wooly

I've been meaning to upgrade for a long time now but always find something else the money would be better put towards. I'll shoot this one till it stops clicking and make a decision after that, but I'll always shoot a Nikon. It's already out lived its estimated factory life expectancy for me, so I got nothing bad to say about it there. A little upgrade to a camera that offers me more creative shooting options would be nice..., but not necessary for what I do. I could grab this same camera off ebay today for $150 and not have to worry about it too much if I slip tomorrow and bust another,lol. That would probably be the smart thing to do the way I knock this thing around in the field! It really shouldn't have lasted me this long.

Happy B-day Moog! Go get some dirt under your fingernails in the plots, and then take a cake break!

Thanks everyone! I had a little accident on some slippery rocks in the creekbottom last week. It put a serious hurtin' on my camera that only leaves me with two options anymore.... AUTO mode, or Apperature priority mode which is locked in at high(800) ISO. I can't change the settings now which kind of limits me and doesn't allow me to review my shots in the field. It still works, but I blow a lot of shots because of it.

I've been seeing a crazy amount of deer around so far this year. More than I was expecting after that long harsh winter we had, but I'm glad I was wrong about the affect it had on their numbers. Here's a few recent shots I grabbed.. I'll start checking up on the bucks in the fields shortly. Trail cams show they are coming along nicely! Found a family of three coons sleeping the day away up in this old abandoned wooden stand. I had to poke him with a stick to see if he was alive....he was! Had some serious gobbling going on this afternoon around 4pm. Somebody forgot to tell Ol' Tommy that the turkey rut is over as he strutted and gobbled for his girlfriend out in a clearcut. Too far out for any good shots, but these two jakes came running in from behind me to his calls. They all got together and chased the hen into the woods. It was a strange sight for third week of June. ...and finally got a nice close-up of the Flicker on the lawn.

Is the bar open yet?

Good luck with the interview and enjoy your stay. I'm sure the "home-sickness" wont last long!

That's a good way to get some trigger time behind the camera close to home. Birds can be challenging, unpredictable, and pretty. Nice shots guys!

I get mentally tired/bored walking back and forth retrieving arrows at 30yds after a few rounds. I don't know how you guys stay focused between sets walking 150-200yds round trip between pulls. Don't get me wrong.., I like shooting my bow, but I can think of 100 other more exciting ways I'd rather be spending my time during the summer months besides wearing down a path in the grass to the target.

I used to practice out to 50 but I stopped. It brought too much temptation to the woods with me and I made a few bad decisions because of it. Now I'll just plug away out to 30 for practice and for hunting I keep my shots 25 or under. I really don't care to see my "form flaws" beyond my effective range if they're not affecting anything at my practical hunting distances. I can reach out and touch them during gun if I get real desperate.

I dated a skull collector gal like that once. It was nice...., every now and then she'd give me a little head,lol

That bear was just having fun with them! That was a great encounter! I would have liked to see them try "playing dead",lol

It took about 1 1/2- 2 weeks. They cleaned the rest of the carcass before they got to work on the head.

I'm not a plotter, so take this for what it's worth. On one property I hunt, the owner threw in a late planting corn plot of about 10 acres the last 3 seasons around the beginning of July.. At first I was excited about the draw it would have on deer during the winter months(shed season), but by Novembers frost, the stunted stalks cobs had rotted and mildewed. The deer seemed to make a noticeable effort to AVOID the area the entire winter until the following springs. When a friend told me about the cost of planting corn, I couldn't imagine how, or why, anyone could or would screw it up so bad 3 years in a row,lol Here's a pic from last fall that shows how short and immature the plants were heading into October. Such a waste it turned out to be..

Interesting.... I wonder if this phenomina has anything to do with your "there carring" post the other evening? Any recollection of being abducted or probed by little green men with bulging eyes that strange day? These pics look like they may have been taken from Uranus! It's quite possible you have time traveled through some inter-galactic worm hole into another dimension! WEIRD,lol!

