wolc123

A guy on the crossbow nation forum said that an $89 PSE model that he got from Amazon worked on his Sniper. Others on that thread said that they exchanged the hooks from the ones that came on their cranks, with those supplied with the Sniper rope pulley device, and it worked better.

I probably would not have voted in the midterms, but the recent lunacy and pure evil on display by the democrats, over the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, has changed the situation. Not only will I vote, but I will do all I can to see that others do also. Hopefully, we will see a big "red-wave" this November.

If the rope pulley cocking device does not work for you, they sell crank types for most models. It looks like they average about $ 100.

I have done well on Veterans day with the crossbow. It falls on a Saturday this year, so I took a vacation day for the Friday before. Two conditions would have to be met for me to work a weekend during crossbow or gun season for deer: Pigs would need to fly and hell would need to freeze over.

I was on some state forest land, on the NW corner of the park, last weekend and there were no restrictions on parking. There were signs up that said the roads are not maintained after December 1st. These are gravel roads, not a main highway.

It is looking like the rut should be in full swing by then, based on the signs I saw in the woods today. I trimmed some shooting lanes, got the seats set up in all my stands and blinds, and placed a new pop-up blind today. Hopefully, those deer will get used to those changes over the next couple weeks. I am going to give them a break now and head up to the Northern zone with my rifles next weekend. I have never filled a gun buck tag before my archery buck tag, but this could be the year.

I made some t-handles, using carabiner hooks, a couple short lengths of chain, hinge pins and duct tape , for drawing my crossbow. They took less than 15 minutes to make, and work better than the rope-pulley device that came with it. I lost that last fall, in the excitement after killing a big slob of a buck, and necessity is the mother of invention. I was able to draw my 150 pound crossbow with bare fingers, while doe hunting on my next couple hunts, but my tendons would not have taken much more of that. For a relatively low poundage crossbow, a direct pull with those fabricated t-handles is much faster than the factory rope pulley device, and does not take a lot more force to use. It might even be fast enough to score a "double" on a family group. Hopefully, I will get a chance to try that after November 3rd. I would be very thankful for just one antlerless deer however, since I have yet to take one of those with my crossbow. A button buck would be especially sweet.

Damn, cant find my chart so I have to go from memory. Chest girth looks about 45" (behind front shoulders) which means the dressed weight would be about 180 live weight 210 edible meat 80 pounds, tumor weight 8 pounds, age 3.45 years.

I use a similar gun for deer around home. It is a scoped, 3-shot Marlin bolt-action with a rifled barrel. It also holds one in the chamber and 2 in the clip. One year, I must have dropped the clip and I had to hunt with it a few times as a "single-shot". By process of elimination, I figured that it must have dropped into a puddle below the stand I hunted out of the lest time I saw it. On a warmer afternoon, later that season, I spent a few minutes reaching into that muddy water with my bare arms and eventually found it. I dried it out good and sprayed it with some WD-40 and it has worked well ever since. Those extra shots come in handy at times, like when I hit a doe high with my first shot a couple years ago, and had to give her a quick second one to end her suffering. My Marlin feeds the second and third shots very smooth and has accounted for several "doubles" over the years. That was not the case on my first experience hunting deer with a bolt-action shotgun however. That was with a Mossberg or Savage (I can't remember which), that I borrowed from a buddy at work. A group of antlerless deer came running out of the brush, past my blind. I dropped the largest one with a shoulder-blade shot. I had another doe permit, but the spent casing would not clear the scope and the gun jammed while trying to eject it. The rest of those deer got back into the brush before I could get a second round in the chamber. When I told my buddy about that, he said "yeah it always does that".

If anyone heard a shotgun blast at 8:06 in WMU 9F, it was no turkey or coyote. The grey squirrel will make half a lunch anyhow. It looks like she took (5) #4's thru the ribcage and (2) thru the mid section, from 30 yards. I could have really pulverized her at 7 yards, but I wanted to save the meat. Maybe I can get another, over at my folks place later today, and it will be worth firing up the crock pot tomorrow. I also saw a freshened buck scrape back there. I trimmed a few small branches out of shooting lanes and got the seats in position on all of my deer stands. Everything is now set here for the November 3rd SZ crossbow opener.

It looks like sunrise is 7:36, so listen for my turkey shot at 7:06 in WMU 9F (unless a coyote shows up earlier (they are fair game all night long).

