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Back when I owned guns, I shot often. Now, I crochet every Wednesday.

I just looked at some of my old reloading data, and found a couple of letters that I had kind of forgotten. One was a letter from Bob Hagel, typed ( with an old fashioned typewriter) on an NRA letterhead, answering some questions that I had posed about loading for the 7x 57. It is dated Feb. 4, 1981.. The other is a letter from Finn Aagaard, answering some questions that I had about loading the .338 Win mag. It is dated April 4, 1990. Both letters are personally signed by the above gentlemen. Not STAMPED, but signed in ink. I'm wondering if the current gun scribes still take the time to do such things..

Nope. I'm gonna be the same A-hole I was the year before.

Wow; same shirt & pants a few years later.................. Comfort clothes or what?

Two Goats brewery on Seneca Lake serves Beef on weck , side of potato chips and a pickle spear That's the only thing they serve except for a few great beers and wonderful view of the lake. We stop every year on our way home from Ithaca.

A few pictures are worth a thousand words. 9' 2" wingspan, 3 HP 1.8 cu in 4-stroke Hemi engine THE BUILD THREAD Some video clips of a few of the engines that I use.

There are some bow hunters that feel the way the writer stated but to include all is BS . Plus the jerk wants to divide the hunting community by alienating bowhunters with the cross-bow , Ml and gun hunters . The guy has to be too stupid to not know that many of us hunt with 2 , 3 or all of the implements !

My sister is anti gun. Not the rabid in your face liberal type but the "why do you need that" head in the sand type. She often asks why I carry but its to the point where I just blow her off because there is no changing her mind. A couple years ago my nephew, her son., got into a car accident in a real bad section of town. His car had to be towed and he needed a ride. I picked up my sister and we headed out to pick him up. I intentionally drove through an even worse section of town, to get to the bad section to pick up my nephew. I remember my sister being visibly nervous and locking her car door. She finally asked me "do you have a gun on you?" I said "why do I need one?" I bring it up every time she give me crap about carrying and it sort go shuts her up.

I have a big problem with people killing & wasting game, that's traditionally used as food. Where that line is tho, is a personal choice. I mean, technically, we could eat coyotes if we for some deranged reason chose to. I kill lots of red squirrels, because I know they harass the greys, & I've been told they'll go into a grey nest & kill the young. I cut the tails off the reds, & leave the rest. Grey squirrel is my favorite game to eat, so I guess it's just a selfish thing I do, to ensure more greys being around. I have a tough time shooting woodchucks, because I don't eat them. I know they cause a lot of damage, but I don't like to kill them. I do shoot them sometimes, but it makes me uncomfortable. A little sad even. Predators I kill at every chance. Except, there was this coon that I trapped who I let go. She kept getting into the bird feeder, so I trapped her in a havahart. A lot of them hiss and snarl, trying to bite you if you get close. Not this one. When I grabbed the trap to pick it up, I accidentally put my hand where she could get to it. All she did was reach through the cage & grasp me by the thumb. She just held on firmly, & stared into my eyes. We had a moment, I guess . My heart melted, so I opened the door, & she slowly walked out, looked up at me & waddled back into the forest. I'll never shoot another crow. I have a lot of respect for how smart they are & they're pretty cool to watch. In general, I try to not kill if it I won't eat it, or if it's not causing trouble.

2 four ounce lobster tails , 2 eight ounce strip steaks , 2 twice baked potatoes , 10 shrimp and cocktail sauce , two pieces of cheesecake = $25. Was dang yummy too !

More tailgate fun............Dogs & Doves!

Dang......I love ketchup on my B-O-W. There is a place in Tonawanda called "Swiston's" that only has chili and B-O-W, no burgers or fries. As a matter of fact, I think I have a quick pic here......

