wolc123

What about Mary and Lizzie watching that doe with the arrow thru her neck cross the road in front of the school bus ?

This is actually a "win-win" deal for the taxpayers. The police get to practice their marksmanship on live, non-human targets, and the taxpayers see some return on their investments in the form of lowered insurance premiums and reduced landscape damage. The "free" protein for the food banks is a big added bonus. I don't know of any "loosers" in the situation. God put deer on this Earth for man to eat and it sounds like that's what is happening. I always wondered why they served sloppy joes so often up at the city mission.

We watched Chappaquidic last night. It was pretty good.

Since they have been doing it for 25 years, they have gotten pretty good at it. A trained police officer, with a scoped rifle, is far less likely to make a poor shot than a "recreational" bow-hunter. Imagine the outcry, if a deer with an arrow thru its neck, was to appear in a school yard just as the kids were getting on or off the buses. The Amherst police are doing an exceptional job. The fact that the venison is being used by food banks makes a big difference. It is easy to take pokes at this situation, from a few hundred miles away, but if you had to drive thru that town every week day to get to work like I do you would appreciate it more. The hunting on my side of Transit road (in a town where hunting is still legal) was a bit easier back in the days when more of that " Amherst overflow" spilled over. I don't mind having to hunt a bit harder and travel a bit more in order to fill the freezer these days. If it were not such a fun activity, it might bother me more. I love not needing to pay collision shops and insurance agents to fix up my car, and my wife loves the looks of all the pretty bushes around the house.

I wonder what they do with the meat. Hopefully, it goes to a food kitchen or something. I am glad they are doing something to control the deer population in that town because I need to drive thru it twice each weekday.

I see FSW's last visit here was Feb 18 and his last post was a response to a personal attack by a well-known member other than yourself, on Feb 15. Here are my own best guesses as to where he might be: 1) Enjoying himself, spending some of the oodles and oodles of cash he has made off fellow trophy hunters, down in the tropics. 2) Sulking and boycotting the site, having finally come to the realization that antlers are not the primary driving force behind most NY deer hunters. 3) Physically incapacitated. I am praying for him and hoping it is #1. Trophy hunters are awesome and he has no close second when it comes to that on this site.

porcupine

When I was a kid, we raised cattle, pigs, sheep, chickens, geese, and rabbits on our farm. We got rid of all the livestock, except the chickens, after my grandad died of a heart attack. My dad found that chickens were the cheapest way to keep the family fed, so we ate a lot more of that than I would have preferred. My only fond memory of those birds was being the first kid in our town 4-H club to win a major award at the county fair. I had the grand champion meat cock back in the early 70's. After breaking the ice with that, our club continued to dominate the chicken, as well as steer, pig, and sheep competitions well into the 80's. My folks still raise laying hens. I don't mind eating the eggs, but I still have an issue with the meat from those birds. Raising livestock might sound fun, but it is anything but, when compared to killing and eating wild game. I never felt right about pretending to be an animal's friend, until it was time to butcher. Dealing with vets sucks, as does trying to beat the rain to get crops out of the field, and dealing with frozen water in the winter. Stacking hay in a hot loft in the summer also gets pretty uncomfortable. The worst part is the plaque that builds up in your arteries, from eating most of those animals. Wild game gets rid of all that "bad" stuff. When the state loosened up on the doe permits, back in the mid-80's, it got pretty easy to get all the protein needed to raise a family, at minimal cost, off the fat of the land. It has only gotten even easier since then, as hunter numbers have declined, and lots of able-bodied folks have moved to other states. If the current overflowing venison well ever goes dry, I might try raising grass-fed goats. That would probably be the closest red meat I could find to a whitetail, as far as how good it would be for your heart, in a domestic animal. I hope that does not happen in my lifetime. I don't ever want to have to deal with a vet again, or to miss out on a fun vacation because I have to stay home and feed the animals. I can't understand why anyone would want to raise domestic livestock under current conditions. I am very thankful that NY really takes care of us meat hunters.

What do you mean, did I miss something ? I hope he has not been banned because I really love Trophy hunters. Some years those bucks that "do not meet their harvest standards" might be all that saves my family from more store bought chicken.

