Doc

I think this kind of stuff is amazing. I love fooling around with Mother Nature. It will be interesting to see how this experiment works out.

By the way.... What did you guys think of the way those coyotes ate up that deer just overnight? They must have one heck of a lot of coyotes in that area.

I've got the scions cut and in the refrigerator.

Actually, I suppose that is why rattling works. Those curious goats can't help themselves and have to go watch a good fight. Actually, I have seen videos of 3-way buck fights where one of the observer bucks decided to get in there and try to kick the butts of the original two. These guys are not the meek little fuzzy cute critters that most people think they are. Apparently they are not always just interested in kicking competitive bucks out of their territory, but actually get into a killing frenzy at times.

Millers is out of business and the name is now owned by Stark Brothers. Hopefully the quality of product will still be as good as it was when Millers was supplying the product. Too bad, Millers was just a couple of hills over from me, and I used to be able to drive over and see the product before buying.

You're absolutely right ..... I already have more than my share of rust already.

Well, I guess I learned a lesson about the dangers of extreme cabin fever .... lol.

A couple of years back I put down a buck that I believe may have had his difficulties begin with a severe goring from a fight. My theory is that he was badly injured by a fight and then had further severe injuries added by a predator of some sort that left him laid up. It is my opinion that he would not have made in very far into winter, injured the way he was. Here is the part where I think some predator took over: That area of torn up meat around the back end is not the result of a botched gutting job....lol. That is the way he was when I shot him. But there are other wounds along his body that were definite puncture wounds.

What an amazing video! What an amazing hunt! Unbelievable. I wonder just how many of these deer-on-deer homicides take place each year....lol. Around here just a prolonged fight like that would take an awful lot out of a deer even if they both wound up walking away. With an impending winter coming up, that would have to make the survival of both deer questionable. Anyway, it made for one exciting video. I do wish the guy could have held that camera a little more steady, but with the excitement level, a little loss of camera control is certainly understandable....lol.

So, what is with that layer of ice across the top of the ground. The darned stuff is about an inch thick and harder than a bullet. I've never seen that sort of thing before. It's not everywhere, but anyplace even on a slight grade you are going down if you step on it, And when you put it on a steep hillside, there's no getting past it unless you detour around it. Anybody else have that on the ground or it that just a local thing here? And that stupid crust on the snow up on the hill has effectively shut that whole area off to wildlife. In our area, little weird things like this stuff at this later part of winter is starting to concentrate deer and other things down in the valley bottoms, and may turn out to be very tough on the critters. That snow crust and those areas of hard ice do not seem to be going away.

Lol .... I could have done that down here in the valley where the snow is just about gone.

Yeah, people are always telling me to go take a hike, so today that's what I did. I haven't been up on the hill in long time so I figured I would climb ol' Cardiac Hill, and see what's happening up there. Big mistake! There's hardly any snow down here in the valley, but as I kept going higher and higher, the snow kept getting deeper and deeper. First about 1/4 of the way up, I ran into ice. Hard thick and very smooth ice that had me down about 1/2 dozen times. Then thankfully there was enough snow on top of the ice so that I could climb the hill without falling on my face. Then the snow kept getting deeper and deeper, plus it had a crust that would support me until my full weight got on it and then break down with a spine shattering crash. By the way the noise that all this crunching made never once threatened to allow me to ever catch sight of any critters. It didn't matter anyway because the only critter dumb enough to go up there was me. I should have guessed that it wasn't going to get any better because there wasn't a single deer track above the half way up point. Well, I made it up to the top, but I can't for the life of me figure out exactly what I accomplished.

Hell, I've got enough "ripping" to go around, and there is never a situation where I will not take the opportunity to "rip" at the NYS sportsman's number one enemy..... Cuomo. He never gets a free pass from me regardless of what other issues may be present about this article. Is it first class journalism? ..... probably not. But,I suppose it may be a lot more info than the Governor and his lackey intended for public consumption since the press was barred from the meeting. I would like to know the purpose of that decision by the way. My feeling is that the Governor is out fishing for allies that he considers to be the movers and shakers of hunting politics. And of course why have a bought-and-paid-for DEC Commissioner if you don't use him for your political activities. No matter what was going on, you can rest assured that the Governor was looking for some political leverage out of it. My comment was just to point out that Martens is merely a Cuomo mouthpiece and that in all likelihood there was political motivation behind this meeting that was orchestrated by Martens' boss ..... Andy. Don't be looking to make anything more of it than that. This is election year, and Cuomo is a master politician. His every waking move is based on re-election at any cost. Oh and by the way, those that may be getting tired of me ripping on that piece of filth, Cuomo, should probably get used to it. I will not be letting up until he is replaced. And actually, I do not understand any gun owner who wishes to or even suggests that we should tread lightly on Andy's contempt for the 2nd Amendment. In my mind, the campaign against Cuomo is in full swing ..... right now!

