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What part of the panhandle are you in? [/quote]

Levelland/Spade area. I think I'm just catching the fringe of deer country. The good thing is, it's under 20 miles from my house, and under 30 miles from work, so I can hunt morning and evening without missing the prime times. The bad news is, they are muledeer and the season is only 8 days starting in less than a month.

Could be good. There is a gin about three miles away. They may be hitting it, but gins run 24/7 this time of year.

I made a corn trail from each corner toward the interior of the property and checked it yesterday. It was all gone but there were no tracks following the trail and no poop. The ground is kinda hard but I would have thought there would be more sign.

Having anywhere to hunt deer is better than having nowhere to hunt. When you see a deer, you may be surprised by the size of body or antlers, so be ready.

a corn trail? but what if they find it while crossing your property and follow it to the corner?






good luck man

Great point. The corners are near CRP and the area I'm hunting is all cotton field with little to no sign on it. The plan was that once they started hitting it to continue moving away from the edges toward the middle so that maybe they will frequent the cotton a little more.

i's just messin with ya man

I hope you're right. I'm really not sure what I should pass on and what I should shoot. I'd hate to take a buck that needs a few more years, but I don't what to expect out here. The only deer I've seen out here was a fairly mature looking doe. Bigger than most whitetail does, and I thought muledeer does were supposed to be small. Unfortunately she was a few miles down road from where I'm hunting.

Saw eight muledeer does in the CRP about 100yds from the property and the corn is disappearing. Just wondering if that's a good sign, or if eight does and no bucks is a bad sign. No does without a permit in this county.

If you add up the corn your are buying, you can get a really cheap deer feeder and fill it so that the deer are comign to it on a regular and timed basis. If ya lived way down south, I'd give ya one just to see ya get a deer

You don't have a tree, so can't hang a knock feeder... guess you could pick up a 55 gallon barrel and make one, but hell.. I am sure they have a cheap feeder for sale somewhere. The 99 dollar ones are plenty good enough.

That will give you something to watch at a certain time (i.e. set it for 5:45 am, 7:30 am, 3:30pm, and 4:30 pm) then sit back and watch them start coming in.

I set mine to 3 seconds, 1 second, 3 seconds, and 1 second... the second feeding is just to make them turn their heads if they walked away

Russ

Interesting turn of events. The farmer that gave me permission lives 5-6 miles away and gave me directions to the place. They were semi-cloudy so I thought I would go double check with him since the season is about to open. It turns out I was putting corn on the wrong cotton field next to the red house. I'm supposed to be on a field on the northwest corner of where I was. Good news is, there are deer tracks everywhere and this field borders much more deer habitat than the other one. Bad news is, I've been putting corn in the wrong place! Lol. From the looks of things my chances are greatly improved. It's a good thing I got clarification on the location. I had put corn out while they were picking cotton and nobody ever said anything, but with my luck, as soon as I showed up with a gun a GW and a sheriff woulda got me!

Mulies don't hit corn like whitetails. But you'll find the hog's in the area real quickly! That's whats probably eating your corn. With Mulies you stand a better chance of getting them to stop and graze a winter food plot such as rye or winter wheat. And put the food plot as close to the CRP fields as possible. That's where they are bedding down.

Throw out alfalfa. Muleys love it.

^^^^ sounds good from both of you. There is winter wheat on a turn row. I might put a little alfalfa out.

Set up over it... trust me on this. And since the Mulie rut isn't until late December, your best chance of getting a buck will be to stake out the does you've been seeing the last 2 days of Mulie season. They should be in a pre-rut pattern checking does by then.

I've always heard this, but I have a lot of pictures of a lot of mule deer at feeders. Never killed one at a feeder, but they will clean the corn up.

Spread it or leave it in the bale?

Setting up behind a well head 150yds from the alfalfa in the morning. How much before sunrise should I be there to keep from scaring them off?

Just slip in as quietly as possible well before daylight ,as they will most likely be there already . It may be a better evening spot.

Got my first buck ever!!! (I dont count any of my spikes, even though they require a buck tag)

Yesterday morning(opening day) after getting rained on for two hours and not seeing anything, I climbed into the truck to warm up and get the raindrops off my scope lenses(didn't have lense caps to fit this scope). I sat in there glassing till about 10:30, and found a pair of deer about a mile off...no idea if they were bucks or does...then I notice four deer milling around in the cotton field I was hunting. It looked like they were looking right at me, so even in the truck I was pretty still. I saw one buck and was trying to decide if he was a shooter. His rack wasn't vary tall, and looked similar to a small eight point whitetail while broadside...then he turned to face me! Whata spread!!! He was the widest deer I've ever seen in person and here I am stuck in a truck while he's looking at me. I watched through eight power binos for a while, contemplating wether I should try sneak within range of them with a 4X scope on a .243(my plan had been a 100-200yd shot rested on a wellhead to a bail of alfalfa) or to go home and grab my F-class gun with a bipod and a mat for a little insulation on the ground, and hit the range and sight the thing in at 500yds and figure out some come-ups, then come back that evening. I decided that they didn't show up till I would have to leave for church on a Sunday or work on a weekday limiting me to next Saturday as my only remaining day with good timing, and with this cold front it might be my only shot, not to mention it was the first buck I saw on the place, and only the second time I had seen deer. I opted to try to sneak within range. I was parked on a turn row with a terrace about 18" high on my side and 36" high on their side. I eased outta the truck and crawled along the terrace, popping up occasionally to make sure they were still there. After about twenty minutes I decided my movement was making them nervous. They looked might close through 8X binos and mighty far through my 4X scope. I almost always use a 6X and I think both were throwing me for a loop. I decided that deer was probably around 300yds, put the X at the top of the back and squeezed one off. They scattered and started looking around. I knew I didn't shoot over him, and I realized that if they were far enough away not to know where the shot came from, they were OUT THERE. Put the X a foot over his back and dropped another one at him. He jumped up on his back legs, and came down with a hump in his back. I had put the X a about a foot behind the shoulder because we had a bit of a crosswind, and now feared that he was gut shot. When he landed back on his two front legs he took one shakey step and drooped like a sack of potatoes. Whata thrill! I got over to him and came back to earth a little bit. He had looked a good bit wider in the binos, and I was probably putting background cotton sticks in his rack. Lol. He looks pretty old and is nearly toothless. I figure he probably had a better rack last year. Only had one brow tine so he's a 7pt with a 22" spread. No record book deer, but I'm still proud! He had a ton of meat, guessing between 200 and 225 field dressed. I'm a big piece of boy and he was quite a struggle. I had a lot of fun, made a shot I'm pretty proud of after under-ranging him. I never would have thought that a 400yd shot without a rest using only a .243 with a 4X scope was going to end well. I need to google earth the range, but it turned out to be somewhere around 400. The bullet hit him in the right front shoulder, slipped between bones, then entered the chest hitting a rib, making the lungs disapear, hit another rib on the way out and broke the fromt left shoulder...no exit on that shoulder. After getting to him and looking back to where I was, I should stood straight up and walked to where I shot him from, then crawled to within 200. Lol. Anyway, I'm pumped, we had rump steaks last night and it tasted better than any whitetail I ever shot. Next year I'll try to scout a little more to know what's out there and what it looks like in the bino's and maybe I'll take one with bigger antlers. Still, shooting an old one was a good thing, shouldn't impact the herd much. Thanks for all your help. Good luck to you all.

Congrats!!!