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Thank you, Paula and thank you everyone for the opportunity to help with a great event. As a youngster hunting with my father gave me some great memories (Still does). Hunting with my nephew for the last few youth seasons has been some of the best experiences for me. I applaud everyone who encourages or mentors young folks especially hunting and fishing. When Paula messaged me this morning about the contest it was a no brainier for me. Here is a Osage glass surface caller with a walnut/bamboo striker. Judges will let me know who this goes to when it's time. Good luck to all the youths and their mentors.

Someone lock this up. 42 pages, 834 replies, no insults thrown, or arguments started. Unacceptable.

Ole Reliable ....

The afternoon started off as a turkey scouting mission for the youth hunt. After a while my mind wandered off to sheds.I decided to follow some promising looking stuff along a creek that led into an open wet/marshy area boardered by fields. A local guy had found a really nice shed in one of these neighboring fields a few weeks back and I believed the other side was still nearby. Not too far into the marsh I found this guy. He would have been lower 130's had his brows not been busted... I didn't find the big shed or any others but had only walked the back edge, it was a great looking spot so I thought I would come back in a couple of days to look some more. I went back up the hill to check out a potential spot for the youth hunt. As I was cresting the hill a gobbler started hammering up above and there were a ton of tracks in the field too, just as I had hoped to see. On the way back through I walked through some thick "sheddy" looking brush at the upper end of the field to see if I could locate a shed or two. Almost to the end and Bingo!!! As I walked up it started looking bigger. To my surprise it was the other side of the big one the other guy picked up!!! There is a little squirrel damage but not too bad. This bad boy scores 64" with a 25" mainbeam...my new best 4-pt to date!!! The other guy's shed...

None of you guys ever dug holes? I can remember my buddy and I starting out digging a few worms for fishing, and ending up with a hole big enough to bury a body in a few times. Why? Darned if I know. We were kids. All the stuff we did, involved getting ourselves there and home by ourselves. Money came from chores and farm work. There was no getting money from mommy or daddy. And if we went somewhere, we got ourselves back home too. During the summer, it was no big deal to have 4-6 of us camping down on the river living off of fish, froglegs, and soda that we provided on our own. What a life I lived as a kid.

Back in the late seventies a good friend of mine ran a sporting goods store that I helped out in part time. We took in a really nice Husqvarna 30-06 sporter on trade from a fellow I knew well. That particular Husqvarna has a commercial 98 mauser action. I had a bad habit of falling in love with the merchandise and paying for it with my paycheck and the Husqvarna ended up coming home with me. My Dad was still alive back then and we were going on hunting trips pretty much every year to Canada mostly. After using a Sako Finnbear 338 Winchester mag for a couple of hunts I decided I was going to try a 280 Remington in a light weight sporter and my plan was to re-barrel this rifle with a 22 inch sporter barrel. I sent the barreled action off to Douglas and had them put on their best barrel and had the everything reblued. I then glass bedded the barreled action into the stock. After that I took off the old varnish finish and did an oil finish. I topped things off with my favorite big game scope the Leupold 2X7 that kept the whole package fast handling and light weight. A good friend of mine who actually turned me on to the 280 had extensively worked up different handloads and felt that the Norma MRP was the best powder for this case. I went with his advice and worked up more of a power load than a fine accuracy load. I ended up going with 60.5 grs of the Norma MRP and it was chronographed at just over 3000 fps. I was getting one and a quarter to one in a half inch groups with the 150 grain Nosler Partition bullets and although I got better accuracy with some other bullets I stuck with the Partitions for a couple of reasons. I was going to be using this rifle on Moose hunts where varmint accuracy was not needed and for the unfailing reliability of the Noslers holding together. To sum things up the 280 Husqvarna has been a winner for me, after several moose and a bunch of deer it has performed 100% and I would not hesitate to use it on any game in the US. Al

My old phone takes good pics. Here's a selfie .

No need for a fee, i do have a donate button deal but its not necessary providing members don't run adblockers. We have just a few ads, they are generic from google but relevant to the content. I hate sites that have a crap ton of ads, which is why I chose the spots to have them. It would be nice if those members white-listed the site there are a few folks that block the ads. Perhaps I'll have to block the ad-blocker members. We don't ask much (actually nothing) here so the least you can do is not block the ads. I'd never charge a fee to access the site, that would cut us off from the internet essentially. Whatever money I do get from ad's is really turned right back into the site for the hosting fee's and licensing costs for the forum software/updates.

My wife has the Samsung S something or other. It's about a year old. I have a 14 year old pay as you go flip phone. The most up to date technology I have is my crossbow!