Your options would have been beef-on-weck, or either sausage or meatballs from the pot of sauce. Stinky-feet Italian cheese or Miller's horseradish were the condiments available. They may have had mustard, but if someone asked for ketchup they'd get a spoonful of spaghetti sauce and a lecture. ;-]

Last night a buddy brought over beaver backstraps. Cut into bite sized pieces ,little dry rub and wrapped in small piece of bacon. Incredible ! And this was from a 65 pounder he trapped. ......insert jokes here......

My bobbin head feeder hen...

You're absolutely right about being quiet about it. It's a big part of the concealment. It's the only time I've ever mentioned it to an 'anti', and I'll never do it again.

This guy is not alone in his opinions. In fact I occasionally pick up on some of that attitude right here on this forum. It has been going on for quite a while ever since bowhunter success rates have crept upwards. A few published pictures of some dandy wall hangers has suddenly woke up a lot of gun hunters as to the fact that bow hunters do actually harvest deer and sometimes some pretty nice ones. For years, we were not taken very seriously, and so everybody just shrugged their shoulders when additional weeks were added to the bow season. There was a whole lot of "who cares" when we picked up more and more goodies as far as seasons and bag limits. This guy is a jerk, but he is really just putting into public words, the thoughts that more and more gunhunter-only people are thinking. It is occurring to more and more of them that we are not out there with just recurves and longbows any more. Ha-ha.. apparently the DEC is even beginning to buy into some of this attitude as they now think that bowhunters can handle the entire population control in some WMUs ... lol.

Slightly off topic but... A lashing rope will remove a lot of this anxiety and I'm not referring to those cheapo 1/4" ropes supplied, similar to all the other crappy hardware included with ladder stands. Do yourself a favor before erecting the stand and buy a thicker rope. Depending on ladder stand's height, usually takes 2X - 20-25' lengths of rope. Tie one end to top of ladder section, just below the platform on each side. Using your normal procedure, after you get the ladder stand up against the tree, rotated slightly if needed and get platform to appear to be as level as possible.,,run those ropes tightly around the tree and back to vert ladder sections near ~2nd rung of the ladder (on each side) and cinch it. Before doing this I'm hoping you've put flat rocks or a section of ~10"w/24"l PT plank under the base of the ladder. Or at least put all your weight onto the 1st rung and driven the ladder into the ground somewhat. I've also found that temporarily installing the horiz brace & attaching it with a ratchet around the tree. Criss-crossed back to each side of the ladder at ~5-6' high takes some more of the freestanding instability away. At times I've also gone up for the 1st time after doing all the above with a long ratchet strap run around the tree and each end in my hands. Cautiously going up the ladder as far as your nerves (or branches) will allow and then temporarily attach to ladder, again criss-crossing straps between the tree and vertical ladder sections. I usually make it to just below the platform when doing this. Trust me, I've venture up many ladder stands w/o any of the above precautions and it can be...nerve wracking to say the least!!! Prefer to not put my heart thru this adrenaline filled experience, so I take the time & added expense to do it in a safer manner.

2015 was not my best Hunting season/I did enjoy and had a great time being in the wood's.I have gained alot of good information for my hunting journal and will try to use some of what I have learned for next season.To all of my fellow Hunters/Huntresses Happy New Years.Thank You All

Here's to 2016! Hopefully you really cork 'em in the New Year, Dom. Happy New Year to you & yours.

Happy new year everyone ,the wife and i are headed to the hospital at 7:30 to get induced , what a big change from our plans last year.

I suppose I should have kept my mouth shut. She's an annoyingly loud liberal who married into a pretty conservative family. Sometimes I just get tired of tap-dancing around her PC school-teacher sensitivities.

For a moment I thought so too but the purple elephant told me I should be okay before flying away and I believe him. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Probably the best all around value & versatility in a moderately priced scope. I had one for years & loved it. I sold it to my son's friend for his AXIS II 7mm-08. It had one of those horrid "package" scopes on it. I sold it for him on E-Bay & he applied it to the price of my 3-9x40.

