Doc

Really?

There is a common thread of challenge in all forms of shooting. But the mental and physical demands of archery seem so much more rigid. The unbending rules of form consistency, stance anchor position, release, follow-through and all the little rules of absolute consistency are all so critical in archery. A lot of the challenge came from my years of tournament shooting when I became enthused with the idea of putting arrows into the same hole. Never realized but that was the imagined goal. But I still remember that old hickory stave that I fashioned into a fairly decent long-bow, and the shooting challenges that started me off on a lifetime of archery fanaticism. I still idolize the more famous archers like Darrell Pace, Fred Bear, Howard Hill and Stacy Groscup and others that did amazing things with rather basic equipment. And up until I got involved in tournament shooting these were the people that I tried to emulate. Of course the tournament stuff is where I really got hung up on the thought of perfection. I never got there but the pursuit of perfection became fanatical. It's been a grand journey through all the phases of archery and I enjoyed every minute of it. I am not saying that all those other weapons of shooting can't be attacked with the same kind of fanaticism. I have brother-in-law who goes through a lot of the same kind obsession with his guns. But archery was the thing that I began obsessing about, and it has been a lifetime obsession from age 10 to today.

I'm confused. I read on here somewhere that this site was no longer accepting new members now that Burmjohn has come up missing. And yet, down at the bottom of the main forum index page I find little circles with letters inside that indicate members that have been on the site in the last 24 hours. If you hold the mouse over those circles, you will get a drop down window that gives the name and date of joining. I did that with all of them, and found 17 members who have joined since January of this year. There were several who joined since today. So, according to that we have members still joining all the time. Does anyone know people who have joined recently?

Actually, I really like archery, just for archery's sake too. There is something about manually holding back all that force, and then letting go of the string and seeing the arrow go into the target (or not). At one time I was deep into tournament archery. I was never really super good at it, but it was just fun. Like any sport, it was the challenge of developing a skill that was difficult to master. I always enjoyed the 80 yard shot on the NFAA field archery course. When I shot it with a recurve, I had to have a prism sight pin just for that shot, so I could see the target around my fist.....lol. Hunting was really a natural offshoot of archery. I was bowhunting before I ever owned a gun......shooting pigeons in the barn at age 10.

So what was it that fascinated you about shooting a bow? I remember poking around up in the shop over our garage where I found an old draw knife way back when I was about 10 years old. I took my trusty hatchet and went up on the hill where I hacked down a hickory sapling, and used that draw-knife to fashion something that looked like a pretty good version of a longbow, and built some arrows out of willow branches. The bow worked fine, but the arrows didn't fly all that well. Of course the question comes up as to what the heck I did all that for. There was nobody in our family that was into archery or bowhunting. No magazines or books or TV programs for encouragement. But as soon as I saw that draw-knife, that was the first thing that came to mind was that I had to use it to make a bow ..... lol. There was just something about a simple bent stick being used to propel another stick at a target that was and still is fascinating. It had nothing to do with getting a deer or hunting anything at all at first. I suppose all of that is not all that strange because quite a few kids get involved with archery and never really do have any thoughts of hunting. It's just a challenging activity. So how about the rest of you? What was it that was the big fascination with shooting a bow?

No, that's alright. I just wanted to encourage you to keep on posting these. They are hilarious.

Robby- Where the heck are you getting all these. They are all great!

I came down out of the trees a quite a few years ago. Mainly due to a "heights-thing". But I also discovered the excitement of dealing with deer in an eyeball-to eyeball situation where things are put kind of in their favor. Yeah I'm sure it has impacted my success, but the added excitement has kind of increased the whole deer hunting experience. By the way check out the poll. That's a forum feature that we haven't used in quite a while.

This is a question I asked way back in 2010. Well, there were a lot of interesting responses, & we have a whole different bunch of people here now and 15 years have passed, so I was interested to see if anything has changed

How many of you have permanently hung up your vertical bows in favor of a crossbow?

The one piece of info that never seems to show up in any of these articles, is, "Does this now mean that the herd population will now dwindle down dramatically"? Can we now expect to be seeing a whole bunch of dead deer all throughout the PA woods? How serious is this news? Is this the death knell for the species? These scare-articles pop up occasionally, but no one ever researches if this disease is actually significant in any way to the actual health of the herd. Where are the articles about dead deer littering the woods? This disease has been reported for many years now, and there is no cure or effort to combat the disease and yet the impact seems to be minimal.

