Doc

Yes, my shooting off a rest has improve 2000% when I finally mastered the "surprise" triggering with a slow measured increase in trigger pressure until it all-of-a-sudden goes off. And that is the problem with off-hand shooting. The sight is constantly in motion in random patterns such that I start to try to time the shot and take a wild stab at the trigger when I "think the crosshairs will be over the target. That is just pure disaster and almost never works. The other thing is that the longer that I am aiming, the wilder the sight motion becomes. So it gets to be a jerk-the-trigger style of timing activity or the movement gets continually worse and worse. But I am thinking of getting some kind of pellet gun so I can practice in the basement and maybe find something that works for me.

Turkeys are really getting a break this year. Getting some nice warm-ups at just the right times to make this winter easier for them. Now, if they just get a good nesting season, they should really start picking up in numbers.

I would say that you have rated it about right. Maybe I would have gone as high as 7 out of 10. I am from the era where most of the movies were westerns. Even the weekly westerns on TV were something to look forward to. But all that is gone now. I don't know whether it was the political correctness that has caused the demise of westerns as the main theme or what, but I do miss the days of good westerns. That is why whenever someone bothers to even put one out, it gets a few extra points just for the attempt.

I think that yarding is a movement to escape negative or uncomfortable environmental situations. Unprotected areas, or areas where winter food supplies are inadequate can spur mass movement. That is not really any different than the migration purposes of caribou and elk.

We have a pile of sub-forums on this site. I was just wondering if like me, you have all picked out a few of these that you always check in on, and a bunch of them that you usually skip over. I always check out the "Recent Topics" area and then the: Chit-Chat forum General Hunting Deer Hunting Bow Hunting The two Picture forums then finally the politics forum I am generally in a bit of a hurry so I just skip over the rest or just check the most recent post listed on the contents page depending on my time situation. Pretty soon I will be checking out the fishing forum.

With constant improvements in bow speed there has always been controversy over whether a deer can react to the sound of a bow shot. And right along with each round of controversy there is video footage that proves that they can. The only thing in question on a case by case situation is whether they will choose to react or not. There have been huge innovations in bow noise also, but on a calm quiet day there is no bow that can cheat the deer's ears either. The only time that can work is if there is a high wind producing competing noises. So, I believe that those who aim low (heart area) are the ones who have put a bit of a cushion into their shot. It is no guarantee, but it does put the odds more in your favor. Another thing to be aware of is that the deer seldom drops straight down. Often he is twisting into a turn at the same time, which moves him laterally as well.

My entire front yard is tracked-up like a barnyard, and deer come here every day for supper. going down my driveway through the woods, I have to be always on the look-out for deer running across. It's hard not to be reminded of hunting with all that going on.

I once saw a huge deer yard with literally hundreds, maybe even thousands of deer clustered around the southern end of Honeoye Lake. I am quite sure that they were not all locals. That sure looked like a migration of deer. It is not an annual thing anymore .... thankfully. They were all looking gaunt and at death's door as they stripped all available forage from the entire area. Every field and opening in the area was covered with deer . Some alive....some dead. Migration? It all depends on how you define the word.

https://www.outdoorlife.com/blogs/big-buck-zone/2013/02/do-whitetails-migrate-washington-study-aims-pattern-deer-movement

Other than my first deer many, many years ago shot at 35 yards with a recurve, every deer I have shot since was under 25 yards. These days, I am satisfied with getting each arrow inside of each of my four 3" circles on an 8-1/2 x 11 sheet of paper. I shoot most of my arrows during a practice session at twenty yards and stir in a few 30, 40 and 50 yard shots just for fun. Back in my tournament (NFAA) days we had an 80 yard shot that I could score on .... once in a while....lol.

I believe that I may hold the record for being the crappiest off-hand shooter around. It's the same as a moving target except it is my crosshairs that are moving and bouncing around. Just a wiggly old fart. I doubt there is any amount of practice that will settle down that sight. That is why if I can't find a good gun rest or at least a tree to lean against, I don't shoot. Its that bad. My deer stands for gun season are all designed the same. Kind of like log and branch walls with gun rests all the way around. When still hunting, I have a Primos bi-pod that goes with me.

Wow this thread sure jumped off to the side......lol. Let me just add to this thread deflection that just because people are critical of crazy Muslim extremists that are determined to kill us, it should not be assumed that they hate Muslims. I find myself a bit intolerant of those individuals who publicly state that they have a sworn duty to kill me. Somehow that does not fit into the realm of racism in my book. I understand that there are some who get a feeling of superiority when they call people racists even when there is no basis for the allegation. There is a lot of that going on these days.

Actually I have gotten pretty quick with the vise. I usually can crack the shell within a couple of spins on the handle. A good bench vise can develop huge amounts of force, and it is always a controlled application of the force so that the nut-meats don't wind up to be powder. This year I have gone after black walnuts, butternuts, and hickory nuts. The wife made a cake with hickory nuts. It was fantastic, and as far as I know it is something you can't buy. But I am curious as to how they commercially process black walnuts. I am assuming that you can buy black walnut meats somewhere, but I can't say that I have ever seen them. But processing any of these nuts has to be heavily labor intensive. Anybody know any processing tricks that commercial producers use?

