Doc

Anybody have any pictures of odd-shaped trees?

When they legalized rifles here in our county, I decided to go for something with reduced recoil. I had been shooting a 12 ga shotgun. So I called up my son and had him bring his .270 up for me to test fire. I honestly decided that the .270 had no kick at all. So I bought one. My suggestion is to find someone that owns a .270 and ask to take a shot or two. I would be surprised if the recoil bothers your bad shoulder. I don't know the nature of your shoulder injury, but I cannot imagine that the recoil of a .270 would aggravate it at all.

Here is just one of the hundreds of designs on the internet. Do a Google search, "building a chicken coop" it all begins for you: https://easycoops.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/FreePlans/12x8_Chicken_Coop_Plan_Free.pdf This is a pretty jazzy one, but you can also de-feature as far as you want. There are other ones that incorporate an outdoor yard too. Have fun.

I have thought about an outdoor shooting shed that could be mostly closed up with only a small shooting port, and a small heater inside for winter use. I would have removable side panels with bug screening when the panels are removed for spring and summer shooting. Room enough for at least two shooters. A roof overhang to protect the gun barrel from rain or snow. I would do whatever possible to keep the weather out even in a driving wind. There would be a wide bench for accessories (bullets spotting scope, and whatever else might be there. Enough room to lean gun cases and other paraphernalia against the back wall. If the shed does not wind up too heavy, I might consider some bicycle tires to make it mobile and some ATV hitches front and back so I could pull it around to vary the shooting distances. I'll bet I'm not thinking of everything. The reason I posted this is because I am planning a construction of a such a "shooting shed" next summer and I'm looking for ideas. I don't want it to be finished and then have to say, "Gee, I wish I had done this or that. It is a one-shot deal.

If you were going to build the best shooting bench your imagination could conjure up, what features would you include?

WOW! What a beast.

Well maybe this is an opportunity to update things a bit and put in features that you always wanted. I always figured that a shooting bench that could be used all winter with maybe some removable sides and a propane heater. I never did it, but maybe this summer. I figured that panels that could be taken down in summer and maybe some screened panel to keep some of the bugs out. What do you think? Worth the effort?

I just finished reading an article in the latest issue of New York Outdoor News about a guy that was attacked by a rabid bear. Now there is something that your mind can work on next deer season, when you are walking to your stand in the dark.....lol. Yeah it is a rare situation, but apparently, it can happen. This guy was in a store parking lot when the bear went after him. Fortunately for him there was another guy nearby that had a pistol and he did the bear in before there was too much damage done to the guy that was attacked.

I just spotted the fact that this was a duplicate

But I think on a 1000' driveway, that might run me broke. But Who knows. I may have to break down and do something like that if things get the way I am guessing they will.

But God helps those who help themselves, right? It doesn't hurt to ask for a little assistance, but I think he expects you to put in a lot effort too.

Years ago, I had a Ford 8N with a back-blade and with a 1000' driveway, and a wide area up by where the cars are parked, I would wind up with a hell of a stiff neck after plowing from trying to look behind to see where I was going. I have to ask about you guys that use a bucket. When you are dealing with wet heavy snow, don't you find the bucket loading up and packing with snow? Also there is no way to tilt the bucket to throw the snow off to the side. Isn't that true?

That is what I am worried about. We don't have a lot of snow here south-east of Rochester, but we do have a creek that loves to flood out our driveway. We have some warmer weather coming up this next week. One other thing that is worrisome is the ice that cover my 1000' driveway. Right now it is covered by packed snow, but when the warmer weather hits, I am certain that it will become a skating rink of glare-ice. It's going to get very interesting.

Those are the kind of books that I grew up with, and they helped push me into hunting, fishing, trapping, and all things outdoors. I am very much influenced by the stories that I read about mountain men and the early pioneers and Indians that survived and overcame obstacles and challenges that we can only imagine. When I look at the equipment and "hunting" practices that we use today, it makes their survival seem so much more impressive. I admire those that came before us and showed us what real hunting used to be. Those are the people and spirit of survival where many of us came from. I have never chose to go all the way back to conditions from our ancestors, but there are some basic limitations that I still like to put on my hunting just to celebrate what we used to be comprised of. And foolproof schemes and products do not fit into any of my hunting ideas. I still like to keep the "hunting" in my hunting.

The Indians supported a whole society in such lands without feeders and without training their prey to offer themselves up for killing. As far as baited bear hunting, I have never done that either, for the same reasons. I do not condition the animals that I hunt to avail themselves to make up for my shortfalls in hunting skills. There is a show on every week that shows people of the north country doing spot & stalk hunting of black bears. I think it is called something like "Life below zero" or something like that. I have never seen any of them resort to baiting. I also have seen videos of Fred Bear, and Tred Barta both successfully still-hunt grizzleys with recurve bows no less. No bait involved there in those hunts. Now that's something I will never do, but for a whole different reason.....lol.

