wolc123

When I was younger, I ate a lot more grey squirrels, but I don't get time to chase them much any more. I did eat one last fall that I took with my shotgun while turkey hunting. I always cook them in the crockpot, and have often mixed them with cottontail rabbit. The squirrel is always better tasting than the rabbit. Last fall, the breasts and drumsticks of a young wild turkey hen were in the crockpot with the squirrel. Those drumsticks were pretty good (wife and daughters had the white meat). I never liked the taste of spring tom turkey breasts (or almost any other white meat for that matter). The only exception to that, and some of my favorite wild game, is ruffed grouse. It has been a few years since I got to enjoy one of them. They are especially tasty, roasted on a stick over a camp fire. At this time, my family goes thru about 200 pounds of boneless whitetail venison per season. I killed and ate a mule deer once, and I would not do that again (it tasted very bad). Canada goose and mallard ducks are ok but not great in the crockpot. I have also eaten moose, elk, and black bear, but never killed any of those myself. The moose is excellent, especially when it was canned. I would rate it slightly better than Western NY whitetail. Elk is about a tie. I might try a small raccoon in the crockpot someday. The problem there is that I wont touch them when they are full of bugs, and most that I take are long before the first good frost. I try to take them out before they have the chance to destroy much of my corn.

How does that yote taste? The crows don't even touch those that I throw out in the fields here, so I cant imagine that it is very good. You and many others seem to be in full attack mode right now. That is a natural reaction of going so long with limited sunlight and the resulting depleted vitamin D level. It will get better soon as the days are getting longer. I just got back from a week in sunny Florida and Mexico so not doing so bad myself right now. Does it bother you at all to know that there is nothing that you can write, say or do to piss me off ? That is the way it goes when you have real faith (and plenty of vitamin D). I forgive you for all the snipes you have been taking at me. I don't suppose you will ever answer my question on whether or not you think that big buck you were chasing last season survived. This is the third and last time I will ask. Good luck with the rest of yote season.

Thanks for bringing that shot onto this thread. It is like the gift that keeps giving. Thanks also for passing on all those little bucks that did not meet your harvest standards. At least you got plenty of fish to eat.

happy b-day.

The tail looks a little too long to me. Lop off the last (4) black stripes and it will be just about right.

Awsome move, I like the location because it is a nice short drive. I won't need to cross the border to Bass Pro in Niagara on the Lake any more. The last few years, I have been able to tolerate that more than dealing with the big blue watertower traffic BS to get to Cabelas.

You are probably right about that. My father in law always say's it was too bad there was not a video from the front side when that bullet hit. I would think that the eyes probably popped out a bit.

Very little meat was destroyed by that shot, just a neck roast. The pointed bullet did not expand until it struck the spine at the front of the deer. The heart was good, with just a shallow trench across the top where the 150 gr bullet passed across. There was no entry wound. The exit hole in the front of the hide, at the lower left side of the neck, measured 3/4" diameter. On the skinned carcass, the exit hole in the neck was approximately 2" diameter. Trimming the bloodied meat from around that hole resulted in the loss of the neck roast. There was no other meat damage on the carcass, mainly because the bullet did not expand until it struck the spine on the way out. Even the tenderloins were not bruised from the un-expanded bullet passing thru the opening from the back side. I fully expected to loose meat from the shot, but figured what I ended up with would be infinitely more than what an unfilled antlered tag would provide. Had it not been near the tail end of the season, I might have passed. I also expected a messy gutting job and I was pleasantly surprised when the guts came out very clean. Even the butt-out II worked perfectly in this case, also serving as a bore gauge indicating near perfect shot placement. A handful of others on this site, including Pygmy on a caribou, have attempted that shot but none quite pulled it off, and always ended up with a messy gutting job. I cant take all the credit for that, as perfect body alignment of the buck, as well as perfect shot placement, were required for the clean gut job. I give all the credit for the both parts to He who controls the fate of all living things.

If a deer is standing still, 50 yards away, facing directly away, there is no wind and I have a good rest, and I am armed with a 30/06 that holds a 3/4 inch group at 100 yards, then yes I recommend that shot. If a deer is jumped and running away, then no I do not recommend it with any weapon. There are two "happy times" each year for yotes, spring fawning time and post rut big buck time. Have you ever seen how slow a rutted out buck is compared to a fat doe at that time ? What one do you think is easier for the yotes to catch ? It looks like those yotes you bagged were pretty well fed. Happy hunting

What do mean ? That was one of the cleanest kills I ever pulled off. One shot, immediate drop, meat damage limited to a groove across the top of heart and a neck roast. The guts came out as clean as a whistle. I don't know how you could kill one with less maiming than that. Do you know if the big buck you were chasing last season survived ? Maybe them big yotes ate him post-rut.

