sailinghudson25

I'd focus on making the bear weekend a deer scouting weekend. If you're going to sit, there's some good incense sticks for bear out there. If they love beavef, I wonder if be a et castor might be good scent idea. In general..... Water edges, rolling hilltops, and any transitional areas from one type to another works well. Without bait, you need to be real real lucky. I got trail cameras up on my lease, I get 3 or 4 sightings from 3 or 4 cameras setup in places where deer are daily. Logging trails, near berry patches, and a good food source spot. I've seen ne in person. He was too tiny lie 60lbs or so. Gutsy little thing, I tried shooting him out of my spot. Didn't want the temptation. He was in that spot twice a week that year all summer.

My ADK hunting is a bit better and a bit worse than others. I'm on timber company leased land. IT's better than the deep woods due to logging, but has hunting pressure, and it's always the same 800 acres..... But I can ride ATV's and get to sleep in an insulated cabin with a woodstove every night.

Rabbits can eat the base of the tree's bark, mice too. Deer attack the buds. Fencing is best...... Look up the proper way to put fruit trees in. Have a little peat moss to mix in. Don't be tempted to add fertilizer to the soil. If you do a very small amount, like a tablespoon or two per 5 gallons of soil. I'd not dig deeper than you need to. Leave the tree slightly higher in the hole. Then cover with mulch, but do not have the mulch touch the base of the trunk. Buy some clover to seed up the spot right around it. I like dutch white around trees and shrubs. No fence, they'll all be dead.... Critters are brutal on new fruit trees. Toringo crab apple and plums are great. You can find new shoots in the wild too. NYSDEC is an awesome resource for shrubs and young trees. They have a plant sale in april. Most if not all county soil and water conservation districts sell shrubs in april, but also the DEC delivers your order to them for a few bucks more. http://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/9395.html If tempted to go this route, spray the spots dead now and plant that dutch white clover where you want them. Be much easier to manage........ Don't be a dummy like me and plant them a bit closer than they advise. Now I can't fit the tractor between the rows and have to hand mow........

IT amazing how a funny noise will spook them, but hanging with these guys they don't care. I remember seeing 2 nice bucks in my food plot 2 years ago. Right in between them 5 feet away was the neighbors cat sitting on a rock. Keep the pics coming. My whole herd of cameras is up on my ADK lease right now. None in the new food plot. Really hoping to get a moose on camera. Tons of sign this year when I was up in late april and memorial day weekend.

Make sure you buy a dust mask. And wash, scrub, and protect your equipment afterwards. Oil n grease joints, light coating of oil on bare metal, etc.... Old stuff lasted a long time because people cared for it.

Adkhunter, You can use glyphosate to control your clover plots. Just add clover seed when you do. A regular as per the book usage of roundup. Not a hotter dose. It doesn't kill clover, the roots regrow new shoots. The reseeding ensures the empty places don't get filled with weeds again. Too much nursery crop seed when planting clover can cause this. I keep it around 50lbs an acre of wheat, rye, or oats.

Goosifier, Rake strips of land and plant Dutch white clover. Then in april look up the nysdec shrub sale. Dogwoods and willows. Real easy to care for.

goosifer, Lime is also baed on how deep you can get it down to. If you can use a plow and get 6 inches down, you need more. If you're only able to get a shallow till because of rocks on a set of lightweight discs, you need less lime. Lime does 2 or 3 things. IT increases pH, it adds calicuim, and it might add magnesium. The pelletized lime I believe has more magnesium. Deer grow really fast.... Much more than us. I add a bit of pelletized each year to add to magnesium. We're not only making good food plots, we are also supply our animals with proper nutrients too. I'd get the 10 tons........ Put the remaining 4 tons in future food plot areas or other key areas. I fertilize and lime my mast trees, my berry bushes, and certain browse areas. Especially the spots on the food plot edges. It might be 1/2 or a 1/3 of what I do in a food plot, but I still make the area the best it can be. I also have brushy corridors they like to travel much better than open forest floor canopy. Food plots get deer on your land. Making good bedding, travel, and winter browse feeding areas keep them on your property for more hours during the shooting day. It's been hard for me to gage what a good acorn crop or a bad one is on my property since I've been feeding the oaks. And I clearance any low value trees around the oaks too. Hickories love it too.