Were those permanent bans or just short vacations ? Either way, it is good to see the bb's getting the respect they deserve on this forum where meat has been shown to be more important than antlers by a 3 to 1 margin with those having the guts to go public and pick one over the other.

Apparently it was aware that the season ended February 28, and that Larry was not a poacher. Also, I think the coyote may be the grouse's best friend because they take out so many nest predators.

As a minimilist NY hunter, my suggestion would be go even more minimalist on a Western hunt. On my first hunt out there (when I was in my early thirties), I carried a small backpack and that only lasted one day. The high altitude and thin air works your lungs extra hard. A pack that you can carry easily, up the highest Adirondack peaks, quickly becomes way too much out there because the base elevation is thousands of feet higher which makes the oxygen concentration much lower. The pack that I liked best was a small "fanny-pack", modified with suspenders, and a quart canteen pouch (with a pocket for water purification tablets). Items in the pack were just a compass (a second one in addition to one in my pants pocket), knife, folding saw, waterproof bags, space blanket, lighter, light rope, a couple protein bars, and (4) extra rounds of ammo, in addition to the (6) in my rifle's magazine. Now in my early 50's, I pack significantly more stuff on most Adirondack hunts. Believe me, you don't want to carry stuff you probably will not use when you are struggling to draw a breath, like you will be out west on a "once a year" trip. If you dress in layers, you can use the rope to tie off unworn items to the suspender straps. If you need to pack meat out, you can use the animal's hide to wrap it and drag what you can on your first trip, bag and rope the rest up in trees in the shade. Your odds of ending up with meat to pack out will be greatly improved if you are not overburdened with too much weight. I found that a quart of water and a couple protein bars was plenty for all day, unless I was packing out meat. In that case, I needed a few gallons of water (thats when the water purification tablets come in handy).

Good to see you back TG. I will pray that you get that big buck this fall. One other little tip on that - If you don't score on your first try, don't be afraid to move your stand. Those older bucks wise up real quick to a stand location. A last minute short move was key in my killing of 3.5 year old bucks the last two seasons. The real question is, which of us is really lost ?

2 old, to old, too old.

Like to, can't. My summer weekends are all tied up with family stuff. That spot would be great for me on a Thursday or Friday night in the fall, when northern zone big game season is open. I usually cruise by there solo a few times every year at that time. Maybe, if the summer GTG goes well, you all could plan for another one later. I could stop in to say hello, drink a Coke or Pepsi, and get back on the road. One of those helps keep me alert on the long stretch of highway between home in WNY, and the inlaw's place up in the NW Adirondacks. It would be nice if FSW would show up. I could give him the lower jaw that I saved from last year's gun-season buck. I went to the trouble of putting it's field-dressed carcass on a certified scale, after a couple of years of PA chest girth chart harassment from several forum members here . It would be nice to get a "proper" age determination. Also, FSW at a GTG would certainly qualify as a "special occasion". Whenever I am blessed with a button buck, I try to save a few packs of frozen meat for those. Maybe you could bring him a pack at the summer GTG if he can make it. If there is another in the fall, I will bring one. That way he can taste what he has been missing. That might be enough to put a damper on the "antler" idolatry that he suffers from.

At least try and get your grade 10.

Probably about the same as you kicking the booze. Good luck with that by the way. I will keep praying for you.

That is a good point. With all pistols being registered in NY, he probably knows the make and model of all that are in the house of any permit-holder, seconds after typing in the address.

What movie was it? Rio Lobo is my favorite.

I know how that goes, having burned out several Humminbird flashers in the front of the boat. I should put a swivel under the Eagle flasher on the center council, so I can see it better from the bow seat. I bought an Eagle Silent 60 flasher from Bass Pro Shops in 1981. It is still going strong, hard mounted to the council of my walleye boat since 1989. I hate to mess around with it and would love to see if I can get 50 years out of it. It transmits the depth very well with the boat at planing speed, almost up to wide open throttle in shallow water. I first had it on a well-used rowboat, with a 9.5 Evinrude on the back, that I bought with trapping money back when I was in high school. I have burned out about (4) Humminbird flashers since 1989. I usually find them cheap at garage sales, since they stopped producing them about 15 years ago. The Hummingbirds do "hum" a little bit, while the Eagle flasher has always ran silent. In most fishing situations, especially in low light situations, I prefer a flasher over a chart display. I only like the chart display when fish are suspended, and I do not do much of that type fishing anymore. The Lake Erie walleyes start tasting like zoo-plankton, after they move out and suspend under it in the summer, and the Lake Ontario salmon have "eating advisories" which limit what women and children can eat. For me, fishing, just like hunting. is primarily about the meat. The fact that it is fun is just a nice bonus.