Remy. ADL action , Shilen bbl. ( not as thick as it looks in the pic. ) 1 in 12 twist . Remmy. Varm. stock ( pillow and glass bedded ) 3x9 bushnell scope I had sitting on the shelf. Waiting for a nice calm day to sight it in.

I spent most of my time doing home work, studying, and memorizing verses from the Bible. I seldom got out unless it was to deliver fresh picked flowers to the little old ladies at the nursing home. On my way home I would stop and play with all the little kids at the orphanage. That was only after I returned all the empties I picked up along the street and dropped the change into a homeless mans collection cup. You guys must have lived on the wild side of town with the kids I wasn't allowed to play with,lol

You still have lots of time, db..I was 39 when I went on my first out of state big game hunt, but I made up for it in the next 20 years. Now I'm on the other end...Fixed income and old age have slowed me down some.

And I can tell about your age in that comment. Down the road you will realize that true "wealth" has nothing to do with any form of money or possessions.

I'll tell you one thing we never did, "hydrate". You drank water maybe once a day and it was out of a hose. And don't get me started on sunscreen

Psssssst..... wrong season! I'm sure Lou has a boat load of great prizes that wont disappoint.... as always! I just try to help out when I can.

And on a brighter note, this picture (a 35mm that I snapped a picture of with my cell phone for here) is from one of our 2nd or 3rd dove hunts in PA. I know it wasn't the first trip because dad didn't go then. It was a spectacular September day and the shooting was fine! A memory that all of us cherish. This hunt was in the "mountainous" northern tier of Pennsylvania, just south of the New York border. Even where there don't appear to be many dove, there's plenty. It's not like they "stand out" like a deer, turkey, bear etc. These little burners blend in with their environment so well that it takes a little time to really recognize their silhouette on the wing, on a wire or in a tree. And then when they are on the ground, heck they are almost impossible to spot. Good times............

No, you don't get it.

I looked but couldn't find a shoveling $hit emoticon

Found one! In Oregon. Got a good deal on it, and there's 0% sales tax out there! It's on it's way now.

Heres it in a nutshell and i may have said this once before but its quite simple, aint no one gonna give a shit how big the bucks are you shot, how many deer you shot or how you shot them when your long gone and 6 feet under. What matters is enjoying the outdoors and hunting with family and friends while we are on this earth, either with compound or xbow makes no difference to me.

If this guy keeps on doing what he's doing now he is gonna get a headache on 4/23! Love this spot, it's produced youth gobblers by 6:30 on opening morning for the past three years running... Neat pic with shed buck and longbeard in the background... Check the time stamps...gotta love those quick early spring NY weather changes!!!

Hehehehe...I just can't resist coming back and drooling over that rifle.. All of you stainless, synthetic fans take note...THIS is what a hunting rifle /scope is SUPPOSED to look like.. <<GRIN>>....

I will be out with one boy, (cousin in-law) on Saturday. And my neighbors boy on Sunday. We will be in!

My son will be in.

I'm in with my son ....we'll be out sat morn of the youth weekend.

CF, Nice job with this topic. I'm having a great time reading everyone's posts. Adult life is so crazy, it's comforting to look in the rearview from time to time. What a treasure it is to be a kid.

They can lower the age all they want, but I highly doubt it will do much good replacing recruitments with drop outs. Fact is, most guys wont look outside their immediate family to recruit new hunters. It was mentioned in another post here recently by Culvertcreek. There is just to much focus on the individual hunters expectations that don't involve the tradition no more. Deer hunting used to be a social activity that lasted for days, weeks, and months. Now we get so hung up on individual deer, social media status, and self accomplishments measured in inches, and nobody cares about if the next generation follows along any more as it will cut down on the competition. If you want to get the youth, or even newbies involved in the pastime, you need to make it feel entertaining, educational, and not like work. I don't think many modern day deer hunters are capable of that, as much as I hate to say it.

Showing one of my Buds how to build another lamp tonight. Glad to have found out about this holiday before it slipped away. This is about as exotic as it gets for me. I do some of my best work under the influence,lol

. I ate some after a liberal dose of vagisil applied , finished up knitting a sweater for our dog and my pilates class ????

Starting my celebration now with a 90 minute IPA. Damn this is good.

HA HA HA HA HA! Just your average everyday General Chit Chat about hunting going on here. What a friggin joke.

Well here is the finished project, I was waiting for that custom plate for the bottom to be made up before posting a picture. At least now I have a spot to keep most of my strikers and "pot calls"!!!

