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if that was motorized and wired to the cab, and pointed the opposite direction, it would sure help to back off tailgaters!

First mount of two headed home to the resident trail cam expert!

300 yds into our sneak into the woods. .."Whoa! There is something big 50yds over there" We drag out the binoculars. I still can't see from where I am , "It's a cow" "How many, is there a bull?" "NO.. it's a cow, it has a tag in it ear.." I was not expecting this at 9000' in the woods on the side of a mountain .lol. Turns out there are cows everywhere on this piece of national forest. We wandered around that morning looking for sign.. and we both found a decent spot for the evening hunt. Oh I forgot to add there was a forest fire this summer, pretty much centered over the exact area I had dropped waypoints to hunt at based on a lot of time on Google earth and Onx. That night my buddy sat watching a low mountain meadow and I was at a nice meadow with a creek though the middle. Maybe a 1/2 mile apart . I didn't see or hear anything. I arrived back at our campsite that we had set up mid day at dark. And he's so excited ! He says he shot one. I really didn't believe him until we actually were well on the way up the mountain again. I figured there was no way he would hold to a prank this long and far up the mountain( after all we are two 50 + year old flatlanders) We arrived at his elk which didn't run 30 yds. Dang they are huge! Even a basic 4x4 with a couple stickers.(trophy for us) OK. Maybe I should have payed more attention on how to dress this animal in the woods. Especially while lying in the ashes of a forest fire. What a mess..lol Still, it was a deer like critter, the anatomy was the same. We got it quartered. We hung the front quarters, misc. , and head in the trees and packed out the rear quarters We arrived back at our campsite just before midnight. Wiped out. We had walked close to 10 mile that day. All up or down.. The next morning we went back and packed out the rest in 1 trip.. all in all not too bad of a job.. I will have to say we both spent what seemed like a ridiculous amount of money on packs($4-500) . Everybody said not to skimp on that so we didn't and were thankfull..Besides the pack out we traipsed around the woods with 30#s on our backs with comfort.

The property I have permission to hunt in the western Pine Bush, is being sold. I was aware it could be sold last year when I gained access to it. Thought it might even get sold before this season? Got the call last night that this will definately be the last hunting season, before it goes on the market. So kinda bittersweet. Last year in there, I was at full draw on what would have been my biggest bow buck ever. Easily a 150" class deer. But he hung up, at less than 20 yards, I couldn't hold any longer, and had to let down. He was gone. So maybe I'll get a chance to redeem myself? We'll see? There are some huge bucks in 'The Bush' for bow only. I won't hunt there unless conditions are perfect. The deer in there are far from easy to hunt. I know I am very fortunate to have the choices of properties that I have to hunt. A better, or less selective hunter than I, would likely have much more to show for it. As my bowhunting career winds down, my goal this year is to get just one more 'good one'. My best chance to do that is in the Pine Bush. Happy to get one more chance.

The dodge version is nice, once the bed sides rot off you dont have to slide it out anymore...

Working on it.ha.ha

Well the Alcove is a Reservoir that feeds Albany ! And naturally there is No Hunting allowed anywhere near the water . This year the Albany Water Board decided they need to " Cull the Herd " around the Alcove due to the amount of Deer eating too much Vegetation around it . It was announced about one month ago and you had to sign up to be selected . You had to be a Resident of either Westerlo or Coeymans and if they had more that 100 hunters apply then it would go to a lottery . Well lo and behold I made it and now I have to attend a short session on the If's and But's and get my Permit .... they want only Does taken ! Which is fine by me , an extra area to hunt with a Doe Tag is great !

