wolc123

I have not tried coon yet, but that is something I would not mind. Most that I have killed have been early, prior to opening of trapping season, so they have to be burried whole (or burned). I also would not want to skin and eat one early like that because there are so many bugs on them. Their hides have been nearly worthless for many years, but if a young one made it until the first hard frost, and the opening trapping season, I might give it a try in the crock pot. I usually have the local ones trapped out by then, so that is not likely to happen. The few that I have taken later (when the carcasses can just be tossed out in the fields to feed the vermin) never last too long. They are usually picked clean in less than 24 hours. By contrast, even a crow will not touch a coyote carcass. They just shrivel up into "coyote jerky" until they get plowed under in the spring. I think Steve Rinella tried coyote in a "Meateater" episode and had nothing good to say about it. I would eat one of those, only if it was a matter of survival.

If I ever saw one, while deer hunting in NY, I would shoot first and ask questions later. With a couple of teenage girls that like to play out back, I ain't taking any chances. I would call the DEC and turn myself in immediately after recovering the carcass. If nothing else, that would prove that there really are some here. A couple of neighbors told me they saw one, but I have doubts (they had no pictures). They also said that their coyote sightings went way down, while the cougar was around, two hunting seasons ago. My own coyote sightings were also down that year, but were up last season, so maybe there was one "passing thru".

It was a decent weekend. The snow piles at the end of our driveways were getting too high to see over, so I spent a couple hours Saturday morning moving them away from the road and closer to the house with my loader tractor. I formed it into an almost olympic-sized luge run for the girls. That kept them entertained most of the day Saturday. Sunday, the weather was warm enough to take the family shopping up to the outlet mall in Niagara on the Lake, starting out at Bass Pro shops. They had some decent sales prices on Cabela's brand jig trailers and on jigging Rapalas. I should be set on my tackle needs for the year. The girls scored some good deals on clothes at "Forever 21" and we had a good lunch at "The Eatery". We got home in time to watch the game. That was not too bad, but I would have liked to have seen the Rams win. Wade Phillips is may all-time favorite coach. I was glad to see them defer and let the Patriots receive the opening kickoff. Picking off Brady's first pass was the highlight of the game for me. It is too bad they did not recover his fumble when they sacked him later in the game, and that the offence came up so short.

We are talking about the same place - Bartel road Bait and Tackle. I do remember the old place that was closer to the 81 exit (right across the road from Morabidos. I think they closed about 15 years ago. I bought about a case and a half of 16 gauge Remington sluggers for $1.00 a box at their closing sale. I still have a couple dozen boxes of those.

It has been about 30 years since I fished that lake, but we stop a few times a year at Bartel road bait and tackle (just off rt 81 Brewerton exit), Their prices are good and they have an excellent selection of tackle (way more reasonably priced than the Thousand Island Tackle shop (TITS). We also stop for gas almost every trip by there at Morabidos, or the newer place (with better food and bathrooms) across the street. That is almost always the cheapest gas between Pembroke and Alex Bay, not including on the native American reservations.

My folks have had two or three of them, since the first year they came out and never had any issues. I borrow it for a while every summer, when we take the family up to the Thousand Islands. My wife, daughters and I stay in our truck camper at a state park on the river side of Goose bay. The family cottage is on the other side (I keep my boat over there). I use the equinox to run back and forth every morning and evening. The 2018, that they have now, has the four cylinder. It seems to have plenty of pep, even on the hills. I can't say that I notice any less power compared to their previous 6 cylinder. I have never towed with them. It sure is a lot easier to get around with than our full-sized, 8 ft box, extended-cab Silverado. It seems to handle the hills with ease, even when loaded with 6 or 7 passengers. It also goes the the snow pretty good. They came over here last Sunday for a birthday party and blew right through a deep snow drift before I had chance to clear it. That same drift stopped my little front wheel drive car two out of four times that I tried getting thru it, when it was considerably smaller.