I think it looks pretty darn good right now, in the "rough-cut" stage. The high-tined narrow rack looks cool.

I use three depth finders on my boat, which handle any trolling, drifting, or anchored situation pretty good. Two of them are antique flashers (a Humminbird, with the transducer mounted on the front trolling motor and an Eagle silent 60 mounted on the center council). A nice feature of running the two different brands, with one transducer up front and the other on the back of the boat, is that I can run them simultaneously, without interference, because they run on different frequencies. That always allows me to see how steep the bottom structure is. I use three different trolling methods: One is forward trolling with the main engine (70 hp outboard), operated from the center council. On the big waters of lake Erie, when walleyes suspend in the summer, I use that method, with a newer Eagle chart depthfinder that is mounted near the back of the boat (near the 15 hp "kicker" motor). I like having the chart on the back for that (and summer Salmon trolling on Lake Ontario) because everyone is always looking back anyhow, waiting to see downriggers to release. Since that chart recorder is also an Eagle, it runs the same frequency as the center council mounted flasher, and I can not run them both at the same time. That would not provide any useful bottom contour info anyhow, since the transducers are mounted right next to each other on the back of the boat. Backtrolling with the gas kicker motor is often very effective early in the season when the walleyes are shallow and either of the two the stern-mounted transducer Eagle depthfinders work well for that. Walleyes don't seem to mind the underwater exhaust noise of the old two-stroke, 15 hp kicker motor, and I have taken many, even in water less than 5 feet deep, right below the spinning prop. Smallmouth bass are another story though, and they rarely tolerate that gas motor noise. Drifting and/or slow forward trolling with the quiet electric trolling motor up front, and the Huminbird flasher transducer mounted to it, usually takes care of them without a problem. Those bass usually relate to the bottom structure and having two depthfinders running at the same time, and being able to see how steep that is, helps out a lot.

No problem, In your 11/30 post you mentioned you would not mind using you 2019 tag on that buck and I hope that happens. Your odds would be much improved if you would consider using that other "secret" weapon, which I have mentioned on many of my prior posts, but am reluctant to mention here for fear of being "banished" to the political section (see pm).

It was a challenging hunt to locate the specific post that I was about 90% sure that I remembered from the "live" thread, but I was eventually successful. You didn't want to release details then so I can understand why you may be reluctant now. The buck you mentioned in that 11/30 post is the one I am wondering about. Do you think he made it ? I have only been targeting a "specific buck" for the last two seasons. I ended up killing both of those bucks, but I was not fully "exclusive" and would have taken a lesser buck (providing it had at least three antler points on a side), had it showed up prior to my "target" buck. In 2017, my "target" was the largest-bodied buck, from a group of six, that I had first observed in the late summer. I did well that year, killing him with my crossbow on my first attempt. That 3-1/2 year old had a marginal, busted up 5-point rack, and a 43" chest girth. Last season, I killed a significantly larger racked 3-1/2 year old on my second attempt. I blew my earlier chance at him with my crossbow (when he had 8 antler points), but scored on my second try (with my slug gun), after he had broken a couple of those antler points off. His rut-worn body was slightly smaller than the one the year prior, with just a 42" chest girth, but he still weighed 182 pounds field dressed when I put him on a certified scale after hanging in the wind all day. If that buck you were after is still kicking this fall, here is a small tip that might help you take him down. Ditch the coffee up in the stand and drink hot-cider instead. The pleasant aroma of hot cider brought this big one in on a wire from downwind on two consecutive hunts last year. The smell of coffee is offensive to mature deer. "WOLC'D" ^