avg. joe

Dry preservative. Just flesh, clean and rub it into the hide.

Back when I lived in PA I worked at a taxidermy shop. If it is a GOOD shop there is usually a lot of work. The first few weeks of deer season, especially the gun season, is spent doing nothing but caping and skull cleaning. Then forms need to be ordered and delivered. It is usually well into January before any of the previous years mounts were even started. We tried to do them in order of being received, but when a freezer is full of several hundred capes it isn't even possible to sort through and find a specific customer. As far a tanning, very few are tanned anymore. So, it is usually more a matter of the sheer volume of mounts than anything else. In a year we would have anywhere from 500 to 700 mounts. That amounted to 10 to 15 mounts per week. So, as was said, if you want it quick, take it to a less than reputable taxidermist, or find somebody who limits the amount of work they do.

I have just recently moved to New York and am looking for a club that offers more than one or two particular things in the line of shooting. I was hoping to find a place with a rifle, pistol, trap and skeet ranges. I have found a couple places, but each just has one or two of the options. I am also looking for a sporting clays course close by, somewhere between Jamestown and Fredonia. Any help would be appreciated and thanks in advance!

Seems alot of folks around Chautauqua County are mentioning seeing fishers. Is this a population boom in recent years, or have I been missing a lot. I have seen a few in PA but not up here.

Despite what some people say, you don't just pick them up, slap a bolt in them and shoot tight groups at any range you desire. Some crossbows are picky and you have to match the arrow to the crossbow. 40 yards may be fine for practice, but that is a bit more than I would attempt on a deer, usually 30 yards or less for me.

It was a big problem in southweat PA last year. They said the woods smelled of rotting carcasses everywhere you went.

As a two state hunter, PA and NY, I have seen both sides of antler restictions. I always hunted western NY to have a chance at bigger and better bucks than PA offered. After years of antler restictions in PA, I still hunt NY for bigger and better bucks. I have had to pass on several mature bucks in PA because of the restictions in the area I hunt (4 points to a side). I have seen some of the same bucks for 2 or 3 years that did not have any more points than the year before. There is a lot more to it than age, there is genetics and nutrition as well. If all you are looking for with antler restrictions is bigger racks, save your money up and pay to go on a trophy hunt somewhere. The PA hunters were sold a bill of goods about how antler restrictions would produce more trophy racks, don't jump on that bandwagon too quick, it isn't all it was promised to be!