wolc123

Yes you can. I did that last year. The only trouble is you wont be able to take a buck at home if you get one up there. I would love to see NY give out 3 buck tag to folks who spring for an archery , hunting, and ML license. Three guys here seem to be opposed to that for some reason that is beyond my own understanding.

My first crossbow buck was killed from an open ladder stand, 15 feet up, from a range of 59 yards (struck thru the heart), The second and third were taken from enclosed (half wall) elevated blinds, with the decks 7 feet up, from ranges of about 15 and 25 yards (both double lung shots, one slightly quartering to, the other quartering away). All three dropped dead within 40 yards of taking the bolt with mechanical (o-ring style) broadheads, one within sight. I prefer the 7 foot high partially enclosed blinds. They are high enough to get my scent off the ground and provide good visibility, yet low enough to be comfortable to hunt out of (the older I get the less I care for heights). I am still waiting for my first shot opportunity at an antlerless deer with my crossbow. We have a few farmers in the neighborhood who really hammer them early with their nuissance permits. That makes them rare to see and quite skittish, by the time crossbow season rolls around. I have not hunted much from the ground with mine. One day last season, I started out in a ground blind, targeting a large-bodied buck that my parents had been watching since the summer. That buck came out to feed almost every afternoon, around the same time, in a small clover plot that could be seen clearly from their back window. I picked a day with a favorable wind and was in that blind ready for him. The trouble was, I forgot the chair I usually use from that blind, and the upside down 5-gallon bucket I substituted was too low for me to see over the branches I had trimmed. When the buck did not show up at his usual time, I decided to make a move to the elevated blind in the adjacent woods, with only about 20 minutes of daylight left. That was my first hunt of the year up there, and I was disappointed to see leaves about 1 foot deep inside the half-wall. Then I thought: what does it sound like when a buck clears a scrape ?. I tried to sound like that as I pawed out the leaves with my hands. In years past, there was frequently a buck scrape by the gas-well that was near this elevated blind. My parents were watching from the house and they said the buck entered the clover patch about 10 minutes after I departed the ground blind. He fed for a few minutes, lifted his head and stared for a while, then walked into the woods. Up in the 7 foot elevated blind, I had just spread a little "Evercalm" around the shooting rail, placed my crossbow up on it, and settled into a swivel chair. When I heard his approach in the crunchy leaves, it did not take long to get into position for the shot. He reached an opening and I slipped the bolt just ahead of his last rib, midway down his body, as he was quartering away. He changed direction, and ran straight back towards my parents house. I thought I heard a crash. I sent up a quick prayer for an easy recovery, climbed down with 5 minutes of legal daylight remaining, and soon saw a big lump with a white-spot (his carcass), about 35 yards away. The best part of the deal was, when I got down on the ground, I reloaded my crossbow in case a finishing shot was needed. In the excitement, I lost my rope-pulley cocker. After the pawing out of the leaves up in the blind, that was the second negative that I turned into a positive on that day. The replacement t-handle, direct-pull cockers that I made are much faster and easier to use on my 150 pound draw weight crossbow. They might even help me get my first "double" with it this year.

Prior to the advent of the rifled shotgun barrel, there was a good excuse to use a ML during gun season. This example clearly illustrates the futility of doing it now. If and only if, I was down to my last doe permit and my buck tag was punched, I might do it. Most likely not though, until I use up the last of my triple 7 pellets and change to Buckhorn 209 powder, because the shotgun is a lot easier to unload and clean.

That was my first gun also. It has got the job done on deer every time with the "deerslayer" barrel, since I put a Weaver 1X scope on the receiver. Buck fever probably caused my first and only lost deer with it, with the open sites, when I was 16 years old. The modified barrel failed miserably on grouse however, never even managing to knock a feather off one. It has been more than 30 years since I had that barrel on it. I last killed a buck with it in 2012, and usually hunt deer with it a time or two each year, just for old times sake.

I agree on the importance of making the first shot count. The problem is, I am not perfect, and having that quick second and third shot is cheap insurance to cover mistakes (like the unseen branch that caught my first bullet aimed at my bggest Adirondack buck in 2014). "Doubles" are another big bonus of those extra shots. Three or four button bucks were able to join their mothers in "deer heaven" (my family's food supply), thanks to my having more than one shot quickly available. Shoulder blade shots on the big doe are wonderful for that. It is not just fawns. One time, two bucks showed up on trail of a doe I had killed with my muzzleloader, quicker than it would have taken me to reload it. Fortunately, I didn't have to because I had my pump shotgun up in the stand for backup. That "double" would not have happened, if I was limited to just the muzzleloader. With a tally a bit higher, over 35 seasons of my own, there has been a few more that I shot a second time, some of which were not necessary, but it always bothers me to see an animal suffer. I would rather use an extra bullet and wreck some meat than have to watch that any longer than I need to, or risk it escaping.

