moving to the mountains

Central Georgia is simply crawling with deer. The NC mountains have, by comparison, very few deer.
I hunted in central Georgia for 14 years, and I was killing 8 or 9 a year. I didn't hunt soybean fields, I hunted the thick woods and swamps.
I have hunted NC for 5 years, and have killed 3 deer, although the 8 point I killed last year was the biggest deer I have ever killed, field dressed at 205 pounds. I killed over 80 Georgia deer, and they averaged 110 pounds field dressed.
A good measure of the deer population is how many road kills you see. I lived 12 miles out of town in Georgia, and on a drive to town on that country road, you usually saw a fresh road kill every time you made the drive, especially in the fall. On that one road alone, in 6 years, I saw at least a hundred dead deer, could well have been 2 or 3 hundred, no use in counting, after a while.
I live way out in the woods in NC.
In 12 years I have seen 4 road kill deer.
Hell it was not uncommon for me to see 4 fresh road kill deer in one day in Georgia.
 
You actually need some skill to kill either trophy bucks or a large number of deer
Click to expand...

^^^ That is why the push for big rifles.

Why a 30-06? heck i ma thinking .50 bmg. Then you need no stalking skills or hunting skills for that matter. Heck you dont even need camo or a shower. :p
While we are at it, quit using the hunting word and sub in killing:cool:


A 20 will do the job just fine, unless you need to shoot way over yonder. This Year I took my little buck at 65 yards with an H&R Ultra Slug(single shot) He went 30 yards and expired. Visit GO2GBO.com read thru the H&R NEF section and you will several reasons for a single and a 20. Good luck.

Lonny
 
I've been eyeing the inexpensive ($235.00 @ Dick's sporting) laminate 870 pump in 20ga. It's light and compact. Add a rifled barrel, scope and sling for an all around good gun. You could hunt any bird, small game species or deer in N.C. with that gun. The remington copper solid slug in 20ga. is a 260 grain chunk of copper moving out at 2000fps. No slouch out to 100yards.

You must drop down into the piedmont/farmland region of N.C. to find the big population numbers. I've hunted yancey county quite a few times and sometimes went days without seeing deer. The area i hunt in central N.C. is overrun with deer to the point of last day of the season being a doe cull day. The farm we hunt had 5 hunters who dropped 6 does the last evening of the last day. Seeing 20+ a day in seperate groups would be common and i saw well over 50 on opening day of rifle. Almost all were does in the fields, early morning and just before sunset.
 
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ableammo.com
Remington copper slugs 20 gauge, $15.05 for a box of 5
Remington 150 gr core lokt 30-06, $18.50 for a box of 20

Johnny Reb I will take your word that this copper slug is good to a hundred.
Let's say it is good to 150 yards.
The 30-06 is good out to 300 yards.

If you want ammo that costs more than 3 times as much, and is good for half the distance, then get the 20 gauge by all means.
 
No doubt the 06' is the all around winner if it's being compared to any 20ga. load. YoYo never mentioned a rifle though and since i myself live in a shotgun only county in N.C., i thought i'd put in my 2pence concerning the gauge he was mentioning.

In Charlotte, i hunt with a mossburg 695 bolt 12ga. using the 360gr. coppersolid. 5 shells drop 5 deer unless you miss or lose them inbetween seasons. $10.00 at a local store for a box. No big deal and the knockdown power is impressive. If they allowed rifle i'd of course be using one.

If you are considering a single do it all weapon, a 20ga. pump would be 2nd only to a 12, imo..J.R.
 
Wait a minute, you are hunting in a shotgun only county in North Carolina?
I have hunted all over central Georgia, and in coastal S. Carolina, and in the NC mountains quite a bit. I never heard of a shotgun only zone down here in Dixie.
I thought they only had that rule up in Yankee land.
Well, if it is shotgun only the 20 gauge would look pretty good to me.

Where is this rifle-free zone? Do they allow muzzleloaders? How many such areas are here in North Carolina?

Anyway I do enjoy going to the range and burning up 20 shots, heck I might even burn up 30.
At $3 a pop that would get pretty expensive.

In fact I often take one of my military surplus rifles, shooting ammo I bought for 4 cents a round, that is some cheap bangs for the buck.
 
Probably not many counties in N.C. are shotgun only but "Mecklenburg" definitely is. It's made up mostly of transplanted folks from up north so i guess that law came down with them. Kinda dumb law as they allow us a normal archery season, a weeklong muzzleloader and then your choice of a shotgun/pistol session where you would be fine to use your 30-06 encore pistol as the law just dictates a pistol with a barrel length of more than 6 inch's. I actually did use a T/C contender 30-30 but found i really preferred the feel of a long gun for deer. So i found that for the areas i hunt, the mossy 695 does the trick. J.R.
 
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