sampotter
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Posts posted by sampotter
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Did you show her some pictures?
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Still 3 left! So far the puppies that have been chosen have been on color and sex 1st, so these last 3 are certainly not leftovers. These pups are bred to hunt!
Buddy:
Ever the gentleman, Buddy is a little more stocky (classic lab look) than most of the litter. While he enjoys play time with his siblings, he is also content sitting at your feet or getting his belly rubbed.
Knight:
If I was planning on keeping a male, he would've been my 1st pick of the entire litter. Extremely handsome, he is a little longer legged and slimmer built than the rest of the litter, which is why I think he'll make a 1st class shed/upland dog. If there ever was a pup that could hurdle downed trees and stonewalls in the pursuit if an antler, he is the one. He is energetic, inquisitive, and is an explorer.
Ursa:
Also very energetic and inquisitive, she needs to go to a home where she will have lots of space to run (or hunt). She is always the 1st one to escape the puppy box, and while always full of pizazz, she enjoys a good cuddle too. (Just make sure she's played until she's tired first.)
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Some may be familiar with my shed dog, Fleur. I bred her to an 8 year-old chocolate male who was bred by Luck's Labs that has been waterfowl and upland hunted his whole life. The result was 8 puppies; 2 black males, 1 black female, 1 chocolate female, 1 yellow male, and 3 yellow females. $500 with a nonrefundable $100 deposit. Ready the weekend of 8/8 (7.5 weeks). These are bred to be really high drive/ high energy dogs, so if you are looking for just a pet you might be a little overwhelmed. The puppies cannot be registered due to a DNA discrepancy 4 generations back in Fleur's pedigree. This is why I am not asking 3x as much for the puppies.
Fleur with her 1st ever unassisted find @ 7 months old:
Same trip.
Did I mention Fleur has a lot of energy?
The puppies:
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Don't try to hinge cut mature trees unless you want to experience a classic "barber chair". Also- trees would be more likely to survive hinge-cutting if you did it when they are dormant. I have a ton of buckthorn in my area and it doesn't seem to matter when you cut it, it never seems to die, but native trees may not be as resilient.
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I'm still at it... Although it's definitely been a tough year for shed hunting.
I took the dogs out to some state land on 4/24/15 and it snowed a couple of inches while we were there. The only thing we found was another porky!
Last weekend I took the girls to the Adirondacks to look for moose sheds. On the way in we hit up a known deer yard and hit pay dirt! In fact, I spotted the first one from the truck while getting rid of the morning's coffee...
(Dead center of the photo to the left of the largest spruce)
Fleur found a little one after I walked right past it. As always, Ruby tried to steal it:
A little while later I found another small one:
And one more jackalope-sized shed to round out the day:
We also came across this balsam that must have been struck by lightning. I have never seen a tree so completely obliterated.
A view from a nearby stump.
Most of the splinters of the tree were within a 30 yard radius of the stump, but I was still finding pieces over 100 yards away.
We didn't find any moose sheds but I did get a photo of a bull already growing his new set in the end of January:
It was still a good trip.
Sheds: 19- OH: 2, WI: 2, IA: 7, CT: 0, NY: 8
Miles: 187.86
Time: 135 hours, 24 minutes, 7 seconds (according to Trimble GPS app)
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Americans in general are losing work ethic with every succeeding generation. Immigrants aren't taking jobs from deserving Americans; jobs are available to those who want to actually work.
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Would love to see those pic!!
Sorry for the slow reply- my computer was busted, but here are pictures from Nehasane Park dating 1924-1931. As you can see, harsh winters did them in.
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Well, the moose are already here- on their own. Plus, we don't need to truck in any more prions.
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You should see all the empty store fronts in Auburn. The Fingerlakes Mall is a ghost town.
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Heck with that, I'm just going to move there... someday!
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The dogs are supposed to find sheds. They do find some, but the black one (Fleur) has been in heat for the last week and a half, so she is more interested in coyote and dog smells than antlers at the moment...
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It looked like some may still die. Really thin with hollow, empty guts.
