Doewhacker

Just bought a Parker Wildfire this spring. Retired my Martin Prowler for dust collection duty.

nope, they seal better in the barrell than round balls.

How about a balanced state budget instead? Oh wait its NY and thats not a priority in our Govt. I am not impressed with crossbows at all... poorer performance, noisy, terrible penetration down range, less accurate, heavy..like double the weight heavy.....yea thats something I'm gonna run out and buy : I no longer care what any one hunts with, go ahead pick up some grenades, I will still be here in the woods killing deer with what ever I want to use. Why? because I am good at it. A cross bow is not a magic cure all for those that can't get it done now. I have said it before and I will say it again.. it is all about the money that will come in, not just from tags sold but from tax revenue from all of the accesories you will buy for that cross bow... There I give you my blessing cross bow guys! Good luck getting it through the rest of the way.

The wife and I set ourselves a goal of making a trip in five years, after we make a trip to Disney with the kids of course. Any one else been out west any where? We have alot of money to save to make it happen but we will do it. It will be an archery hunt of course and during the rut in Pike county, well where else would I go right? We have been researching it for a while and decided IL looks the best when taking every thing in to consideration. How bout you guys???

Cell phone??? whats that..haha I got rid of mine a couple of years and it is the best thing I ever did. My buddy is one of them guys that is addicted to his crackberry, I came real close to wrestling it away from him and tossing it in the river last year.

Thats was my point Doc, every area is vastly different and basically we are slightly behind the curve no matter what we do, to many deer killed not enough... it is VERY difficult to achieve a balanced herd.

My brother and I used to go small game hunting alot, mostly after deer season but some before too. Now my brother inlaw has a GSP so I expect to be hunting over a dog for the first time this year. I can't wait, after being around his dog and seeing how good he was my wife and I are looking to get one this fall for the kid's birth days.

ny hunter, thats why we bow hunt, you can fill a freezer before gun season starts. ;D Larry I was only speaking of two of our spots, one is over populated and we see no big bucks, the other has way less deer but we see/get big bucks. The over populated area is where all of our does come from, two drastically different hunting spots and two drastically different expectations when we go.

Mine was probaly the first one I ever shot at, it was one of my first times out. We put on a drive a out comes a 150 class with a herd of does. Where does he decide to stop but right in front of me broad side at @80 yards. I was in the middle in the spot where the deer shouldn't have gone. Now as I said it was one of my first hunts and I hadn't shot a slug gun before, I took a deep breath steadied my self and squeezed the trigger and took hair off the top of his back. I never got the bead down on the front sight which is what caused me to just nick him. Mean while the the rest of the hunting party was on the move to check on me. My Uncle was watching in my direction and the buck ran behind him acrossed a massive open field and he had no idea. We never did get him but we did track him for a loooong way. Believe it or not it happened again the next year on the same day only this time the buck was bigger, I missed a cake shot and my uncle got to shoot at him...emptied his gun and again we didn't get him. My uncle quit hunting a few years after that. After that my first two deer were fawns, so I started out with room to improve instead of getting a big one that I now chase every year.

I manage a couple of kitchens and am in charge of housekeeping at a few smallish sized facilities for a comapny called Sodexo.

It would depend on the amount of twist in the barrel. With a slow twist you are better off with a patch and ball and granual. I shoot a Lyman Deerstalker with 1 in 48 twist and I use granual Black Powder and a 385gr Hornady Great plains bullet much like deerslayer. My father has a gun that has 1 in 60 twist and he uses patch and ball, it is every bit as accurate as my set up.

In some areas where hunting takes place the ratio is out of whack. It varries from area to area, it is DEC's job to decide numbers of does that should be killed and the hunters job to do it. We se more and bigger bucks where there is no AR and fewer does.

Deerslayer, where abouts are you from. I live in Saratoga County, in the Town of Northumberland, near Gansevoort. I can concur on the size of deer in our area, there are some real fatties running around here.

There are allways good guys around, they just seem to be few and far between. The important thing is to know what they are doing to your bow so you know its right. I had a guy a couple of years ago put a string on my bow and he swore it was ready and wouldn't need to be tuned. Of course he was wrong and I had to paper shoot it and re-tune my rest/ knocking point, and sights. The point is, if I hadn't known better I would have taken his word. Sure I could have sighted it back in and went but the arrow flight was so god awefull I wouldn't dare take it hunting the next day. Other than that I enjoy working on bows, its all part of the hobby to me.

