coonhunter

I had already shot bow and rifle for years before anyone ever mentioned keeping both eyes open. I had no idea whether I did this or not. Out in the yard I went with bow , scoped rifle, and open sights. Bow was one eye closed, and scope and open sights were both eyes open. Never felt the need to change as I shoot well with all in the field. Funny thing is, I cannot shoot a pistol worth a darn no matter if I use one eye, two eyes, or no eyes. I have had some fine handgun shooters work with me, but something just is not right.

Wow! I have seen tons of them, but never one that bright and big.

Nice pictures and videos. The Piliated Woodpecker, Orioles, Blue Birds, and Evening Grosbeakes are the four birds that always caused excitement at my house when they showed up to the feeders. Now, that I live in the city, I only get to see the woodpeckers and orioles.

I live in the area. Purely speculation on my part, but there are lots of Amish that have moved in the area in the last decade. Although we always see their horses and buggies, and hear a ton of shots, rarely do we ever see deer hanging anywhere, or on their buggies. Not an accusation, just an observation.

I lucked out Monday. A guy at work has a brother that is a cigar rep for one of the chain smoke shops in the northeast. They went to a Drew Estate function over the weekend. He said it was a mix of casual dress to tuxedos, and tons of cigars. He brought me back a mix of Rocky Patels, Acid, and a couple random Drew Estate cigars. Darn nice of him because it is well over $100 worth of cigars if bought by the single. He said it was a fun time, and very information filled if you chose to participate.

I'm glad others are enjoying this topic as much as me. In this politically correct world, it is a breath of fresh air to hear "cowboys and Indians, smear the queer, and just plain old toy guns". Also nice to think about kids running wild and free just having fun and learning the ways of the world together, instead of vicariously through social media. Some of the other things I remember doing are shooting rats at the dumps, hitting whole rolls or even boxes of caps with hammers, and laughing about our ears ringing. Getting a snow storm and building great sliding tracks with curves and ramps. We would get 6-8 of us together and challenge the dad to who could roll the biggest snowball. I have a picture somewhere of a snowball taller than all of us standing by it. We didn't need games or computers to have fun, all we needed was friends.

None of you guys ever dug holes? I can remember my buddy and I starting out digging a few worms for fishing, and ending up with a hole big enough to bury a body in a few times. Why? Darned if I know. We were kids. All the stuff we did, involved getting ourselves there and home by ourselves. Money came from chores and farm work. There was no getting money from mommy or daddy. And if we went somewhere, we got ourselves back home too. During the summer, it was no big deal to have 4-6 of us camping down on the river living off of fish, froglegs, and soda that we provided on our own. What a life I lived as a kid.

Believe me, when you run coon dogs, you get used to being pulled over by the police because you are out driving during prime DWI hours. All you can do is stay calm and respectful. Some areas are worse than others.

I guess I go about reading the forums different than others. I don't care about the most recent posts. I just go to the same categories every day, click on them to see if there is anything I am interested in, and if there is, I read them and go onto the next category. I don't care what people ask or talk about because if they have the time, and make the effort to post a question, story, picture, or link, it obviously is something they are interested in. People can bicker back and forth all they want. If they didn't like it, they would just not post a reply. I for one like the politics. I may not participate much, but I enjoy reading other outdoors people's views on all sorts of political laws and scenarios. If it interests me, I take the time to read up a little more to get some facts. Seems like I get closer to the truth here than on any of the media sites on a lot of issues. Sure, some of the links are out there, but some of them are getting to the heart of this country's problems.

Driving in general seems to be a lost skill. Throw a little snow in the mix, and it is chaos.

I am allergic to shrimp, but I can eat clams and crab with no problem. Never made any sense to me.

I am with Grow on this one. I like to be surprised by seeing or experiencing something new or exciting that I wasn't expecting. Pretty boring answer, but I am mostly content with how my life has worked out. For as little money that I had most of my life, I have had tons of excitement, adventures, troubles, and best of all, met a lot of people.

What people are failing to realize is that this has nothing to do with animal cruelty, but everything to do with the fact that this hound is used for hunting. This is a common tactic used anymore around the country. PETA gets in the local SPCA, and they go after the working dogs and hunters' beagles and hounds that are kept outside. This story is just beginning if he doesn't nip it in the bud now. Maybe the local SPCA is still legit, but if it is, he has a neighbor that is in PETA or another nonsense animal rights group. When i ran competition with my hounds, this was tried on me, and I dealt with it thanks to a little birdie that told me what was going to happen. Lets just say that the average, nosey person does not like a shotgun cycling behind them when they are sneaking around someone else's property.

