wooly

SUBCONCIOUSLY you still wanted to kill a big buck and probably would have poached one if you had the chance. You just didn't know it because the antler inches were clouding your judgement. What other explanation could there be....?

I've seen some of the 10 gal. Red Wing crocks selling for 4x's what you got this one listed at. Any idea what brand is on it? Some folks like to repurpose them as garbage cans of all things. I found a very similar one lodged between two mature trees while hiking a few years ago. To this day that old clay crock is still there with no cracks and in one piece although it gets swallowed a little more every year.... and it eats at me every time I have to walk past it! One of these days it's just gonna pop and melt back into the earth!

I'd call the guy from his number on the sign first. Me:- "Hey..., Mr Joe Blow, are you at home right now" Joe Blow- "Yes I am, may I ask who's calling?" Me- "Thanks for taking my survey",lol *wooly retrieves his deer

They have begun nipping off the low hanging branches already. Usually towards the end of winter when we get a good wind storm, a few hemlocks will get snapped over. It doesn't take long before whatever needles are within reach are gone, stripping the fallen tree down to a bare skeleton. They will literally devour the entire tree. (minus the branches and trunk of course) Hemlock and some pines can be a big late season food draw when other pickins get slim and they usually don't have to travel far from their beds to find some.

Over the past few weeks we've got at the VERY LEAST 3-4ft of snow.... probably more but I haven't been keeping track. Couple that with these frigid temps we've been having and these guys will start popping up in places they shouldn't be, trying to scrape up every last morsel they can find that they don't have to work too hard for. The hemlocks around the house keep the snow depths down in the yard a bit compared to the open woods and fields here so now we're really starting to see some traffic through them. It's probably too early to compare this winter to the winter of '14 when I found over 65 dead deer by March, but looks like 2018 is off to a rough start for them again so far. I haven't been in the woods since November so I really have no idea what's happening out there right now.

Had a couple visitors to the yard yesterday morning. Don't usually see them this close to home unless things really get pretty rough out there for them later into winter. Had to shoot them through the window un-edited so not the best quality. They eventually bedded down just 20yds off the back deck until the neighbor let his dogs out for their mornin' leak. These two have been hanging around for the past 3 days now snacking on all the low hanging snow covered hemlock on the edge of the yard.

Yeah....., first estimate your yardage to the closest 1000 yds. Next.... try to unload your rifle as fast as you can using a different dot for each shot until your deer disappears over the horizon,lol

Happy B-day Bob! Keep on being cool ol' timer!

Good weekend to be trapped inside playing with dead animal parts! Only 48 claws left to go. I've slowly been gathering supplies and preparing these things for production all summer. I'll probably start incorporating some of Lawdwaz's donated spike horn collection, and a few of my carved antler burrs into some different designs. Probably make a few double and triple claw designs as well. Leather cord (21"), all wood beads, magnetic clasps, and real black bear claws.

Nice buck and skull mount display! Is that painted?

I had a several extensive surgeries in the months leading up to this past archery season. (NON- heart related) By the time season rolled around, my mind was telling me my body was ready to shoot and hunt, BUT my body wasn't on the same page. As frustrating s it was, you just gotta take things slow and heal up properly if you ever hope to do the things you enjoy again. Heck, you may even come to realize some of your interests you felt so strongly about before your surgery aren't nearly as important to you any more once you get to feeling better. Major surgery can have a drastic influence on how you place priority on different aspects of your life. Best of luck to you this Friday, and no need to rush figuring it all out.

Good looking kit- thanks for the link!

Happy B-day Cynthia!

If you have a rotary tool and a few inexpensive diamond bits, you can kill some time scratching up some cool beer mugs!

Happy B-day bud! Hope it was a good one!

Hung Likahorze..?

I appreciate all the birthday wishes guys! It's been a rough year, but things are finally looking up a bit.

Merry Christmas and have a safe holiday season fellas!

The past two years I've hung cams over several carcasses and got very few good coyote pics. Their tracks indicated they smelled a rat, and avoided committing to feeding on the carcass, but rather kept their distance and circled around it at a safe distance. As soon as I pulled the cam to move it to another set, they moved right in and dragged the carcasses away! I even experimented with raising the cams up to 6ft after they were noticed but that didn't even make them feel comfortable enough once they noticed the original cam set. Didn't seem to matter if I used red or black flash cams either, the results were the same. I got tons of respect for those animals ability to pick out and avoid the slightest sign that something is off even in the dead of winter when you would think there's no way they would pass up a free meal. I know a lot of guys here have no problem piling up the pics over bait piles, but the yotes around here seem to still use extra caution when approaching these man made sets of mine. If I was going to hunt them over a carcass I think I'd skip hanging any cams in the area for that reason alone.

2017! Good riddance!

Sometimes they do.

My sis got scammed by some virus alert on her computer a few weeks ago. Since she had a friend that had the same experience, she called the "Microsoft" number provided in the warning for them to fix the problem since it claimed all her personal info was at risk. Long story short, they accessed her computer and installed a bunch of anti-virus junk that she could have downloaded for free, but in this case she got socked for $400. A few weeks after that fiasco, her credit card got hit for a $900 charge made from this same company she had paid the services for. Her CC company alerted her of a suspicious charge so she had to go through all the hassle of disputing an unauthorized charge. When the CC company had her on the line and called back to the "Microsoft" number telling them the unauthorized charge was made by them, they claimed they didn't have anything on record about any of that.

I had one here a few years ago that never shed the velvet right into December. I had one encounter with it in December while shed hunting and snapped a couple pics of him still in fuzz, but those got lost to Photobucket. Pretty sure I posted them here at the time so some may remember seeing them. Best I have left is a TC pic from October that same year. No idea what ever happened to this deer or if it was a buck or doe. Only time I've ever seen velvet that late in the year.

Sweet shots Chris!