With the storm blowing through and working out in this heat all summer, I am ready for a late October cool morning and the crunch of some dry leaves ! It always amazes me with both hunting and fishing both, when it's good- it can be REALLY good and then other times you are ready to consider other hobbies. lol. The main thing is to just ride out the slow times not quit. This buck is a very good example of one I would have loved to gotten a shot on many times in earlier years. I wanted to see him go 1 more year and I had just whacked a monster the week before about 1 mile away from this spot so that helped curb the itchy fingers a bit. Nice slow stroll through about 12 yds away...
Stickers
If you think just looking at deer pics is hard during the off season , try editing film from the past season! It will drive you crazy with anticipation of the new season. Got some really, really good ECB videoed hunts coming up this year from past couple seasons that have never been seen, by anyone. ALL BOW in MARYLAND and VIRGINIA. For new folks, this is all self filmed BOW hunts. Also remember all these FULL HUNTS are over on the
East Coast Bucks -youtube channel. NEW releases coming next month. May add in a couple prep/scouting videos as well that show how to break down huge public tracts and private also.
One of these days I will hopefully have time to prepare a little better to capture some of this Turkey action. Got camera? Check. Got tripod? Check. Gun? Shells? Yeah, enough of the 20 questions. Let’s go blast this dude! Lol. There he is, hit record. Red light-SD card full ! FM! Proceed to whip out the dang cell phone which takes horrible video when trying to focus on something thirty yards away, through leaves etc…. Anyhow, that one didn’t get clipped but ran back to the house and grabbed another sd card. Ended up calling up another knucklehead fairly close. Good times!
So you want to try and self film a bow hunt. Welp, it is definitely extremely exciting but also frustrating at the same time. You will flat out miss out on many really good chances, on some good deer. Doesn't look that hard right? HA HA! Take this nice chocolate racked opening day buck that came in on me from my downwind side. Basically a chip shot with several openings as he passed a mere 5 yds under my stand. Now the problem being- the camera arm was set to film deer out in front of me on the other side of tree! Sure I was able to get spun around to film this cool looking buck stroll right under me without a care in the world but there was absolutely no way to get a shot and film him with only seconds to get spun around. Now in the old days before I started fooling with cameras, this was a very typical encounter with many of my bow bucks. With nothing but the shot to think about, this dude would have been in big trouble. I elected to film instead of just shoot him, with the hope that he would circle out in front of me for better camera angle that I could shoot on also. I ended up shooting a different buck, around the same size out of this same tree, 3 days later. Bow Hunting is hard enough just on it's own but throw a camera in the mix and you have created a whole other level of difficult.
I know turkey season is on tomorrow here in Virginia but I just wanted to touch base on the reason for the name
EAST COAST BUCKS. This is my number #1 passion. Even though I love to bass fish, turkey hunt and weight train- I would pick bow hunting these eastern bucks over all else and have many times. Some of my exes would surely vouch for that! lol. Although ECB may seem new to some, I actually started the ground work, a lifetime ago. With videos I shot for the past 30+ years as a solo video/bow guy. All these short previews you may see on here are just clips of FULL bow hunts, with most showing full impact shots. I am not a "professional" hunter as I earn my living swinging a hammer. However I absolutely know what I am talking about and showing. So what makes me any different than all the other video series? Many things but probably the #1 is that I don't do this for "sponsor promotion" or influence other than to promote ECB. This is why you never see hash tags and commercial clips etc... All these hunts are from the Eastern States. I do not go on guided deer hunts and prefer to do it as many of us have. DIY bow hunting on anything I can get permission on, within a few hours of the house. Along with some public as well. I will share things that I believe sometimes work. IF- they actually work!
Nothing like getting woke up by one of these suckers! Happens several times a year to me. The last one ripped brand new seats out of my other boat and was much bigger.
Full videos on the East Coast Bucks youtube channel. Subscriptions free with all new content coming on a regular basis very soon. This piece of woods that I still hunt fairly often, is a huge swamp bottom with just a strip of high ground available, right next to the highway. That is what you hear in the background. This piece is approximately 500 acres yet the cruising bucks prefer this thin strip, right next to the road. I have seen this a lot. That road gives them a hard line to cruise . Just because you have a big patch of woods to hunt, doesn't always mean they will be way back in the deepest sections. I was actually getting ready to pack it in on this hunt because I needed to get to work. I held out a little longer because it was such a nice, cool morning during the early rut. We all know that trail we expect them to come down but usually they surprise us and come from a different direction. This dude just appeared like a mirage in the bright morning sun, exactly where I had been looking for hours. That moment to me, is the what I chase on every hunt. Is this buck a "record class buck"? Of course not but he is a shooter in the East, all day long in my book. Especially considering self filming a bow hunt.