Great continuation of your story from earlier in the year. nice pictures too.

It would be mind boggling. I am not one to spend money because of the way life goes at times. I like to have a reserve in case of emergency. My wife on the other hand, loves to spend money. Doesn't matter if it is $5 or $500, so she would be in Heaven shopping while I was on the lake, or in the woods. Women would never be my downfall. The other stuff would be tough, but necessary.

I probably have already killed my biggest buck, but I will keep trying for something bigger because I see at least a couple every year. Sometimes they are on land I have access to, sometimes not. I already have pretty much given up gun hunting, giving my time and experience helping youngsters and newcomers get a deer. It feels good to experience that first buck killed through someone else.

I honestly would have to get professionals to help me just to turn in the ticket even if it was way smaller than this amount. I have never had an excess of money that i couldn't keep track of on my own. I am a pretty simple man with simple needs. I have no desires for world travel or living a snob life. It would be nice to go on a few hunts or fishing trips at the drop of a hat without worrying about work or bills. In the end, my family would have a nice house on a big chunk of land in Tennessee or Kentucky where the lifestyle is a little more laid back and the people are just plain nicer or old fashioned.

Thanks for taking the time to put this video up. Even without the big bucks, this would be nice to watch.

Muzzy 75gr performed flawlessly. About as perfect of a shot as you could ask for though. 22 yards, almost perfectly broadside, 60 pound draw weight from 20 feet up with no obstructions at all. It was a clean pass through and the deer just trotted off about 20 yards and died in sight. It is the third or fourth deer killed with this broadhead.

My buddy and I had some more good action on public land today. We filled a couple doe tags in one unit this morning. Then we went to another state land in a different unit about 10:00. We set up on opposite side of an old beaver pond that is now basically a nasty swamp now. I had a nice two year old 8 chasing a doe around me for about half an hour before working out of my sight towards my buddy. A little while later, I heard his gun go off. It was a nice 8 point with a 16 inch spread and decent tine length. By far his biggest buck to date. It was a good lesson for him because he tried every excuse not to get up this morning. Around here the problem is there is just enough pressure the first few days, that the deer find the posted land and unhuntable areas and hole up for days. The pressure drops off to almost nothing, and they return to where they were. We just pay attention to where people are hunting, and get away from them. I think the deer take from our two units will be down this year because there just does not seem to be anywhere near the hunters anymore. And most of them only hunt a little bit the first weekend.

I took today off from work. I spent the morning on some public land that has had plenty of pressure. A buddy has kept track of where cars were parking, and we went as far from those areas as possible. Both of us saw deer. Both of us saw more than one buck. Temps ranged from mid 40's to mid 50's. These deer were moving well after sunrise.

4f near Edmeston was about the same as the last few years. Take away the amish shooting off 50 rounds on a nearby property between 7:00 and 8:00, and I only heard about 20 shots. And I am up high on a hill, so I can hear shots from a long ways off. Travelling to and back from my hunting spot, saw less than ten vehicles, and only 2 of the 4 camps on my road had hunters in them. Just ten years ago, I would see 30-40 cars and trucks parked, and all of the camps would have 3-6 cars at them. I just don't understand it. It is good hunting whether you want to hunt for horns, meat, or brown it's down. Lots of the land can be hunted if you take the time to introduce yourself and ask. I think the tradition of hunting is dying a slow death in the area.

I was blown out yesterday. Deer were still moving, but about 10:00, I just couldn't stand it anymore. This morning I got up and the wind was still blowing hard. I had a cup of coffee, and then gave it up and went back to bed. I honestly don't know if I could have hit a deer yesterday because I was blowing all over. I came down to about 16 feet and that bought me another hour, but it just got worse.

As hot as it was yesterday, I saw two fawns come through a little after seven this morning, and that was it. Sat dark to dark. Unbelievable.

Hot and heavy until about 9:00 this morning, and then still for a couple hours, only to pick back up a little after 11:00. I saw at least seven different bucks, and some of those several times. Real exciting day in the woods.