My buddy has a piece of property behind his place that he has allowed to grow into thicket. The only deer he looks at as pets are the doe. Well, that's not exactly right. He looks at them as live decoys, his wife looks at them as pets. A few years ago he was sitting in his ground blind in the thicket, when this goofy rack buck walks in front him. He got the crossbow up, but then thought about waiting for a buck with a better rack. Then he thought, "Why look a gift horse in the mouth?!" Or rather, a gift buck in the rack! He wasnted venison to eat.

He called me shortly before dark asking me to come and help. He said he couldn't pick up the trail, even though he knew the arrow went through because he could hear it clattering through the brush and bushes on the far side of the deer. I show up with my headlamp and a roll of flourescent orange marking tape. The trail the buck branched shortly beyond where my buddy shot him. So, he took one brand and I took the other. I was on hands and knees going slow but not finding anything, until I found a dot of blood about twice the size of a period here, and a single hair on a limb of a bush. Marked every little bit of blood and hair that I found, until it was about 10PM. I suggested pulling out and coming back in the morning, rather the chance of spooking a deer that was still alive.

We come back and the trail that I marked was plain as day out in the light. When I showed my buddy the size of some of the sign that I found, he said that I could track a swarm of white bees in a blizzard! So, we go to where I left off and continue the search the first sign of blood on the ground. Everything else had been on shrubs. The path turned right and the blood followed. There are a couple of saplings in that area and there were big swipes of blood on them, on both sides. I told my buddy it looked like the buck was starting to stagger. Then the path turns left toward an opening in the fence. More saplings, more swipes of blood. 

Then, a short mown area about a hundred feet wide, a treeline and another short mown area, and then another thicket. There's a gap in the treeline straight across from the opening in the fence, and the shortest distance between two thickets is a straight line so that's where we went. Didn't see any more blood on the way, and started looking in the edge of the far thicket. My buddy let out a whoop, and I see him with his arms raised! I hustle up there, and the buck made it 15-20 feet into the thicket and dropped. We dragged it out of there, and was what a goofy rack. It was basically a spike, but the right spike was about 3" long and the left was over a foot long, and nearly as big as my wrist at its thickest! 

What impressed me though was how damn big it was! I told my buddy, "Look at the size of this thing!" It was a huge old buck. Damn near killed us getting it out of there, and it's not like it was that long of a drag. I also told him that it was probably a good deer to get out of the gene pool considering its antlers. 

However, I was puzzled as to why there was so little blood sign, since my buddy said he put a good shot on the buck. Once we started field dressing it, we discovered that the arrow hit a rib on the right side of the deer breaking it, and make a hard left turn missing the offside ribcage entirely. It exited the deer just behind the last rib catching a bit of paunch. 

Sorry to be so long winded, but this is a story that I like to tell. Besides, I'm a meat hunter, not a bone hunter. If my buddy will give me permission, Id hunt that thicket this year and shoot whatever shows up in front of me!


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## ironman172 (Apr 12, 2009)

Same here in the city the few I've seen this past week


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