That means there might not be a 2019HuntingNY whitetail challenge. I doubt they will get it passed soon enough to stop it this year but it might get done by November of 2020. I can't see where it includes fishing. It looks to me like it is just aimed at hunting. I was never a big fan of catch and release fishing. I see that as mostly the senseless maiming of a fine food supply. Killing and eating is where it is at.

That video gets me excited about doing some tracking up there this year. I finally have a couple of "proper" guns just about ready to go. I sighted in my father in law's scoped Marlin 336 30/30 last Thanksgiving weekend, dialing it right on at 50 yards with 150 gr ammo. All it needs is one of them little hammer extensions to make for faster shooting with the scope. They are less than $ 20, so I will order one and put one on it prior to hunting with it. The scope is a cheap Marlin 3-9X. He bought this gun and scope just after Remington took over production but had never taken it out of the box and shot it. The fit and finish looked pretty good on it and it cycled and shot very well. I will only hunt with that gun when the weather is dry and the scope will likely never come off 3X. I replaced the factory iron sights on my own Marlin 336BL 30/30 with fiber-optics earlier this year. Last fall, I was unable to get those factory sights dialed in quite low enough at 50 yards with 150 gr ammo, but that should not be an issue with the fiber-optics. I will find out about that as soon as we get a break in the weather on a weekend. I plan on doing a lot of practice with it prior to hunting season. By hunting season, I want to be able to pop a gallon water jug in the woods with every shot at 50 yards, offhand while half out of breath. That should not be a problem if I can get in a few thousand practice shots before then. The bulk of those practice shots will be taken off our back deck with my daughter's Daisy Red-Ryder. I modified that bb-gun with a "big-loop", and adult sized stock to approximately match the Marlin dimensionally. I may try to drill and pour some lead into the fore-grip and stock to match the weight a little closer (it currently weighs less than half of what the Marlin does). The trigger draw length is nearly identical. Practice with that consists of cutting beverage cans in half with bb's as they are suspended by a wire between the tab and a tree branch. The suspended can makes for great practice at moving targets as it swings from the wind and/or previous bb impacts. The best things about this kind of practice is that it is cheap, silent, and convenient.

This country is in far better shape today than it has been in many years. Right now we are living thru the collapse of liberalism in the USA. New York is one of just six remaining states with liberal majorities. Even upstate NY is firmly conservative. Those who remain downstate and in other big cities (like LA and Chicago), are suffering terribly during this collapse of all that they believe in. You don't have to look very far to see examples of them going off the rails.

I never tried a misting bottle, but when it comes to deer, I have seen hot cider from a thermos giveth and I have also seen it taketh away. Last archery season it cost me what would have been my highest-scoring antlered buck. He snuck in from directly down wind, to about 15 yards from my stand. I was in an open, hang-on stand - only 7 feet up (In my old age, I have grown afraid of heights). When I heard a twig snap behind me, I turned to see him looking directly at me as I was screwing the shiny chrome cup onto the top of my cider thermos. It was a blustery cold day, an I had just finished drinking a cup. While I was unable to get of shot with my crossbow, the close encounter allowed me to fully access the head-gear that he carried. I managed to kill him a week later, on opening day of gun season. The two shots that brought him down also occurred right after I finished a cup of hot cider from the same thermos. They also came from the same stand from the same height, but I had moved it to different tree. He was about a hundred yards away this time, so cover was not an issue. At 182 pounds, he turned out to be the heaviest field-dressed buck that I ever put on a scale. No doubt he would have been considerably heavier, had I killed him on our previous encounter. He had obviously been in a scrap or two, over the last week of the rut, shedding a few pounds as well as a couple of antler points. At least that part saved me the taxidermy expense. The next time I go for a drink of hot cider, without adequate concealment, I will look all around first. Most of my stands and blinds have three foot wall/shooting rests all the way around and getting busted taking a drink is not a concern from them. Although I have never encountered one while hunting, I doubt bears are quite as sensitive to movement as deer are.