The warnings about Obama and his anti-gun goals have been out there since he first announced his run for POTUS in 2007. We get to these critical points in America because people fail to believe the predictions of the future that are based on obvious ideology. How do we get to these points in this country? By letting these issues go unchallenged until it's too late. After Obama is done ripping up the 2nd Amendment, Hillary will rip up the entire Constitution. The future is easily predicted from there, but deniers are in the majority right now.

Lots of folks using AR's for predators these days. People use M1 Garands and M1A's too. All bolt actions are adaptations of old military Mausers. Military rifles have always morphed into the hunting fields. There is no functional difference between an AR and a Remington 7400. Besides, an AR can not only hunt, it can be a lot more effective in other conditions where your lever gun will fall far short. The 2nd Amendment wasn't written to protect deer hunting.

Spiral cut ham, stuffing , and mash potatoes on this New Year's Day ! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The whole anti gun/ I don't think you need a certain fire arm, is more than kinda pompous.

Fade in. The family is sitting around the dinner table after the Christmas feast, discussing current events, and having some laughs. The youngest person in the room is 20 yo, and it's a pretty intelligent group of doctors, dentists, nurses, college students, etc. The subject of gun control comes up and my SIL makes a comment: "Only a crazy person would think they need to carry a gun everywhere they go." Without really thinking, I made the mistake of saying: "I'm not crazy, but I'm carrying a gun right now." Oops. SIL kind of flipped out, like I was somehow an immediate threat. She's a school teacher, btw. She asked to see it, and I told her no. (I wasn't going to make it worse.) She asked me why I was carrying and I told her it's like putting on socks in the morning, I don't give it much thought any more. ... Things mostly returned to normal for the evening, except for the icy stare-daggers from the SIL. My brother called me last night to say they had made it back to New Hampshire okay after their holiday excursion. He chuckled when he let me know that his wife is still seriously pi***d at me. He's a family psychologist, so he'll work it out.

You have to retrieve migratory game birds immediately and take them into possession: Second Sodus opener (Wayne County) With the weather mild and Sodus Bay’s water not iced over, ECOs Aaron Gordon and Kevin Thomas knew it was going to be a big second season waterfowl opener in 2013. The two officers set up in a discreet location and watched as approximately 40 hunters lined the shoreline waiting for birds to fly by. The officers checked over 130 ducks that came back to the boat launch and, for the most part, the hunters obeyed the rules very well. At one point the officers did watch a group of 10 individuals shoot several ducks, and then as they became busy with more ducks overhead they left the already dead ducks to float away. This group received tickets for “wanton waste” for their lack of effort to retrieve waterfowl they had taken. The full law regarding migratory game birds is in section Q under Title 6, here: https://govt.westlaw.com/nycrr/Document/I21bf3a8bc22211ddb7c8fb397c5bd26b?viewType=FullText&originationContext=documenttoc&transitionType=CategoryPageItem&contextData=(sc.Default)

The letter from Hagel was typed with an old non electric typewriter..Every few letters there is one higher and/or fainter than the others. Aagaard's letter was typed with an electric, but he hand wrote his return address on the envelope...Aagaard, Rt 9 Box 33B, Llano, TX 78643.

Mom was a good cook/house wife and from my trials of her meals I cannot make the same way even with the same ingredents always something missing YUP Her touch.I do enjoy but not the way she cooked it

I was being a wise ass just have not seen around in local store's.Funny how time passes and the way and what folks eat.Creamed chip beef is great I also like to eat it out of the jar before being rinsed.Must be a change in flavor from a glass jar and a foil package?

Here's one I had done with an open mouth back in 1995. I really like the open mouth poses.

I picked up a 12 of Sierras summer this past summer and was surprised how good it was. Just this week I picked up a 6 of the Nooner on way over to see my dad and it was a bit after noon so couldn't resist and we had one and pleased as well. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Birthday was 29th. Girls got me the DSD Jake to go with my upright hen. Stoked !

No sleep til Brooklyn!

Very interesting history of Leupold info there. A million lbs. of aluminum used a year and long standing employment of Americans. I think I will look at Leupold the next time I need a scope.

