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First Doe of the year down! Savage 220 I was on the ground brushed in with some trees for about 3 hours. At around 7:15pm I gave up and started to walk back to my Jeep. On the way back I spotted what I thought was a deer, sure enough it was, she was about 80 yards below me as I was on a hill. It was very hard for me to get a good sight picture on her, not sure what was going on, maybe it was the lack of light. I took a shot, missed ..... that was a first. Took a second shot and hit her right in the neck, she collapsed where she stood. To be honest I wasn't exactly aiming for her neck, I was aiming for her front half and got lucky with my shot. I think I missed my first shot as I did not account for the fact I was so high above her aiming down. Either way, she's in a cooler packed with ice till I can get her butchered!

Canceled job turned in to impromptu squirrel hunt. Saw quite a bit of wildlife for a 4 hour hunt. 4 deer, 2 different flocks of turkeys and a bald eagle. And put 4 bushy tails in the freezer. Good day Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

Serving the capital region or anyone willing to travel to Troy/Brunswick. This is year 4 for me and I think I finally have a vague idea of what I'm doing now! I'll be doing standard deer shoulder mounts for $350 this year. Specialty poses might cost a little more depending on the price of the form. Euro's will be $75. Have some experience with other critters too. Spent the first 3 years mounting animals in my living room but now it's time to take it to the next level. Can't wait to see what you guys bring me! But most importantly... shoot straight and have fun making meat and memories! Here's some of my work: Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

Salty! Another epic trip in the books. Pounded on stripers, blues, and finally got the time to find the albies. Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk

Live from driveway! I finally saw a bear in real life here! I'm in driveway paying electrician and a little Cub almost ran into us. He ran across my driveway 10ft from us and into neighbors woods Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Banana, Hungarian wax and cherry peppers stuffed with crab, cream cheese and cheddar. It was good.

No offense but….. You should charge more, especially the shoulder mounts. It gives you the margin you need to spend just a little extra time when you need to and gain a little profit for better equipment and supplies. When I ran my woodshop, I always charged too little thinking it would gain me customers. Guess what? It gave me customers always looking for a bargain, and when finally raised prices to actually try and make a better go of it, all I had is cheapo’s looking for a deal. Have confidence in your work, its good; mount less heads, but make more money from each one. AND you can fiddle more on the details cause your time is being paid being an artist and having fun. JMO.

I have had very good results letting 2.5 year olds age for 5 days minimum and 3.5 year olds for 9 days. Ideally, the aging temperature is between 33 and 43 deg F. Leaving the hide on helps insulate against daily temperature swings and let’s you get away with 32 to 55 deg F, so long as the average daily temp stays in the preferred range. An insulated garage, with a concrete floor helps a lot. Cover the widows in the day, to keep out the sunlight, and open them at night to let in the cool air. I was shooting for 10 days in the insulated garage with my 3.5 year old post-rut buck last year, but I had to cut that to 9 days. The average temperature outside was predicted to be 62 degrees on day 10, so I came home a day early from a NZ late gun-season bear hunt. That middle aged buck turned out marvelous. It always amazes me how some on this site, including at least one educated as a chef, seem to have no comprehension of how rigor mortis affects red meat. Even ground burger can be tough, if you freeze it before rigor mortis has passed. A simple, often free, “deer fridge”, is a great help in maintaining that preferred temperature range in these post-global warming days.