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We headed to a different farm that afternoon. The neighbor told my father in-law that he and his family picked up 26 sheds a couple of weeks before. Jake found 1, I found zero. The farmer called another landowner and got permission for us in another spot. I found this dink 3 point side right in the yard. Jake ended up finding the matching side 1/2 a mile away.
On to new ground the next day, I found this decent 4 point side:
We moved on to another farm where I got skunked, but Jake had a hot streak and picked up 5! I was supposed to follow a field edge and he was going to come up through a ravine. Well, he beat me to the top and poached one along the field edge about 5 minutes before I got there, a touché if you will to me spotting the one in front of him 2 days before.
The next day I saw this one in a hayfield:
Fleur bringing it in. A 5 point yearling side, that buck has a ton of potential!
Jake had to leave but I kept at it for a couple more days. The last day, while I stopped to get my sandwich out, I spotted this little forkie right under my nose. We all almost missed this one.
With 1.5 hours left before I had to pack up to drive back to NY, I took a half-hearted walk in some thick CRP across the road from my in-law's house. Reuben Cary, an old Adirondack guide once said, "Don't curse yer luck til yer git home!" AKA- don't give up! Tines amongst the grass were an awesome sight in that sea of grass and weeds in the last 1/2 hour of my trip!
Ruby and Fleur with my finds:
Mine and Jake's together:
I went out here in NY a few days ago on some public land and managed to come up with 4...
I found my 2nd hanger ever in an apple tree!
I found a ton of feeding sign under an apple tree and thought, "Geez, there has to be a shed around here somewhere." There was:
There was a ton of sign under the hemlocks. I knew it was just a matter of time...
Fleur bringing it in:
About 20 yards away I spotted this oldie:
I didn't expect to see a porkie in my area. They are the only thing worse than squirrels when it comes to sheds.
We found 10 dead fawns that day and one dead buck that had already shed. The deer we saw that were alive looked like death warmed over. This winter was a killer here in the NE.
Miles: 126.2
Sheds: 15 (OH-2, WI-2, MN-0, IA-7, NY-4)
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Well, like the rest of you, I've had a really slow shed season.
I went to southern OH to my friend's place to get away from the snow a few weeks ago. It has been getting logged since 12/1, so the deer were along the fringes of the property for the most part. We walked pretty hard and managed to find two, which is better than none I suppose. One is off an old acquaintance of mine, a buck I call "The Challenger". I now have a matched set off him from 2012, and singles from 2014 and this year. He should be 6 years old this year. He would've scored about 140" last fall, but most of is in gnarly 6" bases and nearly 8" brow tines.
As it lay:
Ruby bringing it in:
Tired girls:
I spotted this forkie in the mouth of a ravine the next day:
A week later I headed towards my in-law's farm in Iowa. I got in the area early morning, and because my friend was flying into an airport in Western WI that afternoon, I killed some time by shed hunting on a WI farm. Towards the end of the day I spotted my first ever WI shed. Ruby was quick to scoop it up so I didn't get a good ATL:
About an hour later I spotted a 14" shiv in the leaves...
It proved to be a match to the first one:
When my friend Jake and I finally arrived at my in-law's house, this was the sight that greeted us. My mother-in-law and her friend spotted this mint set in the grass below my in-law's grain bins while on their daily walk. They are about 65" each. I'm pretty confident the buck will only be 4 this year. Jake and I drooled over them all week.
The first morning we stopped at a neighbor's house to fondle this 178" rack he found last fall. I had this deer on my trailcam one night in November...
All amped up, we walked for 2 days straight without finding a shed... We did find lots of boot and ATV tracks (all private land). Most of the landowners were surprised when we told them what we found. On Day 3 I finally spotted some bone!
Later that same day we circled back into a thick area we had been near the day before. We just found more ATV tracks, so we popped back out onto a field edge and followed it back towards the truck. I had walked this same edge following ATV tracks the day before. As we discussed and cussed our luck and the trespassers that poached our spot, I glanced across Jake's line of travel and spotted golden tines at the top of the field! Jake was some sad.. he actually was closer to the shed than me by a couple of feet.
I proved to be a big fatty that measured 58". It ended up being the biggest of the trip.
