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I found a thompson center 50 caliber grey hawk at a garage sale for 75 bucks. Gun looks new sidelock stainless barrel and furniture. Bore looks new. I put a set of fiber optic sites on it. I plan to take it to the range with patched round balls and pyrodex rs. If I can get it dialed in, I plan to use it for early ml along with my inherited 54 renegade.

I think I need help. All I do is think about food plots, mock scrapes, cover scents, land management, deer management, and count the days until opening day. If anyone out there exhibits the same behavior you to may be a hunterolic.

I tried a few kinds the ones arm rest are a waste,some were too low some too high.I found what works for me is a tree stump cut to a height that suits you with a hot seat on it,I can rotate 360 degrees and see out all of the windows and draw a bow. If I planed ahead I would have cut a tree down lower then the inside of the blind and put one of the swivel seats that strap on to a tree.I nave one in my tree stand and it works great.

Shooting is improving! We went 1 for 1 Wednesday. My son was stoked to see a big barred owl perched about 20 yards from us.

Will do. I'm heading up there this weekend. Just don't know if it'll be Sat or Sun. We'll hit the 3D course.

Good luck with it!

And the guy inthe boats casting right to shore and the shore fisherman casting out as far as they can..lol

We had an old frig for my bow deer to age in...I just skinned and quartered it and stood it up to drain...only thing in liquid was leg bone...Now I do that but put it on a grate in a huge chest cooler...then pack with frozen milk jugs and bags of ice.... we hang our deer when the weather is below 40...skin off in a deer bag...but the back straps are eaten right away...mmmnnn garlic butter and just brown..dang that made me hungry

I'm loving this thread actually. We are close to a 3rd page in less than an hour. The quickest dust up in a good while around here. LOL

For me the lack of food plots and such would not be an issue on state land, since I don't hunt over them on my private land either. I think what turns off many to public land is the unknown, which means you can scout a place out, pick a nice spot for yourself well in advance, only to find others there when you do hunt it, which then pretty much destroyed any or all of the plans you took the time to make. On private land you generally don't have such issues, which leads to a MUCH more enjoyable hunting experience. I know all state lands are not the same, but in the southeastern part of the state, a good many areas are like hell holes. You have land that is nothing but a bunch of cliffs and ravines that one would practically need a helicopter to yank a deer out of if a deer was stupid enough to actually frequent such a place and a hunter managed to kill it. Also what kills it for many who lose their private land is the camps and comradery that usually went along with private land hunting. In most cases hunting public land means either sleeping in a camper, a motel, or going back home to sleep, which is far from the traditional hunting camp experience. Some are lucky enough to have a camp close to public land, but I think that is more of the exception and not the rule. Honestly hunting on private land compared to public land are two different worlds. Tasting private land makes it VERY hard to go to public. P.S. And on public land I could very well be the one screwing things up for someone else also, if I happen to set up in a place that someone else picked out. I surely don't like that feeling either, so it's not only from my perspective that I look at this.

Most of the blood can be drained by gravity, hang it head down, that's how it's done with animal's in the slaughter house, they don't soak the meat to remove the blood. If you ever skinned a deer that's layed over night, you'll notice the blood pools in the meat on the bottom, it has no where else to go but to the lowest point.

