Final Exam Entry

I really enjoyed Will Gilmer coming and speaking to us.  He has to keep up with a lot of social media sites, which at first seems hard, but he made it look fun.  What I learned most was how much social media actually reaches the public.  The stats he gave us on the views on some of his post was a lot more than I had expected.

Andrew Marsh

The Nearing Rut

The yearly rut for whitetail's in Mississippi is creeping closer and closer.  The rut here in central Mississippi is usually around the end of December.  Every deer hunter knows this is the time of year that your chances of killing the buck of a lifetime increase by a lot.  I can not wait for this semester to be over and be in full force hunting mode.  This time of year is my favorite and I have high hopes of getting my biggest buck yet.  On the other side, we are still putting the smack down on the does.  We killed 5 more does at out place on the big black river this past weekend.  That bumped  us up to 20 does so far.  We just need 10 more to meet our 30 doe quota for the year.  Hopefully we will reach the 30 before rut hits so we can focus strictly on buck hunting.  Best of luck to everyone! Go get in the stand whenever possible.

Andrew Marsh.

Opening Day Buck!

This past weekend was opening day of rifle season for the state of Mississippi.  I have never killed a buck on opening weekend of rifle season but that changed this year.  I killed a really good 8pt.  He weighed 230 pounds, which is the biggest deer body wise that I have ever killed.  Although score wise he is not my biggest I was still very excited about this deer.  He was 18 and 3/4 inches wide.  I scored him at 127 inches overall.  The best part about this was that I got the entire hunt on camera.  I filmed myself kill this buck.  Filming yourself kill anything is quite a task, it is extremely hard.  I was very excited and now I am going to try and top that weekend this coming weekend.  I doubt I will but I am sure going to try!

Andrew Marsh

Awesome Week of Hunting

This past week and weekend was great!  I took one of my good friends Kayla Cheatham hunting for her first time ever.  She killed a doe.  Thats some good luck, first time to hunt ever and she killed her first deer.  She was very excited.  I also had a good weekend.  I killed 4 more does at our camp, which bumped our doe total up to 14 does.  We have 16 more to go.  This week is perfect weather so the deer should be up and on the move.  I cant wait for this coming weekend because I am going to the Mississippi River to hunt on Davis Island.  There are a lot of huge bucks over there so I have my fingers crossed.  Im ready to put my hands on some horns!

Andrew Marsh

Bow Season Nearing The End

The end of bow season is just around the corner.  This past weekend was youth gun season.  We had a few kids come to our camp this weekend and take out a few does for us.  The kids are always down for shooting does.  Monday the 5th started the first primitive weapon season for adults 16 years of age and older, but during this primitive weapon season you can only shoot antlerless deer.  Our normal gun season opens the 17th.  I am ready for it to open because that means that rut is almost here!! Also that means I can shoot a whole lot farther than I can with my bow.  Not long until this semester of school is over and it will be full force hunting time!

Andrew Marsh

FINALLY some cold weather!

The weather this past weekend was PERFECT.  If it would not have been a full moon weekend then the deer hunting would have been exceptional.  I hardly saw anything this weekend and definitely did not kill anything.  I didn't mind though because we finally got some cold weather.  Gun season is just around the corner.  This coming weekend is youth weekend so we will have a few kids at our deer camp this weekend looking to kill some deer.  Hopefully they will help us put a dent in the doe population on our property.  According to the biologist we have to kill 30 does this year and we have only killed 7 so we have a long ways to go.

Andrew Marsh

Hot Weather

The weather lately has been unusually hot.  It is usually a lot cooler this time of year than it normally is.  It has been really hot in the stand, which makes it sort of miserable due to the mosquitos.  Thank the good lord for thermocells or I would not be able to sit in the stand in the heat.  Although it has been hot, I did have a good weekend of hunting.  I killed two does.  My lab puppy, Abby, bloodtrailed her first deer this weekend and she did very good.  There is a cold front moving in this coming saturday so hopefully it will get the deer up and moving.  I have not killed a buck so far this year so I am biting the bullet to get one.  Keeping my fingers crossed.

