wolc123

That buck makes a very strong argument against antler restrictions. Nice job on the mount.

Happy Birthday

Does not matter, Trump will veto it and still get the wall. Even though a few Republicans have defected, those that remain loyal to the President are more than enough to prevent an congressional override of that veto in both the Senate and the House. The inevitable lawsuits also don't matter because a solid majority of the Supreme court is also on Trump's side. The bottom line is, Trump will get the wall and there is not a darn thing the Democrats can do to stop it, with control of just 1/6 the power in DC.

We need to wait until FSW gets back from vacation for that, otherwise it will be all meat.

I heard that a new Runnings store is moving into our neighborhood in April. Hopefully, they will stock Redfields and I can find one a little cheaper there. I heard they often beat Bass Pro prices. Amazon has the 2-7 x 33 Revolution now for $ 175. I am looking forward to getting that new scope out on the range after it dries up a little. Nikon is out of the running, because I was disappointed with a pair of binoculars from them about 15 years ago. No Redfield product has ever let me down. I have never heard anything bad about Leupold but could never justify the cost of one of them. I would definitely prefer to stick with an American-made brand. My Bushnell was a fixed 3X. I like the old Redfield variables on my 30/06 and ML a lot better, especially on the range. There, I usually dial the zoom up to the max (9X & 7X), which seems to helps keep the groups tighter. Most shots at deer has been on the lowest power (3X & 2X,) to keep the field of view the widest. The Redfields are also much better in low light conditions. After getting this new Redfield, my last old scope will also be the first one I ever purchased: and old Weaver 1.5 X on my grandad's Ithaca model 37, 16-gauge featherlight. Had I taken that out last year, after dropping my Marlin with the Bushnell on it, there would certainly be one more fat doe in our freezer right now. I have also dropped that one out of tree stands a few times but the scope is still as clear as when it was new, it never fogs up, and that old Ithaca has never failed to fire (even after being submerged in water several times.

The timing looked good on the compressions (120 per minute or so). The two breaths would have been tough but thankfully he did not need them.

Maybe you do, but apparently the mods don't, so I guess those two got a permanent vacation. Members should worry about what they kill themselves and not so much about what other members do. If they have "concerns", a better method of expressing themselves would be a pm. I see a personal attack as nothing more than the attacker's public display of their own weakness and insecurity. Personally, I welcome them on myself, and I would prefer that only those were not restricted by the moderators. I am always looking for more folks to put on my prayer list. I do not enjoy seeing other's attacked though, and this site would be better if those attacks were reduced. It does seem that this thread has achieved that objective. Thanks to the mods for that.

Stir fry with sliced doe-fawn back-strap, cooked medium-rare and Thai peanut sauce, washed down with Genny light. Was very good, equally as tasty as button buck.

I love it too and they are very good eating. I bought a Marksman .177 cal with a scope on it from Dicks last year when they had them on sale for around $ 40. I took it out once this winter, after sighting it in, but no squirrels showed up in range. I am looking forward to September 1, when the season opens. The advantages I see, with the air rifle, are #1 cost of ammo, #2 lack of noise. The only problem so far with that Marlin is it has a very hard trigger pull. That might limit the effective range to 25 yards or so, but I could live with that. Longer shots in September are unlikely anyhow with all the leaves still on the trees.

A couple older Redfield scopes have performed well on my 30/06 and 50 cal ML, but I do not have any experience with newer ones, since Leupold took over. It is time to update the old Bushnell Banner on my primary 12 gauge slug gun and I am leaning towards one of those new Redfields. It sounds like they come with the Leupold lifetime warranty. The 2-7 model looks like it would be a good fit on my Marlin 512. My longest shot with that one with the old Bushnell that was a doe at 163 yards. The Bushnell Banner had served me well, prior to last season, especially considering some of the rough use it had endured. That includes dropping it from a 16 ft high tree stand one time, which sheared off the #10 base mount screws. I drilled them out and replaced with 1/4", and it continued to work well for about 10 more years. The trouble last season first showed up while checking the zero over Labor day weekend. The image thru the scope was fuzzy at 100 yards, but clear at 50, so that is where I checked the zero. At 100 yards, I could see two bulls, but just one at 50. Quite a number of antlerless deer have fallen to that gun/scope combo, but none with "protruding" antlers, until opening day last fall. My first shot (from 100 yards away) struck that heavy 3-1/2 year old buck about 20" to the left of where I aimed, passing thru his mid-section, just below the spine. He remained on his feet until the second slug struck a couple inches higher, right on the spine. A third "finisher" to the neck from point-blank range ended his suffering. While dragging the 200 plus pound carcass out of the swamp, the gun slipped from my shoulder, into the cold water. The final strike on the old Bushnell came a few weeks later, when a couple of smaller bucks chased a doe twice around my tree stand. The first time she passed directly below, but my gun misfired due to a frozen firing pin (I should have cleaned it better after dropping it in the water). The second time they brought her around, I took a running shot and missed her clean. I shot on a lower percentage than normal, because I wanted to see if the gun would go off. It did, resulting in what I am about 90 % sure was a "clean" miss. I spent a couple hours following tracks and looking but no sings of a hit on some pretty decent tracking snow. If anyone has a good reason why some other scope might be better way to dump less than $175, fire away. I really can't justify spending more than that at this time.

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.