I finally saw a few deer on my 6th early antlerless hunt, on The afternoon of Tuesday September 13. It was about 60 degrees, when I walked out back at 6:00 and there was a steady 10 mph west wind blowing. I have been wanting to hunt my deer foodplot court, on the west edge, but the wind hasn’t been right (east would have been best). I couldn’t wait any longer, so I headed to my “natural blind” located about 75 yards to the east of those plots. On my walk back, there was a unicorn fork horn buck standing in the clover plot along the east side, that I had hunted the evening prior. He moved into cover as I passed, then came back out to feed, 10 minutes after I settled into my blind, 175 yards directly upwind of him. Evercalm works well for 1.4 year old bucks apparently, because he fed there for at least 15 minutes. At 7:00, I caught movement in close,upwind to my west. A young doe passed 5 yards away. I slowly moved my gun towards her and she bolted off after catching that motion. I nearly fired, but caught more movement behind her. That was a much larger doe and she stopped, slightly quartering away, at 15 yards, allowing for a quick heart-shot, with my 50 cal T/C Omega ML, with 24O gr black sleeved bullet and 100 gr of T7 powder. She bolted off, swinging thru a little patch of cover, and emerging in a shooting lane 50 yards to my NW. I saw her flop down dead there. She is the same “back strap momma” that I have seen and photographed several times. The smaller doe with her must have been her last year’s fawn. The coyotes probably got this year’s. She didn’t have any milk in her, and she was very fat.

Don't let his "year 4" and "vague idea of what I'm doing" talk fool you! Dude's got a natural talent and it's only going to get better with time.

I get a large buck on camera 1 or 2 pics then they dissappear.. so i put 2 camera back to back and low an behold there it is walking behind original camera.. even the no flash emit a glow.. old buck learn to avoid the ir flash. Happens many timea a year. Benefits of running almost 30 cameras have option to place back to back.

Took some interesting lunch shots. First 2 shots got a damn Robin Hood. The arrows I shoot the company is out of business. So that's not great. But form is def good. Then after those two shots this little fella pops out into the trail just past my target. Great looking Fisher. Squeaked at him a couple of times and he kept looking long enough to get a picture or two. He came out about 8 yards from my target. Zoom in on the last pic . Form is def good but noticed my site is out of whack. It's off the marker left for sure. Must've loosened up or I didn't tighten it well last time I adjusted. Sent from my motorola edge 5G UW (2021) using Tapatalk

Theyre evading mine this year lol Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Eurasian Tench. I represent the USEPA at multiple Superfund sites along the River since 1999. Very rewarding work for me.

After Republicans Escalate Migrant Busing Scheme, White House Condemns ‘Chaos” https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/after-republicans-escalate-migrant-busing-scheme-white-house-condemns-chaos/ar-AA11SuDv?ocid=mailsignout&pc=U591&cvid=b9ea0f87087541f2b811aee035ec43e5 The article states “The Biden White House on Thursday condemned Republican governors who this week escalated their strategy of busing -- and now flying -- migrants to Democratic cities in protest of the administration's border policies” Condemn? President Biden has done nothing along with Vice President Harris. So now Biden condemns the illegal aliens coming to his neighborhood? The article states “Jean-Pierre criticized the governors for appearing to give no notice to leaders on the ground.” Sorry Jean-Pierre, the illegal aliens do not give notice when illegally entering the United States of America. The have to go somewhere since Biden is not keeping them out of the United States of America. The article states “this is just a cruel premeditated political stunt," Jean-Pierre said.” No, what is cruel are those who are created and allowing this humanitarian crisis in the first place.

Frost warning here tonight . Calling for 39F. We live in a bowl and we tend to get a little cooler . Picked out tomatoes tonight . Leaving alot of green ones to the frost. Picked a bunch of peppers and covered them . All thats left is the peppers,bruslesprouts, and Butternut squash.

@Dinsdale shhhh.... Let him charge what he wants lol. I know I say this every year, but hopefully I shoot a buck worth the drive to come see you this year.

Daughter who lives in Buffalo ( everyone has some faults ) caught three in Lewiston ,a few days back . She’s not really a fisherman , doesn’t own a pole … went with friends .

Im pretty sure I got that out of my system lol

Lob it in!!! SEND IT!!! That's how they do it on Saturday morning hunting shows!!! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Looks like a Tench. Not sure.

Congrats heavuser and good luck Bill..