That definitely will do the job.

I'm not sure what the name of it is, and I'm not sure that there is a name indicated on it. But make sure that you look it over pretty good before buying it. I would go to a dealer that sells and services the brand of ATV that you own. The attachment features and clearances are located differently from one to another. The other thing that has become necessary for me is a winch system that lifts and lowers the blade. My earlier plows were lever-lifted, and that worked fine back then. But on a long driveway like mine, that sucker gets mighty heavy.

I just finished reading an old topic here on using an ATV for snow plowing, and there seemed to be a lot of concern about the ability of an ATV to move heavy snow. I have been using an ATV to plow my 1000' driveway for in excess of 30 years. The first one I used was a 2 wheel drive Yamaha in the 228 cc range, and it did all right, but there were definitely limitations. Then I moved up to a 400 cc Yamaha in 2004, and there was only one storm that made me not even take it out of the barn. Pick-up trucks couldn't even handle that one. Now after 20 years of handling all kinds of snow with a Yamaha 400, I finally bought a new one ( a Yamaha 450), and yesterday I did the driveway, and the snow was dripping wet and heavier than I have ever seen. No problem......Didn't even spin a wheel.

Just replaced my 21 year old Yamaha 400 with brand new Yamaha 450. Did my first plowing of the year with it yesterday. Yamaha has been doing some amazing engineering over those decades. The traction has improved (probably because the tires are brand new. That little bit of extra power makes a big difference. The snow was super heavy and the thing did not even grunt. The new plow is a lot easier to use and sheds snow like you wouldn't believe. Of course the surface is not all scratched up like the old one, but that gooey wet snow didn't even begin to clog up on the blade. I'm really happy with that monstrous snow-moving machine, and it does a great job on our 1000' driveway.

The last time I went ice fishing was back when I was about 15 years old (Damn....that was 66 years ago). I have no idea why I have not made that a yearly thing. I remember running around trying to keep up with all the flags of the tip-ups popping up. It was a blast pulling those pickerel out of Honeoye Lake. It's an excellent pastime in the dead of winter and supplied a lot of fresh fish dinners. Now I am on blood thinners, and can't take a whole lot of cold anymore. So many things that I just don't do anymore.

I suspect that the original intention of that sub-forum was to discuss the legal issues of hunting and the political aspect that controls those legal issues. Some how it got all bastardized to include national politics that have nothing to do with hunting, fishing, trapping, and all sorts of outdoor issues that this forum is all about. That is a shame. It all could have been brought under control with a little forceful clarification. But, I guess without Burmjohn's participation there really is nothing that can be done about it one way or another.

Maybe we should be studying how many crows, buzzards, hawks, and foxes, and other carnivorous critters are dying of lead poison before we worry too much about the lead ammo that we have been using since pre-pioneer days. I am getting tired of people messing with hunters in every way imaginable. I have a lifetime's supply of loaded lead bullets and shotshells that I suppose they would like to have me just throw away. And by the way, just because gut-piles are visited by all kinds of critters does not mean that there ever was any lead in any of those gut-piles, although I am sure they will make that assumption in their studies. Sorry for the outburst, but it seems that there is no end to the harassment of hunters and I am getting pretty tired of it.

Do we have any ice fishermen here anymore?

Regular mounts are a whole lot more than that. And your mount is just as nice looking. At least it is to me.

But as I understand it, that is where notification and discussion of new gun and hunting laws would be posted and commented on. It seems a shame to bury or ignore something that is so important to the theme of this entire site. Also, whether we want to admit it or not, there is a huge political aspect to all the outdoor activities that this whole site is involved in. Perhaps there should have been a title revision that indicated that the politics part of that sub-forum was only to involve outdoor politics or something to that effect, but we should not be ignoring or hiding the legal and political parts of our outdoor activities that we all know exist.

Anybody besides me think that it is time to bring the "Gun and Hunting Laws and Politics Discussions" sub-forum back from exile? Half of that does relate to "Gun and hunting Laws" which is kind of vital to hunting issues. Do we even have the ability to make that kind of change without Burmjohn being here?

How are you guys making out with the ice fishing? I imagine you all have good ice now. Any good pictures or stories?

I like that kind of mount. How does the cost of a euro mount compare to a regular head and shoulder mount?

Has anyone here ever gotten a "double robin hood"