Pygmy

Sorry you had a bad experience, Elmo.. It sucks to get all excited, anticipating a good hunt, and then being disappointed like that.. I have had 2 or 3 hunts that were less than I had expected, but never one that was as bad as that one.

I'm glad you saw the error of your wicked ways... BLESS YOU, my Son... You are hereby welcome to go get drunk and pick up chicks with me, Born, moog5050, and Daveboone...

Grampy...I'll tell you my field experience with the 140 grain 7MM ballistic tip. Regarding the mixed reviews..When the bullet was first introduced ( in the early 80s , if I remember correctly, it was somewhat lightly constructed, and performed more like a varmint bullet than a hunting bullet. Nosler heard the complaints and corrected it by beefing up the jacket. I started using the 140 Nosler ballistic tip in the early 90s in my .280 Rem. It was very accurate and displayed excellent long range form. If I remember correctly, over the next 15 years, I used this bullet to kill 10 bull caribou ( 250 to 400 pounds), 1 mule deer buck, one pronghorn, and about 10 whitetails. All but 3 or 4 whitetails were shot with the .280, the rest with the 7mm08. The Nosler BT performed as well on game as any other cup/core bullet I have used. With proper shot placement, critters died quickly. Most had exit holes.. I think most of the criticism of the BT comes from shooters who are trying to push it at magnum velocities, faster than it is designed for. For the 7mm08 it would be hard to think of a BETTER deer bullet than the 140 Nosler ballistic tip, albeit there may be several that are as good.

I doubt that we will see a moose season in NY within the next 5-10 years unless they have a virtual population explosion. Even then, there will be MANY applicants for few tags. Drawing a tag will be like hitting the lottery, similar to Pa's elk drawing, where tens of thousands of applicants compete for perhaps 50 tags. Maine has 1000s of moose, but there are still many residents up there who have applied for 30 years and never drawn a tag. I wouldn't get real optimistic about the odds of drawing a NY moose tag anytime soon. Like in THIS lifetime...<<grin>>...

I don't even own a push button, since I have over a dozen box calls, half a dozen pot calls and a SHITLOAD of mouth calls.. However, I have played with quite a few push buttons over the last 40 years and some of them sound pretty good. You can play around with cutts, clucks and purrs on them, but all you really need is to be able to make a series of 3-4 very soft yelps, to finish a bird the last 100 yards. Push button calls work well for that.

Dom..Butter worms are a moth larva. They are similar to wax worms, but somewhat bigger, perhaps averaging an inch in length. My experience with them is that that work well for stocked trout. I have used them very successfully for stocked rainbows and brookies. However, for wild and holdover brown trout, I have never used anything that works any better than earthworms. Small to medium sized crawlers, hooked once through the collar with a #6 hook and just enough shot to keep the bait drifting along the bottom without hanging up too often.

One of my fishing buddies fished Seneca Lake yesterday for perch. Surface temp was 36.5 degrees. Considering all of the snow/ice water that is running into the creeks right now, the temp can't be much above the mid/high 30s...

It could have been, Lawdwaz... In 1998, we paid around $2800 for a hunt with Silak Adventures, but as I remember, we got a discount for filling two camps (13 hunters total) with our party..I think the regular price was $3300.. There were LOTS of Quebec caribou outfitters at that time, some good and some not so good..Most of them have gone belly up..

The last Hume hunt I did cost me about 5K, about 5 years ago.. They have gone up, as has everything else. There was a time when caribou hunts were a bargain..No more.. Too bad...They are fun to hunt, make a gorgeous mount and are my favorite wild game meat...

Here are two ideas that are somewhat above the price range you quoted, but not a whole lot. A caribou hunt with Jack Hume Adventures in northern Quebec. It is a true wildnerness adventure and presently the limit is till two caribou per person. Hume runs an excellent, well organized operation and does his best to get his hunters into animals. Most camps have excellent fishing, to boot. Most hunters tag out on thier two caribou, and many of them are trophy bulls. # 2.. A moose hunt with any number of outfitters in Newfoundland. Many outfitters in this province average over 90% success rates. The moose are not as huge as Alaska moose, but ANY moose is a GREAT BIG CRITTER .. The newfies are great people and the guides and camp personnel are a hoot.. As I said, the price of either of these hunts is somewhat above what you quoted, but success rates are probably 90% and the wilderness experience is worth a lot also. Just something more for you to consider.

A 2x7 x 32 or 33 is a good choice for a hunting rifle..I mean one that you actually carry around the woods and take shots as they develop, rather than shooting off a benchrest from a tower blind. At least you did not saddle your short, handy hunting rifle with some 3x9x40 monstrosity, or worse.. You are welcome to come out with Moog5050 and me to get drunk and pick up chicks.

The deadline for applying for Colorado big game draw hunts is April 7th. I just applied today online for an elk preference point. Apply at cpw.state.co.us/bg/buyapply

A fixed 4X on your .270 ? I love you, man... Wanta go out and get drunk and pick up some chicks ?