Congrats. I would recheck the zero..jic the scopes get bumped easily

I wasn’t planning on hunting again until Sunday afternoon, over at my parents place, because my deer fridge won’t be available until Saturday evening, when I finish processing doe # 1. Now, I am thinking of getting out here at home on Saturday morning. Hopefully, the Buck and Doe shop could take doe # 2 for the Venison Donation program. If not, I’ll crank up the AC in the garage (it’s supposed to be 80 degrees outside on Saturday), and leave it hang in there till I process the other one. They were not able to take a cash donation for that at a Lockport Runnings when I picked up my first two dmp tags this year. I’ll try again at Walmart, when I go back for the other (2) on November 1. Maybe I can give them some meat before then. The reason I want to go out is that the local deer population seems to be way too high. I base that on the distinct browse lines that I see on all of my hedgerows, and the super heavy usage I saw on my wheat plots in the late winter and spring. I think the local farmers eased way up on their nuisance permits here on the NW corner of wmu 9F. Not so on the SE corner at my parents place. I have heard that they hit them extra hard out there this year, and that lines up with my observations. Also, my food plots out there don’t look so hot. I have been itching to check out my “deer Foodplot court” in a morning prime time hunt, to hunt from the pop up blind that I brushed in back there, and to try my new shooting sticks. The only glitch is that I dropped my ML on the carpeted basement floor, when the sling pulled out as I was cleaning it Tuesday night. I don’t trust that it is still zeroed without testing it first. I need to do that prior to my October NZ early ML week hunt, but not until after early September antlerless gun season is over. For that reason, I am going to run my short, open-sighted 12 ga 870, which will also handle better in the blind, on Saturday. No change in my plans for my parents place on Sunday (if I still have my last tag). I was going to use my Ithaca 16 ga on that hunt anyhow. I have a very good supply of slugs for both of those shotguns.

No, but she had her heart shot out from under her with a 50 cal from about 10 yards away.

Thanks again to those I haven't thanked already.not going crazy tonight but a solid 8-10 genny lights in

We got out this morning on a private pond and Gunner got to make his first actual water retrieve on a Canada goose. Gunner was well behaved in the blind and we bagged another goose which he made another water retrieve on. Watching him make the retrieves was the best part of the hunt. valoroutdoors.com

Sit # 1. CT - Spotted a lone doe at 55yds and she didn’t take the route in front of browning cam. But ultimately she still had to come towards me to get down Funnel to lower ridge. Video was 27yds. She never saw me. Too bad not 10pt. She wasn’t with the split ear doe and fawn that she’s with sometime. sat 530am till 10am. Surrounded by oaks and pines but DOnt see any acorns. It’s way windier than I thought it would be. Tomorrow morning looks 10° cooler but i couldn’t hunt tomorrow. Heading to NY land now to check cams and spots then head back to CT for PM hunt. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

this. this right here. I think some people have this idea that a food plot is easy if you have some open space. Ha.

Time for a shop update before deer season. First thing we did was fix the roof. Buddy of mine gave me a great deal on it. Found out the hard way that the foundation leaked on a semi warm day in February as the ice started melting Worst part of it was from about a 10ft section that was brick instead of concrete. I assume it's where the original overhead door was and they just filled it in with brick when they added on the huge addition to the shop. I pointed and parged it the best I could then hit it with 3 coats of drylok. So far so good but I'm probably gonna have to serious foundation work next year. I dug 2 trenches to try and divert as much water as possible and so far it's been dry Gutted the whole shop down to studs and took a 30 yard dumpster of debris out of here. And I packed the heck out of it, I'm a furniture mover so I know how to pack Got this place somewhat organized for now. Made myself a makeshift skinning machine using a heavy 3/4 inch steel plate with chains and locking pliers under the half-ton electric winch the previous owner left. I have another heavy steel plate to go on top of the other in case it's not heavy enough. Haven't tried it yet... soon enough I hope Already mounted 2 turkeys in here and hopefully more to come Did a little painting outside too Guess that's about it for now Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

This isn't pygmy if you were assuming. The boots stick out too far. Sent from my motorola edge 5G UW (2021) using Tapatalk