What you guys have lined up or have done? Been way too long since I've been up on my lease in Big Moose. got some cameras to check up there. also got to move a tree stand for my girlfriends spots.

Adkhunter, How long have you had clover in there. After a few years, the nitrogen content of the soil gets high. Good to rotate then. If the till was good when planted, then put some wheat and roll it in august.

.54s are sweet. You can have a 1 inch group and still call it cloverleafs. Another trick that helps is wiping down the iron sight with rubbing alcohol. Making them dull instead of shiny and producing glare on a sunny day. You shots wander towards the sun due to thinking the glare is an even gap on the sights. A lot of blackpowder guys paint their sights. Bright blue is a great color. There is virtually no metal gong I've seen painted bright blue. It works well in fall and in winter too.

implements on the cheap... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_harrow Even using some chain to join a few 6 inch round 3ft long log section together. Maybe 3 sections with a few inches of space between them. Take a chain saw and make an aggressive surface on the bottom of them.

There is no thing as no till. In farmers terms... no till mean no deep cutting into the soil. The seed needs contact. At extreme minimum...... Spray the ferns dead, hand rake the leaves off, not perfect but you can see more soil than leaves. Maybe drag something behind the atv to scratch the soil. Spread oats or winter rye with clover. 3 bags 15-15-15 per half acre. Then drive the atv for an hour over it. Push the seed in with the tires. Increasing tire pressure on the atv helps dig them on more like 8-10psi vs the usual 4psi. If leave raking won't do, spray, then add 150lbs per acre of oats, the fertilizer, and just tear it up on the atv over it. Extra seed cause half won't survive the poor contact. Without bare soil, clover or most seeds don't have a chance. Winter rye is better than oats, or buy both. If you know someone with a tractor, you can use the front bucket dragging backwards. Ferns almost always means low pH.... If you know someone who heats with wood, use their ash. Also, any application of anything via spreader, get a good face mask for breathing. Like the 3M dust masks with exhale valve. Home depot has them.

Forgot. I also plant crimson clover in s few corners. My food plot is my backyard overlooking the catskill mtns

I do both ladino and red. A fresh plot gets both. Red grows faster until ladino takes over. Maintenance frost seeding, I only use ladino. A plot I only plan on keeping one year, I do red only. For lawn, log trails, and in spits I plant trees and cover shrubs, I use Dutch white. Almost always use common ag sedan from away coop. If it's a dry summer, I buy the coated whitetail institute, but still add some agway seed.

Mid to late August is pwrfect. My vote is to buy an old spring harrow. I love mine. Or, get a big tire, drill holed and put a bunch of bolts in it. Maybe the bolts stick out 1.5 inches including the nut past the rubber. Clover with winter rye or wheat. Deer by me like wheat better. 2nd vote to spray too. Do what you can. A spray, then fertilize and seed the next day, then run that drag. Might not be perfect, but it'll work. Try clearing out some trees to the south. Weekend before muzzleloading weekend, down a few maples to the south. Deer will be in the fallen tops eating budd. Get an extra bag of fertilizer and 4lbs of clover per acre for frost seeding.

Are the patches the preludes with yellow stuff ones? Too much lube and the ball spins in the patch

Here's my PA flintlock season warm-up range session I did in December at 100 yards on the bench. This is from my LH Lyman great plains rifle with a lyman 57 peep sight. 90 grains FFFg goex, .016" white n green striped pillow ticking from Dixon's muzzleloading wetted then air died overnight 1 to 7 ratio of water and ballistol, weighted to eliminate odd weight .535" hornady balls. Every shot swabbed with a lightly wetted patch of 1 part ballistol 1 part pinesol and 20 parts water. I use an army hold, having the top of the front sight just touch the bottom of that 3 inch or so purple paper square. Shot is at 100 yards. 1st shot went a touch high until I had a consistent amount of fouling on the barrel to keep exit velocity the same. Keep in mind before I learned how to get a muzzleloader to shoot good, this thing made 6 to 8 inch groups at 100 yards.

