Deer Season 2026

This is my little bow plot, about a tenth of an acre. Picture taken a couple of weeks ago.

Checked my game camera this past weekend and on one night I had 8 racked bucks at one time feeding in it. Mostly smallish 6pts but 2 really nice 8pts and one big 6pt. Hopefully some will show up when I’m there.
Season opened today.
 

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Did a few afternoon sits this week.
It's been humid as hell here and miserable. Seen tons of does and a couple of decent bodied fork horns but no shooters.

Cold front with some rain coming in, hopefully the morning sits will be productive.
 
I used a crossbow for the first time (pending rotator cuff surgery so I can't draw my bow at the moment). Harvested a doe on some Army Corps of Engineering land here in Texas. I would appreciate any input people have because the performance was... odd.

It's a Mission crossbow shooting ~370fps with a 20" bolt and a 100gr mechanical broadhead (2" RAVIN). I had a broadside shot at 9 yards (ground, no blind--it would be the story of all stories if it were a buck). The bolt struck center lung but it hit a rib on entry. The bolt ended up nicking--but not actually penetrating--the second lung and cut the liver in half before exiting. In short, it took a crazy angle after the rib.

Is the issue the bolt is too light? Is this typical? Is it the broadhead? I've never had an arrow deflect like that from my bow and I've shot both fixed and mechanical before.
 
Cooposo said:
Real nice trip into the Frank Church Wilderness for the Idaho general season deer opener. We helped a neighbor teenager get his best buck yet on Day 3. I packed up to go and then did my final evening hunt on day 5. Found this guy in a gulley at last light. He heard me and was getting out of Dodge, but he paused right at 300 yards and the 270 and Nosler Partition did the rest. That was an 8 mile afternoon and evening when it was all said and done.
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Guys, I’ve got an exciting update to this story. My friend, we will call “T”, got out again today and found a deer he had been patterning for a couple months. T has never harvested a big game animal, and was raised in an anti-gun, anti-hunting household. I dragged him around last year, and for the hunts above this year, with never a single complaint but no hunting success either. But now they had glassed up the deer. The above mentioned neighbor teenager, 15 years old, we will call “G”, planned a stalk for him that closed the distance from 600 to 400 to 200 yards, where they set up. T was shaking with excitement as they got on the shooting sticks. I had hand loaded him some 145 grain Barnes LRX for his 7mm REM Mag, and he thought of my coaching on the center of the vitals. But he was too pumped up and pulled the shot…into a perfect neck shot. The Muley dropped on the spot and the celebration began. G’s family had a birthday dinner for G turning 16, and, they being a taxidermy family, had all three bleached skulls ready to go. What an opening week! My hunting party went 3/3 with OTC general season Idaho tags. I hoped maybe one of us would tag out- all three was a dream come true.

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While the front we had move in brought a welcome drop in temperature it also brought in a bunch of swirling wind.

The deer are definitely moving and the rut has started but I don’t believe that we have a single stand on the farm that you could sit and not get busted due to wind.

On a brighter note, the front brought a light misty rain all day yesterday and the food plots are doing great!


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I’m with you @Field28 , my little bow plot has plenty of deer using it but the blind is is in the NE corner for our prevailing winds this time of year, NW and SE, after the front we have had nothing but NE wind. With no way to hunt the approaches to the plot without going through the bedding areas I’m screwed until Thursday when the wind is supposed to come out of the west.
Good luck to all!
 
Been having a rough start to the season on public, 5 sits and only deer I’ve seen were a couple of does with a couple of minutes of light left on my 4th sit (drew on one but was busted). Never have the best start in acorn years, but a little frustrated, sat yesterday and saw a couple of coyotes. Hopefully this cold weather turns it on so I at least start seeing a few.
 
Oklahoma has a youth rifle season in mid October, which coincides with public schools Fall break. I have kids and grandkids in central Oklahoma. A couple of years ago, I bought a 70 acre wooded property about 30 minutes from where they live. We hunted it last year and my oldest grandson, age 9, got his first deer and a turkey. My son in law and I hunted this past weekend with grandson #1 and grandson #2, age 5, joined in the fun and took his very first deer. He had a clean miss on Friday, but connected on a nice doe on Saturday. He was shooting a Ruger No 1 in 257 Roberts. His big brother hammered one on Friday with his suppressed 308. A very fun weekend for old granddad! I haven't let them shoot at a buck yet, don't want to spoil them.

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My wife took this photo this morning off of the back porch.
Turns out she had twins, great case for delaying the start of our doe season, we can start killing does on the 25th but I will study any does extremely hard and watch them for a while before shooting. I would hate to orphan any fawns with our heavy coyote population.
 

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I'm afraid to even breath wrong, lest I mess up with a REAL bruiser that is located now, but it's two weeks till rifle opener. He's big enough to have already learned to go nocturnal. I won't go near the place until I hopefully see him, one and done!! Fingers crossed.
 
A little shy about posting my first buck, (I previously shot does), having hunted in both Africa and Romania but still proud of my 8 point which @skydiver386 encouraged me to post. Only wanting to shoot does for meat, but he walked up. Shot with a crossbow!

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My 8 year old grandson took his first deer last night with a crossbow! Start ‘em young!
 

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The good luck continues! We were fortunate to get permission to hunt a small parcel of private land near where I grew up hunting deer in Utah. I’ve gone hunting with my dad a lot, but we’ve always been apart when I have found, stalked, and shot deer or elk. This time I came off the hill after some still hunting game trails through the oakbrush, and he was set up at a glassing point. We separately found the same group of deer as it was getting dark, but couldn’t see any bucks. I was hoping the group would be holding a buck I just couldn’t see. As my dad watched, I stalked off the hill and closed to 100-150 yards. Things happened fast. The group caught some of my scent and started milling nervously. Then I saw a small forky, a buck I passed on. Then a taller 2x2 or 3x3 (I wasn’t sure at the time) joined the group and decided he would be a shooter. My dad watched it all unfold. I went prone with the bipod and backpack for support and fired my Sako 90, aiming for a high shoulder shot. The rifle is a 30-06, loaded with my 175 grain Barnes LRX handload. The buck leaped and bucked to the shot, and then went down a few seconds later.

Not as good a buck as any we got in Idaho, but dad’s getting older and after 20 years+ of hunting together, I was super proud to finally bring down a deer with him watching. And now my Idaho and Utah tags are punched!

It looks like he started the year as a 3x3 and now is a 2x3 after some fighting. There’s also a broken tip on the same side.

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