Ok, ya got me. I have to confess to killing rats at the dump and not eating them. I also have shot woodchucks and left them. We used to bowfish for carp and not eat them. I know there are those that hunt crows with no intention of eating them. Out west there are those that actually shoot prairie dogs, and I doubt they are particularly prized for their good table fare. I have trapped all kinds of animals, selling the fur and throwing away the carcasses or in some cases using them for bait. I did kill a coyote with no intentions of eating him. I have called and shot foxes .... again, no intention of eating it. I guess I further have to confess that I did all of that in a cold-blooded way without a shred of remorse. But then, we humans are not the only ones that do that. Back when I was a kid, we lost 22 head of sheep to some local dogs that simply went from one sheep to the next killing them for sport and never eating a one of them. I have seen the same thing with dog-killed deer. Our cat does the same thing with mice only she tortures them to death. Apparently the world is an evil place. Look, hunting is a nasty business anyway you look at it. We have justified it as claiming it is done strictly for meat, as if any of us are reduced to hunting for survival. We talk about hunting to balance animal populations, but I can't remember the last time I heard somebody say, "Well, I'm going to go out and control the deer herd now". There is something in all of us that enjoys the hunt and the kill. We are predators. And by the way, I'm not justifying illegal action as in the case of the pheasants. And I have always eaten every squirrel that I have ever shot if that serves as brownie points for forgiving my other wanton acts of killing. But I am not going to sanitize the act of killing wildlife by conjuring up excuses, and I am not going to try to come up with any kind of justification of shooting those rats at the dump. It I something that my primal ancestry coded into my DNA, and it is what it is.

I don't think any ethical hunter would approve of this. I won't shoot anything that I don't plan to eat or wear (except groundhogs, which I feed to the dogs). I know you should shoot every coyote on sight, but I just don't have it in me.

Thats, um, disturbing.

you mean brokeback? Never seen it and have no desire thank you very muchYou Can't Beat My Meat!

I stopped at a buddies cabin one time to pick him up to go to a pig-roast at another buddies cabin a few miles away. While I was there, we went back to his range, him with his cooler and me with my ML. After a few successful shots and several beers, a patched ball got rammed down the "powderless" barrel. After removing the nipple and pushing a little pyrodex in from the back side, re-installing the nipple and another cap, 3 or 4 times, we were able to get he ball to exit the bore. Lesson learned - save the beer until after the shooting. Fortunately, nobody got hurt and nothing was damaged. Another time I was sighting in my 30/06 on the range at the back of our farm, from the 100 yard bench. I walked over to the target, leaving the rifle on the sandbags, pointed down range. There was no one else around, so I assumed the it was pointed in a safe direction. When I looked back up-range, I saw a buck walk out of the brush, and right over to the bench. For a short time, he had his nose next to the muzzle. I hoped the gun was not loaded but you never know for sure, which is why you treat any gun like it is loaded. A picture flashed through my mind of him knocking the gun off the bags and it going off, hitting me. What a story that would have been. The anti-hunters would have a field day with that one "DEER SHOOTS MAN".

Blackstrap from a cow, rib eye. X-Calibur Lighting Systems http://facebook.com/XCaliburLightingSystems

So the last weekend of the season was pretty uneventful. Saturday my daughter and I got out to an area that has seen very little pressure this year. Its a large brushy area with horse trails carved out, and the deer normally bed in there and then stage before heading to the open fields to feed. We ended up seeing 2 does at about 200 yards, but had something down in a draw that I couldnt see spook them and they went back into a thicket without stopping. That was it for us that hunt. Sunday my daughter wanted to head back to the same place, so we did. We saw one deer, but it was too late to shoot. I really doubt I will go out next weekend, though the weather so far looks very promising. I might have to sight in the front stuffer and get out there for a hunt or two. We will see. If not, its ok, my freezer is pretty full already, and I cant shoot a buck if I hunt the farm anyway. I hear so many guys complaining about their season this year. Im not sure if its just that Im in an area with good deer numbers or what, but I feel like I had a pretty good season overall. I pulled most of my trail cams yesterday so that I can go through and replace batteries and move them all to food sources so that I can start getting an inventory of bucks that made it through the season. Ill get them back out this coming weekend. Theres two that I havent seen in a while that Im worried might have gotten taken by a neighbor we havent heard from, or went on an excursion and got shot. Time and cams will tell though.