Perhaps they are just trying to help each other out.. OFF with the old, to make room for the NEW...<<smile>>...

My ex-wife has made syrup for many years and it is great stuff. However for some reason after our divorce my supply dried up ! Fortunately, an old gentleman in Ontario, Canada who generously allows me to hunt gobblers on his property also makes it, so I now purchase several quarts from him each year.

Nice critters, Biz...Congrats once again !

By the way, Born, I got a smokin' deal on a Leupy 1x4x24 a couple of years back. I bought used but like new for $100. A friend of mine had it on his Ruger #1 .375 H&H, but the rifle kicked the snot out of him, so he peddled it and sold me the scope. It is currently on my 11-87 cantilever turkey barrel, since a fine scope NEEDS to be kept working, but where it would really LIKE to be is on a short, handy rifle with a big HOLE in the end of the barrel...<<smile>>...

For years I used a Weaver K 1.5 on a 20 gauge 1100 for slugs.. My present slug gun, a rifled 12 gauge 1100, has a Weaver K 2.5. My pet .280 Rem wore a Leupold fixed 4X for years. It accounted for perhaps 30 big game animals ranging from pronghorns to moose, imcluding a whitetail and a caribou at 400 yards and several other animals at 300..Never had any problem getting good crosshair definition on anything..I eventually replaced it with a Leupold fixed 6X, because I got a great deal on one. That is a great scope also, but is higher power than I prefer in the woods.I use now when I am hunting open country. Shot several animals with a Ruger 77 .338 Win mag, all appx 200 yards..Leupold fixed 4X. Sold that rifle and swapped the Leupy 4X to a 9.3 x 62.. Shot a couple caribou at about 200 yards and a moose at 300 yards with it, plus two whitetails and a coyote at less than 50 yards in the woods. Worked fine for everything. My current favorite whitetail rifle is a Rem 700 Mountain rifle in 7mm08. When I bought it they had a special on Burris scopes. They did not have a Burris fixed 4X in the shop, so I got a 2x7x 32mm. it has been a good scope and I forgive it for being a variable. most of the time I keep it set on 2x. When on stand I sometimes advance it to 4x. I like quality low power scopes.. Good clear optics, generous eye relief, wide field of view, and damned seldom does anything go wrong with them.

One of my fishing/hunting buddies grew up in Florida.. He told me that that you did not need a license to fish with a canepole in freshwater there. Whether it's accurate or not, I don't know....

The units that I have personal experience with in Colorado all require multiple preference points to draw. However I have used a booking agent a couple of times for hunts in other states and have been very pleased with the results. Don't be afraid to check with booking agents..They make thier money from outfitters by bringing them business..Usually it costs no more to book through an agent than to book directly with an outfitter. PM me if you are interested. If you tell these guys what you want to hunt and how much you are able to spend, they may be able to come up with a good hunt for you. Keep in mind that hunts is areas with high trophy potential are always more expensive. However there may be hunts available in areas where chances are good at killing a decent representative animal at reasonable prices.

The last time I used one was when I was in my teens, which was back when Moby Dick was a minnow. A couple of my buddies and I bought cane poles down at the local cigar store/poolroom/ sporting goods store for perhaps 50 cents apiece. It was probably late April or early May, and the suckers were running in Tuscarora Creek... We rigged the cane poles with perhaps 15 feet of heavy green line, attached 3 or 4 treble hooks to each line and then tied a fairly heavy weight ( usually a steel nut) to the end of the line. Then we waded into the pools where the suckers were lying, lobbed out the snatch rigs and pulled up. If my rusty memory does not decieve me, the best day we had we caught 119 suckers..We had a HELL of a time hauling them all home in burlap bags.. We cleaned suckers until we were exhausted... The rest of them went into our vegetables gardens as fertilizer.

Nice old photo, Mikey,thanks for sharing. Do you what what the military rifle is that the fellow on the left is holding ? Looks like a Krag, bit it's hard to tell for sure.

My favorite dip is Red Seal wintergreen Long Cut... But perhaps she's a SKOAL girl... By the way, how can you tell if a guy in Steuben County is married ? There's tobacco juice running down BOTH doors on the pickup...

By the way...I don't think that you can buy a tag for archery, one for ML and one for rifle for a single species in the same season. You have to pick one. Some other western states do it that way also. Remember Toto, you're not IN Kansas anymore <<grin>>. We easterners are spoiled after years of being able to get multipule tags every year. It doesn't work that way in many places out west. Most deer tags and elk tags are issued by draw, and sometimes you are lucky to draw ONE tag for ANY species, even in your own state. Many hunters increase thier odds of drawing a tag by applying in several states each year.

A friend of mine has a .416 Rem and he often hunts deer with it just because he likes to shoot it. When he brings it to the range, invariably someone will ask him " What are you going to shoot with THAT ? " His pat answer is always " Anything I WANT to shoot" .