dbHunterNY

that might be true but BS more so than not. i know of people who came from bad areas that left to go to college. they were in EYP and they didn't just come from a nicer neighborhood with a drug problem here or there. most i knew of wanted to make something of themselves to get out with the means to go back and visit and if possible help their family move to a better area even if still within a city. hell not the norm but a few couldn't go back even to visit family because others they used to hang with would shoot them for up and leaving. i know you disagree with others on here and probably hold a slight grudge but try to be a little humble. i do agree with you and others in that a trade or degree for a specific field of employment would be money better spent. probability of job placement and utilizing the degree to do the job would be much higher. nothing is free though. even if their degree is, when they get out they'll be paying for someone else's.

you never know for sure. he looks run down a bit and not as swollen. a lot of things contribute to antler casting but physical conditioning and drop in testosterone levels are a couple big ones. earliest we've known deer to shed this year was on December 17th. Buck looked healthy as could be but had dropped his antlers. A youth hunter worked his rear end off to take him thinking he was a nice plump doe. Activity was low and a lot of the food sources tapped or ag harvested. No worries but now he understood some reasons why we say take doe earlier.

what you got is just fine. head shots would be nice otherwise try not to drive one right through the shoulder bones. it'll push them all out through the other side like shrapnel. no reason to accessorize. it'll serve you well.

my balance is at 503. says i have enough for a reward but it doesn't say i have one. says they'll let me know when my reward is ready. probably waiting until later this month to reset it.

yup. i have to sign in they used to mail them to you but i feel like not anymore.

never had luck tight in. i'm sure i got busted more often than i realized. like more open with any grassy or brushy broken edges. rabbits like those edges and therefore so do yotes.

yes 3.5" Hevi-shot Dead coyote T-shot. expensive stuff but i bought it on sale way back when and used points from Cabelas card. slightly blown pattern but still okay out of one of my carlson sporting clays extended Med chokes. was shiny though so i had to wrap the choke in electrical tape. 60 yards out coyotes ran but not far. 40 and under they ran away like a rock pile. you can use a good stout turkey load just fine too. more like a 40 yard setup though.

where in VT are you? I'll be looking into ordering some as a large group in hoosick falls area (near southwestern VT).

local range is next door. PT wood bench and something to sit on with a roof over it. steel gongs out to 300 yards. otherwise it's a heavy blanket with a tarp under it. gun rests on leather and canvas sand bag or a shorter Caldwell XLA pivoting bipod. never look into building one. sure it wouldn't be too hard.

i got busted often without a remote e-caller. i just blew hand calls. so they were looking for me. used scents on either side of me and that helped. a better basic setup that started working is a remote e-caller with a little flag or better this spinning fur tail i have. setup so they're coming from the side with the wind straight away (wide open field edge) or directly behind small clearings or draws. scents go out 30 or so yards off each shoulder. those deodorant sticks worked well. haven't hunted them in years though. dogs are much more effective but then again i've known some to shoot crazy numbers each season. for educated dogs turkey calls worked ok. this time of year where there's one turkey there's more. never hunted them that serious and now not at all. if you want to learn without another good hunter with you, the Randy Anderson DVDs are awesome.

12ga is fine with a larger pellet turkey load or buck shot. i would use T shot. 30-06 i used a lot but also didn't care if the hide got ruined. i was taking them for other reasons.

limbsavers on limbs of some kind and limbsaver string leeches on the string usually does well. if you need it quieter get a better string or at least keep it waxed with a good wax like BCY X-wax. also bands or dampeners more toward the limb pockets on the riser help. still not good enough then shoot a heavier arrow. still not then shoot a trad bow or buy a new more quiet compound.

it works for both trad and compound shooting. really only used it for compound though. if for compound periodically change releases, trigger springs, or change adjustment for trigger weight too. i've heard byron ferguson used to turn out lights and shoot at a candle in pitch darkness to hone instinctive muscle memory. i don't want to burn a place down so i might use blank paper with glow in the dark stickers, or maybe a tight beam of a resting flashlight. my trad shooting needs help. i shoot compound too much to devote more time to it though. blank bail helped me squash a slight form of target panic i previously had.

sounds like a big happy family. that doesn't seem like much for deer take.

i've got a ruger mark iii with an almost 7" barrel it's a tack driver. when i was getting into competition it was between that and a Buckmark. Buckmarks are nice reliable and accurate pistols. 5.5" barrel is more than manageable. some say they are picky with ammo but don't shoot the cheapest 22LR out there or anything light. stick with something that's close to 1200 or more fps. federal auto match and CCI Minimags or Chootem ammo is good.

looked like some great memories were made this season. atta boy to Cabin Fever (Bob). Abi's hooked it seems like. Nate is next on deck!

...and during that process you'd feel like a 1 legged man in an a** kicking contest. 30 yards might as well be a mile. lol it's fun though. any encounter within 20 yards suddenly gets your ticker pumping with liquid anticipation!

you can get around but this sums it up pretty good. it holds some monsters but there's lots of area to for them to hide and some it can be pretty gnarly.

it'd be a red flag to me if a biologist argued against the idea of coyotes taking a considerable amount of fawns. i do agree that coyotes don't run down too many adult deer that are strong and healthy versus wounded somehow to slow them down first. fawn recruitment is an important part of where the population is headed though; up or down. it'd be a red flag to me if a biologist argued that taking coyotes doesn't significantly affect fawn recruitment in your immediate area. deer and coyotes both are resilient. any half hearted and minimal efforts to reduce either do at least something but not much. smart biologists have told me this and i've seen the proof in the real world that actually backs that up. we had a stellar year for fawn recruitment based on field observations and harvest data collected. still had enough coyotes to where each trail cam card pull i'd get one somewhere. they take some hard knocks by us and weren't in great numbers but not wiped out and the deer did great. every year we come up with a harvest objective based on what situation the deer are in. there's an X number of deer to eat and either hunters or coyotes (really predatory animals) will eat them. you shoot less of both or more of both. you can't have it any other way. maybe your utopia has tons of deer and no coyotes but i doubt it. where there's food there's always something around to eat it.

Only doe in my freezer. In fairness I did pass my bucks than any other year though. Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

I agree it's crazy to think what would've been without the drought. Was our best year yet. Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

they're super bright and you'll be fine. i've used a simple piece of electrical tape before to dim them a little. it works the almost the same as going to a smaller pin. just keep in mind pin brightness is a subjective thing.

last i knew you could send it in and they'd swap them for a fee. otherwise you can order some from them and do it yourself. the 0.010" pins are dim in a ground blind if you don't have a sight light.

nope

DEC's theory of leaving them alone and then contacting them is fine. a bullet gets fired a pig dies and the rest run until you can't get to them. DEC can come in and bait them. they come in fairly unpressured and stay grouping together. DEC nets most or all of them in one shot. that said i find it odd that i have never gotten any correspondence about DEC catching any. also i don't feel there's even a ton out there. ones that are seen i'm sure are shot regardless of law, same as coyotes out of season. i'm sure Four Season Whitetails is bothered. he's a part of deer farming community. many deer farms also have pigs for high fenced hunting endeavors. DEC squashed part of their business as part of this boar eradication effort. honestly i don't really care. i just don't want free roam wild pig populations here in NY. pigs are bad when that happens.