Pygmy

You are right, Jerry... Ithaca was contracted to make M1911s for the government during WWII, along with Remington-Rand, Singer Sewing Machine and some others... Colt could not keep up with the demand.. The 45s that I trained on in the Horseheads USNR center were Ithacas.. They are probably still there, in some some storage room on the Lake Road Reserve Center, if it is still there.. I don't get down there too much anymore..I break out in HIVES whenever I drive east of Corning... ... My significant other gets me to the Arnot Mall now and then, but only under protest... A little too URBAN for an old country boy like me.. ??? ...

A lot would depend on the accuracy of the firearm and what you are shooting with it.. Deer..??.. Varmints..??.. It any case it would be 100 yards or less...That 150 year old pistol cartridge is not a long range performer.. Probably half that distance would be more realistic..

Back in my early days on the hunting forums, I posted often on a turkey hunting forum.. I'd like to share a humorous post from one of the members..He will remain anonymous...I have not heard from him for years and he may not still be alive..He was advanced in years when he made this post... Somebody started a thread Entitled " How many Gobblers have you harvested...??".. This fellow posted the following reply.. Reason I won't reply to this post.... Ashamed of low numbers... Reasons ( Top Ten Excuses) for low numbers... 10 My Mom was frightened by a gobbler when she was pregnant with me..But that was nothing compared to the fright when she first saw me..!!.. 9 Started turkey hunting late in life... 8 Napped through several seasons... 7 From the mid sixties to the mid eighties, the only wild turkey I was interested in came in a bottle.. 6 For many years I thought turkey hunting was a grade school geography drill... 5 Palsey makes it difficult to hold gun steady and adversley affects concealment effort.. Hopefully, someone will come out with a " Quackeing Bush" camo... 4 Tobacco juice dissolved all my motuh calls.. 3 Can't move through the woods as quickly and quietly as I once did...Nowadays It's always left, right, walker---left, right,walker... 2 Spastic colon and flatulence make it hard to hide from birds and also curls the nose hairs on unfortunate hunters downwind.. 1 Every time I draw a bead on a bird my glass eye falls out...

Hopefully this is an appropriate post for this forum... It is a post that placed on another forum a few years ago after my last DIY caribou hunt in Alaska.. A forum member had mentioned that killing a caribou was like killing a cow... SURE it CAN be, if you hit the migration just right, but after 5 hunts in Alaska, 3 hunts in northern Quebec, and a hunt in NWT, it does not always happen that way... Is killing a caribou like killing a cow...??.. I can't remember how many times I have heard that statement.. It is nearly always made by somebody who has made 1 caribou hunt and hit the migration right, or somebody that has never hunted caribou and has watched too many caribou hunting videos... I would have LOVED to have had had a couple of those jokers follow in my footsteps ( or try to) on my Alaska caribou hunt the first week of this year ( 2001)... The hunting was tough, the animals were scattered, and the country was big...The caribou were tough to get even within 300 yards of,probably because of the numerous wolves and grizzlies in the area.. Four of us us filled seven tags in six days of hunting, but we really had to work for them and the bulls we killed were not wallhangers, since we were seeing mostly cows and young bulls..To give you the flavor of the hunt, I'll recount the story of my stalk on my second bull while it is still fresh in my mind.. It was our final day of hunting and I still had a tag to fill...In the morning I hiked to a ridge behind our camp where I could glass several miles of surrounding tundra..It was spitting rain and there was patchy fog lying in the valleys.. After about a half hour of glassing I saw a herd skyline themselves coming over a hill about a mile away..I glassed them and spotted several bulls that were potential shooters..Judging from the direction they were moving, I guessed that I MIGHT be able to execute a stalk and get within rifle range IF they slowed down to feed in the valley that they had just entered..About this time a hard steady rain and a dense fogbank moved in..I hoped the fog would stay long enough to cover my appraoach..I had about two miles to go over rough, hummock-covered tundra to get into position, and I had to do it as fast as my sawed-off little legs would do it.. I took off directly into the the driving rain.. I walked as fast as I could,and soon I was as wet inside my rain gear as I was on the outside..By the time I covered a mile I was soaked...At one point I felt the urge to empty my bladder and I SERIOUSLY considered peeing in my pants just for the brief, warm feeling it would give me.. Eventually I got to a spot that I FELT might be the right spot...I did not want to bump the herd in the fog and I could only see about 50 yards.. So I just stood there in the fog and the rain, wet and starting to chill... The fog gradually lifted.. A short distance away I saw a couple of white spots..I soon realized that it was the remains of a caribou I had killed a couple days earlier...I walked over to inspect it...Nearly every scrap was cleaned up...Some predator had eaten the remains..a GRIZZLY perhaps..??..I thought about the big sow and two cubs my partner had seen, and the HUGE boar I had seen, and bolted a round into the chamber of my 9.3 x 62.. Gradually the fog lifted..I could eventually make out, about 500 yards uphill from me, a group of 6 caribou lying down..One was a bull..Not a BIG bull, but considering that it was the last day, a definite shooter..Unfortunately, there was NO cover between me and them to make a stalk...I knew I could never get within range of them across that open ground..So I just STOOD there in the rain...For an HOUR...Once, the fog closed in briefly and I ran about 100 yards toward the caribou before it cleared out and I had to stop..But I was still too far for a shot...I knew that they would not see me as long as I stood relatively motionless, so I had no choice but to stand there.. After what seemed like an eternity..Somewhere between one and two hours, They started to stand up and get ready to move..I lowered myself slowly to my knees and got my pack out in front of me to rest my rifle on... I wiped the rain from the lenses of my 4X Leupold.. Trouble was, by this time, I was thoroughly soaked and chilled, and I was SHIVERING too hard to make a shot...As the caribou milled around trying to make up thier minds which way to go, I frantically did isometric exercises trying to warm enough to stop shivering...Fortunately, they were in no big hurry, and by they started down the hill toward my position, I had the shivers under control... On they came... LORD it was sweet, after a two mile forced march and then standing and finally LYING soaked in the tundra, when the bull came to within 150 yards and stopped broadside.... The crosshairs settled on his ribs and I touched the set trigger... ....BOOOOM.... The bull almost looked like he exploded as water sprayed from his hide when the heavy 250 grain Barnes X bullet hit him high in the ribs... He had an instant gravity attack..Straight down... It was one of the most satisfying stalks I have ever made on a game animal...He was small, as caribou go, but as fine a trophy as I have ever taken, due to the circumstances under which I took him... Like shooting a COW..??.. Boy would I ever have liked to have one of those guys along on THAT stalk...