Oxtail

Homemade Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

actually the ex used to make them often. So good and dip buttered baguette in extra sauce

Insulation: What I did for my basement, which was way, way cheaper was repurposed board insulation. A co-worker gave me contact info for a guy out near I think Amsterdam, and I got all the board insulation for pennies on the dollar. I did have to spend a day washing and drying it. THen dry locked the crap out of the walls, and glued the board insulation over. I'll see if I can dig up the contact info if you're interested. Epoxy: I epoxy'd my basement floor before I laid the pergo down. It was a multiple day process for even such a small space. Acid etching then, multiple washes, dry, then washing again. It would be really pricey with the pure square footage you're working with. Without even considering the pits you have to work with.

Yes but black powder is measured by grains..

But, it's Russia's fault.

The Democrats are like people who invite their friends to come live with them, and then try to put them up in other people's homes. If that was done to any of us, I'm sure we would all send them to the homes of the people who enticed them to come here. That's not cruel or political. That's just fair.

Did that deer step on an ied?

The Schrade sharpfinger really worked well on Tuesday evening’s doe, especially for skinning her. The hide always comes off easier, when it’s warm, but this one came off much easier than usual. That’s because I put a little extra time into sharpening the “gut hook” this year. I used the little white sharpening stone that came in the sheath of the Schrade 153UH for that. It worked better, after I did that, than it did when it was new. I simply used the corner edge of that little white 153UH stone to get that notch, on the back near the tip of the Sharpfinger, razor sharp. That made slicing down the neck and legs as easy and quick as pulling down a zipper. Unfortunately, I forgot to pack my Gerber folding saw on that hunt, so I brought back grandpa’s old wood-handled meat saw to cut her pelvis, when I fetched the gutted carcass with my loader tractor. I forgot the Sharpfinger on that trip, but fortunately I had my little “made in USA” Imperial EDC in my pocket. That wasn’t the first time I used that to work on gutting a deer. It didn’t make my first picture, but you can see it in the bucket above the saw up above. It definitely needs some sharpening. I’ll be better prepared on my next time out (probably Sunday afternoon after I finish butchering). I still have one more dmp tag that I can fill.