Fasteddie, I'm in the same boat as you, I will do any thing up to putting stings on. The reason I do what I can is because I don't trust alot of shops, they ALL swear they know what they are doing but we know thats not true.

Man that is indepth, I can see the use in that. That would help the memory, especially when you have more than one spot to hunt. hmmm my interest is building.

In some ML's any thing over 110gr is a waste because it doesn't burn properly. I only use 90gr of BP, not pellets but actuall Black Powder. I shoot a 385gr conical and have found it to be very effective out to about 100 yards, with open sights. I would look at one of them ML kits that they sell to get you started. They sell them with the basics to get you in, that way you can decide if you like it and upgrade later on. I carry my ML through out the season, it can be more like archery then gun hunting unless of course you go with the more modern inlines. MLing is lots of fun and I'm sure you will love it once you dive in.

What about a biggest doe contest? I take my screen name seriously...

I have one year down, I just typed it up on the pc. Nothing fancy more like a story than any thing else. But I did note weather conditions for the kill dates and overall synapsis for the year. My brother does something simular but with more emphasis on the funny stories which is good.

I work on my bow, and the wife's, including tuning it. I bought a perfectly good bow and stripped every piece off it and put my own stuff on it just cause. I do my arrows too, although I did just order some arrows for my wife that I had made to order. I enjoy all of the tinkering and adjusting. I just got done drilling out a sight bracket to accept some different pins, custom made to my specs. haha I have been getting more in to it over the past couple of years, I have a serving kit, fletcher and all kinds of little archery things in the basement. I want a bow press some day but that will have to wait. I wonder how many guys tune their own bows nowadays, I love getting it just right and knowing that I did it not some dude at a shop.

Ahh the which bow is right for me quest....In the end it will all be up to you ofcourse so take any thing you read with a grain of salt but... The most important things to watch for me when bow shopping were brace height, quietness, hand shock, hand tourqe, smoothness, and along with smoothness the draw stop. Lets start at the begining, brace height is what allows the bow to be forgiving, you will want at least 7" and me personally I went with a bow that has a 7 3/4" brace height. I think all of the bows on your list have @ 7 or more which is good. Quietness can only be sensed by shooting the bow your self, the faster they are the louder they are so don't get caught up in the speed wars if you want a really quiet bow. Obviously there are alot of aftermarket devices that can quiet down a bow so keep that in mind when shooting. Hand Shock, Pararell limbs have taken hand shock almost of the equation now a days but it should still be noted. Hand torque, being that new bows are light and most have skinny grips this is something that is important, the slightest torque and you make a bad shot. I experienced it most notably while trying the Z 7, could have just been me but that took it off my list immediately. I blamed it on the unbalanced feel I got from it. Again that was just me. Smoothness, this is up there in importance for me. When hunting I don't want a herky jerky draw and also I don't want a cannon going off when I hit the trigger. Alot of bows have a narrow valley met with an abrupt back wall, and with that they have a draw stop in the form of a peg that sticks out the side of the cam. To me this will speed up string ware, so will speeds of 350fps IBO, I have dubbed these type of bows grenades because they are going to explode at some point. You will see that I have left off price and speed on my list, out of all the bows that were on my list all of them were at least 300 fps IBO which is fine when hunting and really you will probally not hit the numbers they advertise unless you are shooting a superlight arrow which of course is a bad idea when it comes to penetration. To give you an example, the average shot is 20 yards(or under) so if you were to shoot two bows side by side one being 350fps and one 300 the arrows would hit @ .03 seconds apart. Not much difference eh? Price is something that is different for every hunter to decide on, I went with a "cheap" bow because it ranked better on my deciding factors list than the more exspensive bows. As a side note Matthews had the best marketing out of every one, the catalog is a freakin book that has more pictures and people that swear by them than any thing else. As WNY will tell you make sure what ever brand you go with has a good rep when it comes to warranty work. Oh and the bow I ended up with is a Parker Wildfire, I got it from Gander Mountain for $294 because it was a 09 hold over. I shot one at a shop and then found it on the net and scooped it up. Good luck in your quest, it will drive you nuts by the end of it!

The same day I hang my stand, usually 1-2 weeks before season.

A little of everything, stands, ground and still hunting. Depends on the area and day.

I take mine off so I don't walk around the back and nail my knee on it... damn thing jumps out at you.

I have a Case with a 4 inch blade. Great for everything and easy to touch up.