wolc123

My mickey mouse boots work great in the cold as long as you do not stand in water that is higher than them (about 12") for too long. If they are laced tight, I can go deep for short periods. I made out all right on Saturday, with my brother helping me drag a 200 plus pound (guts-in) buck out of a swamp. His feet got soaked in his fancy work boots. fortunately for him,it was a little above freezing at the time. On a day at the end of last season when the temperature was well below freezing, I made it thru a deep ditch three times. I had to cross to retrieve a doe that I shot on the other side. If the rope I tied to that doe would not have broke, I would have been fine. When that happened, I had to make another crossing and one boot soaked thru on the return trip. By the time I made it back to the house, about 600 yards away, my foot was completely numb. It took a while to get the feeling back in it before I could get the tractor and drive back for that deer. If that happens again tomorrow I left a big old plank leaning against a tree back there to use to cross. Those mickey mouse boots can be purchased surplus for about $ 40 or new for about $ 90. Why anyone would spend more than that on cold weather hunting boots is beyond my understanding.

This old made-in-USA Stanley, that my wife got a garage sale for a couple dollars a few years ago, keeps my cider hot all day no matter how cold it is outside (it takes 6 minutes in the microwave in the morning to heat up a quart). I love that hot cider on cold days as the heat seems to warm me up all over from the inside. The aroma of hot cider (unlike coffee) is not offensive to deer. I would recommend a camo finish however. This shiny chrome model delayed my killing of that old swamp buck hanging in the background by almost a week. He caught a glimpse of me putting the cup/cover back on it on the last weekend of archery season. I used my gun (from longer range) the next time I entered his swamp. Normally, from an enclosed blind, it is a non-issue but he busted me from 30 yards away in a hang on tree-stand. No problem from the same stand (moved to a different tree) a week later, from a bit over a hundred yards away with my 4X scoped 12 gauge.

No, but are you for them or against mandatory state-wide AR's. ? The only way I would be for them is if a correlation could be shown, using data from another state or from a NY WMU where they have been in effect, with hunter safety. It seems to me that they could "in theory" slow folks down a little and make them spend more time identifying their target. Taking the AR's off the table for young hunters (as is always suggested) pretty much defeats the purpose of that however. I think the mandatory AR argument is behind us now, with the current increasing popularity of "meat" as a more important reason to hunt than big antlers. If they ever do come back to the forefront, I would not mind a "three points on a side" rule, with a violation being the inability to purchase a buck tag for the season in which the offence occurred for the following year. Such an enforcement would not require additional manpower from the thin-stretched NY state DEC. It would also be a move towards the "one-buck" rule that some have suggested. Finally, it would have little effect on me personally because it has been more than ten years since I harvested an antlered buck with less than three points on a side.

There are ways to make it work. Being able to hunt out your back door, as has already been mentioned, is a big one. Hunting for meat as the primary focus is even bigger, if you can figure out how to make it taste good (that is the easy part) and convince your wife of the health benefits of the product. For me, it was a simple matter of leaving a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition, with a shapely Australian model on the cover, on the dining room table after I left for work one day. The article inside revealed that venison was her favorite meal. These days, my wife and (2) girls are virtually addicted to venison (and none of them hunt). They put pressure on me to keep them supplied. Sometimes it can be a tough "job" but someone's got to do it. I am very blessed in that they like fish also. Certainly the trophy hunter has a much tougher row to hoe.

Onions, bb liver, and Genny light. That is about as good as it gets in NY state.

Ah, that explains it, your wieght included the nuts. I left them in the woods this time figuring the antlers and empty sack would be enough for "proof of sex". Those from the bb were not all that great when cooked anyhow. Maybe butter is the secret ingedient in making them good. I know Chef and Rinella use that in their recipe (I used olive oil ) . Th bb liver that am eating now as I type is "to die for" however. I also left that in the woods from the 3.5. I always find older deer livers a little on the chewy side.

Do you want the lower jaw from this one to do an accurate age estimate ? How about the tongue ?

That is very true. Big chests must be a genetic thing in the area where I killed my last three bucks (including the bb). All of them had thick meat over the rib-cages compared to other deer I have processed. Odds are that they were all related since they were all killed within a couple hundred yards of each other and had all fed their whole lives from the same clover patch. A DNA test would be the only way to know for sure. I still have bio material from each if anyone wants to volunteer that service.

Read the title of the post to get a better idea about that. I am sure that our fine neighbor's to the south used a lot more than one data point to come up with that chart. edit: I see that he weighed it today and it was killed yesterday and I can't imagine that he would leave the guts in it overnight so you are probably right about that. Some bucks carry more weight in the rear and that was probably the case here.

For field dressed weight, my numbers show that the PA chart underestimated a NY buck by 12 pounds. That is probably because they run a little bigger this much farther north.

On live weight, per SJ's numbers, it looks like +/- 1 pound in weight and +/- 1/8" in distance.

A tape measure / chest girth estimate is a lot faster and easier on your back. SJ's numbers show that the PA chart reasonably accurate for "live weight" estimate of NY bucks anyhow. My own data point shows it to be a bit more conservative on the "field-dressed" weight estimate.

