Thread: Mature Buck at hog feeder

Originally Posted by yobuck

Have you ever added any of the pork to the venison?
I would assume that turkeys come to that feeder as well?

Yes there are plenty of Turkeys. I do not have permission to hunt Turkeys on this property.. Which is OK since I don't Turkey hunt

Good one for Fl...I stopped hunting when we lost the lease in Ft. McCoy. Haven't found anything close by and I won't hunt the Ocala forest..I just stick to fishing now...looks good , Happy hunting!

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I got my biggest Florida buck at the old Fort McCoy Management Area 107" before deductions.. I could not get a good close shot at him during archery season, was hunting with a Recurve bow. Got him during Muzzleloader season when he was chasing a hot doe. I too quit hunting the ONF 33 years ago, had a guy draw down on me with a bow as I was walking down a road back to my truck around noon time.. Said he was mad that I was messing up his hunt by walking down the road, The same road he walked in on.. had enough of guys like him and all the bears..

I have not fired a shot in Florida in the now almost 25 years ive lived here.
We have a very nice family owned camp in the north central section of my home state of PA.
Lots of steep fairly high ridges there.
We set up and use large tripod mounted binoculars to glass across the valleys at the sidehills.
Weve been hunting that way for more than 50 years.
Its 1200 miles for me to drive each way, and due to covid i havent gone for the past 2 seasons.
And i honestly dont think someone my age should be traveling 70 mph for 2 straight days anyway.
Especially when about half the trip is thru mountainous areas when there could be bad driving conditions, at least on the return trip.
I had a nice 2006 Jeep Rubicon that i kept in the garage at the camp.
I brought that back here and sold it a couple years ago also.
So my future as a hunter isnt looking very bright at this point.

Have you considered a wild hog hunt? Some of the cattle farms west of you may offer some semi guided hunts. They might put you in a ground blind or tree house type stand with a decent chair. They might ride you around on a tall swamp buggy and you might have to stalk up to the feeding hogs. Our Hunt club is thick and wet.. so we have to set up tree stands and let the hogs come to us. One good thing is there are no hills to climb. The hilly places I have hunted were in Southern Ohio, southern Indiana, NW Virginia and Kentucky..super hard for me to get around on those hills and ridges.

I have to speak of my experience. Here in FL I’ve had a couple of instances that made me stop hunting here. One was poor manners and bad ethics and a few others were just plain dangerous, and I won’t go back for more. I love hunting birds, dove and quail mostly and that doesn’t happen here to any extent that isn’t on private property and I’ve been blatantly told that I’m not welcome. I’ve shot dove in TN and will drive to be there for the opener. I’ve offered dollars and help to do the work to maintain said grounds, it fell on deaf ears. The shoots that I attended in TN are a social and happy thing with 3 or 4 generations joining in. With the hogs getting more and more out of control I feel inside that I need to get a few but I’m not fighting with people for that chance. As you can tell it wasn’t a good experience for me. I’m happy to hear of folks that get to experience a first hunt or a personal best, such memories are priceless. I learned to shoot flushing birds by myself in east Orlando where it has since developed heavily. A 410 with no choke so I had to get em quick. I wonder where the current trend in availability of land and hunting resources for my grandchildren will go. It’s been a part of my life I wouldn’t trade for anything. I’ll be quiet now.

Well as for land for hunting, there is no place, especially in the east, that rivals PA for that.
There are millions of acres of state owned land open to all, resident and non resident alike.
Plus there are millions of more acres of Game Commission land purchased over many decades from hunting license sales proceeds.
You can literally walk in one direction for several days in some areas and not tread on private land.
Thats not even possible in many of the western states, and i know because ive been to a few of them.
i frankly have lost most of the desire i once had for killing anything also.
The way we hunt isnt an issue for me as for my condition, i could still very easily partisipate.
And i would like very much to still go, if only for seeing my old friends in other camps.
But sooner or later we all must face the realities of life, and count what blessings we still have.
Like going fishing alone in my own boat, and still having an enjoyable time.
And i can thank the choice i made for moving to Florida for that.

I have not been to a dove shoot in 29 years, The last one was in Georgia. I used a 870 20ga and got 2, missed a couple..I was never good at wing shooting and the dove were not coming into the fields very well. Afterwards we had a cook out and bacon wrapped the breasts..cooked over charcoal. We did not shoot a lot of dove so one of the local guys brought some quail, duck, goose and other game birds..all were bacon wrapped and grilled. He said he only bird hunts and traveled around the US to hunt them.