Jaeger

Yep, I just pulled out my bighorn bowhunting ram hunter longbow and my rhino longbow to start to get ready, hope its not too late. The Ram Hunter is 60" and 42 lbs at my draw of 25", the Rhino is my form practice bow, also 60" and about 29lbs at the same draw-I use it to practice form. The ram hunter is set up using 3 fletch carbon express 90's and wensel woodsman 200gr non-fluted broadheads. This combo was established for me by Ken Beck at Black Widow Bows G.Fred Asbell shooting clinic a few years ago. Don't knock heavy heads, this combo is STEALTH personified, super quiet without any silencers and still shoots well enough to take anything within my ~25 yard personal range. I shoot 3 fingers split and use a black widow stick tight glove and an Asbell shoulder quiver. I also wear King of the Mountain wool for warmth and quiet.

As a former big land (200+) acres land owner, I'm not sure there are many incentives that would open these lands to the public. Basically there are two types of big land land owners, commercial (like family farms) and recreational (those who buy big pieces for themselves for hunting or otherwise). The recreational land owners (of which I was one) will probably not open their land to the public. Remember, that's why they bought the big land, to have a place and the peace of their own property. Then not only pay huge $$ in taxes to have their own place but many of you forget they also pay a huge $$ mortgage as well. Think about it, if you could afford 50+ acres for your own personal hunting or hiking and were paying taxes and a mortgage to have it, and struggling to keep trespassers off it and out of your stands, would you let the public use it for some incentive? I think not, otherwise why did you buy it in the first place. The only possibilities for opening large private land to the public will be with the commercial owners, especially farmers. While they get agricultural exemptions on farmed land it is only a percentage of the total tax based on soil quality and only on the land actually farmed. A full 100% exemption from BOTH town and School taxes may work as an incentive. Especially the School taxes which are huge for large land owners. The forestery tax exemption (480A) is already 100% but it is very complicated and very restrictive. My landlord is in this position, he owns over 800+ acres in several parcel and has to lease it to various unsavory groups just to pay off a very small part of his taxes on unused land. He would jump at a 100% public land use tax exemption. Again, please keep in mind when you try to lease a persons land for hunting, what you are willing to pay will only be a small fraction of what it costs the owner in taxes (and sometimes mortgage) to keep it. I see people wanting to pay a few dollars an acre for hunting rights on land that costs the owner much more than that and think it's fair. I was once offered $10 an acre on my best 80 acres of hunting land for a season (remember that's why I bought it) when it was costing me close to $10/day/acre to own it!! The guy got furious I wouldn't lease it too him calling me a greedy land owner, Greedy? I was paying a fortune to own it and he wanted to use it practically for free!! Hunters feel they are getting over charged and the owner feels he is not getting enough to cover the costs of his taxes and insurance to make the hassle worth it. Just my personal experience with the situation.

I used to have an air pistol that used modified .38cal shell caseings to hold compress air and a pellet, but no powder. There are many new large caliber air rifles and pistols but none that I know of that can use powder and still be classified as an air pistol or rifle. Hope you get it sorted out, let us know.

I could give you a quit claim deed to your friends land.. All a quit claim deed means is that I am giving you whatever interest I have in it, even if its zero. Want to buy a bridge? Seriously, get a Warranty deed or something similar. Go down to the local town or county clerks office and ask them what has to be filed, how much it costs and where to file it. Without it being on file as notice, past creditors can come after you.

Tandy leathergoods is a good start if you haven't researched them already. I bought a stitcher from them and earned beer down at the barn keeping all the rich ladies horse halters stitched back together from the high strung horses they were to inexperienced to handle.

It's listed in the Bookmarket section. The title is "Trapping Techniques for Beginners (Trapline 2000 revised), by Hal Sullivan, 148pgs @$11.95

Just saw in the new fur, fish and game books section that Hal Sullivan has a book for beginner trappers.

Mine came a couple of days ago, but I do miss the mailing of the new regs. guides. have to go to several stores to get hard copies, and they give you a dirty look if you dont buy anything. The town hall sometimes has them out, but they go fast.

From a bachelor: hot for white, cold for colors and warm if you don't want' it to shrink. For the dryer, hot for cottons (whites and heavy jeans (again the shrinkage thing if too hot-then use warm twice)), warm or cool for the good light cotton shirts. If you sometimes live out of the dryer (like I do), get use to using the touch up dryer setting to get the inevitable dampness out. Don't use hot on any new color clothes unless you want the 60's faded look immediately! AND GET USED TO BLUE UNDERWEAR!! ACCIDENTS HAPPEN!!