Friend and I finally took off for Colorado. All packed up and ready to hunt elk with muzzleloaders for the 1st time. The night before our trip. .. I printing out our reservation confirmation and discovered that I was off a day. We didn't have a cabin until 1 day later. Well , we are packed and leaving regardless . We take our time and take 2 1/2 days to drive . Upon arriving we unload the sxs and start arranging our gear to camp in the woods and hunt the next morning. Guess what we are missing.... 209 primers and .50 cal bullets.. Bullets that we had settled on after spending the last month trying different loads and bullets. Somehow we(I say we, but it was my buddy.lol) had grabbed the wrong ammo box . Needless to say we had stopped at a hunting store/shop in at most of the state's on the way through. Collecting hard to find rifle cartridges, rifle primers ,and whatever else we couldn't find at home. There were 0 209 primers to be found .. It was early afternoon . I don't care if we have to start nocking on doors and offering to buy any primers and or bullets that may work. We are determined to hunt in the morning. 1st stop was a small gun shop in town, mainly pistols and ARs. Run by a couple couple young veterans. As we tell them the story and our circumstances, the Fred(our hero) , had just finished buying a gun and was getting ready to leave. I think I have some muzzleloader stuff in my safe, let me go home and look. After exchanging #s , we depart the store and hang out in the parking lot(store is closed now) Our hero, dives home ,finds a full box of primers and 3 partial boxs of different bullets . 1 happened to be a combo that we had tried, hit very similar to what we had sighted in, just not as accurate. Boom! We are hunting in the morning. It's well into the evening now so we stay at a hotel in town..

Meanwhile, drug cartels are like...

British Columbia checked all the boxes you’d want in a mountain goat bowhunt. Lots of nice goats, check. Beautiful rugged mountain, check. Insanely epic vistas at every turn, check. Grizzly bears, check. Sunshine, rain, wind, and snow all in one day, check. Brutal climbs to get into goat country, check. Backbreaking pack outs, check. I had great bowhunt and was very fortunate that it encompassed the total experience. The sense of accomplishment with each obstacle that was over come is not something that I will soon forget. My outfitter and guide were fantastic and worked very hard, and I super impressed all the way around. You’d be hard pressed to find better people. Well, here he is. He was aged at 7 years old by the Bylaw wildlife officer. His Horn length is 9 1/2 and 9 ( broken tip). We spotted him on a face of finger ridge the evening before at about 730 pm and although we didn’t see him in the morning we still made the 4 and half hour climb. We managed to find him and I was lucky to make a 12 yard shot. I am excited and yet humbled at the same time. It was an awesome experience.

Two adult Does and two fawns. Nice size Does and look how grey that one on the right is.

Boy is he pumped that he can potentially shoot 2 bucks this yr with his bow and rifle if he’s lucky enough! Plus 2 doe tags!! This kid cant wait to draw first blood!!

Thanks for the vote of confidence Jerry. The property owner said he is indeed still on the property, and bigger this year. Along with a couple of buddies close to his size. We'll see? The Pine Bush is certainly a magical place. Access is the key. And not pressuring the bucks until conditions are perfect is the way to success. No doubt, many huge bucks in there die of old age behind some little old ladies house, in a 30 yard wide thicket.