I am glad I watched to the end, because the closing scene was spot on. I sure would like to get that other, wasted 11-1/2 minutes back though. The guy thinks smoking is good and that mass shootings did not really happen ? What's up with that ? How does that help the pro second amendment cause ?

I got stuck (2) of the last (4) times trying to get into my driveway, after driving home from work with my front-wheel drive car. The snow was really dense and heavy today, stopping me in my tracks with only the nose of the car off the road. I had phoned my wife, prior to leaving work, to turn on the switch in the house that energizes the block heater on my loader tractor. At minus 2 F, there was just barely enough cranking power in the battery for a couple of slow turns. Fortunately, that was enough to start the luke-warm diesel engine. If it was one degree colder, we would still be digging that car out of the snowbank with a shovel. The snow don't bother me too much, but I will be glad to see the end of these extreme cold temperatures. I would be very happy if the temperature were to remain between 15 and 32 degrees F, from December 1 thru March 31. If it gets colder, my tractors don't start good, and if it gets warmer, it gets too hot in the house with the woodstove and I have to use the natural-gas furnaces. I am very appreciative of the town, county, and state highway crews, who have done a spectacular job of keeping the roads clear.

I am ok with the two weeks that we have in the southern zone now, especially since finally filling my first dmp with a crossbow last season. I am very thankful that I can use it here, during the best two weeks of the rut. That has always been my favorite time to hunt deer around home anyhow. It is kind of nice to have a little more "free" time earlier for small game and turkey hunting (with guns). Even though I have only hunted deer around home for those two weeks of archery season, in the five years that the crossbow has been legal, my success rate has trippled compared to the 30 years I hunted the whole season with a vertical. The crossbow crowd is really getting the shaft up in the northern zone however, with just three days before the guns open up. They really ought to have two weeks up there. Even (4) more days up there for the crossbows would be nice. That way the pre-regular gun season would total two weeks including ML. What is the reason for just (3) days now, while the southern zone gets (14) ? Adding those extra (4) days would open up another weekend. That would bring up some more tourism dollars. I know I would unload some of mine up there, if I could hunt on an extra, early weekend in October. I imagine there are lots of non-residents, who would do likewise. Thanks for your work towards full inclusion, which I would still like to see (state-wide). The folks up north could certainly use a little more of your help than us "lucky" ones who live in the southern zone.

My hardest-kicking deer gun is an old Ithaca featherlight,16 gauge deerslayer. That might weigh 6 pounds with (5) slugs in it and is basically built on a 20 gauge action. The ammo is loaded up to nearly 12 gauge energy level. I never notice the recoil when shooting deer with it, but it is rather punishing on the range. I always use a pin-on recoil pad, that is filled with something like silly putty, when target practicing with it. It kicks a lot harder than a buddies Ruger #1 458 win mag, that I fired a few times, but of course that gun weighs about twice as much. I don't think many folks understand how much the weight of the gun comes into play with "felt" recoil. Anytime I hear someone complain about recoil from a deer rifle, I wonder if they have ever had any experience with a shotgun. That said, my Marlin 512 is rather tame with 3" 12 gauge slugs, but it weighs a lot closer to the Ruger #1 .458 rifle than the Ithaca 16 ga. shotgun.

