2024 Hunting Picture Thread

[JmacD]

Hope I’m not stealing anyone’s thunder. @Armored farmer had the 22 thread and @WestKentucky the 23. But it is 2024…

I had a morning hunt in the freezing fog yesterday. I know it’s not an animal, but this is another part of hunting…!just enjoying creation. I had a hawk try to steal my hat, a chickadee land on my muzzleloader barrel, squirrels everywhere. Beautiful!

 

[GoldieMI]

Spent the New Years walking the fields looking for Pheasant. Forgot to grab pictures of them before they got broken down.
bagged 3 roosters and had them on the grill that night. Love pheasant on the grill

 

[troy fairweather]

Below is all the animals I've taken this deer season

 

[JmacD]

Spent the New Years walking the fields looking for Pheasant. Forgot to grab pictures of them before they got broken down.
bagged 3 roosters and had them on the grill that night. Love pheasant on the grill
View attachment 1187495

Oh YA! Makin a transplanted South Dakota boy hungry and homesick. Dove poppers… there’s another good one on the grill…

 

[Choctaw]

Below is all the animals I've taken this deer season

If you don't mind I'll pile onto your post with the pics of all of my critters as well.

 

[troy fairweather]

If you don't mind I'll pile onto your post with the pics of all of my critters as well.

Hey no more then 10 pictures Allright

 

[marksman13]

So far, my daughter has been the only one shooting in 2024, but I’m hoping to change that this afternoon despite the 20-30 mph winds.

 

[JDeere]

Did well deer hunting but no pics. Ground and sausage for the year.

 

[Micro]

My first first big game animal of 2024. Today was the first day of the 4th segment of our 2023-2024 Virginia Fall turkey season. I call this segment the "Winter Season" or "Pre-Spring Season." Deer season is over and I can hunt fall birds without having to wear blaze orange. Sat at my tree a little after 8:45am. Gave three raspy yelps. Had 5 big toms come in within 10 minutes. Hunt was over by 9am.

He's my first bird with a .410. And my second bird with TSS. Always killed them with lead before last season.

He's a double bearder. Solid inch long spurs. I am thrilled with him.

He's been eating Beech Nuts.

 

[marksman13]

First pig of 2024. Wanted to get the ol Hog Hammer out of the safe tonight. Right at 200 yards with a 120 Hornady SST out of the 6.8 SPC.

This pig was one of the strangest kills we’ve ever had. He was shot along with several other pigs in a large sounder. He ran out of the corn field and into some fairly thick woods. A few minutes later he walked back out into the field, laid down and died. We ended up shooting him again, not realizing he was part of the group we shot earlier. Just weird for a wounded pig to leave cover just to lay down and die in an open field. Never say never when it comes to pigs.

 

[geo57]

This was my 3rd rooster of the day a few weeks ago giving me my limit. I dropped him with one shot from 20 yards in thick, grassy cover but knew at the shot that he was deceased. Three of us and a dog looked for him in the 10' circle that I knew he had to be in. After 20 minutes of us looking, some of it on hands & knees I told the others to go on. After another 20 minutes of searching & praying I finally felt something odd under foot. Thank you Lord. I called this one my Divine Intervention bird.

 

[Patocazador]

He was shot along with several other pigs in a large sounder.

He looks like what we call a "piney woods blue rooter." Local lore has it that they are descended from De Soto's escaped hogs from the 1500s.

A 'friend?' captured some and gave me 2 sows and a boar. I thought I could worm them, fatten them up, and butcher them. Fat chance! 200 lbs. of corn didn't put an ounce on them. I caught them up and gave them to a couple of friends to turn loose on their hunting land. This was back in the '80s before they got totally out of control. Since I had tamed them a bit, they were soon turned into sausage except the boar. He had the longest tusks I've ever seen on a blue rooter so he was mounted by the guy that killed him.

 

[marksman13]

Ended at least 6 years of history this morning with a buck I call Slim Shady. Every year we check cameras and guess who’s back, back again. Well, he won’t be on camera next year. The deer in this part of Mississippi don’t alway carry the amount of mass we’d like, but this dude had main beams for days. A quick dose of 140 grains of Hornady SST from a 6.5x55 closed the book on him. Dead where he stood at 55 yards. I rough scored him at 137” with 24” main beams.

 

[Patocazador]

Deer season in this area ended today. I used my last doe tag last evening on this one-horned 2" spike. Shot him from a pop-up blind on the only food plot that produced anything. He only weighed 95 lbs.



Since turkey season is over, I've been seeing lots of turkeys but the small spike was the only deer I've seen this month.



I may have one more chance for deer as the NW Panhandle will be open into the middle of February.

 

[Anchorite]

Ended at least 6 years of history this morning with a buck I call Slim Shady. Every year we check cameras and guess who’s back, back again. Well, he won’t be on camera next year. The deer in this part of Mississippi don’t alway carry the amount of mass we’d like, but this dude had main beams for days. A quick dose of 140 grains of Hornady SST from a 6.5x55 closed the book on him. Dead where he stood at 55 yards. I rough scored him at 137” with 24” main beams. View attachment 1190668View attachment 1190669View attachment 1190670

Super nice rifle. Congrats!

 

[Patocazador]

Super nice rifle. Congrats!

AND super-nice buck!

 

[marksman13]

AND super-nice buck!

Gracias, amigo.

 

[marksman13]

Super nice rifle. Congrats!

Thank you. I’m pretty fond of it.

 

[bratch]

Buddies dog trying to get a frozen duck today

 

[EMC45]

Ended at least 6 years of history this morning with a buck I call Slim Shady. Every year we check cameras and guess who’s back, back again. Well, he won’t be on camera next year. The deer in this part of Mississippi don’t alway carry the amount of mass we’d like, but this dude had main beams for days. A quick dose of 140 grains of Hornady SST from a 6.5x55 closed the book on him. Dead where he stood at 55 yards. I rough scored him at 137” with 24” main beams. View attachment 1190668View attachment 1190669View attachment 1190670

Gorgeous deer and Rifle! Classy Ruger.

 

[marksman13]

Thank you. I’m pretty fond of both of them.

 

[Micro]

The turkey above made for a nice wall memory.

 

[Skoghund]

Its been a strange year for hunting so far. Lots of rain at the beginning of the season with all the lying up place for boar flooded. On a driven day its not uncommon to shoot double figures on the boar but this season Its been one or two per day.
I've shot two rifle shots and bagged a boar and a fox.
The duck season on the new wet land started OK but was cut short by early cold weather and everything freezing over.
I'm back in the UK in April for the start of the roe buck season and hopefully knock over a few fallow and perhaps muntjac deer as well

 

[marksman13]

Ended the season with a ppppppfffffffftttt! FLOP! I go back to work tomorrow, so today was my last day of deer season. Told my wife I wanted one more for the freezer. Shot this doe right at the edge of legal light. Thank God for good scopes and accurate rifles. 165 grain Sierra Game King from the 308 Win punched high shoulder and exited between the 4th and 5th rib at 130 yards. She was positively flattened. Nothing like pressing the trigger and seeing a white belly immediately. It’s been an outstanding deer season for me and my daughter. Hope we have a hundred more just like it.

 

[marksman13]

Added another pair of pigs tonight. I like my 6.8 SPCs, but I think I’m going back to the 6 Creed for hunting at night. It’s just a different effect on target. The 6.8 kills pigs. 6 Creed kills them more. Especially on nights like tonight when the stalking is slippery, sloppy and sloshy, I appreciate the additional range of the 6 Creed as well.