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Not giants, but perfect for eating. Jr was 1st on the board, as usual!

I'll release these back to the water in a couple days

I fished 3 different Cohocton tribs.. Caught 2 fish from each stream.. My best fish was was 18 1/2 ", followed by a 16 " and 4 fish from 11-14".. All pretty, full colored wild browns.. I put them all back.

Well let me be the first to admit that I'm not the best bow shot by any stretch. While I do well on paper out to 40yds, that doesn't always carry over into the field with me under hunting conditions. I guess I'm one of the lazy bowhunters that doesn't have to time or desire to spend months pre-season preparing on paper or foam practicing long range shots. For me at least, my proficiency with archery gear has increased by shrinking my personal maximum range on game drastically. That has translated to my bow never coming off the hook on what some here would consider slam dunk opportunities at 25yds and beyond. I've learned that I'm ok with that, and will have to sacrifice a few shot opps every year because of it. I've lost my share of deer over the years by trying to force shots I should have passed on or waited for them to close the distance. I've got a pretty good streak going these last 1/2 dozen seasons or so, and I see no reason to try to extend my range again.

He let this one go. You might recognize that spot, Larry. The boy's a pro!

I was going to start a "mountain lion" or "full Xbow inclusion" thread . But I'd rather be original .

Just add water ! Seems all I can find are dinks this year, well one could say it's harder to find the small ones I guess ! Walked about 2 1/2 hours found these 3. All along hedgerows 2 maybe 20 feet apart .

My neighbor at Camp, sat over one of our food plots at the sunrise of Saturday, March 12 with his Nikon camera and snapped some cool pictures. A few bucks with what looks like new growth already starting, and the 2.5 yr old 9 point still holding on to his head gear.. pretty neat pics i thought.. so i had to share

Not forever, just until the full inclusion bill passes. Then, hopefully we can all move on.

Ha-ha-ha .... looky here, we have just fought the crossbow battle all over again. We could have saved a lot of time and went back into the archives and copy and pasted the jillions of threads that have already been posted for the last bunch of years. Funny how none of the discussion has changed a bit over all those years. Same old points and insults and remarks. This is an endless argument that really has absolutely nothing to do about the weapons involved. It is really about mind-sets and attitudes and individual reasons for hunting. And since we are all individuals, the debate will go on forever.

I'm gonna have to have a good long talk with her tonight when she gets home! I've been wooried sick... but I'm glad to see she was in good hands,lol

agreed, I try to just eat the put and take trout as I know they won't holdover. Especially in Harwood lake it gets to be a hot tub in the summer

Saw this one on tv this morning.

I was getting an actress crush on Lagertha, but then I saw what she did to her new husband. Kind of soured me just a bit..

Nothing today....I'm home too, but I get to pack for a trip so vacation has started! In the past.... Had one helper sharpen 10 common nails with a file (he would have done the whole 25lb box but the boss/owner showed up, dumb as a box of rocks, a week later he nailed 3 fingers together with a gun) Had another sharpen drywall screws with a 2" long stone (he got thru about 2 lbs) Had a guy carry a 10' Tapco 3 sheetmetal break up 3 sets of stairs when i told him go to the trailer and get me a "board stretcher". It was his choice that the break must be it. Got to weigh north of a hundred lbs I'd guess. Gave one kid a 12 ounce hammer to drive hanger nails. Hey they are short nails so you need a small hammer, got through the better part of 2 5lb boxes before it broke (into doug fir too) Makes me want to sneek over to the job site and mess around with someone. HA! I won't see that dump hole for a month.......

Those damned French with their cross-bows !

And not one of the new regulations will stop you from pushing yourself to whatever level of difficulty you choose.

Yelling Goat Loaded nachos with skirt steak and a great za. Roasted chicken , fiery chipotle peppers sautéed in adobo sauce , mozzarella, sweet corn , cilantro and cheddar.

As far as Im concerned , if you want to use an X bow..go ahead. I really don't care that much. But I think that most pro X bow people have a problem admitting that the reason why they prefer them is because using one is easier than using a regular bow.

Wooly is my HERO ! I'm just wondering if he wore his shorts while shed hunting today....

Fish cleaning fuel

Five or six years ago I had a Gladius Snow Falcon land in a tree in a hedge row about 200 yards down the field. I'm watching out the window of the house with binoculars and my wife pops in. "What are you looking at". A Gladius Snow Falcon" I replied and handed her the glasses. "Oh its beautiful" she said immediately. Then quiet set in. She's focusing. "No. It looks like a white bag". I roared laughing. "Glad makes bags, the bag is white like snow and it's as big as a hawk. Hence Gladius Snow Falcon.

