I started off shooting the Barnes expanders out of my 54 cal Knight muzzleloader years ago. The results were impressive. When I bought my 50cal omega I shot the Barnes expanders, very impressive. The bullets are devastating to deer.
When the wildcat rifles were made legal, I bought a custom .358. Originally I was shooting a 200gr. Hornady ftx bullet out of it. Lame results. I switched to the 200 gr. Barnes and Bingo!!! 2016 rolls around and my favorite Winchester m70 243 is now in the game. It digests sierra 80gr btsp pushed by 37.5gr of imr 4895 well producing clover leaves at 100. A change in the recipe to an 80gr. Barnes resulted in 1" at 100. This combo was good enough so no tweaking was needed.
With this combo I head shot a doe and the results are self-explanatory. The buck that was downed was a 3.5yr old 12pt. He was slightly quartering away at 180yds. Double lung and heart were taken out with an exit through opposite shoulder. The blood trail was minimal due to small entrance hole. Being the exit hole was through the opposite shoulder the blood didn't have time to get from the chest cavity and out of the meat. He went about 15-20 yds before piling up. If he had gone farther I am assuming the blood would have started to pump out. The internal damage was impressive.
The Barnes bullet is a deer slamming pill. I have some 130gr Barnes for my 300 blackout. I will give the results after the antlerless season ends. Based on years of Barnage (Barnes carnage), I'm expecting good things.
I forgot to mention. My elk rifle is a Remington 700 7mm remmag. And you guessed it, 160gr Barnes is what it digests and yes the results are impressive.
So this year is the lowest harvest number for over 8 years.
2016 - 119,220
2015 - 123,664
2014 - 120,073
2013 - 125,635
2012 - 136,248
2011 - 129,018
2010 - 134,004
2009 - 132,752
Just a note 2012 was the first year that crossbows were legalized for everyone to use
Maybe they should consider reducing the number that we can take during the special antlerless season.It was also the first year of the late "special antlerless season"..
Maybe they should consider reducing the number that we can take during the special antlerless season.
I'm in Brown County and over the past few years I have noticed the deer population down about 20% based on sighting, signs and game camera pics. Coyotes numbers continue to rise in spite of efforts to thin them out. Rabbits, squirrel, and gamebirds also have declined in number recently.
Interesting reading all the comments here. Pretty typical from what I read and hear elsewhere too. Some complaining because someone killed two "small" does, much like the "serious" hunters bust chops when someone kills a buck they think shouldn`t have been taken. I learned a long time ago that what each of us kills is very personal, and it doesn`t have to suit me, so long as it`s a legal, ethical hunt. And some seeing more deer than usual, some less, most, probably about the same as every season. EHD takes a toll, and that`s usually in small pockets, and it seems to move acound the state, with a few areas seemingly more prone to be hit by it. Just as an aside, I`ve heard the rumors that get spread around as fact, like one guy said he was "told", that there were 50 to 60 deer found dead by different parts of Big Walnut in west central Indiana. The wildlife biologist I spoke with said as far as they could tell, that`s just one more rumor, but to encourage everyone to report finding like that, so the DNR can investigate and document it. I hunted 3 small farms, all in Putnam County. Two of the smallest farms in eastern Putnam had good sign, but the only deer I saw were the two my buddy killed opening morning of firearms with his 30.06, which dropped where they stood at 65, and 80 yards respectively. But the third farm I hunted with a different buddy just 5 miles further west of the other two, I saw probably 20 plus deer over the span of half a dozen hunts. That`s how it goes. There`s so much that plays into deer movement, and deer sightings, it`s difficult to compare one hunt to the next, much less one season to the next.
Just my 2 cents.