Well, maybe that's a stretch. But if you look close, these guys are showing those bumps on the pedicles as the new velvet antlers begin.

Pan fried steak with butter, side of steamed baby taters and veggies from a bag. Yes' it's bloody, the g/f will have to cut a hunk off and cook to her taste. LOL

English starling. They make great targets

Study funding pulled when research doesn't show dangers of fracking. http://dailysignal.com/2016/04/06/donors-decline-to-back-more-fracking-research-after-study-finds-no-link-to-water-contamination/?utm_source=TDS_Email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MorningBell&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTW1ZeVlUaGlPV0ZtWXpRNCIsInQiOiJTd1dKUDFZeStLSXNWam5oZm0xWTJtUWV4QjV0K1ozRjZXREZkS2xqeGYrQW9KdVE1bDJOeTNvN1dxXC9pWktOaG1JMjhWYUNxcVB1WEpUY1BoUDcyYmVMWklxYm1jdzNaZHVVbWNmek9OMDQ9In0%3D

That's a nice looking rifle. Sounds like it has proven itself time and time again in the woods. I agree 100%! My guns have synthetic stocks and they are nice looking, but I wish I could have found what I wanted in my budget with walnut stocks. Nothing nicer then a nice wood stock and a blued barrel.

I always had the free flip phone that came with the contract until last June. Then we upgraded to smart phones. Mainly because I wanted to use some of the hunting apps. out there. I ended up deleting all of them off the phone, LOL.

Well it sure seemed as though you went down the road to make someone feel bad about his choices. Go back and read your comments. You don't agree with his stance on the crossbows, fair enough. He detailed his willingness to work had and pay for things that make him "happy" to demonstrate he isn't afraid of hard work. Knowing nothing about his actual financial status you pull out the wealth, 401k and "hood rich" comments. I only hope that everyone develops as high an opinion of you has you hold for yourself.

We do have a new donator this year, I will let him announce it and what it will be.

Nope, 22 years of turkey hunting has taught me that nothing is a sure thing!!! Roosted definately aint't roasted as the saying goes. I am leaving to chase gobblers in KY next week, I wouldn't doubt that this field gets plowed up before the youth opener. Is so, we will have to get on him closer to his roosting area...

And I yours! We could be over in Vermont or some of the places in the hills around here. And my old flip phone will work, while my wife's "smart phone" will not!

Coon Hunter, We used to dig holes too. There was an old dump on our property. We would dig up all kinds of crap. Mostly bottles. If we got a whole bottle it was the find of the century. Funny all of the broken glass we would be playing in. Imagine kids today doing some this stuff. My wife would flip if my kids played in an old dump full of broken glass.

the Smithsonian called , they want their phone back. ????Always enjoy your posts Grampy

National beer day. Housework beer. Triple IPA

Yeah. Maybe they are dining on feral cats...and the unbelievable population of squirrels. Used to be, squirrel was a menu item for human beings. Not much anymore. So its on their menu. Nature abhors a vacuum. Had fisher tracks in front of the garage last month in the snow. Lots of tasty tweets at the bird feeder. Opening day of rifle two fishers scooted by. Photos of them on three of five ridges. It's the fisher's time now, especially with the price of fur so low. After all...they are the American sable. Almost itchin to trap them, skin 'em, tan 'em, and sew a couple into a stoll...that goes way back. Given fur used to make a woman happy.

I’ve been bow hunting now for 42 years and have no intensions of using a cross bow. But I have never heard so much crap coming from sup posit bow hunters. We’ve all heard the same old crap cross bow aren’t bows, those who use cross bows are lazy, not as skilled as us bow hunters, taking the easy way out and hears a good one just gun hunters who want to hunt in are season. (Truth is more bow hunters are buying cross bows then gun hunters) A cross bow is a bow just look it up. A cross bow has a trigger and a stock. If you shoot your bow with a release then you have a mechanical trigger with one exception no safety and the only thing a stock does is make the cross bow a more stable platform. As for a cross bow being easier to shoot that’s true but that’s not a bad thing. As for cross bow users being lazy and unskilled there are some that are lazy and unskilled. But I will bet there are more of us bow hunters that are lazy and unskilled then cross bow users. We all know someone who pulls their bow out a week or even days before the season. Then they tell us they hit a deer and lost it sometimes more than one in a season. Just look at the bow hunting thread here you see some of the same names saying the lost a deer almost every year. Oh quit using the dead spot myth as an excuse it don’t exist. Every one of us who hunts has lost a deer and it is always are fault. If you say I never lost one then you haven’t hunted long enough or you’re a liar! So stop the crap!!

my nephew is in!!