If you reload, you may want to try the bullet type bore lapping kits that let you load progressively harsher grit bullets until you get things smoothed out. Midway carries them, worked for a rough bore I had in a 6.5x55 '96 mauser.

Work in the lime and fertilizer when you cultivate/disk up the dead grass. Suggestion, disk up the dead grass working in the fert. and lime. Then give it a week or so. The seed in the soil (called the seed bank) will sprout up a whole new crop of weeds and grasses. Disk it smooth a second time and plant. If you really have the time,and with brassicas now you do, after the second disking, smooth the plot, wait a week for new weed to emerge and hit it again with roundup. Wait another two weeks and plant the brassicas without any further disking/cultivation. Every time you cultivate/disk, you are bringing up thousands of dormant weed/grass seed from the seed bank in the soil. Hope this helps.

XS Sight systems also make a large number of aftermarket peep/aperture sight many of which fit in std scope base holes. NECG also carries some peep sights that mount in std. ruger bases. I did find that by using the "Computer glasses" I purchased for work, designed to place things in the 12"-36" range in better focus I can now use open sights again fairly well.

I'm 5' tall and try to still hunt, even read Asbell's book on it, deer see me first all the time. My buddy is 6'4" tall and can practically walk up an touch them (he is largely American Indian). So I don't think size really matters as much as skill. The only issue I can see with backpack vs none is just one more thing to snag, rustle, or flash in the wood for deer to see and/or hear. Most of my backpack gear winds up in my vest and pants pockets by the end of the hunt anyway!!

I use Montana Extreme cleaner, if the copper deposits are real bad I go to their 50 BMG copper killer or Barnes CR-10 (remember barnes bullets are primarily all copper alloy).

I do! I use the browning bird-n-lite full vest and especially their strap vest. Both have a small back pack for an extra sweater and rain jacket and pockets big enough for small binos or gps, cell phone etc. The upland vest are designed to hold that kind of stuff and work great. Much better in my opinion than some of the so called "deer vests" which I don't know who designs those thing, but they don't seem to be deer hunters! Just my opinion. Good topic, thanks.

Hey, it's the start of summer and I've decided to try to join my clubs Monday night postal matches. I'm outfitting my Winchester with an Olympic front sight but need a quality rear sight. Does anyone have a lead on a Redfield International Mark 8 match sight? I've tried and keep monitoring the usual channels, gunbroker, ebay (best bet) but have constantly been outbid. Any gun shop guys here that might have a lead on a good, clean one in good working order? No rust, buggered screws, reconfigured, just a good clean MK8. Thanks, and you can pm me if you don't want to post. Jaeger

Nah! Who shovels? Just use a broom and a leafblower on the snow. Grass, ugh! Gas, fumes, constant cutting, allergies! Give me 10 degrees and powder any day!

Have a Super Redhawk in 454 topped with a Leupold 2x that I've taken out a time or two, never got anything in front of me. Took it mainly up to the Adirondacks for ease of carry. If I expect porcupines while walking the dog, I'll carry my single-six bisley in 32 H&R mag.

I've been wondering how our Governors new proposal of limiting private gun sales to one or two per month would affect the Estate gun collection issue? Could the estate transfer all of them to an FFL for consignment sale or only 1-2 per month. They don't consider these type of issues when drafting these "feel good" bills.

I know our local cutter keeps a clipboard of people who don't hunt and want/order venison from him. It's illegal to do that. He must get it from skimming off legitimate kills. I know I brought him a doe that was 170lbs field dressed (still have the scale marker at that point, so far haven't hung any larger). I got 35lbs of meat back from that doe. Can you guess where the rest of my venison went? I do my own now.

Congratulations!! Also on my bucket list, hopefully for an outdoor humor piece.

25-20, 7x57 and 375 H&H. "Calibers" generally does not relate to shotgun guages, if it did, for north american hunting, I'd replace the 375 w/ a 16 gauge SS.

Done.

Ted out at bacon hill is excellent. He is very involved with NAVHDA and did a great job with Schatz. Just let him know if you are interested in field trialing or straight hunting.

Perhaps this will be a warning to the processors in my area that keep a clipboard of people who don't hunt and want venison. I once brought in a doe that dressed out at 171lbs and got 35lbs of meat back. Kinda figured the people on his clipboard got most of it.