wolc123

The reason the 16 gauge kicks so much is that it is built on a 20 gauge action but carries a 12 gauge load. I am amazed that old Weaver has held up all those years. I have shot that Ithaca a ton thru the years on the range (always using a very good recoil pad pinned on my shirt), because I had a good supply of slugs that I got for $ 1.00 a box when an old sporting goods store up in Brewerton went out of business. My supply is getting low so I will probably back off on that a little. There just does not seem to be any killing that old Weaver scope.

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The old Weaver's could certainly take a licking and keep ticking. I used one on my hardest kicking gun (my grandad's old 6 pound Ithaca 16 gauge featherlight model 37) to take my first buck 35 years ago and my last doe last season. It is a fixed 1.5 power and still holds a good zero.

If you can scrape up another $ 125 or so, you could get yourself a Redfield Revolution 2-7 which is made in Oregon, USA and currently owned by Leupold. I put one on my deer gun last year and it seems pretty good. It was very easy to sight in but I have not tried it on a deer yet. Prior to that, I had a cheap Bushnell Banner on it but that would no longer hold zero after about 15 years of use.

Don't miss the Eisenhower farm if you go. That is always my favorite and it is about the most reasonably priced of any of the attractions down there ($ 9 adult, $ 6 youth under 12), and you can stay as long as you want with busses departing every 1/2 hour from the visitor center. Unfortunately, it was closed due to covid-19 this year. They are limiting the cyclorama (at the visitor's center) to 50 % capacity this year. That takes about an hour and costs $ 15 for adults. This was the first time we did that and it was ok, but I like the Eisenhower farm a lot better, and so does my wallet.

The rebs had to be pretty well spent by that time, having been repulsed on so many prior attempts up that hill. The biggest mistake Lee made was on day 1, when he had a big numerical advantage and did not secure the high ground. By day 2, the Union had moved in enough reinforcements onto those commanding heights, to virtually assure that they would be held. To this day, many try and blame that mistake on his subordinates. Turner's film does a proper job of assigning the loss almost entirely on Lee (portrayed by Martin Sheen on the right horse on "antlers" photo) himself, as it should be. Longstreet's (on left horse) advice against the last day's doomed, back-breaking, day-3 "Pickets charge" attack went unheeded.

We did the auto tour with the cd's with our girls last year. They liked it. This year we returned to their favorite spots, one of which was the big PA monument. Last year they were able to ascend the tower by a small, somewhat hidden stairway, during a heavy rain storm. They were a bit disappointed this year to find the gate to that stairway locked. They really enjoyed the Jenny Wade house tour a couple years ago, but that was also closed this year. The film that Ted Turner made does a pretty good job of portraying the scene of the 20th Maine, with their ammunition nearly exhausted, fixing their bayonets and charging downhill on the rebs. That film plays continuously in the gift shop at the visitor's center. Not being much of a "shopper" myself, I watched it while the wife and kids were browsing around for what seemed like hours.

The stuff that was thigh high on July 3rd is on my best drained ground, right next the a creek. I have a smaller plot back on my poorest drained ground that was planted a couple weeks later and was just a foot high then. It was too low to cultivate and I only went over it once with gly. I went over the tall front plot twice with gly and cultivated so it is pretty much weed free. Corn is generally pretty drought tolerant and usually has roots that go as deep as the stalks are tall. That is why the earlier plantings, that get down some deeper roots early, usually do better on the dry years. It was a little too cold this spring for early plantings however. It will be interesting to see which of my plots does better. I am really looking forward to trapping some "damaging" coons around that corn. I planted small patches of sweetcorn next to each field corn plot to help draw them out early. That by my front (taller/earlier) plot is 80 day sweetcorn (bodacious), while that farther back (shorter/later) is 1/2 80 day and 1/2 90 day (silver queen). If the coons don't get all that, and we don't get and early frost, we should be getting some decent sweetcorn into October.

I caught my biggest smallie ever out of that port about 15 years ago - 23" long. That was too big to eat so I let it go.

