wolc123

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.

I took an almost identical shot on Saturday (swamp and all) and it connected. The difference was, I had a three-shooter and had already fired one (still not sure if that one hit). The buck has three holes in the inboard side. I know my second and third shots hit (second one knocked him down and third was delivered to the neck at point-blank range). As far as an initial shot with a 10% estimated chance of success with a ML, I don't know many, myself included, who would take that. You did the right thing, stop kicking yourself. I think ML's are best left for ML season.

It looks like a porcupine to me.

Since you have permission and won't sleep anyhow, why not grab a lantern and go now ? Are there coyotes in the area ?

It has been more than ten years since I killed an antlered buck with less than 3 points on a side. Generally, deer with larger racks have more meat on them than those with smaller racks. That is why it makes sense for a meat-hunter, such as myself, to pass the smaller bucks early in the season(s). I can make the meat from a 3-1/2 year old buck taste the same and have the same texture as a 1-1/2 year old, simply by aging the carcass (at 33 -43 deg F) longer prior to processing. It makes more sense to use my buck tag on a buck that yields 100 pounds of boneless meat than one that yields 50. That being said, I can count on one hand the antlered bucks I have killed after Thanksgiving weekend. If I still have a buck tag then, I will take the first 3" plus spike that I can get a good shot at. That 50 pounds of meat provides a lot more nurishment than the paper tag. I do not have the option of getting all the meat I need from does, because the farmers in our zone hammer them prior to October 1. Those that remain after hunting season starts are very difficult to kill. Your question is pure nonsense. Are you for or against mandatory AR's ?

I can relate to leaving the liver on the seat. I only save those from 6 month old deer because those from older ones are too tough for me compared to baby beef liver which I can get "free" whenever I am in the mood. I also like pickled heart (wife makes it for me every Valentines day). I left a gallon zip-lock bag containing it, my Schrade sharpfinger, and my Gerber folding knife, outside my folks barn when I brought my buck home yesterday. I was a little worried about it, because I saw a red fox from my stand over there in the evening (they don't want me to shoot them because they are "fun to watch". I called at 10:00 and mom went out with a flashlight and found the heart bag before the fox got it.

Antlers are no longer a big concern for most NY hunters. Meat is where it is at these days. The poll on this site a while ago proved that. You are a day late and a dollar short with your antler restriction request. Best move on, maybe to another state. If you don't like it leave it Fred.

Good luck to all you folks out there today. I am taking the morning off, but hope to sit for a couple hours near a brassica and corn plot late this afternoon and work on my last (3) DMP's. The cold weather should get them on those before dark unless they are too shell-shocked from yesterday. The kids did not hear too much shooting around the house yesterday, while I was over at their grandparent's place on the other corner of the WMU. I will use the binoc's to make 100 % sure there are no 3" long horns hiding by the ears before firing a shot. Buttons will be "game-on".

One thing I am glad that I did not forget was an odd-ball mix-matched slug in case a "finishing-shot" was needed. I used it yesterday. I was thankful that I did not need to waste one of those $ 3 sabots to do the job (it was a shotgun only zone), or risk injury by doing it with a knife. The thing I did forget was a short haul rope. I destroyed the straps on my "muff", trying to use it to pull a very heavy buck out of a swamp by myself. I had to call in reinforcements (father and brother) to get that job done. My sister-in-law drew my name in our Christmas "gift-exchange", so at least she knows what to get me. I put the torn up one back together with knots and a machine screw nut and washer, just to make it thru the remainder of deer season. The zipper on the inner compartment had failed earlier, so there is no saving it now. A new one would be great for ice-fishing.

Nice doe for sure. I have a much harder time killing them than bucks. To me, they seem considerably smarter. They are especially hard to get on the two farms that I hunt around home (one on the NW corner of WMU 9F, and the other on the SE corner) because the farmers around here hammer them with their nuisance permits prior to October 1. Those that survive are extremely difficult to out-wit. It is nice to see woman into hunting like you are. I stopped to see a couple on the drive home this evening, and they helped me get a weight on my buck. No one here believes the PA "chest-girth" method of weigh-estimation, but it turns out that is actually conservative for NY deer. This 182 pounder should have weighed 172 pounds, with it's 42" chest girth, per the PA chart. I guess NY deer are just a little heavier. That makes sense because on average, the farther south you go, the smaller their bodies get. That also looks like a very heavy NY doe that you killed. If you can get a chest girth measurement behind her front legs, I can give you a conservative weight estimate. That is a lot easier than putting one on a scale (don't ask me how I know - my back is still sore).

10:00 am buck:

Thanks, I had to get myself out of last place of "scored" contestants. The downside is no more gun-season NY buck tag, but this one should give us plenty of grind to make it thru to next year. I will probably grind all but the backstraps. I don't know how much of them I can save because that is where my slug hit. I am thankful that I made roasts from the bb. With my buck tag punched, it looks like I will be grouse and bear hunting over Thankgiving holiday, up in the Adirondacks. I was looking forward to tracking some bucks in the snow up there. Oh well, there is always next year. I hope your lead holds, but Rob is going to be tough with that 15 pointer. You got me by an inch on inside spread and the odds of me taking an antlered buck with my ML tag are slim. I have only ever killed bb's in the late ML season. Now that we have enough meat, the odds of me filling any of my last three DMP's is also pretty slim.

Added this (was too wide to fit on previous post)

11/17/18. 6-point buck, 14" inside spread, 182 pound weight, 42" chest girth, Marlin 512