It is sort of a waste of clover seed to plant it on acidic, wet soil with low sunlight. I would go with a late summer planting mix of winter wheat and soybeans. The sprouting soybeans will bring in the deer early, before the first prolonged frost, and the wheat will hold them on the plots thru the end of late ML season. Cerial rye is another decent option, slightly more tolerant to acidic soil but the deer are more attracted to wheat. Wheat is also cheaper and easier to find. Leftover soybeans are also easy to find, very cheap or free after the spring planting season. A wheat/oat mix is another good choice. In that case, the oats are the candy that bring in the deer first, but like soybeans, they also will not survive the winter. I am thinking that soybeans are more attractive candy to the deer than oats so that is what I would use, given the choice.

The main part of my favorite (2-story) blinds are old construction-style truck caps. I start out with a wood deck (sized for the cap), with a three foot high 2x4 or 2x6 stud and plywood wall built across the front and both sides. The cap is bolted onto the top of that wall. You can use an old snowmobile trailer (if you want mobility) for the lower deck. It is leveled and blocked up a few feet above ground level to provide easy access. These truck caps have heavy duty ladder racks on top, and that is where you can build another wood deck for the upper level. That also gets a three foot high wall, built on each side and the front. I use weathered barn wood for siding on that upper wall, which blends in very well with the fall and winter woods. I face the open end of these blinds on the downwind side of the prevailing wind direction. Most hunts, when the wind is not too strong and there is no rain, sleet or snow, I hunt from the open-top upper level. I keep a hard plastic swivel chair, or a padded weather-resistant boat-seat swivel chair up there. Two years ago, I killed a 3-1/2 year old buck from the upper level of one with my crossbow, and a 2-1/2 year old buck on the year prior. The higher elevation makes visibility better and helps keep your scent away from the deer. In rain, heavy snow, or high-wind conditions, I hunker down in the lower level in a comfortable padded office-style swivel chair (these and the truck caps themselves can usually be garbage picked along the side of the road). I have yet to kill an antlered buck from the lower level of one, but I have lost count of the does and button bucks that have made the short trip to deer heaven (our family's food supply), courtesy of a shot fired from down there. Those truck caps have side panels that fold out, making a sun-screen that does a good job of keeping the glare out of your gun's scope. In addition to blocking your movements, as you get into position for the shot, the three foot high walls make perfect gun or crossbow rests. Besides making warm, comfortable spots to kill deer from, having a few of these around your property is better deterrent to poachers and trespassers than posted signs, since they never know when you may be in them. One thing is for sure, the older I get the more I like hunting out of these blinds than tree stands. The best thing about the two-story blinds is that you can go downstairs, if the weather turns bad when you are up top, or vise versa. Violent storms can stop as fast as they start and that is the best time to be in position to kill a deer.

If deer were not edible, I would not hunt them. If they lacked antlers, I would hunt them just as hard.

Not sure what you are talking about. I remember you offered me a scale once. I did put one on a friend's scale last year and learned that the PA chest girth chart was actually very conservative in it's weight predictions. Now that I have established a proper zone 9F "adjustment factor", I have no need to put another locally killed buck on a scale. Back on the subject of big antlers, did that one you were chasing last season survive ?

I will see if he saved the lower jaw and we can send it to FSW to find out for sure. Looking at the photos from 2 years ago, 5-1/2 seems like a reasonable guess for last year.

I never saw that buck while it was alive, but he has trail cam pictures of it on property adjacent to our farm on the west, east, and south. Oddly enough, it was killed directly across the street (to the north), where he had no prior trail-cam photos. He also had trail cam pictures of it the year prior, when the rack looked to be almost exactly the same size. I will have to asked him how it tastes. I suppose it would be ok, so long as the carcass was aged long enough prior to freezing. I am guessing it was 5-1/2 years old. FSW can probably comment on how those old ones taste. My experience in that area is somewhat limited. The 3-1/2's that we have been eating the last two years have been very good though.

I was not "taking a shot" . He acted a little bit upset last fall when I mentioned it in the "live" thread. NO worries though, that buck ended up in a good place and went to a good friend who really deserved it. He was also nice enough to provide my family with our first doe fawn last season. She was pretty tasty but I still prefer the button bucks. Same taste, same texture, but a lot bigger.

My guess is that FSW is keeping silent, hoping that the recent flare-up goes out. The less this subject is talked about, the easier it will be to continue deer farming in NY. It sounds like that provides a nice comfortable living for him.

No problem, I love it when folks come out of the woodwork with personal attacks. You just never can have too many on your prayer list.

I forgive you for your question then. I am also sorry that my neighbor killed that big one you were after last fall. Don't worry, there will be more. Lots of folks use orange fletching on their arrows and bolts.

That wouldn't be the buck that he accused me of wounding with my crossbow would it ? I know I never did that so he clearly has some issues of his own.