The rain is coming down good now as I head off to an enclosed blind with my shotgun and some #4's. Hopefully a turkey or coyote will wander by.

Dr Grant Woods made a good Youtube video that shows how to trim out the roasts. I like the "hidden tenderloins" that he indicates how to recover. That said, grind is usually the first thing we run out of. We have about a deer and a half of vacuum-sealed roasts left in the freezers from the last couple of years, but we are down to our last two packs of grind. If and when I get the first one this year, almost all of it will be made into grind, except for the tenderloins and backstraps. I also hope to make a bone-in neck roast, which I have been trying to do for the last few years, but something always causes me forget about it or wreck it with a bullet.

I was up last week with my crossbow and ML. It looked like the coyotes have driven the remaining deer on the outskirts of Ft Drum into the swamps. I saw some deer sign in the low-lying areas, but none up high. I had a run in up high with a coyote that looked to be the size of a wolf. I was amazed at how fast he could move uphill. I don't think that a deer would last too long up there. I am skipping this weekend, but heading up again next weekend with my rifles. I hope we get some snow up there by then. That makes all the difference.

That tumor would not have helped with the PA chest girth, because the measurement has to be taken behind the front legs. I am thankful that you whippersnappers are leaving some around for us crossbow guys.

When it is cold, I always bring a thermos of hot cider. The odor is non-offensive to deer, the sugar gives me calories, the liquid keeps me hydrated, and the heat warms me up.

I left my pickup up at my father-in-laws place in the Adirondacks last weekend so he can use it for snow-plowing. I don't care if I ever get it back. It hardly ever snows around these parts of western NY anymore, and that low gas-mileage and stiff ride gets old after a while. I also like the mini-van better for towing and launching our boat. Just back in at the ramp, with the rear hatch open, and hop inside thru it to to drive it away. My wife is not real good with a trailer or a boat, so that is a lot easier for us than when we use the truck. It would not be so good with a heavier boat I suppose, but no problem with my 1200 pound aluminum one. I just got to remember to keep the transmission out of overdrive while towing with the mini-van.

You got to get one of these for your mini-van. They only cost about $ 40 from Harbor Freight and U-Haul will mount a 2" receiver on most mini-vans for less than $ 200. That way the tics and the blood and guts stay outside. Also, way easier to load a heavy deer (like that ^^ 46" chest-girth slob), than a pickup truck. That will be an even more important consideration if you leave the guts in.

I liked NASCAR back before they let in the foreign cars and took out the cigarettes. I even went to a few Winston cup races including the Bud at the Glen, which was my favorite. The camping experience there at Watkins Glen NY was great. There was plenty of room for lawn chairs and we wheeled our gas grill and cooler right up to the fence and enjoyed all the clams we could eat and beer we could drink during the race. The Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis was pretty cool also, with the history at that track and the museum and stuff, but staying in a motel and driving to and from the race sucked. Those same issues tainted the Coca-Cola 600, down in North Carolina. It was neat to see some of the drivers facilities down there in the "heart" of NASCAR country though. Being cramped into those small seats in the bleachers for that long also took some of the fun out of those two races for me. Back when I followed it, my favorite way to experience the races (better than going to them in most cases) was listening to the live broadcasts on my boat radio, while I was out fishing. Of the other "pro" sports, baseball is the only one I really care for. I used to get the Yankees games on my AM radio, when I was a kid and I loved to hear Bill White and Phil Rizzuto call them games. They were my favorite back when Reggie Jackson, Bucky Dent, and Greg Nettles were playing for the World Series. After we got cable TV, I started following the Atlanta Braves and followed them from the bottom of the standings until they made it to and finally won a world series under the guidance of manager Bobby Cox. Who can forget the nervous pitching coach Leo Mazzonie rocking in the dugout when things got dicey late in the games. I went to a couple of regular season games to see the Yankees and the Braves play up in Toronto. I have not caught many games lately, but I did watch the last Yankees game last year and this year. CC Sabathia was the starting pitcher for each. I hope he gets another shot at starting a playoff game, when they are facing elimination. It is baseball after all and he deserves three strikes. My dad is a big football fan and he had Bills season tickets when I was a kid. I remember going to a few games when Joe Ferguson was quarterback against the arch-rival Miami Dolphins under Don-Shula. One of my earliest memories was my mom taking us kids to the mall for pictures and running into OJ Simpson and Reggie McEnzee. I remember them saying "got your picture taken hah man ? " We got their autograph for my dad and he still has them. The only time I really liked the Bills was when Wade Phillips was head coach. I could never get fully behind them under Marv Levy, since he was such a high-profile anti-hunter and had no "killer-instinct". That cost them that first Superbowl for sure. It was cool when Kelly and the boys made that "Big-Game-Hunter" poster, just to piss him off a bit I suppose, after he took a position with PETA. The only pro sport events I have attended in recent years is when the boss gives me our companies (4) season tickets in the club level a few times a year to take the family to Buffalo Sabers games. It has been a while since they were very competitive but it is cool to go to the games and park inside the ramp with the connecting tunnel for free. Food and drinks can get a little expensive there though. We usually leave, prior to the end, to beat the traffic out of the parking garage and listen to the end of the game on the radio on the way home. Our girls really do enjoy those games. They like the National anthems and the intermission stuff the best. The sports that I attend the most these days are our girls high school field hockey and lacrosse games.