So, is there anyone here that has a problem with excessive clothing interfering with original sight pin settings. I find that stance and form start changing as I add more and more heavy clothing.

Even though I am a confirmed ground-stander, I have to admit that I am convinced that tree-standers probably have the odds more in their favor. But I have learned also that deer can be taken from the ground even though every movement on the ground usually turns out bad for the hunter. A lot of that depends on the care taken when building the blind. I generally build a small wall that I can stand behind and either slowly lean out with the bow already drawn, or arranged so that I am hidden, allowing the deer to walk past while I stand there with the bow drawn. What gets a bit nasty is when several deer come in scattered all around you. The game is usually over when that happens.

The example that I gave above of the deer being trained to come the sound of the feeder was a Texas hunt. And still would never consider hunting semi-domesticated deer that have been trained to take the hunt out of hunting. It's just not my style regardless of circumstances. I just don't like hunting animals that have been conditioned or programmed by man to eliminate the "hunt" in hunting. It just is not my thing. Another thing that I will not be involved in is the kinds of hunts that are known as "Canned Hunts". The idea of resting the gun on the wires of a fence and shooting an animal that is standing there feeding from a grain bin is kind of the same as hunting in a slaughter house. No it is not the same as a high fence hunt that has thousands of acres for the critters to evade you in. I am talking about real true canned hunt operations. Just another limit that I put on my hunting.

This is a typical case of conditioning the deer to aid a kill. That is the line that I draw to define where I will not go with my hunting practices. I have too much respect for the species to resort to training them to give themselves up. It is too much like fasteddie's example with the goats. That sort of stuff starts to take the hunt out of hunting for me. There are other practices that people do in the name of hunting that cross over my personal limits, but all these things are personal lines that I have drawn for my idea of hunting. Others may draw their lines differently and as long as the practices are within the framework of the law, they are entitled to their own versions of hunting.

It gets real ugly when you get more than 2 feet of snow.

The only experience that I have had with bees, other than being stung, was the bee-tree that I found a few decades back at the top of the hill behind the house. It has long since been empty. It was a short stunted red-oak tree that had a split in the side with honey globbed around the hole, and bees flying in and out. I never found another wild bee-tree before or since. I guess there is a shortage of wild honey bees, so I am glad there are some bee-keeping enthusiasts like you around. I see hives around all over the place around here. Apparently bee-keeping is a pretty popular hobby. Ha-ha-ha.....I have been known to steer around honey bees when I am mowing.

Yeah, baiting is one of the many things that cross over the line for me. That feeling goes above and beyond the constraints of the law. One of the things that I am not into, is anything that attempts to condition the deer to make my hunting easier. I like my prey to be as natural and "untrained" as possible. Part of hunting for me is finding and understanding currently used food resources......Not creating them. However, I know that that is just one of my own unique personal requirements. I remember once reading about a Texas deer hunt with an automatic feeder where the guy claimed that the sound of the timed feeder dispensing bait triggered the deer to come in to the feeder. He knew where the deer would be coming in and even knew when. His feeders had literally trained the deer to assist his harvest. That sort of thing is not anything that I really want to be involved with in my hunting. That is not a knock against those that do use such tactics where legal. It is just the sort of thing that my personal "fair chase" limitations will not allow me to take advantage of.

I'm wondering if I should plow and uncover that slick ice again. But likely I will have to eventually. It is an interesting predicament. I thought it was kind of neat living that far of the road. It's not all that neat this year.

Now that's just silly looking.

I guess I am fortunate enough to still afford some real beef and pork steaks and roasts when I want meat, and don't have to rely of wild game for survival. So the only motivation I have for hunting is to measure my abilities against a deer's abilities. Not some guy's manufactured product against the deer. That all is just another way of saying, "I need the challenge if I am going to hunt". That is what made me get into hunting in the first place. How far am I willing to retreat on that challenge....well that is where the question really lies. It is a tough balance. At 81, I'm not going to lay out on an overhanging limb with a knife clenched in my teeth waiting to drop down on the back of a deer. But I do draw some lines on what I will do to get the job done. I was just curious as to what kinds of limits people put on their hunting to satisfy their version of "fair chase". But I know we all hunt for different reasons, and that is why I posed this question. There really is no right or wrong answer. We all do what we want, the way we want to do it and that is the way it all should go.