Half a day this Friday and Friday the 9th of November. All the rest will be Saturdays and Sundays plus Thursday and Friday Thanksgiving week.

It don't look like there will be snow this weekend but it does look like plenty of wind and rain. Perfect conditions for hitting the swamps with my new Remlin 336BL open-sight lever-action. I can't wait to get a crack or two at an Adirondack buck with that.

I do my best to check sunrise and sunset times for the areas I hunt, and abide by the rules. Turkey season almost thru me a curve ball this year. Had a turkey appeared 1/2 hour before sunrise on Southern zone opening day this fall, I probably would have shot. Fortunately, no turkey showed up that day and my first shot was not until a half hour after sunrise, at a grey squirrel. I did notice that I could clearly see the colors in the fields one half hour before sunrise. The clover turned green from grey at precisely that time. In the regs book, the spring season shows legal hours as 1/2 hour before sunrise, until noon. In very small print, on the fall regs page, legal hours are shown as "sunrise till sunset". Not having enough meat for a meal, I was very thankful for the times change the next day, when I carefully checked the regs and saw that I was allowed to kill a turkey that afternoon at 4:00 pm.

The biggest problem I have with shotguns, is that they kick so hard, compared to the down-range energy that they impart on the target. A typical 12 gauge shotgun kicks considerably harder that most Elephant rifles. For that reason, I will always make the switch to an appropriately sized rifle for deer, as soon as the law allows it. The trouble is, my own home zone (9F) is shotgun only, and probably will be for quite some time. Muzzleloaders are legal here, but have the major drawback of no quick followup shot. If I did not have that capability, I would have been forced to eat a lot more vegetables or store-bought chicken over the years, and I am no fan of that. Rifled-barrel shotguns have closed the accuracy gap considerably, but that only came at great cost for the ammo, and the hard kick remains. Basically, shotguns for deer suck. That said, I have probably killed 10 deer with shotguns for every one with all other weapons combined (muzzleloader, vertical bow, crossbow), but that was only because the law forced me to do it and I am not a law-breaker.

My wife also likes Meateater, unlike any other hunting or fishing shows I have tried to watch. I think most hunter's reasons change a bit throughout their lives. I went thru a brief "trophy" stage my myself, when antlers meant more to me. Gaining a wife and a few kids who love the meat changed the situation. I would not be surprised if he went thru the similar changes, so what you saw in those early episodes may have been different. Have you watched the current season ? I think the show's title eliminates any of the guesswork regarding his primary reason for hunting today. Don't you think that natural born killers have more respect for the animals they kill than fighters who do it for "sport" ? I think he would love that label and he is as good of an example of the type as I have seen.. He made that pretty clear in the Bolivian episode, where he took some shots at the catch and release fisherman.

How does everyone like this show ? A buddy at work thought I might like it and he was right. It is a lot better than most other hunting shows I have watched. As the title suggests, It is mostly about the meat for this guy, which is exactly how I feel about hunting (and fishing). He even takes some jabs at the "catch and release" fishermen as I have often done (nothing but the senseless maiming of a fine food source I say). Clearly this guy is a natural born killer, not a "fighter" beholding to advertisers as the hosts of most of the other hunting and fishing shows are. Based on what he said in the last episode that I watched, I guess I have some idea what primate meat tastes like. He compared it to wild turkey drumsticks. That is what I had for dinner yesterday and leftovers for lunch today. It sure packs some energy. I knocked out about three times my average amount of work at the factory this afternoon.

Keep your scale and give the money it would cost to poor folks. I prefer the chest girth measurement. That gives me a better approximation of the venison volume yield. Most of the weight measured by a scale, on a fresh-killed deer, consists of water and that has no nutritional value.

That is a misleading title. They are not available now, but leftovers will be starting November 1st. just like has been the case for the last several years. October is the month when they crunch the numbers and figure out how many more to hand out starting on November 1. Change "stiil" to "will be" and you will be ok.