Most of you speak of how evil the Democrats are and how they are going about ruining the country yet just today the Republican party, the party who wants everyone who will listen to their Fox News broadcasted nonsense about how they will do whatever it takes to protect America from terrorists refused to even allow discussion on a bill that would keep people listed on government watch lists from purchasing guns. Now tell me who is the real danger to America?

Opening day started out with my son and I getting up before the alarm went off because we were both so excited. I got everything ready to go and loaded up the truck while he helped out. We got down to the farm, and headed to the ground blind that over looks one of our food plots. When we get there, it dawned on me that I forgot our chairs. Not a huge deal, we sat on the ground inside the blind and made the best of it. We sat and watched the woods wake up. My son was having a great time listening to the owls hoot and wondering what made this noise and that. Before the sun came up, we saw a couple of deer cross the plot, about 100 yards out. He was excited to see some deer so quickly. Things slowed down for a bit, but right before 8 I saw movement in the brush past the other end of the plot and told my son to get ready. Does started pouring out into the plot, ending up with 9 or 10 standing out there, about 130 yards out. I turned up the power on my scope and watched the biggest doe mill around, waiting for a broadside shot, which she quickly gave me. I took the shot and hit her a few inches further back than I usually like to, but I knew it was a solid double lung hit. She took off on a dead sprint for the thicket to the North. I racked the bolt and scanned the rest of the deer. Most ran off and didnt offer a parting pose, except two, so I found the one that I knew wasnt a button buck and hit her right in the high shoulder, dropping her in her tracks. I looked over and the smile on my sons face, and light in his eyes was picture perfect. I put the safety on my rifle and sat it down and my son jumped into my arms with excitement saying "We did it Daddy, we did it!" After a few minutes, I gathered up my rifle and we headed over to check things out. The second doe was down, a young doe. My son checked her out as I started looking for the blood trail from the first doe. I found blood and asked him to come over and help me. I showed him the blood and what to look for and asked him to see if he could follow the trail. A couple of times he needed a bit of help to pick up the next spot of blood, but 150 yards later he exclaimed "There it is!" and pointed in some thick brush to the doe piled up. I was so happy that he picked up tracking that well. We headed back to the truck and hopped into the ATV, took it down and grabbed our gear out of the blind, and picked up the first deer and took it up to where the other one was and began to gut them. He helped out and thought it was the coolest thing he had seen. While I was in the middle of it, I heard running behind me and looked around to see a big deers behind disappear behind some brush. A few seconds later we heard a gunshot. About 10 minutes later, one of the other guys that hunts there walked up and said his brother shot a doe and they were dragging it to their truck. I offered to finish up my deer and pick theirs up with my ATV, so we did that. He told me another couple of guys had a nice buck down, so we went to check that out. As it turned out, the deer that went by Evan and I as I was gutting, was a 4 year old buck that Ive been watching for a couple of years. I had been calling him Hooks. He had run right to the guys, so I told them Id haul him out if they wanted, so we loaded him into the ATV. Ater I got all of the deer back to the trucks, I called my buddy and we headed over to where they were getting ready to do a few small drives. After the first drive, we ended up running into a father and son that had a slammer buck on the ground and they asked if we would be able to help them, since we had ATVs. We said sure, so my buddy took his wheeler back and came back after 10 or so minutes with the buck strapped to the back. Man, what a buck this kid had shot! We stood around and congratulated him and listened to his story. Turned out that morning he had gone to his primary stand, only to find that some douche bag had stolen his ladder steps for it. He then went to his backup stand and got in. Right around 8, the buck came up behind him and he put him down at about 80 yards. Talk about a blessing in disguise! Now, we have permission to hunt this place, but we dont because there are alot of issues with stolen stands, etc there. While we were congratulating the kid, one of the guys that has permission to hunt there showed up, and ranted and raved about how upset he was that someone else had killed "his" buck he had been after all season. During all of the cursing the rest of us just stood there in disbelief that this guy would act like such a classless jerk in front of the kid that had just taken the biggest buck he had ever seen. Im pretty sure we figured out who was behind the missing stands and whatnot at this farm. We did a couple more drives, and took a few does in the process. My son had a ball and we decided he was tuckered out a bit and ready to go sit for the afternoon. We grabbed some chairs from my buddys place and headed to the blind again. We ended up having a bunch of different foxes come through, as well as 2 does that hung out for an hour or so. I decided not to shoot, as I have plenty of cutting to do before I drop any more does. My son fell asleep in the blind, and I woke him up to leave at sunset, so there was plenty of light for the walk out. When I got to the truck and loaded everything up, my son came over and hugged my leg and said "Daddy, I wont ever forget this day! It was the best day ever.", which put a huge smile on my face. We got home and changed and hung the deer in the garage. Then we headed to a friends camp for dinner. By the time we left, my son was totally wiped out, and fell asleep before we got out of the driveway. It was, without a doubt, the best opening day of gun season I have ever had. Plenty of memories that will last a lifetime. Pics below... In our blind, ready for it to get light out First doe we walked up on On the trail Found her!