Now that photo above of that bag of rabbits brings back some memories of tales I heard as a young fellow, there was a time according to some old timers I knew when European Hares were in huntable numbers here in NY. Found up by the St Lawrence and in the Hudson valley if I remember right, they were twice as big as our native rabbits and hard to hunt with dogs as they would line out of the country. The guys that hunted them liked to track them in fresh snow and jump them out for a shot. Never got to ever see one myself but would have liked to give them a go. Nice little piece about the European Hare below for anyone interested. Al ============================================================= European hares of upstate New York. Editor's Note: This summer we heard from William Weckesser of Middlefield, CT, a 74-year-old gent who waxed poetic about bygone days. In his letter, he asked a question that piqued our interest. A few phone calls and e-mails took us back to earlier times and brought forth an interesting short story worth retelling: that of the European hares of upstate N.Y.Mr Weckesser writes, "When I was a boy, my grandfather would tell me stories of getting in a horse-drawn wagon and going out to Millbrook to hunt what he called 'jack rabbits.' I found out later that they were actually European hares that were brought to eastern Dutchess County and released. The 'game guide' (as we called the hunting regulations booklet back then) used to list them as a huntable species in Dutchess County, but it no longer does. I often wonder what became of the hares.I've included a picture of my great uncle and grandfather after a successful hunt. The hounds in the picture appear to me to be Walker fox hounds. It is only conjecture on my part, but I'm thinking that these hares run such a large circle that the hunters wanted a fast dog to bring the hares around more quickly.Thinking back on my own 60 years of hunting in Dutchess County, I'm thankful for all the great outdoor experiences I've enjoyed. Still, there is one thing I wish I could do: I'd trade a lot for the ability to go back in time to the 1920s for just one day. I'd spend it with Grandpa Lou and Uncle Carl, hunting for those big 'jack rabbits.' Unfortunately, life doesn't work that way. I'll just have to do it in my dreams."Not knowing anything about European hares myself, I thought I should do a little research, and what better place to start than with the Conservationist magazine itself?European hares made several appearances in the Conservationist over the years, most notably in a February 1957 feature article aptly titled "The European Hare in New York." The article, which was also reproduced as an information leaflet, was written by the then Conservation Department's rabbit specialist, Game Research Investigator, Joe Dell.Although I met him on several occasions, I can't say I knew Joe well as he had retired by the time I started my DEC career as a wildlife biologist. But like so many biologists "bitten by the bug," Joe had a hard time making a clean break from work; he continued to visit friends and colleagues in the office, even years after he retired. And it was then and there that I came to know him. Joe passed on recently, so I didn't have the luxury of asking him in person about the hares.No matter; Joe's article on the history of European hares in New York is very informative. I'd encourage you to read it yourself at a local library, or perhaps we can post it online if enough folks are interested. In the article, Joe tells of how the hares were introduced from Hungary beginning about 1893, onto a wealthy landowner's estate in Dutchess County.With messages that should be heeded today, the article goes on to explain that even a nine-mile-long fence couldn't contain the hares, and they expanded their range outward, first into neighboring counties, then into Connecticut and up the Hudson Valley. Dell's article reported that in a series of severe winters in the early 1900s, the hares damaged Dutchess County orchards, so the county paid a bounty of 25 cents a piece on 12,000 hares between 1912 and 1917. That's equal to nearly $6 in today's money! For you small game hunters out there needing no additional incentive to pursue your pastime, can you imagine being paid to hunt hares?Next, I called and e-mailed a number of older colleagues and recent DEC retirees, asking if they knew about the hares. Around here, retirees become a sort of institutional memory, mined when necessary, such as in this case. It's a little alarming to me, how many times I am taking on just such a role now!In turn, colleagues pointed me to former wildlife technician and later conservation officer Collin Bursey, who, like Joe, retired just before I began my career. Collin worked on hares for a couple of years after being discharged from the service in 1955. He spoke of the hares once reaching as far north as Washington County, and as far west as Cherry Valley.Sometime in the 1930s, European hare populations began a dramatic decline which continued for decades. According to Bursey, the hares liked large expanses of open area. Abandonment of farms during and after the Great Depression, and resulting landscape-level habitat change from open fields to brushlots to young forest stands certainly aided in the hare's demise.As far as Bursey, or any of my colleagues knows, European hares (not to be confused with snowshoe hares) are no longer found in the wild. Although who knows--maybe an astute Conservationist reader can demonstrate otherwise!In today's busy, rush-rush world of 100 e-mails a day, and tweets of no more than 140 characters, it's important once in a while to take a deep breath, power down the computer, read a handwritten letter, and enjoy a conversation with an elder. Someone who was there, well before we were.Someone who can tell a story.Dave Nelson is editor of Conservationist.

YES! Favorite thread of the year is back.

Pork tenderloin, bacon wrapped asparagus and snacks

Congrats! That fridge/freezer behind the deer has seen some stuff! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

BDD Back in Burger and back-strap.

Well we did it. Today was the first hunt for Gunner. He will be 8 months old in 3 days. He made his first retrieve of a Canada goose in the first picture and in the second picture he is resting in the blind after making a second retrieve He remained remarkably calm and we'll behaved throughout the morning hunt. I could not be happier with him. valoroutdoors.com

Oh yea almost forgot, the shop came with a house! Hahaha! Guess I'll show you guys some of that too now that we're almost un packed. I'm gonna put barnwood over that god awful red around the fireplace soon. Dining Room The blue light in the bathroom is really what sold my wife on this house! Saw our first deer in the backyard and just barely snapped a blurry pic of it I'll take pics of the temporary basement shop once I get it a little more organized Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk