[Going to give Trapping a try!]

Do you have any water-trapping opportunities? Muskrats, mink, beaver, etc.

[What Does Your Hunting Areas Look Like?]

1 minute ago, Northcountryman said:

Nice description; any ideas as to why they come up in the morning and down in the evening? Usually, when considering thermals, I believe its usually the opposite: where they follow thermals up later in the evening as the air cools and sinks; there are MANY other reasons, however, that theyd go against. Would be an interesting analysis, though , to try to figure it out .

Yes you would think that that is the wrong way for them to use the thermals. But they like to bed up on the side hill towards the top so they can look down on upcoming danger and have the thermals delivering scent from danger below. I suppose they have patterned the "people movement" and have gotten used to hunters coming from the road below. In the morning. That's just a guess. But the pattern is consistent. 

At night they come down for the better browse in what used to be the small farm fields of decades ago.

[Tongue]

No body has any good recipes for pickled deer tongue?

Are there other ways to prepare deer tongue? It seems to me that when I had cow tongue, years and years ago, it was not pickled. 

[Deer body size, pre rut, vs winter.]

On 2/6/2024 at 6:56 AM, escpen said:

The muscle mass decreases just as rapidly as it increased before and during the rut due to swings in testosterone production, I would think. 

I'm not a biologist, though - this is just an (un)educated guess.

Is that even possible?

[Is somebody is making changes to this site?]

30 minutes ago, First-light said:

Doc you want spooky? If you have an Alexa in the house or just have a conversation on your phone about a product, vacation destination or such, ads will start popping up on Face Book about what you talked about. That is spooky! 

This stuff is getting completely out-of-control. Imagine what it will be like a decade from now.

[What Does Your Hunting Areas Look Like?]

6 hours ago, Northcountryman said:

Awesome!! Very diverse-you got a favorite habitat of those or all productive from time to time?

The general deer activity does move from hill-top down the hill to the scrub-brush in the valley bottom in the evening and then back up the hill in the morning........generally. So I wind up hunting all of the areas. Then when rut comes on, all bets are off. Down in the valley bottom, the deer stay confined mostly to trails through the vines and multi-flora rose patches and tag alders. Many of those areas there is no chance of getting an arrow through without carefully cutting some shooting lanes. The hilltop is a whole different kind of a hunt. Trails are scarce and not always used. A lot of it is wide open and the deer tend to wander randomly through the areas feeding on acorns and such. That's ok when it is gun season because now with rifles, you can reach out and connect on the wanderers. But with a bow I have to look for pinch points around the big ravine and other features that steer the movements.

I've been hunting camping and wandering around this whole area (uphill and down) since I was a kid, so I know it all like the back of my hand and know the deer pretty well.

[Is somebody is making changes to this site?]

I guess I was lucky. This was an add-block of about 1-1/2" all the way across the bottom of the screen that had a collapse arrow. But it would come back again every time I switched pages. However, that was the only true pop-up advertising that I had to contend with. Maybe different operating systems or internet interface programs react differently with certain advertisements. I don't know, but it is gone now, so I don't have any pop-up ads at all. Yeah, there are the usual ads along the right-hand side of the page, but they don't bother anything.

I'm happy with everything now.

[NFA-ADK]

Good to hear from some of the early subscribers again. I'm looking forward to more conversations with you here in the future. We need the participation.

[Is somebody is making changes to this site?]

Was it only my computer where the pop-up ads used to slide up from the bottom all the time whenever I changed pages? Oh now that is spooky.

[What Does Your Hunting Areas Look Like?]

13 hours ago, Four Seasons said:

Ah.....Letchworth. Probably one of the most scenic places on earth. And we know they have some nice deer there......lol.

[Is somebody is making changes to this site?]

Hey where did that pain-in-the-butt pop-up ad thing at the bottom of the page go? Somebody took it out. Is somebody doing some basic maintenance here?

[What Bows Arrows & Broadheads Do You Use.]

2 minutes ago, grampy said:

I have an MQ32 down in my hunting room I bought in 2000. Still shoots just fine! Though I haven't taken it out hunting in a couple years.

The bow I have been toting is an Obsession Phoenix that I bought from Moog. 