Weekend recap Saturday morning I headed to one of my stands in the swamp. Had 2 does bust out of the brush about 100 yards away at first light. No action after that. I hopped over to another stand, where I saw 3 does, all out of range at about 60. Ended up getting down and doing some scouting during mid day, and found a fresh scrape line in an area I hadnt sat in yet this year. Got up in a stand and thats where I was for the rest of the day. Ended up seeing 3 young bucks, one was a 2 year old 7 point that I have tons of cam pics of, the other two were a spike and a 4 point. Sunday I overslept a bit, so got down to the farm a bit late. Sat at one of the stands that overlooks 2 of our brassica plots. About 1/2 hour in, the wind shifted, and deer started coming out, and I got busted twice. I hopped down and moved to a stand at the opposite end of the plots. Ended up seeing 17 does total, none in range. My buddy picked me up and we headed to a new property to do a bit of pre gun season scouting. This property has not had any hunting allowed in over 10 years, and he and I were asked to knock some deer out of there, as the farmer had his whole 20+ acres of beans wiped out this year. Total loss for him. We drove over there and deer were in the one field, and allowed us to 20 yards away before they bolted. We will hang a couple of stands there for rifle overlooking both fields. Should be a turkey shoot. After that we headed up to the one farm and setup a second ground blind for me to take my son this year. He is super excited to go. Once that was all done, I hopped into my evening stand, and saw a ton of activity. Ended up having a nice doe headed to my shooting lane, only to have it spooked out by a yote that showed up. No shot at the yote either. Monday morning I got to the farm nice and early. It was a gorgeous, crisp, cold morning. I sat in a stand overlooking a plot. All morning I heard a ton of grunting, ended up seeing 4 shooter bucks and 5 or 6 smaller ones, 7 to 10 different does, could have shot one or two, but there was always a big buck present so I wasnt going to take those shots. The only deer that ended up in range when the big boys were gone, were a couple of button bucks. It was an awesome morning, most of the activity was between 8:30 and 10:30. For the evening, I sat in a stand my buddy and I setup a couple of weeks ago. Saw one small 4 point, and had him at 15 yards. It was a great day overall. Saturday sunset in the swamp Spike on Saturday Frozen brassicas Sunday Does in the plot Sunday Plots

wow, can they suck any more life out of what is supposed to be a primitive sport?

I want to kick the smoking habit for good this time. I also want to propose to my girlfriend this year.