Thanks, Dinsdale..I really appreciate it.. I have TONS of 35mm photos from past hunts, but my digital cam is a fairly new addition and I must admit that I let some of my buddies do the bulk of the picture taking on the WY 'lope hunt.. Still, I have a few hunt picts and quite a few nice scenery picts.... I can also tell stories... ... Would it be appropriate for me to tell a story form a DIY caribou hunt...??.. It was a response to some fellow who posted on another forum and said that he thought shooting a caribou was like shooting a cow.. I am not sure that there is a forum on this website for " War stories from previous hunts NOT in NYS"... I don't want to ruffle any feathers..

Also works well for us OLD farts...They are great small game guns... My nephew had an early one one in 22-410 that he had inherited from his Dad...I used it for a couple of seasons a few years back, and it was fine ,solid firearm..Had the selector button on the side of the reciever.. He sold it at a yard sale last summer for $150 and thought he had done a hell of a stroke of business... ... ... ....

Logan.... What is the series "S"...??.. Is it one of the rifle/shotgun combo guns or a shotgun..??..

My 2009 Wyoming antelope hunt was actually a combo hunt/family vacation Four couples went.... We stayed in Casper at a motel and the guys went 'lope hunting for three days while the girls entertained themselves around Casper... We hunted a ranch about 30 miles outside of Casper..Paid a trepass fee and hunted on our own..We all took nice bucks..Mine was a 15 incher.. We saw literally hundreds of animals every day.. Hunting pronghorns is a blast..In a good area the toughest part can be trying to judge a good head from an average head... After our hunt we toured Yellowstone and Jackson Hole... Lots of beautiful scenery there.... I wish I had Dinsdale's know-how for posting pictures...

Thanks, Greybeard...You and I were composing our posts at the same time... I thought that your term GARGLING was quite descriptive also.... Growalot....I can call with natural voice and have shot crows that way...First person I ever saw do it was my Dad... However, I don't claim to be GOOD at it....I get hoarse doing it after a short time... I'm not sure if the crows respond because they really think I am a crow, or perhaps because they think I am a sick CHICKEN and want to take advantage of the situation... :-\ ....

They dont hurt the deer. No reason to shoot the deer out of "mercy". I'd want somebody to shoot me, if I looked like that... Damn....Wait a minute.... I just looked in the mirror.....Never mind.... ??? .....

Toruk... With many crow calls, in order to get an authentic call, you have to GROWL in your throat as you are blowing... Hard to explain other than that.. Kinda like you are hawking up an oyster as you are exhaling.. Huff up air from your diapragm and kind of clear your throat as you exhale..... Gives the call a more gutteral sound than you would get by just blowing through it like a whistle... GOOD LUCK.... ...