Easy there partner. The pictures shows SJ's daughter's buck has a "live weight" of 180 pounds on the scale. The PA chest girth chart shows a live weight of 182 pounds for a 40" chest girth. SJ's measurement looks like 39-3/4". That looks pretty close to me, at least a little closer than it was on my own 3-1/2 year old antlered buck this year, which weighed 182 pounds field-dressed with a chest girth of 42". The PA chart showed that my buck should have only weighed 170 pounds field-dressed. I am just estimating the age based on the body size right now. I will know for sure after I finish the euro and can compare the scull size to the 43" chest girth specimen that I took with my crossbow last year. I will also save the lower jaw this time in case FSW wants it for confirmation. edit: It is actually G-mans chart, he is the first one I saw post it on here, but I admit that it comes in handy. My back is still sore from lifting that slob up onto that scale.

The hanging weather is perfect right now with the temperature holding a steady 41 degrees since Saturday inside our insulated garage. The long range forecast looks good also. I skinned a doe fawn that my buddy up the road gave me yesterday and I will process her in a few minutes (6 month deer need no aging to break down rigor-mortis). I am going to leave the 2-1/2 year old buck that he gave me, and my own 3-1/2, hang there until next week before I process them.

My wife pickles deer hearts for me every Valentine's day (ain't she special). She uses my grandma's old recipe for pickled heart and tongue (grandma and my mom used beef and pork tongues). Moose tongue, done with that recipe, is my all time favorite game meat. Maybe I will cut the tongues out of the two bigger deer that are hanging in the garage now and throw them in the mix. I tried frying the one from my bb a few weeks ago but the skin made it a little chewy. We would always skin the cow and pig tongues after boiling but that bb tongue was so small that would not have left much meat. Even it's heart was only about 1/4 the size of that from the 182 pound bruiser that I killed on Saturday.

Yes, and Grampy too.

Buckshot has not been legal for deer hunting in NY for as long as I can remember. Small game hunting is open and allowed throughout deer season in both the Northern and Southern zones. I will be doing that with # 7-1/2 bird-shot in the right barrel and # 4 "fur/bird-shot" in the left barrel. The cold should keep the bears in their dens, but if I do happen to come across some tracks, I will go back to the house for a 30/30 rifle, or (if it is raining), dump off all my bird/fur-shot and pick up some 16 ga slugs. The law does not allow you to carry both during big-game season. I have sighted my 16 gauge double with slugs and it does pretty good. Both barrels strike right on at 50 yards but the right goes to the left beyond that and vise-versa. I would not take a shot much over 50 yards at a bear with it. The only way I plan on hunting more than a mile from the house is if I get on some bear tracks. A nice part of hunting up there then, is that I usually have many thousands of acres all to my self, and unbelievable scenery.

You aint kidding there. I was very thankful to be able to settle the score Saturday with the one that beat me during archery season. He may have evaded my crossbow but Titus was no match for a couple of 12 gauge slugs.

This will be the first year in a long time that I am heading up there for the long Thanksgiving weekend without a buck tag. It sounds like it is going to be very cold, so I don't suppose there will be any black bear action, or open water fishing. I saw a ton of grouse up there on my last two deer hunting trips this fall (ML opening weekend and second weekend of rifle season), so I will bring my 16 gauge double and see if there are still some around. If I run into some bear tracks while grouse hunting, I can always go back to the inlaws, dump my birdshot and pick up some slugs, (or my father in laws scoped 30/30). In addition to 7-1/2's for grouse, and slugs for bear, I will bring along some #4 magnum loads in case I run into some coyote sign. I will keep one of them in the left (modified choke) barrel while grouse hunting "just in case", along with a 7-1/2 in the right (improved cylinder) barrel . I had a run in with a huge one on my ML hunt. If I would have been armed with a shotgun with #4's on that encounter, it would have been a "chip shot" at 15 yards. My first job up there is going to be sighting in my father-in-law's "new in box" 1980's Marlin 336 with 150 grain ammo. I have a couple boxes and could not get it to hit quite as low as I wanted with my new open-sighted Marlin 336 BL. I will leave him the 150's and get some 170's for mine before next season. The have an awesome rifle range up there that is set up for large and small caliber. I am also bringing my Ruger 10/22, self-reset, spinning target, and a big box of ammo for my daughter to have fun with. With no buck tag, I will get to spend a lot more time with her and that is what I will be most Thankful for on this holiday weekend.

For finishing shots, I aim about midway between shoulder and head, and 1/3 of the way down from the back of the neck. This has worked perfectly around a dozen times for me. Most of my hunting is in a shotgun-only zone and I always carry an odd-ball leftover sabot for this duty so that I do not have to use one of the $ 3.00 each ones.

I killed my third largest antlered buck a few years ago with one of those (my grandfather's Ithaca model 37) and a neck shot. The range was 10 yards and the head, neck, and antlers were the only parts that I could see thru the heavy cover. That is the only deer that I can recall aiming at the neck with my initial shot, but many (including this years - my new second largest antlered buck) took a finishing shot to the neck from point blank range.

Finally got that "antlerless only" monkey off the back with this gun. It all worked out just like an "A-team" plan. He took that last walk on Saturday morning (after I passed three small antlerless ones).

No worries, there is a lot of season left and you still have your buck tag. Sooner or later they got to come out for food.

Please consider a prayer before your departure. That has always worked for me.

Swamp buck tenderloins, brussle-sprouts, potato pancakes, and Genny light.