I can't say for sure because I never tried it, but that might be really tricky. Most of the bones in these things are extremely brittle. Go slow if you go that route. I'd be afraid to try one that way now that I got one under my belt this way. Besides, everybody has beetles even if you're like me and don't own your own beetle colony. I didn't pull this off under ideal laboratory conditions. Heck, I just chucked the carcass in the woods where the furry critters wouldn't get to it and waited for the bugs to break this thing down naturally for me. I checked it every couple days, and kept the head on a flat rock so the bones wouldn't get lost in the leaf littler once the flesh decomposed. First the flys showed up and within a day the carcass was crawling with maggots. Then the Carrion Beetles arrived to get their slice of the pie. The mites on the Carrion's back are opportunistic parasites that just hitch a ride to the carcass. They don't eat the meat. Instead they are just there to eat the maggots and fly larva. That leaves more grub for the beetles, so it's a win/win for everone except the maggots,lol The Carrion Beetle larva are beginning to hatch now and those little guys are finishing off the leftovers. I'm not sure yet if I have the right I.D. on these guys, but they show up around the same time. I think they might be called 'brown and gold rove beetles', but I'm not sure yet. All these naturally occurring little buggers are out there waiting for us to feed them in very abundant numbers. You don't even need to go looking for them.... they'll find you as long as you supply the lunch!

Thanks guys! Sure... unplug your freezer and prop the door open so the bugs can get to work,lol Seriously, there wasn't much too it once the maggots and beetles cleaned everything up for me. Take plenty of pics before you dis-assemble the skull, and be very gentle with the delicate nasal bones inside the beak. Not that all will be lost if you break one.... I put everything back together with super glue anyhow, so a broken bone ain't no big deal. After I got everything picked and scraped off the bones, I gave them a bath in a tub of bleach for a few minutes then pulled them out to dry and whiten. Then I just put it all back together and gave it a paint job. I did a little reading up on the process before hand and heard it's best to degrease/whiten with acetone, but that was a bunch of taxidermists suggesting that. In "my studio", everything gets bleached and I never argue with the guy doing my work(me),lol Got the rest of the bones added to the inside today to get rid of that hollow skull look, and broke out the Rustoleum! Another masterpiece to my most important customer(me)!

Who are all these kids at my door? Is it Halloween or something,lol

Decided to give a turkey euro a try today. I didn't realize how many nuts and bolts were in one of these things. Fortunately I took LOTS of reference photos had some spare parts laying around in the bone pile just in case. I had to swap a few out that must have got misplaced or broken during the shootout. Still gotta add some finishing touches to it (nasal bones), but it's done for the most part. Most likely paint this one white. I'm not crazy about the look of bird skulls, but it was a fun/relaxing little project, and sure beat the heck out of mowing the grass......, again!

I'm not really sure how long duration wise. I swap them out with a freshly charged set at least once a week as long as I'm in the area. I get paranoid when rechargeables only read 50% battery left on a full charge so I never let them dip below 20%. Usually get between 5000-7000 pics or 1500 vids depending on length settings. They're not nearly as good as lithiums in the cold, but they're 100x's better than the alkalines.

WTH..., lol! Too bad some guys can't figure out how to shoot their bows as good as they can use their phones.

I've got about 20 different brand SD cards for all my cameras and trail cams, and never noticed any performance advantages of one over another in a trail cam application, so I usually just go with whatever one is empty that day. SD cards are always on my Christmas list and everyone knows that I'll use them! I started saving a lot of money in batteries by switching to Energizer re-chargeables(2300 mah), over alkalines and even lithiums. Maybe those cost savings are passed on to my electric bill where they're less noticeable, I dunno... but spending $60 once for 16, in the past 2 years seems less painfull to me than $10 in alkalines every couple of weeks/months. They still hold a charge like the day I bought them, so no complaints there either. I got super life out of a set of lithiums, but they eventually die and for the same cost as rechargeable that can be re-vived.

If that doesn't work, try "knuckling" it!

Nice thing about this time of year is all the day time pics. Hope there's a big dude hiding somewhere in that tall grass for ya!

I found another one ready to get turned into road pizza today. Decided to do a little one handed rescue while recording some video with the other. Thankfully I walked away with all my digits still in tact, and the only thing wounded was my pride when he gave me a "golden shower" at the end,lol Click on pic for 1 minute rescue clip.