Most would agree that the .223 is near the bottom, when it comes to a good deer round, but many folks are really into the .243. What is your problem with that one? I now what mine is, and I am guessing your's might be the same. I was getting sick of lugging my big, heavy, scoped, Ruger M77, 30/06 around up in the Adirondacks. I came pretty close to picking up a Ruger American .243, the summer before last. I am sure glad I did not after butchering a couple of deer that were killed with one last fall. A buddy, who raised beef cattle down at the end of our road, gave me a 2-1/2 year old buck and a 6 month old doe that he killed with his .243 on opening weekend (his family don't care for venison). The buck was struck twice, once on a hip and another on the neck, just forward of the shoulders. Both bullets remained in the carcass. After trimming away all the bloodied meat, I was only able to salvage around 50 pounds. I did not weigh or get a chest girth measurement of that buck, but it looked like it field-dressed 140 - 150 pounds. Fortunately, the little doe fawn was struck just once, in the heart area, and the bullet passed thru. I was able to get about 20 pounds from that. Comparing the meat damage on those deer, struck with high-velocity, small-diameter, light-weight bullets, to those struck with much larger diameter, heavier, and slower bullets (12 ga, hornady SST slug), was like night and day. I "riddled" my own opening-day buck with three of those, two amidships and one in the neck. Those three big heavy slugs "wasted" less than a pound of meat total, requiring just a little trimming around the three "pass-thru" holes. So the bottom line on the .243 as a deer round is: It is ok for killing deer, but not so hot if you also like to eat them. Going forward, I am going with (2) 30/30 levers as my northern zone deer guns (one with a scope and another with fiber-optic open sights for foul weather conditions). The deer that I have killed up there with my 30/06 have had minimal meat damage, and I am guessing that the much slower velocity 30/30 will be even less. Hopefully, I will find out this fall. This .350 legend looks like it would be a good one possibly even "the best". The closest I will ever get to that will be switching to 170 gr 30/30 ammo after exhausting my current supply of 150 gr. I am content with a "good" deer round, and ammo cost and availability mean a lot more to me than having the "best". Not many rounds are cheaper or easier to find than 170 gr 30/30.

The big financial savings comes from the free wood (it litteraly grows on trees). If you do not have that on your property, then I agree there would not be much savings. As I mentioned on my earlier post, I enjoy the "work" involved and the little bit of gas and diesel fuel required for chainsaw, splitter and loader/skidder tractors are insignificant relative to the cost savings provided by all that "free" wood.

I have also been pitching most of them back, since my brother in law got a y-bone stuck in his throat a few years ago. He went to the Alex-bay hospital, where they tried and failed to get it out (they dont show up on x-rays). The next morning, he spit it up after eating an Oreo cookie. Years ago, when spearing was legal, my uncle used to grind up boney sucker fillets and make patties out of them. I never had the guts to try that and usually just burried the whole fish around the apple trees for fertilizer. Spearing those suckers at night was lots of fun.

Pike and pickerel are a kind of dry for smoking. Oily fish - like whitefish, are a lot better for that. I tried frying one of those, that we caught thru the ice up in the Adirondacks, on the stove up there and it was horrible. After that, I always brought them home and smoked them with apple wood and they were wonderful that way. If you are looking for something different to do with pike and pickerel, try pickling the y-bones. Those are considered a delicacy up in the Thousand islands. Back when they were a lot more numerous up there, a neighbor used to fillet them for us in exchange for the y-bones. He would remove all the meat in one big slab, then cut out the little sections with the y-bones, using a straight razor. Apparently, the pickling broke down the bones. making them edible. I never tried them myself, but judging by how excited that guy got whenever we brought in a bunch of northerns, they must be pretty good. He would also give us back more "boneless" meat from each fish, than I was ever able to extract myself, so it was one of those elusive win-win deals.

This will be stopped pretty quick because a few highly-motivated (Thank Dr. Ford for that), conservative, Trump Supreme court picks. Odds are there will be at least one more of those before 2020. Roe vs Wade is on very thin ice right now. After that is overturned, there is nothing our governor will be able to do to keep up abortions in NY. It will be just like when Arkansas tried to keep those black kids out of the Little Rock school back in the 1957. States are powerless against the army which is under the control of the President. Just like Eisenhower sent the troops in to get them kids into that school, Trump will send them into NY to stop the baby murders. Starting with Lincoln, Republicans Presidents have a long history in this country of righting the wrongs of democrats.

It don't belong in archery season if it don't have a string. I would be ok with its use during gun season and ML though, as long as the user took the archery course (to learn how an arrow kills vs a bullet). Ideally, southern-zone early archery big game season should be structured as follows: October 1-14 - "traditional" (recurve and longbows only), October 15 - start of gun season should allow compounds and crossbows (with current minimum width and poundage restrictions). The archery course should also be required for crossbow usage.

