Nomad

Thanks guys. He survived wwII and 65 years of marrage ! WINNING ....

I buried my 89 y/o father 2 days ago, I can't wait for Christmas it'll be good to see happy smiling kids ! Perhaps next year I'll knock one down with his old rem. mod. 11.

I like the Webster Dicks because is less then 5 minutes away,i don't like the Webster Dick's because that land once held some nice deer ..... Its good for box store stuff that sells to the masses,not so good for higher end things. For guns and ammo i go to Biekirks. I have gone there for over 20 years and I'll always spell it wrong I guess. Nobody will beat their knowledge or selection or prices they'll match or beat anyone last i knew. My benelli Nova i got for $50 less then Dicks sale price. I was buying .380 ammo for 14 bucks a box awhile back while everyone else was out or 20 plus a box. I just got two ladder stands at Dicks with the strap seats as well,was wondering about those,I guess I'll build my own seat for them now.

I take my hang ons down. Most of the work is the tree steps, and trimming,dropping a few stands for me is no big deal, maybe back out the steps . I just don't trust the made over seas cheapo's to much, those little cables held by a little crimp ,I'd rather take down and store inside . I still have all steel,chain ons as well. I take 'em down wash them off inspect and paint where needed. Still going strong since the '80's. Which kinda shows buy the best buy only once !

I work in a firehouse its like that year round..... I'm in the gym year round.

Well said. I see two main issues.One we have the purists in both bow and ML, who seem to feel the 'new' equipment is not as pure a challange as theirs. Yet most of them find no problem with tree stands,scent loc and the like. Then there is the me,me me crowd. Those guys kill MY deer,they mess up MY land,they kill, MY deer before they get to the size I want blah blah blah. Obey the law,the landonwers wishes,hunt safe oh and have FUN. Its just deer hunting, get over it.

I'd like that as well,put ML in Jan. after the holidays.Except for this year i'll be in the Bahamas then !

Wow Dave thats a heck of a buck, your brother will enjoy the memory of the hunt with his boys though. That buck was not from,um around you know where then ?

Yes. I still use 11 caps in my MK 85 so after i clean it and greese up the plug your darn right I'm going to snap a cap or 2 to make sure that tiny nipple did not pick up any greese and I've got a clear path to the powder.

I'm sorry to hear that. That really sucks and I don't know what i'd do .

G-man says a lot of truth. The biggest factor in NY,Penn,Mich. and the like is the number of hunters.Its not just the buck/doe ratio,its the deer/hunter ratio that really comes into play. i hunted a river bottom in Montana ( Marias river), we had 2 miles of it to ourselves, saw 2 hunters on top of a cooley way off one time. When i posted on a Montana hunting site, they wanted to know why we would hunt such a high pressure river bottom... Where i hunt most of the land owners have been doing AR on their land for years, but one big factor is that all the land is now posted and patrolled, and we now have only a few hunters per farm as compaired with prior to AR when we let anyone hunt anywhere. Today its couple of hunters where there may have been a dozen or more prior. Just like the tv shows I guess,but those guys here had to go somewhere...... or quit hunting I guess,or maybe just poach where they used to hunt.

ok now I gotta figure how to make this manikin smoke.....

I still can't figure out just what 'upstate" is. Near as i can tell its NYC name for the rest of the state. I know of. Western NY Finger Lake area Central NY Capital region North Country Hudson valley Southern tier and so on I call self a western NY'er . i drink pop,eat white hots and drink Genny

3 deer. 1 doe bow 1 buck gun 1 doe gun 8H

I hear ya Doc ! When I walk my dog during deer season down the Hojack trail in Webtser I wear orange as I know guys hunt some of the woods along side this town trail. Get looks from the joggers and such. I also ALWAYS have a means to return fire..... Lately I've been going old school S+W .357 .

Dave I hunt 8h as well, and I have been stopped at least 5 times by the dec in years past . I saw them drive past 2x's this year. We worked with them when we had a poacher problem as well, I now have his card in my wallet and cell # in mine.

Fletch that makes sense to me. Where I hunt I can hear and watch kids at the bus stop,joggers, dogs barking in yards, farmers working in fields,and in years past a large gun range blasting away. There are all kinds of smells as well,this bow season i was on stand as this sprayer thing came and sprayed a white foam all over a winter wheat field,30 minutes later out came the deer. most of the season 2 farms in 3 spots around me were burning logs and stumps day and night, at times you could watch the smoke bank through the woods.How the deer know oh this is logs vs. cigs idk

I go for 1 buck as thats pretty much what we have now,with only 5% taking 2..... I hunt an AR farm over 2,000 acres and many around us as well , we have done this for years.Would never want to force it upon others. So many talk about these great deer hunting states with lust in their eyes, yet when I go to their dnr sites ( or hunt there) I see 8 tags given out, youth hunts in archery season, ML hunts in archery and so on. I see Iowa with great crop lands and very little snow cover, so well feed deer all year. I see they have very few hunters,factions really of what we have. I see very few people driving very few cars killing far fewer deer on the roads. Can we improve NYS sure, but not to levels of those states do to the shear numbers of hunters we have compaired to them.When the bucks out number the hunters by a wide margin the bucks get old . where we hunt Montana, before last years winter kill one would see 150-300 deer per day, but if the rancher needed a gallon of milk it was a 50 mile drive on dirt roads..... Wow did I drift..

Yes, and I have not seen another hunter that i did not bring anywhere near me in years, and I don't bring guys in ML.

Good for you ! I have 2 girls 21 and 19, the oldest hunts and owns an 870, they both shoot with me mostly hanguns. The teen years for us were a breeze, really luck upbringing idk. Now sending them off to college, that made for some restless nights..... and still does ! Again congrats

Arrow knocker, I feel your pain. i feel the same in gun many years,oh I can do ok but it slows way up.Nice to be in the woods , but I often take time off for awhile then come back refreshed. Today was my first day out in idk 7-10 days. Saw 5 does by 8:00

Well RSS it seems you have reached stage two.... http://www.nodakoutdoors.com/hunter-stages.php

Well, I hunt a lot, I can hunt 75 % of the days without taking time off, but in bow i took off 3 weeks..... I like to hunt AM's till 10 or 11. then go home hit the gym walk the dog,smoke a cigar in the hot tub and so on. i do 2 AM's 1 PM maybe a both end day repeat for 2 months. PM's I sit 2 1/2 hours or so. Works for me killed 2 doe 1 buck, had a ton in range.I think I saw deer close all but a couple times.

Saw 5 doe today by 8:00. That was it though, see what tomorrow brings.

Well since we drifted a bit... I'm a smooth bore guy as well,I had great luck with Winchesters,today i use Truballs. Great slugs and .99 cents a box after Gander rebate ! Dropped my buck in its tracts at 95 yards this year, killed a few farther away then that over the last few years,can't remember tracking a gun deer in many years.