wolc123

That one needed a bit of work when I got it but the price was right (a case of Genny cream). I scrapped two broken wheels, cut the width down from 8 ft to 7, and made new treated wood bearings. It has worked good at my place for the last 15 years. I just paid a neighbor 40 dollars for one just like it that was in similar condition. Fixing it up will be a good winter project. I have had about enough of trying to cover seeds with ATV tires or by dragging a log at my folks place.

My last 3 antleted bucks were 3.5 but I am hoping for a 4.5 this season. I don't mind "settling" for 2.5s though, as long as it is after mid seasons.

Maybe in a cage but not in the wild. Milo Hansons world record typical was 4.5.

I may try some spinners this winter, I think I have 2 different wire benders, but they are not fancy ones. It has been a long time since I made spinners. Usually I stick with jigs. The materials and equipment for that are always free or very cheap. My dad made my vise and a girl at work gave me a head mold, after her father passed away. I have a good supply of lead that somebody gave me, and I never have trouble getting plenty of deer tails. Several family members raise chickens, so getting those feathers is never a problem. My nephew has a couple brown chicken heads in the freezer for me now in fact. I always ask him to lop them off close to the body, so I get plenty of those nice long "hackle" feathers. My wife never misses a spool or two of thread from her sewing box. The only thing I need to purchase is the hooks and the powder coat paint.

It is definitely more satisfying and cost effective taking fish on lures you make yourself. Also, it provides a great way to use free time in the winter.

If you don't get him this year, the coyotes most likely will. Even if he survives the winter, his rack and body will be smaller next year. Good luck.

Not all of them. My Barnett Recruit is a compound, 300 fps xbox that handles as easily as my Ruger 10.22 carbine.

That sounds like a good plan. We are supposed to get some rain here in WNY tonight and tomorrow. I was not going to put the turnips in until the weekend but my plans changed when the gearbox wore out on my rotary mower last week. I am picking up a new mower on Saturday, so that left me some time to plant the turnips yesterday. I wanted to have all my mowing done by now, but that will have to wait until the weekend. My corn is looking as good as it ever has at this time of year. Hopefully, it will last and hold some deer around thru gun season (unlike last year when I did not even see any after opening day). That all depends on how the coon trapping goes. There sure is a lot of them around this year. I would like to start trapping them now (my wife saw a whole coon family between our house and barn when she drove in last night). The NY state DEC says that you can't trap them until they cause "damage", so I will wait until they start tasting that sweetcorn before I start. They always begin hitting that a few days before it is ripe enough for people to eat. The sweetcorn in that photo was all 80 day variety, planted the same day, so should all tassel around the same time. The fieldcorn must be a later ripening type because it has not even started yet. I planted more of that 80 day stuff out back. I also planted some 90 day sweetcorn and some fieldcorn back there, but I messed up by planting the 90 day stuff closer to the "late" field corn so it will probably cross-pollinate a bit. The corn patches are smaller and closer together back there with no buckwheat left, and just a narrow strip of turnips now in between.

The jury is still out on the Centerpoint sniper for me. One thing I don't like about it is that it is very front-heavy, compared to my Barnett Recruit. That will make it more difficult to use off-hand or from a hang on stand. It packs a lot more punch for sure, which ought to extend my effective range out to 50 yards or so, from about 30 with my Recruit in it's current condition. The downside of that, is my old rag-bag backstop don't does not stop the bolts so well at short range, and I damaged some fletching as a result. I will have to keep my practice at 40 to 50 yards and with that one from now on, or maybe fill the bag with some tougher rags. It looks like I will be hunting with both crossbows this year, using the Recruit from my hang-on stands and and the Sniper from those with shooting rails. I am 5 for 5 on bucks with the Recruit and I had a shooting rail for 4 of them. Maybe they have upgraded the scope a bit this year on the Sniper, because the one on mine seems pretty good. It is very clear and I really like how the top crosshair is right on at 20 yards, the second at 30 yards, the 3rd at 40 yards, and the 4th at 50 yards. I have not tried it yet in low light conditions though, so the jury is still out on that also. The factory. adjustible intensity red/green dot Barnett sight on my Recruit is very good in low light conditions. I always worry about the battery dying on it though (I carry a spare), which wont be an issue with the non-electric factory scope on the Sniper.

I got a couple small plots of purple tops in yesterday. I went light on the seed and heavy on the fertilizer. The new Chapin bag spreader worked pretty good for the fertilizer. The 80 day sweetcorn in the back of the photo is tassled good and probably 2 weeks from being ripe enough to eat. I left some buckwheat between that and the turnips, which will get worked up and planted with wheat/soybeans/white clover mix in September. The field corn in the front (planted May 30 same as the sweetcorn), is looking pretty good and up about 6 feet but not tassled yet. I will probably start trapping coons in about 2 weeks to try and save some sweetcorn to eat and field corn for deer season.

