airedale

A favorite of mine.

I remember those kinds of prices, I am not familiar with that particular store. What is interesting is that I have at one time purchased and hunted with many of those firearms and some I still own. The Ithaca 37 in a Deerslayer model in 20 ga, the Remington 1100 in 20 ga, The H&R single shot in 20 ga, The Remington 742 in 30-06, The Remington Nylon 66 and several Marlin Lever Actions. Al

First of all I want to thank everyone so much who gave me some input on crossbows, I looked into everything as best I could and for me the Excalibur crossbow fit my bill of wants best of anything. The Wyvern site provided above has as good a price that can be found on Excalibur Crossbows, I decided to go with a Micro Mag 340 Escape model, it is on the lower end of Excalibur's price scale but I believe it is exactly the crossbow I am looking for and should provide a lot of trouble free shooting for a long time to come. Should be here in a few days and I will update what I think about this new adventure. Al

LOL, I have had my share of night hunting stumbling through the woods chasing Coon Dawgs for over 50 years. Varmint hunting has always been an in the daylight proposition for me, heck back when I started there was no such thing as nighttime varmint hunting. Like previously stated I am more of a casual varmint hunter and the electronic calls I have purchased were primarily for crow hunting which this new current one will probably be used most for and is a blast by the way. My first E caller way back when was a Johnny Stewart and a contraption it was, it weighed a ton and went through 9D batteries like water through a sieve. On top of that the heavy metal speaker was wired. Setting it up for a crow hunt was doable but for run and gun varmint hunting it sucked, just too much of everything to be carrying. Picture of a good old JS caller below. When FoxPro came on the scene with their lightweight portable callers and rechargeable batteries it was a game changer. My old one still works great. Al

I guess I am what would be called a casual varmint hunter with modest success, I call mostly in the early morning or just before dark, my calls are a variety of hand calls for the most part. I do have an electronic FoxPro with a short range remote, their very first model I believe. It's main use has always been for crow hunting and it has worked OK for that. I have taken a few Fox and Coyote with it down through the years. Decided to upgrade with something a bit more modern, nothing fancy, an ICOTEC with more call variety and a much longer range remote, louder too, it also has a decoy that is also remotely operated. Had a Red Fox kill a bunch of chickens last summer this call worked good and I am pretty sure I got the right culprit. Going to try for some Coyotes with this thing and I think I will be using that new Marlin 62 levermatic in 256 Winchester Mag I picked up a short time ago. This caller should work a bit better for crows I think too. Al

For me being on stand in 45 degree weather wearing proper clothing would make it much easier to stay in the field for a lot longer than 15 degrees, windy and snowing. Al

Hey Lawdwaz what kind of ignition reliability do you get with that flintlock? Never tried one myself, I am a "chicken" to use one for hunting, bawk bawk!! Al

I would say this TC Cherokee is the most disappointing firearm I have owned. I have shot this rifle more than I have my other three black powder rifles combined testing powders and bullets looking for accuracy, and while I finally found a Maxi Ball load combination that shoots good I think it's patched ball and sabot performance is horrible. The only thing I can come up with is that Thompson Center designed this particular rifle barrel to shoot their propriety Maxi Ball period. I became so frustrated normally I would have wrapped this SOB around a tree but I was in love with the rifle itself and determined more than ever to get it to shoot. Once you pick one of these Cherokees up and shoulder it the infatuation begins instantly. I guess all is well that ends well but I still wish this rifle was a bit more versatile with what can be shot out of it. Al

Decided to use my little Thompson Center 45 cal Cherokee sidelock this week for the muzzleloader extension, it is a very nice light weight rifle, I shoot the TC Maxi Balls which are a conical style lead bullet over loose Pyrodex. This is a very finicky rifle, after all kinds of powder-bullet combinations the TC Maxi Balls are the only thing I can get to shoot accurately, which is OK because they will work if I do my part. Power is about the same as a 44 mag. Al

Have not hunted very much for Grouse on public land so I can not direct to any specific places. I can say that I can recognize good Grouse habitat when I see it and it is all about habitat that has good cover from varmints and food sources. Old abandoned grownup farm land especially old scrub hillside apple orchards and bordering woods. Evergreen and Alder mixed forest with a lot of undergrowth along with a stream meandering through it makes it all the better. Briar-bramble patches and old logging roads. Rabbit-Hare and Woodcock like the same terrain and many times will be a bonus. Harleigh and myself with one she flushed out of some old abandoned farm land a few years ago. Al

I really do not plan on hunting with a crossbow so the weight and limb length will not be in play. Al

Went shopping with the wife the day after thanksgiving and picked up two turkeys on sale, when we got the groceries home we had all we could do to fit those turkeys in the freezer as it is packed. The wife laid the law down and said no more frozen food to be purchased until we get what we already have eaten down some. So yesterday I get my hunting clothes on and tell the wife I am going hunting but I ain't going to kill anything because we have no place to put it. Bwahahaha. Shit I just like being in the woods and I will do the same today. Al

Have long been an archery buff and while I do very little bow hunting these days I still get my equipment out and sling arrows frequently. I have seven different bows that I have accumulated down through the years and picked up my first long bow this past summer and it has been a lot of fun shooting it. What I do not have is a crossbow, I do not know a darn thing about them and have only shot one once that is owned by a friend, but I was sure impressed on how well I could hit targets with that thing. So my main criteria has to be simplicity and reliability, no cluster-puck contraptions with a zillion parts that have to be kept in tune and need constant fixing. Also it will be used mostly for just shooting as I do not see myself hunting with one at this point in time. So some investigation has led me to seriously consider an Excalibur, it is it's simplistic design that attracts me to it, the micro models are the ones that interest me the most for what I am wanting to do. Any cross bow leads and education from the knowing are more than welcome to help me go in the right direction and I do not have a problem paying for quality. Al