It is not "inevitable", but it is nearly so. Watch out for the math-challenged folks who say they will not shoot if they are not 100 % sure of a kill. Hunting is not 100%. In 35 seasons of deer hunting, I can count on one hand the shot opportunities that I thought were "almost" 100 percent and at least two of those deer escaped (both due to my gun failing to fire). Your gun not functioning properly, for that second shot, is a serious issue that should be corrected before you use it again. There is nothing that bothers me more about deer hunting than hitting one and not being able to recover it. I feel extremely blessed that it has not occurred to me in 15 seasons, but the times it did happen remain etched in my memory more than any successful kills. The last time it happened was the worst, because I know that deer died. By the time I found it, more than a week later with the help of the crows, the vermin had eaten all but the head and neck. I left that little basket-rack 8-point in the woods for the mice. Having it on the wall would turn my stomach, every time I looked at it, thinking about all that lost meat. Antlers don't mean very much to me, but I could not survive without meat. As bad as hitting a deer and not recovering it is, missing clean is even worse, when it comes to the skill the hunter has demonstrated. I did that in 2014, on my first Adirondack buck. It does not take any skill to miss a deer clean, since the area outside the deer is infinite. It takes at least a limited amount of skill to hit a deer outside the vitals, but that area is more than double the size of the vitals. My first, well rested shot, on that buck missed clean from a range of slightly over 300 yards, as did my second rushed offhand shot. Had it not been for a lesson I had learned the hard way 12 years prior, I never would have fired the third (fatal) shot. That lesson was: ASSUME EVERY SHOT IS A HIT UNTIL PROVEN OTHERWISE. You just learned a few lessons the hard way. Learning from others mistakes is a lot harder to do. Some day, when you least expect it, you will capitalize on that experience, and it may be in the form of a true trophy (like a mature Adirondack buck). This is "hunting" not "shooting" and there always will be some risk involved. I am willing to risk about a 10 % chance that I will not be successful when I pull the trigger. The reason I accept that risk is because: the bulk of our family of four's protein comes from venison, my opportunities are limited, and I am the only one who hunts. The fact that I have recovered that extra 10 %, over the last 15 seasons, is due to the fact that I try my best to stay on good terms with He who controls the fate of all living things. I may loose the next one I shoot at, but that will just mean that He has an important lesson to teach me. The best lesson I did learn from someone else (my uncle and God-father) was to stick the muzzle of my weapon (safety off), into the open eye of a downed deer, prior to getting out my knife. He lost the biggest buck he ever saw by not doing that. So far none of mine have blinked. Thanks to his misfortune, I will always be ready if one does.

Both: It cost us some venison last year, when a buddy texted me that he had a buck down. He always gives us most of the deer he kills on our place. Had he used that finger on his trigger for a second shot last fall, rather than his smart-phone, our freezer would have been in better shape at the end of the season and we would not be down to just one pack of grind left in the there right now. I do like having my flip-phone, up on the edge of the Adirondack park, at the in-laws place. Before I start gutting, I give my father-in-law a call, and he is usually there (or as close as he can get) with his ATV by the time I finish the job. When it has been in deep, he has carried my gun and gear out, while I dragged the carcass.

Crock pot mix: Wild hen turkey drumstick, Gray Squirrel, Taters & Onions. Wife and girls had breast meat. Was very good with enough leftovers for lunch at work tomorrow, plus a small bag of white meat for sandwiches

We had the kids favorite - venison tacos. We are down to just one pack of grind left in the freezer, so I got to get busy. Hopefully a buck will cooperate next weekend up in the Dacks.

Thanks, and I do like it in the fall. It was neat to hear those toms respond to my calls in the spring, but not neat enough to put up with the bugs, when it is so nice out on the lakes at that time of year. I will let you know how those drumsticks breasts turn out in the crockpot tomorrow. I always like the dark meat better on store bought and farm raised turkeys.