Turns out the spot he found was 1 of my waypoints that I had marked from my desk at home. I will give my self an A for remote scouting..lol. He got himself a bear tag so he could watch the carcass. We split the trip hunting side by side and with him over the carcass. We covered a lot of ground. He saw another elk and a large bear(not close enough) and I didn't see an elk. We did find the sign tracks,scat, and lots of rubs . The area was thick and not conducive to glassing. The elk were not talking either. Not a single bugle. Temps were in high 70s to 80s everyday. After talking with many of the locals we felt pretty lucky . The elk population in this area has been on a pretty steep decline . Most of the hunters we saw at the rd(we never saw one in the woods) were hunting bears or mulies. The last sit if the trip was little bit of an adventure. I found a relatively easy, according to the map, spot. 1/2 mile off the rd and only 300' of elevation to climb . Well the 300' of elevation was in the 1st 300' ..lol. sometimes I miscalculated how close those elevation lines are on the map..the worst part is that it was solid blow downs for the 1st 1/4 mile and an hour and half. My buddy was ready to quit so many times .lol. we finally made it to the meadow. About 2 hours into our sit He says "bull, bull! running right towards us" . We had a shield of evergreens directly in front of us and couldn't see great straight ahead.. All excited I get ready .... it's a large muley ..lol He stops and and walks past us at 20 yds... On the way out, instead of skirting a hill we went directly up and over and found pretty clear walking... All in all we had a great time, met a lot of great people and beat the odds by coming back with an elk . My takeaway from our trip. . I would like to find an area that is better for glassing and has more elk. Even though we have a grasp on what the elk are doing here, so we may come back to the same spot. Wish we had started accumulating preference points 20 years ago when we 1st started talking elk hunts.. I'm going elk hunting at least every other year (if not every)until I cannot do it anymore.lol. The animals seem dumb compared to whitetails. We easily snuck to within 20yds of a couple of muley does. His elk just ran down the hill to hiss cow call and walked to him. The muley buck walked slowly past us( I have over a minute video) even after seeing us. Seems like the challenge is finding them, not so much closing the distance. But then again this observation is off my vast 1 week experience..lol.

These 223 Remington rounds were designed with deer in mind. I killed a 130 pound doe last year. 80 yard neck shot and it was all over. Send one into that white throat patch and it’s quite effective. No broken ribs to poke you while gutting!

Used to be another day at the office ,now I hire a guy to clean our gutters lol .

Savage is at its new home.It was a pleasure meeting you and being able to make the transaction.Hope the grandson appreciates the gun as much as I do. Thanks again Bob

I went to school with him most of my life ,I wish I could say that was the dumbest thing I've seen him do.

Most likely I won't hunt the first couple weeks. I'm still on the October 15th opener clock, lol

why do away with something that hard working people make a living from,,, never been at a farm to shoot deer or any other game , but why should it be done away with if people work hard and make a living...im guessing it dosent effect u either way

Im with Spaceman on this one . I shot a 235lb 9pt that was the 2nd largest buck taken with a muzzle loader in New Hampshire that year . The butcher made a comment like yours and said that buck was going to be like cutting up an old leather boot . That was until he actually started processing it and he was amazed how tender it was. The buck was aged as being 7 1/2 years old by the biologist . I know he was right because I found a shed of his 3 years earlier that was a perfect match to my buck only a bit smaller . He was delicious . Tasted way better than the 123lb Doe I shot in Maine the same year .

Coming home heavy

Here's the results of the Informational Mtg. .... They provide a DMAP for the Alcove area which must be used for a Doe only and a Tag for your windshield allowing you to park and hunt there , where there is a Kiosk at the parking areas you need to sign in and out . Where there is no Kiosk you need to call the Reservoir Guard and let him know you are there . They want to know whom is there at any given time . Wearing bright orange is a must and cannot be just a hat ! After you have filled your DMAP Tag you can continue to hunt the Alcove property using your own Tags but the DMAP Tag must be filled first ! They follow all the Regular Seasons and Crossbow's are allowed !

If any of you still aren’t making corned venison… you gotta start ASAP.

Looks like a little more than just "tire smudges" with all the scratches and gouges. To be back the way it was, the bumper cover should be replaced, and re painted.

Deer farming shouldn’t even be a thing, do away with it along with any other high fence farm animal bull shit shoots.

Phade is good dude to buy cams from, can’t go wrong with his input and the nice thing is that he is there for you post sale.

Corned venison and fresh sauerkraut from Europa Deli… redneck Reubens tonight!!