Very nice pictures and stories, Guys..... Nice goat, Kid...Love the beautiful long hair pelt... Goats were on my short list at one time, then I let myself get too old, fat and POOR......Never gonna happen now... ....

I did a lot of crow hunting when I was a young feller... My buddies and I had a number of days when we killed 50 or more crows in one day.. My FAVORITE setup is when you can build a blind in a feeding area and shoot them just like ducks over decoys..Calling is part of it, but you can shoot lots of crows just coming in to the decoys.. Start out with 4 or 5 decoys, and every time you shoot a crow you have ANOTHER decoy.. We shot 100s of crows by just setting up under evergreen cover and turning on an electronic caller and shooting them as they came over... You can shoot crows with whatever loads you prefer, but heavy loads are NOT required... Crows are more difficult to hit than they are to kill.. I have killed 100s of them with # 9 skeet loads in a 28 gauge and a 20 gauge... Probably the load I killed most with was a 12 gauge field load with with either 1 1/8 or 1 1/4 of 7.5 or 8 shot... Pattern density of small shot will kill more crows than high velocity loads of large shot such as # 4 or # 6....

Cool video, Bellmore..I love to hear those hounds run... Retrieving beagles..?? That must take some effort.... ....

Catskill..Maybe nobody WENT hunting out west or north last year.. I didn't, except for gobbler hunting in Ontario.. My last hunt was in Wyoming for pronghorns in 2009.. Going for moose in Newfoundland this September, though... As the weather improves I'm gonna be hiking to get in shape for that...

Dont matter if its 100 FOW or 1 over your head, either way your SOL. Just got a report from my buddy. I will be out Saturday morning come hell or high water, the later being more likely. We will put chains on the Kabota if we have to. His dad has limited out on perch the last three days he has been out (Sunday, Monday and today) and we aint talking dinks. You are right about being SOL...I'm hoping the guys that are fishing that chancey ice are taking ropes & other emergency gear, and definitely not going alone.. Good luck on the perch this weekend...

Eddie WHO..??... ... I have had the same trouble now for 2-3 days...

A buddy and I fished Keuka this afternoon, off Indian Pines at Penn Yan.. We did OK..Kept 40 nice Bluegills and pumpkinseeds, taken from about 8 feet of water on spikes... Ice there was over a foot thick..One fellow close to us was running tipups and he took two keeper largemouths, two keeper pickerel, and put back a sub legal northern... There were half a dozen guys fishing fairly close to open water down near the bluff on the PY branch..I have heard that they are knocking the snot out of lakers jigging....One fish was reported to be 15 + pounds... Personally I don't have the stones to go out over 100 FOW with only 3-4" of ice but I guess the guys that are doing it are having fun...

I always thought that the M 100 ( and the M88) were very attractive rifles... My taste in centerfire rifles runs toward bolt actions and single shots... The only semi auto centerfire rifle that I use is my Garand M1, and that's a whole different critter.. It has it's own HISTORIC type of appeal.. However, if I were to pick a semi auto rifle to deer hunt with, I think a Winchester 100 would be just the nuts... Especially if it were chambered in .284 Win...<<grin>>...

These forums would be pretty boring if we didn't have a little FUN with each other... ... I have gleaned a lot of good info from the forums over the years, and hopefully I have contributed a little, but I wouldn't be here if it weren't for the entertainment... A little good natured ball busting adds to the fun...

You are right, Doewhacker...Shucks, I remember when Moby Dick was a MINNOW... Oh , and before Culver jumps on this one, Moby Dick is NOT a social disease.... .....

The armband was discontinued around 1970, I think... I'll have to dig it out..perhaps I can get a decent picture of it to post... I do remember that it took 3 people in my area to draw a LANDOWNER permit....My Dad was the landowner and my uncle and I were on the permit with him... A regular ( non landowner preference) permit that year took 4 or 5 people...

The party permits were originally good either sex...I put quite a few of them on antlered bucks in the 70s and 80s...Many hunters used them as a second buck tag.. As I remember it, about the time they started calling them DMPs rather than party permits, they became an antlerless only tag...Perhaps in the 90s.... Early party permits required the shooter to wear an armband.. The tag was part of the armband..I still have the remains of mine from 1969...The tag part was detached from it to go on a deer..It's green and made of a tough paper/cloth type material

Toruk....A man's got to do what a man's got to do... Good luck balancing your livlihood with your passion/pastime.. Those people you work for/with don't need to know what you do in your leisure time, do they..??.. ... None of thier business, as I see it... Interesting screen name...Sounds like Eastern European...Ukranian...??... Romainian...??...Elbonian...??.. ...

Now tell me Wooly....Could you sing SOPRANO when you got home..??.. Your testicles must have been in your ARMPITS.... ??? ....