I used to try to keep up with the Jones's for years.....especially when I was into tournament field archery. I have expensive bows hanging all over the walls downstairs and drawers full of all kinds of gadgets and go-fasters. Then I remembered that the bow that I took most of my deer with was an old bear whitetail. What a nasty old bow, with limbs you could use as crowbars and more cables and pulleys than you could count. It was a super slow thing that shot the arrows no faster than my old recurves. But it was just as accurate as the fancy bows that now hang on the walls. And it killed deer just as dead. All of this occurred to me in 1999 after I bought that fancy MQ-32, and I haven't bought a bow or arrow since. I suppose that if I had stayed in tournament shooting, I would still be adding bows to the wall......lol.

[DEC Summer Camps Registration Opens March 24, 2024]

We need more of this kind of thing to expose kids to the outdoors.

[What Bows Arrows & Broadheads Do You Use.]

1 hour ago, landtracdeerhunter said:

Is the True fire wrist release buckle or Velcro?

Buckle

[What Does Your Hunting Areas Look Like?]

Here are some of the pictures that show the diversity of my hunting grounds from the swamps and thickets of the valley to the open Hardwoods of the hill. No farms or agriculture of any sort. Challenges?.....yes. But a good variety of habitat that has something for every critter.

So, what does your hunting turf look like?

[This guy ...........]

Here's another Nocturnal guy from back in 2013. This one showed up just behind our barn...........ONLY ONCE! He must have got lost....lol. Never saw him again. Never got another picture of him again. Never saw him in real life. No heavy mass. No points randomly all snaggled all over the place. Just a very nice symmetrical set of antlers. Measurements and numbers????.... who cares? Classical perfection????.....You bet.

[What Bows Arrows & Broadheads Do You Use.]

I hunt with a 1999 Mathews MQ-32 bow. There are another 11 assorted bows (compounds and recurves and a long bow) hanging on the wall down in the basement, all top-of-the-line bows in their day.

Easton aluminum, arrows Mostly autumn orange XX-75, with game getter back-ups.

Bear Razorhead broadheads

Cobra ring-pins (4) sight heavily modified

Tru-fire wrist release

 Nothing new since 1999, w/everything still serviceable and killing deer.

[Why do you hunt?]

On 2/2/2024 at 10:57 AM, Four Seasons said:

So you talk smack about they way I hunt and my choices of hunting only certain bucks one on one and then you write your last sentence….I don’t compete against anyone but the critters I take.  Which is just what I do. Perfect!!

I don't "talk smack" about the way anyone hunts. As I have said many times, hunting is an individual activity motivated by whatever each of us feels it all means to ourselves. There is no rule that I am aware of that says that everyone must get the same satisfactions and fulfillment from hunting.

My comments reflect my own views on my own hunting and my own personal satisfactions, which was what I wanted to hear from other members when I began this topic. Something besides proclamations that that if you don't do it my way you don't even know what hunting means.  I never saw controversy in the simple question that I asked in this topic. I have no idea why the topic took this turn. 

I'm sorry if you mistakenly took any of my comments as a challenge to your personal motives and satisfactions in your hunting. That was not intended.

[Deer body size, pre rut, vs winter.]

13 hours ago, escpen said:

Muscle?

Well then, where does all that muscle disappear to immediately after the rut is over?

[CNY Weather]

No snow plowing for me yet this year (1000' driveway).......Yee-haw! I know it won't last but I am really getting to be a big fan of this global warming. Lets start buying more gas-guzzlers and aerosol cans of stuff.

[Deer body size, pre rut, vs winter.]

Maybe I really don't want to know this, but what is it that makes the neck on a rutting buck swell like that? What is it that they are filling up with? Anybody know?

[Sling Shot Hunting]

That guy in the video was pretty damned good. But where was the scope or the sight-pins......lol. Just shows you how effective instinctive shooting can be.

[Sling Shot Hunting]

What happens to your eyeball if the elastic snaps? I think that was the question that always kept me from getting one. Maybe safety glasses are the answer.

[What calibers have you taken deer with..?]

4 hours ago, landtracdeerhunter said:

Wow, this is digging deep into the archives. A lot of names from the past, long history.

That was interesting looking at all those old names. A lot of those people used to be pretty prolific posters here with fantastic topics. Where did they all go?

[Tongue]

For some reason, I never thought to use the tongue before. I've had sheep tongue back when I was a kid, and I seem to remember that it was pretty good. I have no idea why I haven't tried deer tongue. Thanks for the idea. Next year I'll give it a try. You got any good recipes?