Does she have a go-pro camera and a tripod you could borrow ? That way you could send her the video. She could watch it as many times as she wants and even share it with her friends and teachers.

That sounds like a hit in the thick area of the backstraps, behind the shoulder and above the spine. I am 90 % sure that my buddy hit one there on opening day of gun season last year. It had the identical reaction after taking the slug. If only he had used his finger on his trigger for a follow-up shot, rather than on his smart-phone to text me that he "had one down" I used the last of my "bloodglow" around midnight following that blood trail, which really petered out after about 100 yards. If one lung was hit, it is unlikely that the deer would have gone more than 300 yards. I bet she got nothing but meat. An arrow striking that area does not have the "shock" power, to cause temporary paralysis and put them down, but a ML or shotgun slug certainly does. I think that deer has a decent chance of healing up.

As of this year, all of mine are less than 10 feet. Most have good cover, in the form of a 3 ft high wall/shooting rail, all the way around. Since 2014, I have only been using a crossbow or gun from them, so there is no longer a need to hide that draw. Keeping them low, with the rail all around, also eliminates the need for an safety harness and fall restraint. Too low is not so good either though. On flat land, I am most comfortable hunting from a platform that is at least 3 feet above the ground, because I know that the ground will act as a backstop for my own shots and there is less worry that I will be struck by others. I am very thankful to have survived 35 years of hunting from higher stands, without using a safety harness and without suffering any injuries. That would be a lot tougher to do in these days of smart-phones and other distracting gadgetry.

My favorites are couple of two-story ones that I made from old construction-style truck caps. I finally broke in the one over at my folks place last fall, with what may be my heaviest buck ever. I killed that stout, 46 inch chest girth, 3-1/2 year old from the upper deck (built on the ladder rack) with my crossbow. I think I drew him into range by trying to sound like a rival buck clearing a scrape, as I cleared the leaves off the upper deck with my hands, about 3 minutes prior to his arrival. The one at our place has been the most productive stand here for quite some time and is definitely the most comfortable to hunt from. It is the most roomy with plenty of space for the kids, built with an 8-foot cap (the one at my folk's place is a little cozier, being made from a 6.5 footer). The enclosed lower levels provide good protection from high winds, cold rain and sleet. The side doors fold out giving additional rain protection and good sun shade and nice gun rests atop the 3 foot lower side walls. The upper deck provide better visibility in fair-weather conditions and are wrapped with a 3-foot high barnwood wall which provides safety and a shooting rail all the way around. I have killed multiple deer from each level of the one on our farm. It has some mobility, with the lower deck made from an old snowmobile trailer. It will likely remain in its present location as that has been the most productive and the trailer is getting to be in rough shape for further transport. For me, a go-to stand has to be comfortable in all weather conditions and has to be located in an area that offers more shot opportunities than alternatives.

Button buck liver, fried medium rare in an iron pan with olive oil and some onions, is very good. I no longer keep the livers from older deer because I find it kind of tough compared to beef liver, which I can get for free whenever I want it. My wife pickles the season's deer hearts every Valentine's day. That pickled heart is always very good.

A guy wrote on here that it takes oder and moisture out of hunting boots if you fill them with it. Maybe it is folks with stinky feet who are buying up all that corn. I imagine that it is no good after absorbing all the "stink" so they have to keep buying more.