I am a bit afraid of what mine might look like in WMU 9f when I get back from vacation. They say we are supposed to be getting a few days of rain now, so that should help. The corn was looking great on July 3rd:

My buddy killed a 8.5 year old moose about 5 years ago, and the roasts that were in the freezer were very tough. The "ancient" animal was butchered and froze without aging, up in Newfoundland where he shot it. After that good jaw workout on the first roast, he took the remaining hundreds of pounds of the meat out of the freezer and let it thaw. He canned it all using a pressure cooker. That turned out to be some of the most tender and tasty wild game meat that I have ever had. It took a few years to finish it all off and the last jar was as good as the first. Any red-meated animal should be aged if you want it to be tender. Most folks skip that step on wild game, believing for some reason, that it is not subjected to rigor mortis. The canning process is the only way that I know to avoid it, and still get some tender meat.

Yes, One time I cut a good sized lake Ontario steelhead into steaks and placed them on fresh sweetcorn that was cut from the cobs, and wrapped it all in tin-foil and put it on the grill. Everyone who ate that fish loved it. Normally, I use a layer of onions, and a layer of sliced potatoes under the fish in the tin-foil, but we did not have any onions or taters at the time and the garden was loaded with fresh sweetcorn. I have tried it with corn from the freezer one time after than and it was not nearly as good.

Population density is much higher in downstate NY. Expect to see a mass migration from that area and a free fall of property value as a direct result of the pandemic. Southern areas like FL, AZ and TX are seeing a surge now because folks are staying inside where it is air conditioned. Trying to blame it on the Democrats or Republicans is just bs partisan politics. Simple biology explains it much better.

Lake erie gets tougher when it gets warm but that is my favorite time on the upper Niagara. You just got to find a deep enough spot with current and you will find plenty of big smallies. The growth rates have got great since the gobbies came along. I have found them on Erie on occasion then but it is much easier to do farther from Buffalo. Heading south from Dunkirk is best. There are larger concentrations of bass down there where they don't see as much pressure from cormorants and people. The bigger ones usually suspend. They are fun but not as good eating. I often have to deal with them while trying to get my bait down to the smaller, tastier ones below. T

The old 5.5 evinrude ran good up at the in laws last weekend. At one point it towed four 16 year old surfer girls around the lake on that big yellow styrofoam mat.

No idea, I have never measured a deer neck.

I learned that lesson the hard way a few years ago when I center punched one with a 150 gr Federal classic 30/06. That bird literally exploded. I was able to salvage enough breast to cook it over the campfire like a marshmellow. That was one of two that I put on a scale. The last one was 30 years later. Using that more recent number, I was able to come up with a correction factor for the PA chest girth chart. Having that info, there is no longer a good reason for me to put one a scale. Weighing that deer did silence most of the chest-girth nay-sayers on this site anyhow. It is a lot easier for me to get a tape measurement than a weight. Volume, not weight, is the important thing to me. The bulk of the deer measured weight is water, which has zero nutritional value. Deer weight is very dependent on how long after the kill the weighing takes place. I know how many quart-sized freezer packages of boneless meat are required to feed my family for a year, and the chest girth measurement allows for a more direct and accurate estimate of volume.

I will dedicate mine to Donald Trump and Mike Pence. Hopefully, they will kick off 12 more years of superb national leadership during the upcoming deer season.

We viewed the cyclorama today which depicts that scene on a 380 ft long x 48 ft high oil painting 360 degrees around. It was pretty impressive and worth the 15 dollar admission cost. It was cool how they blended in the real artifacts in the foreground. The girls liked the introduction movie narrated by Morgan Freeman the best.

It has been more than 30 years since I was at a camp for the opener but i still remember my last time when I pissed some of the older guys off. That is part of the reason I have hunted from home on every gun opener since. A couple of my buddies and I walked back to our stands on Sunday afternoon to make sure they were ok. I took my dad's Browning sweet 16, loaded with 7.5s in case any grouse were 2 show up Two shots rang out over the hills. My buddies asked if that was me and I held up the two grouse that i had killed. That was my only hunt with that gun. I was not used to it and it took me a while to get on the birds. I got on both of them just before they dissapeared. We cooked them up back at camp and they were delicious. A couple of the old guys were too pissed off from the disturbance to try any. That happened In the southern tier town of Centrville in 1988. I don't remember what if any deer got killed at camp the next day. Maybe they were right to be pissed. I took what remains my largest antleted buck back at home that Thursday morning. The camp owner lives just down the road from our place. I stopped by with the big Buck in the back of my truck, just as they returned from camp on Thanksgiving afternoon, to use their scale. That 3.5 year old 9 pointer weighed 178 pounds.

I like the Saturday opener because it saves me a vacation day.

That is where the tide turned during the civil war on July 2 1863. Prior to that day at that place the rebs were winning and after they were losing.