Doc

So as I was feeling sorry for the ice fishermen who have had so little ice this year, it occurred to me that there has to have been some bonus open water fishing available for those hearty souls who have dressed up warm and got out into the lakes and streams. Has anyone here taken advantage of the mild winter this year? Any luck with the winter fishing opportunities?

By the way, did you know that animal skulls that are in good shape are a saleable item. I saw on Google that racoon skulls can go from $22 to $90. I never knew that before.

Damn!.....Somebody had a lot of fun.

I have noticed a lot of "one-time" pictures of deer. You fool them once but never again. Big bucks and older does seem to be in that category. Yes, there are some that seem to ignore cameras time after time, but the older deer do seem to avoid the cameras eventually. Has anyone else made that kind of observation?

I am impressed by the picture quality.

I was talking about the total experience of deer hunting, not just the harvest. There is more to hunting than just numbers and meat. I believe that the whole idea of a scoring system for antlers was devised to put hunters competing against hunters. It is really for the benefit of hunters impressing other hunters with their accomplishments and a numerical method of pitting one hunters harvest against others. One of my best hunts was down in PA., where I came home with a small doe. She didn't score very good, but we all had a great bow-hunt. Another great hunt was my first bow killed deer. Talk about a score .....Lol....He had two 5" spikes and his antlers have a prominent place on the wall and is the one mount that brings back the best memories of all the other mounts. What I am trying to say is that there is a whole lot more to hunting than simply numbers and scores. I have known the people that go at their hunting like their life depended on it. I guess if they want to go at it like that, that's their business and that's okay as long as they don't start with the preaching and trying to make it my business.

I have witnessed a lot of deer reactions that can only be explained as being "curiosity". A lot of that has to do with ATVs. Sometimes they will just stand there and stare at you.....as long as you don't get too close. Sometimes they just act like a farmer's goats. Maybe they just feel that anything making that much noise cannot be a threat.....lol.

It's pretty obvious that we all have different ideas as to what we need to get out of our hunting experiences. If a hunter needs to hunt for numbers, measurements and other such contrived ways of impressing others, it is entirely possible that they are the ones missing out on the real pleasures of hunting.

Beware of the evil black flies. They have been known to drive people mad. I experienced the black fly torture up in Canada, and can say that if it weren't for the constant cloud of smoke from cigars, I probably would have become a victim of black fly insanity. Today with the advance of repellant, perhaps it isn't so bad, I don't know. But I would suggest that you take the black-fly warnings very, very seriously and take whatever precautions you can find. Perhaps a head net might add some protection, but those critters can find ways inside your clothing. I had bites on my chest and I kept my shirt on and buttoned up.

I have heard that in some cases, lumber companies like to dig up the roots of large walnut trees for the crazy grain structure underground.

One important criteria that I applied when I bought my .270 was recoil. I wanted a deer rifle that I could shoot for long periods of time without being punished for it.

Spreadsheets were made for this kind of application. The sorting abilities and the ease of storage and back-up make the data easy to keep track of. It's also easy to transfer existing pencil and paper data into the more formal electronic database.

Is there any off-shore fishing by Cross Lake?

I was wondering about the Seneca river, but I read about some pollution issues in the fish there in certain areas. Any truth to that? Where on the Seneca River are you finding the catfishing the best?

There you go. If you go to all the trouble of testing, write it down (or type it into record somewhere. Knowledge gained quickly becomes knowledge lost if it is not recorded in some orderly fashion.

Don't you all think that first you have to have a discussion about what features make any of the calibers better for taking deer? Then the discussion about what caliber satisfies those features. Such things as trajectories for the distance shooters. Terminal energy, meat damage, etc., etc. might be part of that discussion and probably a whole lot of other features that I'm not thinking of right now.

The internet is full of catfish bait recipes. I just took a look.

What a great Father and son adventure. That is a trip that he will remember all of his life. Wherever you decide to go, take plenty of pictures and be sure to share them with us here. I would love to see pictures of that trip. Even if you don't get a single fish, the hiking and camping will be a fantastic thing to experience.

I need to have that recipe.......lol.

Thanks for the info. I am a catfishing newbie. I only have caught 1 catfish in my life, That was out of the Barge Canal over by Port Gibson. I remember the meat as being white and delicious. So I would like to find a more reliable source close to home. I could use all the advice I can get. I am confined to shoreline fishing only because I have no boat.

I'm thinking of booking a guide for a half-day fishing trip on Seneca or Canandaigua Lakes this coming summer. Are these guys really worth the money they charge? Anybody had any experience with these kinds of charter fishing trips on these two lakes?

Where can a guy go to catch catfish in Western New York from the bank? This coming summer, I want to target catfish, but maybe that's not a realistic goal here in NY.

Are the fish in the canal safe to eat? Anyone know? I am thinking of trying a few spots along the canal to see if the fishing is any good. But there is no point to it if I can't eat what I catch.

He's big. He's heavy. He's old enough. That's a nice rack. If you get a chance, you'd better take him.

The older I get, the more I appreciate these detailed records. They actually bring back a lot of the hunts that otherwise would have been forgotten. It all sounds like a lot of work, but it didn't seem be as I was accumulating the data. And it gave me something to do in the dead of winter. I kind of like record keeping. The above spreadsheet had so many analytical features that it was consulted for years before I went out hunting. Certain weather conditions helped me figure out which of the stands would be the most likely to produce. It all was pretty useful. I can see where strict records keeping would be useful in your dog-training activities. I'm sure there are other things that lend themselves to detailed records.