philoshop

Without a doubt this is the friendliest site I belong to and that I visit regularly. It's a lot like walking into the bar up the road and chatting with friends. If the conversation gets a bit prickly, you change the subject and move on. It's quite simple. Don't beat the dead horse. Disagree, then agree to disagree, then move on.

Best to the kids, grandkids, and great grandkids. 94 trips around the sun is nothing to sneeze at. RIP.

We need more in-person GTG's. I know that we're all over the state, but the comments and photos are usually great. Post up a date, place, and time and people will show up. It's pretty simple. Have fun.

Yup. And they're very tasty, BTW. The young trees are in 5 gallon buckets and come in for the winter. The bigger trees get the FEMA tent and tarp treatment in the back yard. He's been pretty successful so far. His father-in-law is from Italy and has been growing figs around here for over fifty years, so my brother has a leg-up on the process. I want him to try olives. I really like olives. We'll see.

I had "rocky mountain oysters" in a bar in Bozeman, Montana once. I knew what they were and they were very tasty. I draw the line at insects/bugs, however. I ain't eatin' centipedes, cockroaches and ants.

All the best to you!! Have a good day!

I've heard that and just plain Hedge. Depends on the region, I suppose.

Osage orange is also known as simply 'hedge'.

I'd be interested in hearing more. I thought it was a strictly southern tree.

I don't know if it grows naturally around here. Then again, my brother is growing fig trees in Oaks corners, NY, though. I guess anything is possible. I have friends in the south who cut and burn osage orange for heat. Dense and hard. Hard on saws and chains. PM me if you want a contact point. They'd probably throw a few nuts in a box for you.

Just my 2 cents on this, but as others have said a fixed 4x Leupold is a lightweight and almost indestructible scope to compliment a lightweight rig. The only variable magnification scopes I have are on varmint rigs. A scope dialed in at 12x doesn't work very well on a woodchuck that's only fifty yards away. It's a brown blur. And a 4x scope isn't going to help much at 450 yards. It's all about trade-offs. That variable power scope costs more and weighs more. Not a big deal when I'm laying in a bean field looking for woodchucks, but if I have to carry it around for a day in the brush, my opinion changes. At typical NY deer hunting ranges, if you can't hit it with a 4x scope, odds are pretty good you're not going to hit it with a 12x scope either. Save the money and the weight.

I've eaten a barn-full of pigeons over the years. They were almost a staple in my Granparent's house. In fancy restaurants they're called squab. They're pigeons. Roof rats. They're tasty though and a lot of fun to hunt and wing shoot. I'll look into Rinella's stuff. Sounds like an interesting guy. I see the show "Meat Eater" advertised on Netflix now and then. I'm assuming it's the same guy. I've been known to 'binge-watch' when work gets slow. That doesn't happen much with Trump at the helm, but sometimes I just take a break.

I have no idea who this guy is, and I don't really care. I know that sometimes I won't even shoot at a stupid squirrel, however. Filling the freezer is nice, but I just don't have that desire to kill like I did just a few years ago. I haven't turned into some sort of wuss. A guy trying to break into my house will be killed with his feet outside the front door. No ambiguity there.

There's the key. I did drives many years ago with people I didn't know and wouldn't trust to even bring me a hot dog from the concession stand. It was scary.

That's an impressive win streak for any NHL team. The Sabres are basically a bunch of kids who could easily be playing college hockey instead of pro. God bless them all, and keep on winning guys!!! Everything from the morning commute to time in the grocery store checkout line is a little better when the home team wins. And it's infectious. When random people are nice to you, you tend to be nicer to the random strangers around you. That's a good thing. It's called civility.

I stay because my elderly parents won't move. They put up with me when I was younger, and I owe them the reciprocal loyalty. It's really that simple.

What's your point?

Nice to have some spirit back on the ice in Buffalo. It's a hockey city.

9 game win streak!! Young kids on the team playing their hearts out and working well together! Pretty impressive!

The only ammo I've ever been fearful of firing is steel shot waterfowl loads that may have rusted into a solid mass. Random checks of ammo have kept me safe, but I can't imagine what shooting a solid mass of steel would do to my gun.

I bent down over a swamp with a shoulder rig unsnapped and dropped a Contender (with scope) into the muck. It actually took me a while to find it. Nothing like the shotgun that hopped out of the canoe into the Erie canal though. Didn't find that gun until the next day with a set of snatch hooks. Ithaca Model 37. Ugly as hell now, but we've gotten here together. I don't think this is what you're talking about.

Happy birthday! Keep growin' the big ones.

A friend caught peacock bass several years ago. He said there was absolutely nothing like it. The only thing that keeps those fish from putting you in the water when you get them into the boat is that they don't have arms. ;-) Congrats on the trip!! Sounds like fun.

I'll have to give that a try. Local stuff is good and I'm only about twenty minutes from Penn Yan. The folks around here do some amazing food things. Let's talk about garlic and some of the hybrids these folks come up with.

I have exactly three sets of antlers mounted on my walls. My first buck ever; the first buck with a bow ; and the first buck taken from property that I actually owned. None of them are even close to the biggest bucks I've taken. In fact they're kinda scrawny and pathetic. They're just the most memorable.