Shout out to all the anti's who constantly chime in to wish me well and tell me what scum I am! lol. Especially from England. For some reason those dudes really get their panties in a bunch over hunting. Oh well, this new video from last year really shows how ashamed I am of whacking just a regular ol' 8 for the 100th or so time. I can hardly contain the grief these days and don't really even get excited anymore! HA HA. I have just as much love and drive for this way of life as I did when I was 10 years old leaning up against a tree waiting on any deer to walk by!
This NEW- FULL Bow video and many more coming soon. Already seen all the ECB videos? Some may have seen most of the ones that I have put out but that isn't even half of them! In reality we are just getting ready to crank it up a notch. I have not done anything at all with the youtube page this year but that will be changing, very soon. ECB was designed to give a inside perspective on how a regular old school bow hunter goes about chasing these Eastern Bucks.. It is not at all about being solely a "Trophy" hunter. In the East, we have very liberal deer tags and get to take multiple deer in a season. This is what I like to do - SHOOT BUCKS with a bow! Are they all record class deer? Of course not. In the East, most of us go by -"shooter" or not. Yes, a lot of us try to make smart decisions on which ones to let go a few years etc.. but we are not hunting fake- T.V. deer farms. This is the real world and we are hunting in HIGHLY pressured woods etc...All that being said, we still come across some very respectable bucks also. When people ask me "Are you a Trophy Hunter?" My answer is always NO, I am a Eastern Deer hunter who occasionally shoots some nice bucks and I try to film it all, at the same time.
Turkalations#2
Turkalations #2- So you went Turkey hunting at the crack of dawn and you never heard a single gobble once they flew down off the roost? Now your texting me at 9 A.M. just as I start to head in to the woods. explaining to me how the birds are not acting right yet, even though your a 3 time world champion caller! lol. Just giving my buddy a hard time but there is a VERY valuable truth in this turkalations chapter. My favorite way to Turkey hunt is run and gun.
I do not use decoys, I do not use blinds and I am definitely not the greatest caller. However I generally fill my turkey tags in 2 states, fairly quickly. If you like to cover ground and I mean a lot of ground! Your best chance to get a long beard is AFTER 9 and most of mine have been around 10-12. You will definitely hear more gobbling early but if you can get 1 to fire after 9, usually you can work him in and most times they are the bigger birds. AGAIN-since this is social media I must stress- Not telling anyone how it should be done. Just stating facts from many, many encounters. Goes back to chapter #1- old school basic hunting tactics are more essential than being a "EXPERT" caller. Of course it helps but not the #1 factor.
While clearly not my best video/work, ya gotta play the cards your dealt in the deer woods! Having forgot my battery for my newer camera I had to rig up a old 150.00 dollar camera I always carry in my hunting pack just for situations like this. I have fell in a creek with this camera dropped it from many trees etc... and it definitely is crappy but it at least still can tell the basic, timeless story of old school run and sling kind of bow hunting, that I have always done during the rut. Stay out of these sweet spots until the time is just right. Then go in early, hang stand, get grunt call ready and get ready for some action! Now of course you have to have a good idea of where you want or need to be, for this to work best but I don't run any cameras on these special cruising areas because I want these deer to be completely un aware. I have also used this tactic on evening hunts in new properties and on public without any prior scouting- just walk till you find what looks and feels right, set up and see what happens. You would be shocked at how well this can work versus places that get constant intrusion from over scouting etc... I would say conservatively, I have taken many dozens of EAST COAST BUCKS just on this tactic alone with the Bow.
Old 8 shot release
I am posting this quick little clip of a typical, real life video on a old 8 that I had hunted for several years. The reason I am posting it is to show something that I learned from watching a few over the back cam clips of my hunts and it gave me the idea that this may actually help some newer bow hunters or maybe even any bow hunter who hasn't done it. Even if you are not into videoing your hunts, try this tip 1 time and I bet it helps you on future deer shots. Set up a over the shoulder draw camera or phone-whatever and try to click it on prior to your next shot on a deer, any deer. Doesn't matter if you get the deer on camera or not. This tip is to get an idea of what you do under pressure on a live shot. You may pick up on something you had no idea you did and something you may never do when target shooting. For me I realized as with many of us, we immediately revert back to how we learned to shoot a bow. For me I learned shooting traditional bows and have always shot fingers and always will. So my release style is quite different than what I see from many. It is something I never even thought about but has helped me understand those times when I wished or wondered why I didn't hit exactly where I would have if shooting a target. I tend to canter a bit and have a relatively fast release even though it seems like minutes in my head waiting to release the arrow. In my earlier years I got so used to shooting bucks on a walk and even a fast walk because I always just hunted travel pinch points etc.. and they were usually very close. I have learned that sometimes I need to slow it down more if possible. Now I did get this particular buck and actually had a reason for the quick release. I had him facing me for about 5 minutes and was waiting for the brief shot window when he raised his head and turned to go away exposing that behind the shoulder area. The shot was not perfect but not bad either. Anytime you hit 1 that penetrates anywhere through the rib cage, you
Maryland-Mid January
Cool little scene on a very windy and cold January evening hunt. Now just need the bouncer to roll in and break this little skirmish up! I believe this is how a lot of these bucks knock off 1 side of there racks around this time of year or even both sometimes. I personally have witnessed more fighting in January both live and literally on every camera card pull, throughout the month of January. Now it is not always a knock down drag out fight but they get in to it a lot over food. If the big dog rolls in you will learn who runs that patch of woods real quick. The big boys don't do light sparring much this time of year. They play to win and will broadside smaller bucks to run them away, as I have seen many times.