Generally speaking, I agree that we do have some excellent opportunities, especially with all the state land that is available. On the other hand, I do get a little different perspective because I have been bow hunting for 47 seasons now and about 52 gun seasons, and almost all the hunting has been generally in the same general area and most of it even on the same property. The state land that I am hunting is the same that I hiked and hunted when I was a kid. In fact I hung out on that state land before it was state land. So I have had a pretty close ability to watch exact changes over a lot of years. Much of the private lands that I used to hunt have been locked up or built up. One observation that I have made is that the parcel of public land that I hunt was always busy and crowded during gun seasons. In fact much, much more so back 40 and 50 years ago. There were so many hunters that you could track the progress of groups of deer as they ran across the hill simply by the gunshots. Not so much any more. It has become a very quiet place with the possible exception of opening day morning. Bow hunting on the other hand is exactly the opposite. What used to have the atmosphere of a semi-wilderness hunt today is teaming with bowhunters, small game hunters, mountain bikers, and hikers, and the occasional illegal vehicle. Bowhunting has taken on a huge increase in activity since the advent of compounds, and bowhunter density has become quite heavy. The challenges of the non-hunting uses of state land have really made it difficult to find diurnal, patternable deer. It has taken special adaptations to stay effective and successful, but it still can be done.However, these kinds of changes have made people look down on state land to the point where a lot of hunters won't even consider public lands for bowhunting. A different thing has happened with public land gun hunting. The exaggerations of safety problems on public land gun hunting have been propagated to the point that hunters are convinced that hunting state land is a death sentence. Also these people are convinced that there are no deer there. They've all been "cleaned out" is the popular saying that you often hear. Both of these notions are false, but that cannot stop the popular mythology from spreading and even growing. Whenever I confess to hunting state land, I always get that sympathetic look, and then an expression of amazement that I am still alive. In a way that is not all that bad, but people are staying away from a very good source of hunting land options. No you won't find highly managed deer there ... no food plots .... no high fences .... not even real managed harvest selections. You will find occasional excesses of hunters, and the deer are a bit more careful about where they go and when. But for those that want to take the time to learn it all, and learn the effects of human invasions into whitetail habitat, there can be some fantastic hunting. But yes, you are absolutely correct. There are some excellent public land opportunities available here in this state that probably surpass an awful lot of other states. The problem is that it has all received very bad press and hunters seems to be swallowing every bit of it and avoiding these lands like they don't even exist. And so, perception becomes reality. For many budding hunters who are complaining about lack of places to hunt, these lands are automatically ruled out. Perhaps many disappearing hunters are leaving because of this. It's too bad, but you can provide all this land but if hunters are determined to believe that they are dangerous and empty of deer, then it might as well not even be there.

There is no way that enough licenses are bieing sold to spouses, kids, whoever that isn't really hunting to make up that big difference in sales. The licenses are just too expensive for it to be that wide spread. If you want to maintain that the same could be said though for buying additional license for bow. same concept i guess. Every year I hear the same talk about how our deer hunting quality sucks how gun season it too long. how we need to be more like the mid western big buck states. Well this will be my 26th bow season and my 31st gun season and I think our opportunities are fine. I also hear about how it is so hard to get access to property to hunt here in NY. We have some great state land and if you think access to private land is hard now, just hold on to your hat should we ever become one of the big buck states so many wat us to be. Take a trip out to Illinois, Iowa, south central Ohio and find public property to hunt ot find a landowner to allow you to hunt their property for free. not impossible but let me know how you make out. I can just see the threads years from now yearning for the good ole' days when we had land to hunt and how we would trade the 'quality big buck hunting' for some access to actually hunt.

Lol .... It really is fun watching these threads evolve. Sometimes it doesn't really take all that long before they become something that leaves you wondering what the original topic was. This is one of those. That's ok. I guess once everyone has said everything regarding the original topic, it probably is a good thing that people move on to other things.

I agree he is way cool... I was just asking because he is even more impressive if he's a 1.5 year old... for a 2 year old.. lots of points but not much else.. not quite as impressive to me.. honestly, I've seen nicer 2 .5 year old 8 pointers... don't get me wrong though.. he's still a keeper for the future.

Ok; but you know where to find me. On a positive note; there have been some real nice deer between 9 and 9G off a couple of the roads that cut through that area (did some work there this summer on a few places) Hope you get one. Good hunting.

I also enjoy buck commander but I enjoy chipper's new show 'Major League Bowhunter'. It shows how and why they are hunting certain spots. There are also episodes where they don't kill anything. It can be a little slow paced but very informative.

That statement just woke me from my day dream of a tatted up porn star shooting a 300" non typical while naked in my tree stand.....

Problem.... Half my day is filled with thoughts of farm bucks and tattoed porn stars.

Twins - The Movie

Here are a few from yesterday.........