Andrew Marsh

Hogs!

If you have land that you hunt own and you do not have hogs on it just be ready because with the exploding population of hogs today they will be there sooner or later.  On your property on the Big Black River in Attala County we have hogs.  We have had the place for 5 years now and at first the hog population was not high at all.  We hardly ever got trail camera pictures of them and much less even saw one.  Well that has changed a lot over the last few years.  They have exploded in population numbers.  So far this deer season, which has been open for 16 days, we have seen more hogs than we have in the past 4 years.  Every chance we get we shoot one.  I killed a pretty big sow the other day with my bow.  She weighed 160 pounds.  Our biologist told me that a hog population can increase by 80% in just one year.  That is insane!!  So if you start to see them do not hesitate on shooting.  They cause millions of dollars in crop damage each year and do a lot of damage to your deer food plots.  Shoot them when you get the chance.

Andrew Marsh

Deer Season Update.

Well this past weekend was not a very good weekend for me.  The weather was perfect and deer movement was great.  It could not have been any better conditions.  The problem was me.  I was doing terrible at shooting.  I shot at 4 does this weekend, yes I said 4, and I did not get a single one of them.  I don't know what the deal is but I am not very happy about it because now I have to go buy more arrows and broadheads and those things are not cheap.  O well maybe this weekend will be better.  On a good note some of my friends killed really good bucks so overall the season has started out pretty good.  Hopefully it will get better for me.

Andrew Marsh

Deer Season Has Begun!

Yesterday October 1st started the 2012-2013 deer season.  I killed a doe yesterday afternoon which is only 1 of the 30 does that we are supposed to take off of that piece of property this year.  We also timed it perfect for food plot planting.  This past weekend we planted our food plots.  It was perfect timing because we finished them just in time on saturday before the rain.  With all that rain and the forecasted sunshine for this week, the plots just come up pretty quick.

Andrew Marsh

Almost Here!

Deer season opens in 6 days!  It can not get here fast enough.  We have been doing last minute work on our stands to get them ready for bowhunting.  Made a couple new spots that look promising.  This weekend we are going to plant our plots.  We have 15 food plots that make up around 25 acres of food plots in all so we are going to be busy.  It is supposed to rain Sunday so looks like we have timed it perfect.  To bad the plots will not be up for a few weeks, so looks like the persimmon trees is where I am headed for opening day.

Andrew

Biologist Camera Survey RESULTS

The results of the camera survey that our biologist did on your property was great.  The buck to doe ratio was 1:1.2 so basically a 1:1, which is ideal.  We had some pretty good deer show up on the camera, nothing huge but some decent ones.  He says that this year will probably be our best year so far since we have owned this piece of property.  Our management program has completely turned our deer herd around for the better.  Hopefully in 5 years or so we should have reached the results we are hoping for.

This is a new deer we have not seen before.  He is a decent deer.  He would be a great bow kill!

Biologist camera survey

The deer have been up and moving the last couple days since that cold front came through.  Although it wasnt "cold" 80 degrees feels a lot better than 95.  I have gotten A LOT of trail camera pictures over the past week.  My biologist is conducting a camera survey on our property this week.  He has 10 cameras out which is one per 100 acres.  He is figuring out our buck to doe ratio and just wanting to see what is out there.  Although you he wont get every buck on camera he will get the majority of them hopefully.  Also he is looking for any sort of diseases or any issues at all with our herd.  The next 20 days can not get done fast enough!

Disking Food Plots

I hope everyone started preparring their food plots for planting before hurricane Isacc came through.  With all that rain it made the ground extremely wet.  Our food plots are way to wet to disk.  If it doesnt dry up quickly we will not be able to have food plots for opening weekend of bow season, which is 26 days away!

Andrew

Checking Trail Cameras

This year looks like it is going to be a really good year for us deer hunters here in Mississippi.  With the early spring we had this year, the deer have not had any shortage of food this summer.  I have been getting some great pictures so far this summer.  If you have not put out your trail cameras you need to do so.  The buck crop this year looks good.