wolc123

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.

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.