Data from states that have had full inclusion for a long time (Ohio), indicates that approximately 25 % of archery season kills are with verticals, and 75 % are with crossbows. While 25 % is a significant number, you might be right about "compound" verticals becoming obsolete. The traditionalists, who stick with the verticals, would probably move towards recurves and longbows.

I have heard that approximately 90 % of the illicit drugs come in across our southern border. There is quite a few miles of wall down there now, but most of those drugs come thru the gaps. Why work harder to send them over, thru, or under the wall rather than just walk around ? Illicit drugs cause the deaths of many US citizens. A wall improves border security by allowing more efficient use of agents. Currently, the democrats hold just 1/6 of the power in Washington (1/2 of the legislative branch). Their lust for more power is what drives them to fight the wall. The unexpected pummeling they received in 2016 caused them to write off the current crop of American voters. They are banking on a new crop for 2020. So building the wall will save lives, while not building it might get the democrats the Senate and Executive branch in 2020 (they have likely lost the Judicial branch for a very long time however, especially if Trump gets a couple more pics before then).

There is nothing like a woodstove, for taking the bite (financial and physical) out of the cold weather, while you are inside the house. We have a centrally located, air-tight, woodstove in the main living area of our 2000 sq foot, L-shaped ranch. Using the air vent control on that, we keep the main living area at about 78 degrees, and the bedrooms at 68, so long as the outside temperature is below about 35 degrees. When it gets warmer outside, I don't bother with the woodstove, and just let the two gas furnaces in the basement cover the heat load (the thermostats are always set at 68 in the heating season). The net result is: The colder the winter, the lower our heating bill. I do not include the cost of the wood, since I have never had to pay for that. I enjoy making it, especially since building a saw platform last year, which has eliminated all the lower back pain I feel sorry for the folks who live up north and can't curl up with their wife in front a warm fire when it is so cold outside. Not quite as sorry as I feel for those who have to endure the heat all summer long down below the Mason-Dixon line however.

"Nest/corn" Predator: Sept 2018 Duke-Dogproof trap / Ruger .22 rimfire - burried with shovel "Target of opportunity predator": December 2018 T/Omega .50 cal. - in freezer now

"Bouncing around" keeps the hot spots from burning out.

As far as guns go, three Marlins have or will soon get a little work. I had enough free time, up in the Adirondacks last Thanksgiving weekend, to sight in my father-in-law's new-in-box, scoped, model 336 30/30. As long as there is no rain, sleet or snow in the forecast, that is what I will carry up there this season. I also swapped out the iron sights, on my new model 336BL 30/30, with fiber optics. That should cover me for the foul weather days up in the northern zone. The Marlin 512 bolt-action 12-gauge slug gun, that I use at home in the southern zone, will also get new optics this year. I am leaning towards a Redfield 2-7 scope, to replace of the beat up Bushnell banner 3X, that it currently wears. I also plan to disassemble the bolt, and clean and lube it well. I dropped it in a swamp, while dragging out a buck on opening day last year. A couple weeks later, on a very cold day, the bolt froze up and prevented a "chip-shot" on a doe. That was the second doe in ten years that owes it's life to a frozen bolt on that gun. As far as habitat improvements go, I am expecting to have a little more time for that this season. I will start with some hinge cutting in a couple sanctuary areas at home. For food plots, I hope to get some winter wheat in this year. I missed that at home last year, because the only little bit I planted failed, probably due to bad seed. The deer sightings were way down here as a result. Fortunately, they were way up over at my folks place, a few miles away. Thanks for that go to an energetic neighbor, who finally got the trespassing issues under control over there, when he bought an overgrown field out back. One change I will make over there will be moving a hang-on tree stand from right near his property line, to the interior of a block of woods that my folks own. I now know exactly where the property lines are, thanks to this guy's fresh survey posts. The posted signs he put up, spaced about every 10 foot along the line, help too. Last year, for the first time in 36 seasons, I did not see a single trespasser in those woods.

poached nutz

?

Where will she sit and who will sit next to her ?