Well it’s complicated. We spotted him about 730 pm the night before and he was on the face of knob that comes out off a very narrow saddle. We couldn’t relocate him in the morning but we were pretty sure he was still up there. We made the 4.5 hour climb pretty much knowing we were swinging for the fence and we might miss. Anyway after we made it to the top we found that he moved into a bed in some timber, the face was frozen over so I could get close enough to take a picture but not to safely shoot. We knew that we came out of his bed his only exit was through the narrow saddle. There was only two spots he would cross, one at 12 yards and the other lower at 58. I put myself in between them and pined him down while freezing my balls off until he got up from the bed. He went to the spot at 12 yards and was quartering to me too hard. I was already drawn and needed him to either take a step turn broadside or turn one more step and face me head on. He faced me and I took the easy frontal. He was dead in about 30 yards and then tumbled 300 yards down the slope next to the shoot we came up. Lucky it warmed up enough that we could now dig in and get down the slope vs coming up the rock shoot we came up originally. In any event that’s why he was so dirty and thankfully he didn’t have any damage. While we were caping and quartering him snow hit us again and basically whited us out. Took us about an hour to get pictures and put him in our packs for the trek out. After we descended another 600 feet or so the snow turned to rain. The total pack out took us about the about an hour longer even though we started down the sloop lower. I guess 80-90 pound packs slowed us down a bit … it was a brutal pack out.

Thanks guys ! The rain fog let up a bit today. We spotted two bears, I made a half ass stalk this morning on six footer knowing it was unlikely I could catch up to him the way he was moving …anyway I got within 80 yards of him but he beat me to the timber. Seen a another bear in the afternoon but he was smaller and I passed the stalk. I think I will hunt tomorrow and just relax on Tuesday my last day, everyone here deserves a well earned break.

Anyone have plans on where their first sit of the year will be in NY? I've been eyeing the weather and if it stays for what it's calling for it should be a nice opening morning. My plan as long as the wind is west of any sort I will have 3 choices either on the edge of 2 separate swamps or where a private agg fields leads to a 10yr old clear cut with tons of bedding with a big white oak just off the agg field 30 yards. I will drive around the night before to see what the areas look like and see if I can get eyes on one of the shooters. Either way in just over a week I'll be sitting in a tree listening to the woods wake up.

I have to say this is my dream and why I am thankful for my boy. He takes the initiative to put her together all on his own!!

well done!

Lots of good info for my fantasy team, or is it misdirection….. My first pick I already changed as he’s hunting PA .

If something doesn't go awry on a trip, its usually not a memorable one, lol. Congrats to you two on finding success in the face of some challenges. Probably ranks up there with your best hunts I bet, when all said and done.

Cardinals on an 11 game streak!

I think the last one in the pics looks like it would taste the best.

Twenty five yards with recurve. I'm ready for Northern tier on Monday.

.223

Went to a wake at the Memorial Art Gallery, typical Nomad event, string quartet, speeches by University Presidents, Chairman of the boards and various other fancy type folks . They did however have Ruby Red to wash down the weird snacks , they did need bigger plates though , I’ll bring my own next time .

Well we went to pick up some more broad heads and have the weight increased on his hoyt. Last yr he was about 40lbs and now they bumped him up to 55lb and he can still draw with ease. Kids shooting great groups out to 35yrds. Way ahead of where I was at 13, its crazy how big and strong he is! I bet he holds the world record for watching the most hunting shows in September so far. He’s going insane waiting for oct!!

50 years having a hunting license for me. Roamed the farm even earlier than that. The fire that once burned so bright, for so long, is now slowly fading to a flicker of what it once was. But I'm still in the game.

Well we had a beautiful couple days. Class was small becasue we had a few cancellations becasue of they had to isolate due to COVID exposure. They took the class on Saturday, the branch provided lunch and all passed and received their certificate. There were demos of different sets and explanations of locations and reading sign. The branch bought them a 1 year membership at the Genesee Valley Trappers Association and their first year trapping license. Sunday started with the participants making sets and getting use to handling foot hold traps, body gripping traps and dogproof traps. We then went to a skinning session and after a demo each participant got to skin a fox and learned to properly flesh and board a fox and coyote. The day ended with each participant taking home a 110 body gripping trap, 2 differnt styles of dogproofs and two Bridger #2 Offset dogless foot holds. I think everyone had a good time and took some good info and many stories home with them. Some pics of the session.