There is a tone of public land that is hardly hunted. Especially after opening g weekend

Still better than being at work!

Funny, i don't remember one story over the last couple years about a crossbow hunter ruining an opportunity of a "real" bow hunter.

Arrows touching at 20 yards is a 60X 300 perfect score on a NFAA round. Are you saying that should be the minimum for hunting?

I wasn't going to go but a friend mentioned breakfast and I folded faster than superman on laundry day. We have a few brookies, good eats later

I shoot in an "animal" league at Neil's Archery in Endicott in the winter and I'm fairly consistently the highest scorer on our team of 4. 12 weeks, 15 arrows each at 10, 15, & 20 yards and we shoot at paper targets with an illustration of an animal. Out of the 4 years I have done it we have taken 2 3rd place finishes, a 2nd place, and last year we won, beating out the team that usually wins every year with a staff shooter who shoots 5 league nights there Monday through Friday. I then shoot in august, September, and October...maybe 50 arrows/week. When I shoot at home, I shoot from 20-50 yards and I can group 3 arrows at a time within a 6" circle out to 50 yards with an occasional flyer outside that ring (at the 40-50 yard marks). I would like to think I am proficient but we all know shooting at paper and shooting at a deer are still two very different scenarios. Never had a chance to shoot at a buck (I have always passed does in archery but changed that this past season and never even saw a doe lol) that was stationary feeding; Have had to always try and stop each one to shoot. I know for a fact my proficiency decreases a good amount in the deer woods due to weather conditions, open shot opportunities, adrenaline, etc. To me, the best I can do to increase my proficiency is to keep shooting the league in the winter and then when I shoot at home, shoot many arrows out at 40+ yards. This way, when hunting, the idea is to have muscle memory help on the shot at a real animal and when I take my usual 12-25 yard shots, it looks like they are much closer! But of course, everyone has bad shots eventually. You are right, it is very difficult to measure proficiency. I never take my shooting for granted, always pushing to jam 3 arrows together at my furthest practice pin (50 yards). When I can shoot 3 arrows at 50 yards and robin hood every one, I will tell you I am very proficient.

Unless you are on one of these hunting shows that portray unrealistic hunting expectations, ya know, the ones where a 180" deer walks out in broad daylight, completely uncaring that the hunter and cameraman are talking and moving and gives the hunter 5 minutes to range find him and wait for an ideal distance.......then you don't need one. Don't get me wrong, you have to know distances, but actually range-finding a mature deer prior to shooting it is extremely difficult. I, like other people have made comment, range find all the objects around me and are prepared for any shot before the deer actually arrives. There is no chance I am going to risk additional time and movement range-finding a mature buck after it comes in range. My largest bow deer to date, my 151" in my avatar snuck in behind me and gave me zero time to do anything other than shoot. I knew he was 38 yards because he was standing in front of my 40 yard tree. Had I not known that info and needed to range-find him, I would be telling you the story of the big buck I saw walk by.

Nobody ranges houses with theirs?

I know a guy who only shoots one arrow per shooting session . Bow by back door , shoots when when he gets up, leaves for work, comes home and so on. His thing is it's easy to walk an arrow in after seeing where the first hits . Like golf you get one drive, but guys go to a range mess up the first one then adjust and do better, but in reality that first one is the only one that counts.

Pretty cool he got a shot of that buck still packin' before the fog lifted! That was a nice reward for his effort! I give him a lot of credit. It's not always easy getting out there at the crack of dawn post season in hopes of bringing home a few pictures. Sweet shots!

I'm sure if any of us had the money to hire the best guides wherever we went anywhere in the world we too could post pics like Don Jr did and all who read about our accomplishments afield would think we were great hunters too. And I wiil admit I am no fan of Trump I think you missed the point of the article ,it was not meant to show what great hunters they are just to show that in this election sportsman have an ally in Trump .Can't we as sportsman just enjoy what others post as far as their hunting exploits instead of mocking them ? I am sure if anyone saved for a guided hunt they would be able to do it too,it may take time but it is within reach.

Pics man, pics! Going to the Redwood for breakfast ? I would...............

So now we have to try to fool kids into thinking that all hunting involves nice warm pleasant days watching all the pretty colored leaves and enjoying the solitude of a dead-quiet woods. How long do you think that little charade is going to last when they get a taste of the real thing .... lol. My thinking was that if you really thought a special youth season paid off with new recruits, the attention should have shifted to how we get as many adults as possible to mentor these new recruits. And you don't really do that by placing the season such that mentors have to decide whether they want to do that or go hunting themselves. You never get the maximum numbers of mentors when you are forcing them to pass up a good hunting day. The youth hunt should be a real special season that doesn't compete with anything if you are serious about maximizing the number of mentors.