Fens are pernennials. They grow slower than annuals. Sounds like your a weekender. Spray Friday night, then sunday morning scratch or till and seed. Annuals choke out perennials due to faster growth. I'd go for a cereal grain and maybe add turnips and or red clover. If looking to make a clover plot for a few years, buy roughly 4lbs of extra clover per acre to frost seed. If spraying roundup, consider adding 2,4D amine. The combination of the two general kills anything it touches metsulfuron is the best chemical according to cornell.... Kill, till, then annual chokes it out............ since the ferns are doing good, I would imagine you do not till that area. A poor mans drag is a bunch of bolts through the bottom of an tire. An established clover plot of regular mowing and spraying would also fix that. Clover is a faster growing penennial that gets hit by glyphosphate (roundup) but doesn't kill the roots.

I had a gun that puked balls until I learned how to do iy. When I did I went from 7 inch groups at 100 to 3/4 inch in one afternoon. Find a good combo, keep doing what you did.

Roundball, A few things..... Have the sprue sticking out the barrel facing you. SPrue is the casting nub on the ball. Patches..... this is what makes or breaks accuracy. Cloverleaf targets are not rare with a tuned muzzleloader. Patch thickness is important. A ball that is a bit stubborn to put in is about right. Same ball size and try different patch materials until she shoots good. Lubrication. Everybody who knows muzzleloaders has a preference. I use ballistol and water. Wet the patches and left the patch dry overnight. 1 part ballistol 7 parts water. A patch wit 3 drops of hoppes #9 works great too. Put a small bit of wasps nest between your load and the patch to keep this lube from soaking into part of your load. I use .016 patch material from dixons muzzleloading. I cut them in strips, let dry. Then load the ball at cut off from the strip. I also take a very lightly moistened patch a swab the bore once between shots. She takes work to develop, but not a ton. Good results do not happen often from grabbing whatever balls and grabbing whatever prelubed patches and see what happens. Patch material can be almost anything cotton. Jean maerial can be used. Once the patch is right, lube is ok, powder isn't a big factor, besides bullet drop due to velocity. There is a sweet spot are so n so grains. But 10 grains above or below it will be pretty good. Atleast in my experience with 10 or do different handmade and commercial guns over the years. At bare minimum buy .530 and .535. Use the one that makes you patches good n tight in there. Don't worry about denting the ball a touch. She'll still shoot good.

A job is a great way to ruin a hobby. .... Did pheasant hunt guiding..... dangerous what a lot of money, a superiority complex, and no firearm training can produce. .... Mysrlf nor my wire haired griffin spend any more effort at it anymore. Now a fishing guide, maybe. Hunting of any sort no way for me.

Enjoy. Keep the ignition channel clean and oil free, it'll fire every time.

Alfalfa doesn't like competition as per dairy farmers. Makes sure you're weed free in that plot. Think this is not a good year for sunflower if they're not in yet. From memory, they take a long time. 6.8 is good. But, you add fertilizer, the ph will lower a touch. I always add ph raising lime when adding ph lowering fertilizer. Atleast lb for lb. This is my take on lime. Certain minerals take to roots best in certain pH ranges. This is why we lime. Carbonate introduced helps make nutrients in soil more available. A bit of lime on an ok plot does help. I've added mild amounts of lime to part of one plot, bit both sides got fertilizer at same rate. More growth on the limed part. This is in a fresh wheat clover plot on reclaimed hardwood clearcut with minimal tillage. Extra calcium and magnesium in lime helps too. I prefer pelleted lime or atleast 500lbs per acre of pelletized. If my memory serves me right, it includes magnesium sulfate to the plot. At very minimum for me, 3 bags lime per 1 bag of fertilizer during a maintenance fertilizing. Fertilizer lowers pH. There's much more than pH, bitrogen, phosphurus, and potassium a plant needs. I hunt out firewood ash and prefer it to lime for raising pH anyday. If you burn the tops of trees and brush, do small spots in the area rather than a big one. Spread the ashes when it's done. Those burn areas are like turbocharged plot spots. I've been advised against alfalfa many times by farmers. Definitely need to spray for weeds and rescratch the soil a week after tilling to be weed free. It doesn't like competition. My plots are boring.... cereal grain and clover with treats like Austrian peas or turnip. I don't monocrop except with clover frost seeding. That's only if I got the spot prepped past a killing frost. Get the spot ready, limed, fertilized lightly, and put about 1/2 the clover seed in. I've seen parts of my crop fail, but never all. I also either leave edges brushy into the woods, or do fallow on the last 5 yards into the woods.

Did you test the oH? Most good garden places will test your ph for free if you bring a sample. Ph might be lower than you think. Some soils take 2 tons per acre to raise the pH 1 point.