AT Hiker
Well-Known Member
It came an absolute storm on me Saturday afternoon, we opted out of hunting because of heat and went fishing instead...then got soaked. It was still raining at sunset (NW Dickson County) but the temps dropped way down.
TN velvet hunt Aug 25-27
- Thread starter agelessssone
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Only 722 bucks harvested for 17K hunters make the odds of success about 4%. I don't know the statistics on other hunts but I imagine that's got to be one of the most challenging hunts in TN offers. Big congrats to those who found success. You're a select group of achievers!
AT Hiker
Well-Known Member
My perspective only but I'd take a guess and say the odds are lower because people are more selective on this hunt. Would not surprise me if "any buck " shot opportunity is the best it gets for many people.
**Not taking anything away from those who did have success, they do far better than me!
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megalomaniac
Well-Known Member
Correct, the high temps this time of the year affect the hunters more than alter deer movement. Although if it gets really hot and dry, water sources can make it much easier to kill a velvet buck as they will often drink after they get up to move in the evenings.
I agree with that. It applies to me for sure. It's a trophy hunt. It's supposed to be selective. Even still, 4% success rate is TOUGH. I've heard and read arguments where folks think velvet bucks would be easy to kill because they're so patternable. Statistical facts say otherwise.
AT Hiker
Well-Known Member
I think it is easier, if you have them, but not overall a easy hunt.
Now, give me a rifle and a bean field....
Just glad its over and deer can start to look like deer
One of our guys killed at last minute yesterday, and he dang well earned it. He's hunted every year & this was the second arrow he's released. Shot over one a couple years ago. Saturday afternoon a big thunderstorm skirted our place to the east. No rain but real bad wind, said he stayed in tree until one got blown over about 50 yards away. Our bucks were not on clover this weekend as no one saw a buck on plot. He found some chestnut oaks dropping & deer were on them. When he went in Sunday morning and there were two bucks feeding but wind was right so didn't smell him. He watched them ease off then got in tree & sit untill 11:00. Went back to camp & eat lunch & back in tree at 12:30. Shot one of the bucks from the morning at 7:30! Good deer with 24" main beams.
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Bgoodman30
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Definitely much easier and patternable. My #1 shooter this year walked out in the same spot about 40 yards from my stand Sunday afternoon just like he has done since July.. Try that in a couple months..
I'd agree with both those points as well. It's feast or famine. Either you got them or you don't, and if you don't you're wasting your time even trying.
Oh I won't argue that they're not more easily patternable. My argument is and always has been that it doesn't necessarily make them easier to hunt. If you have access to where bucks are during the velvet season, you're already in a major minority. Then if you're lucky enough to have them, you now have to capitalize. You had your shooter within tough but reasonable bow range. Did you get him? Did you hunt?
Most of the people who talk about how easy it is to kill a big velvet buck are the same ones who don't actually hunt the velvet season. The actual velvet hunters don't seem to think it's so easy, and 4% success odds seem to agree. My argument is that patterning a buck isn't the same as setting up and killing him. If you think a mature buck will do the same thing day in day out then set up to hunt him and see what happens. 96% of the hunters this season can tell you exactly how that works out .... or more appropriately doesn't work out.
tree_ghost
Well-Known Member
That's right Ski. I hunt as hard as any man out there and I can assure you it ain't a guaranteed kill. It took me 5 years of hard hunting to close the deal on one however I have no agricultural to hunt so that only adds to the difficulty…
Bgoodman30
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Nope didn't hunt. Wind was perfect too. I wouldn't feel right shooting him this way.. I think a velvet buck is a complete waste of a trophy animal. His nose is the same but his guard is not up now to human danger... He will also soon shift patterns and become mostly nocturnal if not leave the property all together... Yep much easier..
No sir it is most definitely not. A mature buck is as slippery and elusive in the summer as he is in the fall. Summer patterns doesn't mean he's stupid for few months. He's on a pattern until he's not, and that pattern can easily be broken by the seemingly most insignificant hint of human presence. I was directly downwind of buck I wanted to hunt this weekend and it didn't matter. He never busted me but he never came in either. Friday evening the youngest buck of the group reluctantly stepped into my kill zone while all the older bucks stayed in deep cover, and as soon as he detected something wasn't right he turned back and took all the older ones with him. I didn't see them at all Saturday. Then Sunday evening they all came in again but this time they paralleled my stand about three times back & forth until a doe came out. They stopped to intently watch her walk through my shot zone but even though she acted completely calm they still wouldn't come through. Somehow the older bucks knew something was off in the area of my stand and a spot they normally travel right through, they avoided.
Buzzard Breath
Well-Known Member
tree_ghost
Well-Known Member
sounds like them rutting bucks….
It's said 90% of big bucks are killed by 10% of hunters. Not coincidentally only 11% of hunters in TN attempted the velvet hunt and only 3.5% of them succeeded with a bow, 4% overall. These aren't weekend warriors, meat hunters, old guys who enjoy their coffee in a shooting house, or the guys who think deer hunting is done only with firearms in cool weather. They're hardcore, dedicated, serious bow hunters. And they grossly failed. 17,000 of them had three days to kill an easy to pattern buck and less than 1,000 got it done statewide. If you asked all 17,000 of them if they had a buck picked & patterned before the hunt, what do you think the overwhelming answer would be? Of course they did. Nobody's hunting a buck that doesn't exist. They all believed what you believe, that they could get on a buck that was doing the same thing over & over.
Trail cameras or even watching a buck from distance is exciting and gives a hunter a sense of optimism. Getting your body within bow range, drawing the bow, and getting an arrow released that finds home in the vitals is an entirely different thing. No doubt when your camera shows you that the buck is doing the same thing at the same time over & over again, then obviously he's an easy mark. Every hunter whose ever tried the velvet hunt once believed that to be true. Then reality smacked the gross majority of them hard up side the head.
TN Larry
Well-Known Member
Patterning one is definitely easier than killing one. I've only hunted the velvet hunt one time but had three mature bucks patterned perfectly or so I thought. They were coming every afternoon to a 7 acre clover field and coming past my salt lick in the back corner before heading to the field. I thought it would be a slam dunk but wasn't. I only hunted the afternoons and saw them all three evenings but zero shots within bow range. Each afternoon they came to the field with the wind to their advantage and from a different direction. I changed up locations the third afternoon, and they still out smarted me. So I went home that weekend with not the slam dunk that I thought but a big piece of humble pie. I haven't had one worth hunting the past few years that I knew where he was so sat on the side lines.
I'm not saying in a sense that it's not easier as their guard is a little different but still a wild animal that's not stupid. I was just amazed at how they entered the field differently each afternoon when I was there as I thought I had done my homework.
I'm not saying in a sense that it's not easier as their guard is a little different but still a wild animal that's not stupid. I was just amazed at how they entered the field differently each afternoon when I was there as I thought I had done my homework.
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backyardtndeer
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Part of the reason I didn't bother. I have been slacking this year and only have one camera out, I had just one buck on that camera in about 6 weeks since I put it out. I just moved that camera hoping to get a better idea what might be around. Really sucks not being able to run mineral sites here anymore. But anyways, I would have had a little more interest had I had a good buck coming around.