Late 8
Late January-BOW, Md.
Hunting the extreme late season is so different than any other time of the season. These bucks have seen it all, heard it all and of course-smelled it all. To be successful at this time of the year on a mature buck with the bow requires some serious attention to detail. Wind is always the main factor but during late season, a bucks vision is also a major consideration. This buck is in what I would consider wide open hard woods. Now I normally would not even be hunting anything this open but in this particular piece of property, everything is this open for several miles. Bucks will move during daylight, even in these open woods if you are along a normal travel corridor. Meaning-even if you are hunting corn in a area with minimal pressure, if it's not in a area he normally would travel through, he most likely will never show during daylight. Now some spots have no pressure at all so it is a bit easier to catch them moving during daylight but that is rare.
Saturday, January 13th 2024. As wise old man told me many years ago-"Don't just talk about it, be about it!" No sooner did I write a couple post about getting right on top of them with the bow, that exact scenario goes down for me as it has happened countless times. Brand new property I gained permission on Friday morning, walked this piece Friday mid-day, hung stand Saturday mid-day and this went down on first sit. I have hunted another piece right down the road for 20 + years and always heard so many gun shots coming from this area that I just assumed it was covered up with gun pressure and apparently it is but I found a few areas that they could escape this pressure with some really thick/swampy cover right next to it. Anyone who hunted Saturday knows there were 40 mile an hour wind gust. These are only clips or sneak peaks folks. Raw, unedited footage. Meaning they are not full edited videos so you will hear camera noise etc... because I haven't went through it all and tweaked everything. I actually had some clown constantly complain about this. There is a thing called a volume button bud-use it! If not, just don't watch. Nobody is twisting your arm there slick. As they say- you ever notice the people who love to tell others what you shoulda, coulda done are often completely clueless? There is a reason you don't see multiple # tags and sponsor shout outs on here. I don't do this to try and appease people or tap dance around there delicate feelings. This is for like minded folks who understand or at least are interested in seeing real life bow hunting scenes. I don't do many things right and I am fully aware, that's the point! No one does but I will definitely tell you what I believe in and things I know to be fact. ECB is definitely not for everyone and never was meant to be.
Up close and personal. I couldn't tell you much about the few that I have shot over 40yds with the bow because they never really stuck in my head but I can remember every detail of the vast majority that were under 20 yds because that is what lit my fire for bow hunting. Just something about being that close gives you the sense that you won that chess game. Whether you shoot or pass. Especially if you can capture it on video.
Virginia Mack 8-BOW
Whack Em' Wednesday. No that's not a tracer round!
Virginia Mack 8-Bow-Self Filmed
Short little trip back to a place I call "Smoketown!" Smoke em if you got em. Nothing like a quartering away bow shot.
Welp I will end 2023 with some classic Maryland late season action from this past week. I realize that some folks are only used to hunting Va. or wherever and not familiar with what is and isn't legal in other states. In Maryland-you will find a corn pile behind just about every tree! lol. Perfectly legal on private land but ask anyone who knows what they are talking about and they will be the first to tell you it can be a blessing or a curse. Definitely not always the best tactic but during late season, any good food source is a no brainer. If you enjoy this page -then I ask you respect it. That means whether you agree with something or not, if it is legal -Do Not disrespect anyone on here about tactics, weapons etc.. etc... It is well known that I personally only Bow Hunt 99% of the time throughout all seasons. That being said it is also well known that I absolutely can not stand Cross Bows! lol. BUT! I respect everyones LEGAL right to use them where and when legal. The videos on here are the real deal of exactly how it goes down in this region. Good and Bad. Happy New Year! and I wish everyone the best luck this year-even Cross Bow hunters! lol.
Rico Suave
Man it doesn't get much better or current than this. Straight out the stand from yesterday. I may need to get my head checked after this one! Perfect set up, perfect wind, plenty of camera light-just couldn't be sure about this 1. I know he is definitely a 4-1/2 year old and just a gorgeous, dark/heavy/tall 8. Especially for late in the year when most are white racked now. This is just a preview clip that I had to share because this is how I wish they all came through!