That definitely helps for fresh tasting bass. I always bring a big cooler with ice blocks in it (frozen in 1/2 or gallon jugs), and put a few of those in the livewell before the drive home. If I get an "accidental" walleye, trout, salmon, or panfish, they go straight into that cooler with the ice blocks. Only bass need to be kept alive, until meat removal, or they don't taste as good. As soon as I get the boat home, I stick a garden hose in the livewell and the cool water to help keep the bass cool and fresh as they wait to be filleted. You know they will taste very good when you feel the fillets twitching between your fingers after removal. I dispatch them with a crack between the eyes, using a small wooden club, and cut off the fillets as soon as they stop shaking.

I picked up one of these from Runnings today (cost $ 31). It looks better than the similar Earthway spreaders that they used to carry at TSC. It holds 25 pounds of seed or fertilizer. I need it mainly for fertilizer, because my old Cyclone 3-point hitch seeder/spreader (that I got for $ 25 at the Alexander steam show 10 years ago), finally rusted out and was beyond repair. Also, I just traded in the old tractor that I used that on for a new brush hog. The Earthway bag spreaders always rusted after a few years of fertilizer usage, and I ran mine over with the tractor last year, which finished it off. I will see how the new Chapin works next weekend, spreading 50 pounds of triple 15, that I had left over from spring corn planting, on a couple small turnip plots. It looks like it is all plastic and stainless steel, so it ought to hold up ok on the fertilizer.

A can attest to the heat-tolerance of smallmouth bass. That is the species that I target about 75 % of the time. Largemouth bass get about 20 %, with the last 5 % split about even between walleye, northern pike, panfish (perch, crappies, bluegill), trout, and salmon. Being about as close as one could be to a pure "meat-hunter", I avoid "catch-and release" when possible. I believe that God made fish (and all other wild game) to feed people and stressing them for sport seems sinful to me (senseless maiming of a fine food source). That said, l am a sinner just like everyone else. I have done it a lot and will most likely do it again. Specifically, I have culled larger fish to keep the smaller better-eating ones, if they are biting good and I have the time (I have not done that yet this year however). Most of the time, I will keep all of them, and quit when I run out of time and/or, a legal limit is taken. In accordance to NY state eating advisories, I aim to acquire enough fish to feed it to our family one or two meals per month. Currently, we have 6 packages of bass from lake Erie and the Upper Niagara river for the wife and kids, and 3 from the Adirondacks for me (the state says they are ok for men over 50 like me to eat but not women or children) in the freezer, so I am not quite half way to fulfilling or annual requirement. Fortunately, there is a lot of bass season left. Just like deer hunting, the fact that gathering that aquatic food is fun is beyond my control. I use my boat's livewell to keep the caught fish as health as possible until they are prepared for consumption. The healthier the fish, when it's meat is removed, the better it will taste. I have worn out many more livewell pumps than I have outboard motors on my 32 year old boat. Quite often, that livewell will contain "mixed-bags" of species, as non-target fish are often taken by accident. The hotter the water, the harder it is to keep those fish healthy in the livewell. When fish start to "belly up" on those "mixed-bag" days, the last to go are always smallmouth bass. I was very surprised that largemouth bass in particular, always succumb prior to smallmouths in the hot water. If that happened just once, it might me a coincidence, but I have seen it more than a dozen times.

We did a 5 night Royal Caribean cruise to Cozumel a couple years ago in February and it was pretty good. Our girls were 14 and 15 at the time and they still say that was their favorite vacation ever. The food and shows onboard were very good. Looking back, my favorite part was not getting the drink package. They charged around 100 bucks per day per person for that and it did not include your drinks for the day in Mexico. Every day onboard ship, I just ordered the drink of the day, for around 8 bucks, and then refilled that glass repeatedly with wine back at our room. The excersize up and down the stairs was a nice side benefit. We had a total of 7 rooms, along with friends and their families. Each room was allowed to bring 2 bottles of wine onboard. Since all the other adults paid for the drink package, my wife and I were supplied with 14 bottles of wine, which was plenty for the 5 night cruise. Aside from the 700 dollar cash savings, the best part for me about not getting the onboard drink package was waking up early and with no headache each morning. All those who got it slept in and missed out on breakfast. I was able to watch the sunrise over the ocean each day and take advantage of the ships fine workout facilities in the morning. The day in Mexico, we enjoyed our 50 dollar, all you could eat and drink package, much more than those who simultaneously paid ther 100 bucks on the ship. I am not sure if I will do another cruise until I retire but I am glad to have done one with the kids. I am thankful that we got it done before the pandemic. My first one after retirement will probably be to Alaska.