Take a walk on just about any parcel of state land. You will be amazed at the plastic water bottles, zip-lock sandwich bags, candy wrappers, cans, and other forms of junk that people just tossed on the ground. Another type of trash that I can almost guarantee that I will find are these damned party balloons that people turn loose by the jillions. Apparently people assume that because they eventually go out of sight that they disappear and never come down.

Ok, It's real nice that the DEC Commissioner wants to hear from sportsmen, but the fact is that the Commissioner is a tool of the Governor. He is an appointee that serves at the pleasure of Cuomo, so asking for sportsmen's input on dictates of the Governor seems kind of like window-dressing only for the benefit of P.R. What exactly does anyone think might come of this that would be beneficial to the outdoor men and women. It is show-time!

Damn! That brings back childhood memories of when we used to head out to the feeder creeks of Canandaigua Lake. My Dad, Uncle, Cousin and myself. We filled buckets with smelt. We had about 8 different places we would go where cottagers left the creeks open for smelters. You can't do that anymore. Those places have long since been posted up and shut off to access. Probably the fault of the fishermen themselves. People can be such pigs.

I just wrote that down so I don't forget to tell my wife that idea. It really sounds good!

Every law is backed up with the promise of eventual force (violence) somewhere along the chain of reactions if not obeyed. Our entire society is built on that precept. If you act in a lawless fashion, somewhere along the legal reactions, someone will visit violence on you to force you to comply, or to take you out of society where you will be controlled. It's not a wonderful thought when you live in a society that celebrates independence and personal freedoms, but it is a fact of civilized living within the organization of a society. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to see where life would be if there was no threat of violent reaction to law breaking. All it takes is a 5 minute glance at the local news to understand that there are people in our society that need control and that control often requires some level of violent response to have any effect at all.

Not only am I going to take more pictures, but I will be coming back to prune that little guy up a bit and pull those vines out of it. It looks very healthy, but it is being buried alive with vines. I think the deer will appreciate a little care for this food source.

And such a beautiful looking face on them too ..... lol. Actually, every body of water in the area that would typically hold bullheads are still frozen over tight. But I'm glad for this reminder thread. I have a way of always missing the best parts of the bullhead run. Not this year though .... I will be paying attention this time. Best bait? .... Pollywogs (no legs even started to satisfy the law) if you can find them. What bait do you guys use?

Lol .... Thank Heavens. I am quite addicted to the stuff, and am also mildly diabetic as well.

Well, I thought I was done with this thread, believing that the majority opinion was that your pictures were those of a persimmon tree. That was the case until I ran into a tree yesterday that was exactly the same as the one you have in your pictures. Check these pictures out: So, I got back to the house all excited that I had found a rare persimmon tree, and got on the net. Well actually I found that these are not persimmons at all. Not even close. The fruit is not close in size, shape, or stem configuration. In fact persimmons don't have a stem at all but rather a collar of leaf shaped features that attach directly to the tree. Check out the following picture: There all kinds of varieties of persimmons, but wild or domestic, they all have those same features. I also checked to see if these were left-over apples on a thornapple tree, but there were no thorns, and the bark, tree shape and size were not that of a thornapple. So after looking at a whole bunch of wild crabapple trees (there are over 700 varieties), I decided that it is indeed a wild crabapple. This year there has been a crazy phenomenon that I have never seen before, where some of the regular apple trees held onto the apples and refused to drop. They then froze on these trees, and even now are still hanging frozen and rotten on the trees. Apparently the same thing happened on some of these wild crabapple trees. Do not pay a lot of attention to the color, I looked at some domestic apples that are still hanging frozen on the trees and they are the same color, so apparently freezing and rotting cause them to take on that orange color. Anyway I thought it was strange that we just had a thread about these things, and I go out and run smack dab into the very same thing......lol.

Check out Stark Brothers at http://www.starkbros.com/ as a good source of mail order trees. As far as local retail outlets, that would depend on what part of southern New York you're talking about. Most of those probably will not be known to anyone other than those that live in your area. Be sure to check the growing zones recommended for your area. Some of the varieties sold are for more southern states.

Now come-on, there has to be something in that stuff that is terribly bad for you isn't there? Isn't it a scientific fact that everything that tastes good is bad for you? I once heard of a doctor saying that if it tastes good .... Spit it out!

Sure, I stuffed a ton of it in me ..... burp! By the way, the air quality in our house is a bit on the offensive side ever since. That cabbage can have real nasty effects.