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I'm with Pygmy- those canines look heavier than the pup's in the picture. The bones of young animals are usually pretty soft, so you'd think they would crumble if something like a coyote had eaten a fox pup. I can't think of any predator that would eat a fox pup at the den entrance and leave a lower jaw. The most likely scenario is those are raccoon jaws left by foxes that aren't strong enough to break the jaw bones.
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The elk reintroduced in the Adirondacks died off during harsh winters in the late 20s early 30s. I have a bunch of pictures my great-granddad took on Nehasane park of elk starving in the snow and futile attempts to save them. He even shot some home movies.
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Drug dealer and camp counselor at the same time?
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Grew up on a 200 cow dairy farm in CT. After college, my Dad and I merged our herd into a bigger farm here in the Fingerlakes (now 1900 cows). Instead of doing a little bit of everything, I now specialize in making babies.. (managing the reproduction using the AI, embryo transfer, IVF, and ultrasound). I spend a lot of time with a long glove on my left arm...
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Thanks for the compliments. There certainly is a learning curve. The blades are already heat treated, so for the most part they were ready to go to work. The next step will be to make one from scratch. I already know where there are some 100+ year old leaf springs from a buggy. File knives are interesting too.
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Here are some knives I put together as groomsman gifts for my brothers and friend. The blades are Western USA L66 blanks that I found on ebay. I crafted the handles myself and fitted/finished the sheaths as well. The acid etching was a fun process; battery charger on 200 amps, a little finger nail polish, a q-tip, and some heavy duty acid... The next step will be to make the blades by hand as well, but this was a fun intro into knife making.
This is what they looked like before I started:
The top one is an original L66 that has seen years of use. The next one down is the 1st one I made using antler and mahogany. There are some mistakes (2 different antlers used, so 2 different colors, etc.), so I kept this one for myself. The bottom one was the 2nd one I put together. I used antler and buckthorn. The buckthorn is an interesting wood to work with, but doesn't contrast as nicely with the antler. The one that is 2nd from bottom was the 4th one I put together. I'm not normally a big fan of handles made out of one piece of antler, but the piece I used was pretty straight, so I gave it a go.
This was the 3rd one I did, using antler and Ipe, a very dense South American wood. I like the contrast a lot. This particular antler was one my younger brother found when he was 10 years old or so. I regrettably broke tines off it using it for rattling, so I used what was left of it for my brother's knife. I figured it was the least I could do..
Not a really good picture of one of the sheaths, but high quality full-grain cowhide. It's a process to get them fitted properly to the knife, but well worth it.
It was tempting to get carried away with the acid etching... I ended up putting a silhouette image on each side of the knives. My best man is a bird hunter first and foremost and he always has a pointer riding shotgun, so this was what I did for him:
Some of the other etchings:
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Nice work Wooly!
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I do see the spots but they are too far back to be teeth. They also appear to be a little high. IR flashes distort pictures a lot. Any daytime shots?
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Would be more interesting to do. Many of the top record book states are also the top deer farming states. One must wonder how many escapes or let go deer run the woods of those states. I would be willing to bite the bullet and let a half dozen or so sneak out the gate to improve our area. Think i could get the Ok? lol
The top record book states had those big bucks long before deer farming started. I hope it doesn't come to this. Talk about taking all the mystique out of hunting.
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Not too far away . My family is from the Falls Village/Salisbury area. Worked out of Canaan. Ever hunt On Robbins swamp or Norfolk mt? There is a bunch of small public bowhunting only areas around ( mostly flood control spots , dikes/dams,etc..) May try them if my private spots are being hunted.
No, I never needed to hunt public land much. I do know the hunter density isn't even close to what it is in NY though.
Clover Maintenance
in Land Management, Food Plots and QDM
Posted
I clip mine the 1st time in June. Clover usually goes to seed before the weeds do, so the subsequent clips are done after the clover seed hardens, but before the weeds get that far. Natural reseeding. You can also spray the entire plot with glyphosate and the clover will be the lone survivor. It just needs to be established a couple of years 1st.
There's nothing wrong with a permanent clover plot. You won't have much luck in small woodland openings with anything else- just not enough sunlight.