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Booshway
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Good deal congrats.....Smiler


The best thing about owning a dog is that someone is happy when you get home.
 
Posts: 959 | Location: Alabama | Registered: 09 December 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Factor
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Saw a lot today, but no shots. Tomorrow is another day. Congrats on filling your tag!

LD


It's not what you know, it's what you can prove
 
Posts: 3843 | Location: People's Republic of Maryland | Registered: 10 November 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Pilgrim
Picture of 1720Todd
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Thanks all. I hope to get back out tomorrow morning to hopefully take another.

Hope you all have good hunting!!
 
Posts: 88 | Location: Delaware | Registered: 07 January 2013Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
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Congrats Todd! No joy for me so far. Hunted sika opening morning, had them all around me in the phrag but never saw a hair. Eventually they caught my wind and splashed off into the marshes. Whitetails rest of the weekend, only saw one buck and he was 200 yards away. I'll work on the does this week for antlerless, then back to bow until I can use the flinter again in modern firearms season.

I'd had a four year streak going of nice bucks kill from my best ground blind during this October MZ weekend, I guess it had to come to an end at some point. Frowner
 
Posts: 429 | Location: Delmarva | Registered: 22 December 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Pilgrim
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Sika deer have eluded me my whole life. I have seen them and aimed at them, but just can't seem to get a clean shot off. They are true ghosts of the marsh.
 
Posts: 88 | Location: Delaware | Registered: 07 January 2013Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
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quote:
Originally posted by Osprey:
... Hunted sika opening morning, had them all around me in the phrag but never saw a hair. Frowner


Okay, I gotta ask: What is phrag? Also, you have sika deer in the Delmarva area? Introduced obviously, but you can hunt them? Or, are you hunting them on a fenced game reserve?
You do mean sika deer - from Asia and Japan, and not the Sitka black-tailed deer of Alaska?
I grew up in southern New Jersey and I've been all around the Delmarva area, but that was years ago. I've never seen a sika deer.
Just curious. Smiler


Know what you believe in. Fight for your beliefs. Never compromise away your rights.
 
Posts: 1296 | Location: Cherokee Land, Tenasi | Registered: 06 January 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Pilgrim
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Yes, we have the Sika deer from Asia. Small Elk, as listed by the Fish and Game, they were introduced to Maryland from Asia in 1916. They are wild (we have no game preserves here) and are all over in the marshes and swamps. However, their numbers are small in Delaware and they are classified as a non-native. Delaware wants to keep those numbers low.
They are extremely illusive. Only 2.5 ft at the shoulder and around 60 lbs, they fly through the marshes. Ghosts.
 
Posts: 88 | Location: Delaware | Registered: 07 January 2013Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
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Ah. Interesting. Thanks.


Know what you believe in. Fight for your beliefs. Never compromise away your rights.
 
Posts: 1296 | Location: Cherokee Land, Tenasi | Registered: 06 January 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Hivernant
Picture of Fincastle
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Osprey:
Hunted sika opening morning, had them all around me in the phrag but never saw a hair.

Yes please enlighten us if you will, what is the phrag? Is it the transition from woods to marsh?


A nod's as good as a blink to a blind horse
 
Posts: 143 | Location: Indiana Territory | Registered: 22 September 2013Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Pilgrim
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Phrag is what we call reed grass. Phragmites
 
Posts: 88 | Location: Delaware | Registered: 07 January 2013Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Hivernant
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Thanks for the reply, I learned something new today. Had never heard of it before. The only phrag (frag) I was familisr with was what I learned in Army.


A nod's as good as a blink to a blind horse
 
Posts: 143 | Location: Indiana Territory | Registered: 22 September 2013Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Hivernant
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Dang typos, sorry using my tiny phone keyboard.


A nod's as good as a blink to a blind horse
 
Posts: 143 | Location: Indiana Territory | Registered: 22 September 2013Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
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quote:
Originally posted by 1720Todd:
Sika deer have eluded me my whole life. I have seen them and aimed at them, but just can't seem to get a clean shot off. They are true ghosts of the marsh.


That's the problem, if you wait to see a whole sika you'll never kill one!! Most of the time it's so thick you only see parts of them, so take what they give ya.

Yes, as Todd said, we've got a pretty good wild herd here. Yakushima strain, started from five deer immported here and now are well over 15,000 in the wild. Mainly Dorchester County on the Chesapeake side and Assateauge/Chincoteague Islands on the coast. We can shoot a stag and hind (doe) in each weapon season.

Phrag is phragmites, common reed, an 8-10' tall marsh reed. We've got beds of the stuff covering hundreds of acres, the sika live in, bed in it, eat it and dissapear as soon as they step in it. Prevalent on open marshes and along the marsh/woods fringes. Sika love to keep their feet wet, so you'll almost always have phrag when hunting them around here.

Very neat animal to hunt, they bugle like a high pitched elk, make wallows and rubs, and rut a month earlier than whitetails. I'm normally kayaking in to most of the places I hunt them, primarily through tidal marshes. My personal favorite for hunting them is during gun season, walking marsh with a shotgun and buckshot. After all fall sitting in a treestand it's fun to get out and move for the day, although half the hunt seems to be spent climbing out of muskrat holes and spongy marsh.
 
Posts: 429 | Location: Delmarva | Registered: 22 December 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Pilgrim
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So this morning I was fortunate enough to watch a large 8 point trailing a Doe. I have seen this many times, but never in my yard. I was in our pantry, which has a window, and saw movement from the woods. Then I saw antlers. He had his nose to the ground, full rut attitude, and was in a hurry. The Doe was a little ways off, I spotted her later.
My house is 20 feet, on all sids, from the woods, so I had a front seat. He circled, then circled again, walked right into the yard about 5 feet from the window, then walked thru the side of the yard, turned and went back into the woods.
I watched for a good 5 minutes before he trotted towards the Doe. He was so stuck on her trail that he never saw her 30 yards away from him.
It's the little things that make life grand.
 
Posts: 88 | Location: Delaware | Registered: 07 January 2013Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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