I am usually more concerned with how many years can I grow clover, before I plant corn. Generally, that turns out to be 4 or 5 years. After that, so much nitrogen gets built up in the soil that grass starts to to take hold. When I see that happen, rather than try and fight it with selective herbicide (very expensive), I plow the old clover under and plant corn (for a single season). By planting corn in ground that is high in nitrogen, my fertilizer requirement for decent yields is greatly reduced. This year's corn (check out corn thread) is looking like it will yield pretty good (probably in the neighborhood of 125 bu/acre). It got only 50 lbs per acre of triple 15 fertilizer at planting, and will not be getting any more. Most of the nitrogen it needs to make that yield was "free" from the old clover. Another big advantage of that "free" nitrogen, is that it does not acidify the soil like the synthetic stuff (urea) does. It is kind of funny that I see the exact opposite happening in my lawn right now. The ground up around our house is so depleted of nitrogen, from many years of growing grass, that the clover is taking over. My last couple mowings turned the lawn from white, back to green, after clipping off all the clover heads. For the math on the clover/corn rotation to work out, you need to have 4-5 times as much plot acreage in clover as you do in corn on any given season. That is why it don't work for agricultural producers who rarely have that kind of acreage to spare. For food-plotters, it works out great, because the clover gives the deer something they love to eat (at night only after gun season starts). The best thing about the corn is that it holds the deer on your ground during the daylight hours of gun season. A straight corn diet is not the best thing for them though. 4 parts clover per 1 part corn is just about right.

The front field corn is up 5 to 6 ft today after some good rain this week. The buckwheat between that and the sweetcorn was up about a ft. I worked up some of that with my drag and I hope to get turnips planted there and in a similar spot out back next weekend. The back corn was up about 3 ft which was almost too tall to cultivate but I hit it anyhow. It looks like it sprung back up pretty good after the toolbar and front axle bent it over a bit. On my drive back there, I kicked out a good looking 8 point in velvet. Hopefully he sticks around. As long as I can trap a bunch of coons over the next few months, he should have plenty of food.

I rarely target walleyes but usually end up with several accidental catches every year. The cheeks are my favorite part. Most of the time I eat them raw, right off the fillet knife. A big swing of Genny cream is always good for washing them down.

When were kids, we used to catch them on a treble hook baited with chopped up bluegills. We gave the live turtles to an old neighbor and he killed them by chopping off the heads and made chowder. We attached the hook to wire rope. I sure miss that good chowder that it has been about 40 years since I had.

It has been a long time since I had it but I still remember how good it was.

They make very good chowder. I like it better than clam. You might want to learn where the brain is locate in the head and place your bullet there. That way the bullet selection is less important

I used standard velocity .22 rimfire solid points. Snappers are not as tough as they look. I hooked a medium sized one a few years ago on fishing rod in my pond. It was an interesting fight until I saw what it was. I was scared to try and pull my buctail jig out of its mouth, or try and pull it up the steep bank. My truck was parked close by and my Ruger 10.22 was behind the seat. One shot to the head out its lights out. I killed a larger one once with my bushog. That sliced off the shell efortlessly, unlike a big groundhog that got chopped once, nearly stalling my 40 hp diesel tractor.

I did not notice anything different with the reb statues around Gettysburg this year (not that I ever paid much attention to them). I did notice that all of the signs were gone on I-95 for the "Jackson Shrine". On our annual summer trip to VA beach last year, we took the roughly 30 minute trip off the big highway to see that in a rainstorm. We were the only ones there, other than a college-aged attendant. It is just a small chicken-coop sized building where the famous southern general died. The main plantation house burned years ago and only the foundation wall remains. The original bed and linens are still there. The attendant told us that the clock on the mantle was original and that it had stopped on the moment when "stonewall" drew his last breath, after succumbing to infection from wounds suffered from "friendly fire".

That was a great movie. I think I have it on VHS and I will have to watch it again when I get home. Is that you in the bottom of the photos ? I just learned another interesting tidbit about it. I have been reading Schmuckler's 1021 page "History of the Civil war" from 1865. On p. 742, he talks about a "Captain Patten" from 20th Massachusetts. I thought maybe that was the famed WWII generals ancestor, but for the different spelling. Upon looking it up on-line, I found out that old blood & guts's ancestors were Virginia rebs, and one of them "Col Waller Patton" was killed at Gettysburg, during Pickett's charge. Guess who Ted Turner played in his movie ?

That is the same reticle that was on the Bushnell Banner 3X that was on my Marlin 512 slugmaster. It worked very good for me until 2018, when I could see two bulls-eyes at 100 yards when sighting it in. I moved in to the 50 yard bench, where it was just one slightly fuzzy bull, to check my zero that year. I had killed quite a few antlerless deer with that combo, over a 15 year stretch, but I did not take a shot at an antlered buck with it until 2018. I hit that one (3) times, the first slug passing thru slightly behind center, just below the spine and the second passing thru the spine about 2" above the first. Both shots were about 24" to the left of my intended point of aim (his front shoulder). A third "finisher" to the neck from point-blank range was required. Later that season, I missed a doe clean with the gun, so that was it for the scope. I had also dropped it in a swamp, while dragging out the buck carcass, which likely aggravated the situation. Prior to that year, I was very happy with the Bushnell Banner, and it seemed tough. One time I dropped the gun about 15 feet, from my tallest tree-stand, onto the frozen ground. That sheared the scope base mounting bolts clean off. I drilled out the threads and re-tapped the next larger size, re-attached the scope and larger base mounting bolts, and got a few more deer out of it prior to 2018. My longest kill with it was a big doe at 163 yards.