Holland - you are right, there is usually a guy or two with a story of a guy he knows who is married to his third cousins sister in law that accidentally spilled some scent on his jacket and was violated repeatedly by some monster swamp buck. Story, Lie or fantasy - hard to tell after he had his 9th Brandy and water.
Westberg - we hunt 30 Miles North of Hibbing in the Bear River area and have had years when we see a few larger racks, but not so many lately. We had big issues last year with Wolves - seemed to have run off the deer as the harvest number were way down in our area. I think the DNR is compensating this year by making us an intensive harvest area. We are taking alot of smaller deer and noticing that most are fairly fattened up but others are pretty slim and not likely to make it through the winter.
We used to limit our shooting to bucks only but I think that added to the overpopulation by allowing those does to reproduce without being checked. The freezer suffered also.
Anyway, thanks for the photo's. We also have the fully enclosed stands - some say too cushy, but when you are out there an hour before sun up to half hour after sundown, it makes for a long day standing on a 2x6 nailed to a pine tree - spent too many years doing that. I like the idea of marking the shooting rail with distances to give you some idea of how to adjust your shot if need be.
I also tried the Southern Mn deal where you post guys on the end of groves and then drive deer - that is EFFFen Crazy- 2 guys we hunted with showed wounds they recieved from years of doing that. One guy lost 2 fingers on his left hand from being hit with a skipping slug and another guy got hit in the thigh when a slug ripped through some brush and still had enough energy to tear into the top layers of his thigh. I didn't like the feeling of that situation at all. Course being a tree Blind guy my whole life I suppose you have to get used to it.