That's where I'm at, but if you're gonna start a thread and ask a question, don't get all butt hurt when I give my opinion.

I admit it.

It is the first shot that counts for hunting proficiency - deer don't wait for you to shoot a group.

Finally home from soccer and time to relax. I really like this one. Great malty taste. Very smooth.

Personal experiance my bow is much easier than a crossbow especially when holding at draw waiting for a minute for the deer to step out.. hold a brick out in your hand for a minute.. that's a biw, try holding a cinder block out that's a crossbow. Now if your a nice blind with a rest or bench maybe but I never have game walk right where I want them when rested, it's not like a gun where it's just a barrel sticking out it has these big clunky limbs that will find anything in the way to hit.. Everyone said how easy it is ,little different relearning how to hunt with one..

Hehehehe...I have had the same thing happen while using a mouth blown predator call at night, Rick.. There are advantages to being short..I figure that if I were a couple of inches taller, the owl would have NAILED me....<<grin>>...

lol I have had owls nearly take the hat off my head when calling critters at night. I kinda favor the ecall at night now lol.

as long as it's kept out of the hands of Tools we should be OK.....gotta make the course mandatory.

I think the xbow is in a league of its own. the traditional bows and compound bows both need the same mechanics to achieve the shot. Yes the compound is faster and you get let-off, but they are much more the "same". The xbow you draw or crank back and lock it in. no need to draw for the shot, and we all know even with let-off it doesn't take long to get tired with a compound. Also, you can call it a mechanical release on the xbow to be technical but I still call it a trigger. the xbow gets shot like a gun. The only thing I compare the xbow to the other bows is that it shoots an arrow-type projectile and the range is short.

I've been watching that since the beginning. And Rollo has been a back stabber ever since then. I didn't see last night's episode yet, but I waiting for him to get what's due to him. Maybe a "blood eagle" like Jarl Borg. That was the most gruesome thing I've ever seen on TV!

Almost missed this. Happy Birthday BIZ.

I usually start shooting one to three times a week in mid to late Aug. primarily to get the arms back & shoulders in shape. I have a foam bale and use balloons. I blow them up to the size I want and stick 5 or 6 to the bale. I move the bale around after each round of shooting so I am never shooting the same distance or the same target(balloon)more than one round. I measure my proficiency on how many balloons I hit or how close I get to the balloon. Once I am consistently hitting the balloon I blow them up smaller like 3-4" and practiceaway. I also shoot off my deck which is 10-12 feet above the yard so it is almost like shooting from a treestand...plus if it is hot I can have a toddy. I blow the balloons up with a shot from the compressor to the desired diameter. By shooting at a different balloon every time it cuts down on damaged arrows, ripped fletching, broken knocks, etc. and improves my accuracy. I usually limit my shots to 25 yards or less because I find that over that I struggle hitting the balloons consistently. I can hit them on a regular basis but not as often as I would like and as far as I am concerned 30+ yds. in the woods is a long shot with a bow. Balloons are cheap and easy to pick up when I am done. Hardly ever shoot at ground level since most of my bow hunting is from a treestand.

I've only shot three bullets in my life. One at a target, one through the lungs of a doe at maybe 20 yards and one through the lung of a buck at 10 yards. I wait till they are close enough to be sure I can shoot them in the right spot or I don't shoot at all. And close enough for me is 10-20 yards

Some years ago I pulled my drive in one snowy winter evening from a store run and could see something on my parked truck's mirror. I walked over and found that it was a little Saw Whet Owl just perched there with his eyes closed. He did not look in too good of shape so I picked him up and brought him inside to look him over. I could immediately see that several of his toes had frozen off and he was boney and just about dead. I just happened to have a large bird cage so I set him inside on a perch and expected to find him dead in the morning. When morning came he was still sitting there on the perch still looking rough so I decided to see if I could feed him something. Happened to have some raw chicken breast in the fridge so I sliced up some small bite sized pieces and offered it to him. Man he gobbled that chicken up like there was no tomorrow. Well as a few days went by he came along very well and started to look like he was getting back to normal. His problem was he had no toes-talons so he would have a hard time catching anything to eat, turning him loose in the middle of the winter would have just been a death sentence. I kind of liked the little guy and it was not a big deal to take care of him so I did. He ended up living about another year and a half. Chicken was his favorite food but he also like lean red meat. His cage door was left open and he would come out and fly around for exercise for a bit and eventually go back in his cage when he wanted to eat or drink and sleep. I called him Hootie

Confirmed person shot on Lux st, just now , unknown if he was wearing Hunter orange or not .