I hunted Saturday morning, for about an hour, from a blind on the edge of a corn plot. No turkeys showed up, but there were tracks and I killed a grey squirrel. That was not enough for a meal, so I went back out this afternoon, to a treestand in the woods at the back of our farm. I had just settled into the swivel chair, that I had put up there after Saturday's hunt, when a group of turkeys walked into a shooting lane. I had trimmed that on Saturday also. They were on the far side of a deep ditch, this one off to the left and three more to the right. The range was 35 yards. I held high, slightly to the left and fired a #4-3", 12 gauge shotshell thru an "extra-full" choke. She flew almost straight up, right after the shot, landing near the top of a maple tree on my side of the ditch. Before I could fire a second shot at her, she fell and crashed thru the branches. I climbed down and walked over, found her holding her head up, and dispatched her with a second shot to the head from 5 yards. She flopped down into the ditch. I was able to reach her without getting too wet (unlike late last fall when I had to wade thru the nearly frozen water to retrieve a doe that I had killed in the exact same spot). I will have to call that stand the "Sunday afternoon Church" stand. The last two times I hunted from it I connected, and we had gone to Church both mornings. Certainly that can't be a coincidence. At least this time, the Good Lord saw fit to let her fly over to my side of the ditch before she expired, saving me a wet foot. That "extra-full" choke must have a lot of holes in the pattern at 35 yards. When I cleaned her, it looked like just a couple of bb's from the first shot had passed thru her breast and a couple more into her drumstick (those were "almost" the only parts I saved) . I have not done much turkey hunting and these were the first that I saw while hunting them. I have had a few toms answer my calls in the spring but none ever came in. This hen is my first turkey kill. I have not hunted them much because the tom's that buddies gave me to try in the spring were tough and never that tasty to me, and I never like the bugs in the woods at that time. Fishing out on the lakes or rivers is always more enjoyable to me at that time of year. Hopefully this young fall hen will be a little better eating. Her gizzard was full of corn, so that should help. We will find out tomorrow, when the breasts and drumsticks go into the crockpot. I am going to save that full gizzard and try planting some of the undigested corn in a vegetable flat next spring. I know from a previous experiment, that it does not sprout after passing part way thru a deer, but I need to see if it does after getting into a turkey's gizzard. If it does sprout, I will also see if it retains the "roundup ready" trait, by hitting it with some gly. I also saved the tail feathers and a lower leg that I put the tag on (it said to "save a leg for the DEC"). I hope they don't mind if I eat the drumstick. Hopefully it wont be tough and stringy like those old spring toms were.

No tree rats showed up this afternoon, but a group of turkeys did at 4:00. Tomorrow's crock-pot dinner will be squirrel and drumsticks for me and breasts for the girls. The hen looked to be about 14 pounds. The breasts and legs just about filled a gallon zip-loc bag.

They have some redeeming qualities, that I do appreciate. In addition to saving some grouse and turkeys from nest predators, they help control the deer population in the town of Amherst. I have to drive thru there twice each weekday to get to and from work. There have been a lot less deer for me to dodge since the coyotes have established a firm foothold. In areas like that, where all hunting is banned, I am ok with them. I would like the year round season, only in areas where deer can be hunted. The bulk of our family's protein comes from venison, so protecting that is my primary reason for supporting the year-round open coyote season. Maybe I will relax that a bit, if the hen turkey I just popped out back, tastes ok for dinner tomorrow.

I noted a lot of grouse near fort Drum last weekend while I was deer hunting with my crossbow and ML. I wonder if the current high coyote population has reduced nest predators (coons and foxes) and that has helped the grouse numbers.

I might try for one this afternoon. I am going to try my woods stand. Hopefully, at least another "tree-rat" will show, so I can add it to yesterday's and make a lunch for Monday. Those 3" 12 gauge #4's do a pretty good job on them.

Maybe someone used the wrong/underpowered bullet on a Texas heart shot. It might have clipped the tail on the way in, did not open enough to strike any vitals on the way through, and was stopped by the hide short of exiting. The tumor might be scar tissue encasing the bullet. One sure way to find out is to kill him and cut it open.

I am thinking about changing out the stock sites on my Remlin 336BL with the glow sites from my T/C Omega ML. That has a good Redfield scope on it, so I don't use them. The Remlin is a nice handling lever gun, but I am not overly fond of the stock iron sites. If those don't work, there is another cheap Chinese set of fiber-optics on a Marksman pellet rifle that I bought for my daughter last year. That also came with a cheap scope, which is on it now, so they also are no longer needed. Those fiber-optic "glow" ones would be a lot better in low-light situations of the deep woods. I will not do the swap this season, since I am already sited in wit the stock iron sites, but it sounds like it might be a nice project for the off-season. Both the T/C and Marksman fiber optics look pretty robust compared to the Remlin iron sites, and should take some abuse and hold their POA.