Do it yourself hunts are much more satisfying to me, but they don't come with any guarantees. We did a DIY moose hunt way up in northern Ontario Canada, and it took us two years to get a moose. Yes that brought the total price up pretty good, but we didn't have anyone doing all the actual hunting for us and telling us step by step what to do. There are pros and cons to guided hunts vs. DIY. But it is just another thing to investigate and decide on.

Corrugated card board stacked into a 4' x 4' with two rows of 12" cardboard that cold be reversed to refresh the target thick and drawn down tight using 1/2" threaded rod will last almost forever. NOT FOR BROADHEAD USE. I made two of these, one for my outdoor range and built into a little shed. The other mounted on saw horses in the basement. They have both been rebuilt by reversing the entry (front) layer with the rear layer. This was done in about the 5th year. Then I went about another four years and had to rebuild again by with new cardboard. And I was heavy into NFAA indoor and outdoor competitive shooting and was practicing regularly nearly every night. So these butts were taking a constant beating. Shooting into the ends of the corrugations made them self sealing. Yes, there was a lot of time and labor gathering and cutting the cardboard, but it didn't have to be done over and over. And with the cardboard retrieved from the dumpsters behind the local grocery store, the materials were free. I got the idea from a commercial indoor archery range in Rochester where they used the compressed cardboard that used some big old heavy bales of excelsior to compress the cardboard under the weight of the bales.

Great video!

To me, hunting is a natural human act that I never apologize for or feel bad about in any fashion. I don't spend a lot of time feeling anything but joy at success. If I begin to humanize the lives of my prey, the whole activity would simply stop. I don't do anything that makes me feel bad or feel remorse or any negative emotions. I guess the lessons that Walt Disney tried to instill into us just didn't take with me. By the way I don't hunt out of hate either, so I have no vendetta against coyotes or foxes or any other predatory wild critter. But if they can supply a challenge (and they definitely do), I will take them out too. My motivations for hunting is my genetic natural instincts as a predator. The thrill of the chase, and yes the finality of the kill are all part of what I do. It is something that I am quite honest about. I do not practice any form of "catch and release" hunting, and I go out with the intention of producing a kill. It is what is expected. It is what is wanted. And I do not become involved with any sort of negative emotions over it either.

I usually take a $20 bill, and bet a max of ten cents per spin, and I can get 2 hours of play with those limitations. Sometimes I win. Most times it is just paying to play their machines. $10/Hr isn't too terrible for recreation these days. The problem is that they are pushing me out by elevating the minimum cost per spin to over my limit of $.10 cents. Yes, they call them penny machines, but they set the lower limit well above that. So the quantity of machines available for me to play gets to be fewer and fewer every time I go.

I have my rifles zeroed in at 100 yards. That's the max distance of my target range where I can set them up off the bags and bench.

Ok, I guess I can see the benefits. It would be a whole lot more important to me if I had one years ago at the beginning of my gun collections. Right now, I pretty much have what I want and need so the most important benefit of caliber change is unimportant to me. But I can see where others might be attracted to the economy of it all.

That is exactly right. When we pay others to do the killing for us, we don't have to confront the fact that something had to die so that we could live. But we suffer all kinds of mental trauma when we actually do the job ourselves. Personally, I don't bother wasting emotions on my food. Yes, I saw that episode of Alaska the Last Frontier where Otto was almost brought to tears because it was time to butcher one of his cows, so he made his kid do it. I guess we can't help but feel whatever it is that we feel when it comes to taking a life. But that whole process is part of life. For those that have tears well up when their deer flops over, just think about the alternative ways that that critter would have surely died. It could have slowly starved to death (the normal eventual end for deer), or been ripped apart by coyotes, one bite at a time over several miles of being chased. There are also some rather nasty diseases that are kind of lingering and torturous. One thing that is pretty certain is that they will not peacefully pass away in their sleep, dying of old age. So if you need to feel something, consider that you are likely providing a rather humane end to their life that they would otherwise never get. A well placed bullet or arrow likely is a kinder end than the alternatives. If you need to feel bad, save that for when you screw up the shot and cause a lingering wound (lethal or not). Now that's something to feel bad about.

I hate to sound ignorant, but I am curious as to what the attraction to the AR style rifle is. I know they have become wildly popular, but I am curious as to what the appeal is. Is it a styling attraction, or are there more practical reasons for the popularity? I am more of a fan of traditional rifles that have the nice wood stocks as far as appearance features, but perhaps there are more useful features of the ARs that I am not aware of.

Red Lobster gets the nod for Valentines Day. No gifts, just a big stuffed and happy belly.

Ha-ha.... When I was a kid I never watched fishing shows. I just grabbed my old taped together rod with the old level-wind reel and went across the road to the creek and fished for creek chubs and horned-daces. We weren't watchers. We were "doers".

Lol..... and yet it doesn't happen very often that we feel any sorrow when we munch into that tasty veal cutlet or those great lamb chops. And how about that 2" thick prime rib at the steak house. It only seems to happen with deer. Why is that?