On this windy raw rainy day I figured it would be time well spent churning out a batch of hi performance 357 mag rounds and get some more practice with that fancy RCBS electronic powder measure, I am coming along with this thing. This is the same bullet (Hornady 140 XTP) and powder I used for last year's buck out of my Henry single shot, I tuned this batch down just a bit as they will be shot in my revolver. Al

Those are both good choices, a well bred Feist will also have bred in treeing abilities which makes for a good Squirrel dog which is another whole subject but is about as much fun as it gets. A well bred Jack Russell is tough to beat on Rats. Al

I will say it again there is nothing more fun than hunting with good dogs, I hunted everything that walked crawled or flew with my dogs. Yes Paula when you are as old as dirt it provided me with many years and many dogs, over the years I had a lot more than are shown here. To say I was and am fanatical would be putting it mildly. Al

Rat hunting was a common practice when I was a young guy, farms and any of the many town dumps were favorite places to find large numbers of them. 22 rifles firing shorts was the preferred weapon and both daytime and nighttime hunting could be productive. As the dumps were closed down Rat hunting became less and less popular, these days there is not much activity when it comes to Rats. Hunting them with Terriers on Farms was fun, I still have my home made smoker made from an old string trimmer used to flush them out of their holes. The fellow in the video below hit paydirt big time, I like his up to date equipment, ahh for the good old days, the fun and opportunities were never ending. Things have changed a lot in my lifetime. Al

Nothing like hunting with a good Dawg, a few of my favorites from the last 50 years.

The population in my area is about the same maybe slightly down, where I actually hunt has been devastated by the Gypsy Moth caterpillars leaving zero mast production. I get a few Deer passing through, but most have moved on to surrounding areas where the food supply did not suffer as bad. Al

Some of my favorite most used Woodchuck cartridges. 17hmr, 22LR, 22 mag, 22 Hornet, 223, 222 rem mag, 22-250, 220 Swift, 243, 6mm Remington, 25-06, 357, 44 mag. If I had to pick one it would be the 220 Swift hands down. Al

No small feat in my opinion, good hunting and shooting skills required for that tally with a 22. Al

I would be one of those old timers that hunted Woodchucks during the 50s, 60s, and 70s. It was not a rabies outbreak that killed them off, it was the Raccoons that were decimated by rabies. There are several theories on why the Woodchuck populations crashed, changing farming practices, and the explosion of the Eastern Coyote population are the two biggest factors I think. Many farmers would work hard at getting rid of them from their fields, I believe there was some sort of device that could be put down their den holes that would kill them, hunting was probably the least of their problem as it seemed to have zero effect in the places I hunted. I think a combination of all the above knocked their population down big time and it has never recovered. I was also a big time Raccoon hunter with a kennel full of some pretty fair Hounds and Airedales, I belong to the NY State Houndsmen group and at one of our annual banquets we had a State biologist that specialized in the Eastern Coyote as a speaker. He said they inspected the contents of every Coyote they could get their hands on and during the summer months every single one examined would have Woodchuck in their stomachs. His exact words "if you guys are wondering was has happened to the Woodchucks in NY there is your answer." As for actually hunting Woodchucks there is no bigger fan and participant than me. Their populations when I was young was huge, just about any hay field would hold a bunch. Some of the best days I have ever had hunting were in the Woodchuck fields. The best part is farmers hated them and I was never not granted permission to hunt them anywhere I went, I had one farmer get me on his tractor with him so he could take me to a field that was infested with them. You could make the shooting of any type you wanted, some days it was with handguns at fairly close range crawling on your belly to get close enough for a shot. 22 LR rifles was another favorite way to hunt them walking field and fairly close range. Then there was the big guns, dedicated long range precision varmint rifles that could make kills in the field close to 500 yards if you did your part. I even hunted them with archery equipment and the best shot I ever made with a bow was on a Woodchuck. I feel bad that todays hunters do not have the chance to experience good Woodchuck hunting. Today if you see a Woodchuck he is living close to a road or someone's house, it is all about safety from predators. I have one living under a shed in my back yard, first wild one I have seen in years, he gets a free pass from me as I enjoy seeing him and he reminds me of days that look to be gone forever. Al

Got the bad news the other day from my go to source for ammo, binge buying all I can afford.

I do quite a bit of shooting especially with rimfire firearms, paper targets are great for testing for the accuracy of a weapon and the accuracy of ammunition. Once I find the optimum combo for a particular firearm, paper targets can get boring for me. I love plinking at various reactive targets, commercial metal gongs, plates, bells and spinners and I also come up with ideas of my own or borrow from others. Charcoal brickettes, necco wafers, small clay birds, various leftover garden crops etc etc. A buddy of mine made a suggestion to me about using lollipops aka suckers, said to myself that is a great idea, challenging, cheap, very reactive and no mess to clean up, biodegradable. A little late this year to really get at it but I set up a small sucker target with half inch suckers and think this is going to be fun and challenging. 25 yards pretty easy 50 yards you better have better than average accuracy, at 75 and 100 a tack driver will be needed. Want to add this would work great for pellet and BB guns at shorter ranges. The prototype Al

Hell voting in shitty candidates is the Democrat's creed!! Al