wolc123

The one that I use has a single telescoping metal front leg, and you strap the back around a tree that can be between about 6” and 30” diameter. The strap goes around at about shoulder height. The one in the video above looks like it would be tough to get around a larger tree, with the strap up that high. The plastic clip on the strap on mine broke last year, on one side. Now I need to make sure to face the broken side down, or the damn thing will let go when I sit in it. I pile up leaves underneath, to cushion my fall if that happens. Clearing the leaves under my feet also makes for a silent turn, when deer sneak up from behind.

Yes, that was a decent 2fur (deer that makes about 2 times the average amount of meat) that I shot over at my parent’s place last year during opening week of gun season. The 3.5 year olds over there, where they are almost surrounded by corn fields, average 80-100 pounds of boneless meat. I am surprised to see such a thin-butted deer out of Illinois as that posted up above. Especially pre-rut like right now, when they should be at their maximum body weights. That’s a major corn-growing state. It looks like there’s a good neck roast on him anyhow, and he sure looks bloated in the mid-section. He looks extremely light on the steaks and rump roasts though. That back right leg looks atrophied, like it maybe got hit by car or something and withered away. I killed a buck at home like that once. It had broke the main tendon on the back leg the year before. An odd thing about it, was that it made the opposite side antler messed up, and formed a drop tine. Actually, it was the end of the beam that pointed down. Maybe it’s just the camera angle that makes that Illinois buck’s butt look tiny in the pictures. Certainly there is nothing wrong with his rack.

Sure, you can never have too many pictures of racks anyhow:

Nice rack, but looks kind of thin in the hind quarters. Not a whole lot of meat there. Since no one ever figured out a good recipe for antlers, I’d rather stay in WNY where the bucks have heavy hind ends:

That chair is only good for shooting in one direction, but it is extremely comfortable. I was sitting in a bright red one, just like it, when I killed my first Adirondack buck (an 8-pointer) back in 2014. The spot I hunted tonight was overlooking some grassy browse, which concentrates the deer in one location, so one-way shooting was not an issue. The chair I used today is a moose-camo pattern. I am not planning to try and match that, but my bibs and “scent factor” jacket do match that Realtree umbrella pattern. I did kill a deer already this year (on January 1), from under that umbrella while it was raining, with the same ML that I hunted with today. I am probably in violation of the NY state orange hat law by placing it on top of the umbrella, but that beats getting shot by some guy shooting at movement on the next ridge, who can’t see it underneath. Common sense trumps the law for me, in cases like this, where my life is on the line. Tag soup does suck and I do hate not being able to shoot all the way around. That’s why I love my tree hammock chair, which lets you silently swivel all the way around, just like a turret on a tank. The problems with it are time-consuming, noisy setup and take down and it is no good in the rain. Extreme comfort, ease of carry, and 360 degree shooting more than make up for those faults however. I killed my last Adirondack buck, in 2016, from my tree hammock chair after he snuck up behind me, and last year’s ML doe (that I killed one year ago tomorrow), required rotating it about 90 degrees.

It’s not bad at all. Gun on sling, on shoulder, umbrella slides into pouch and clips in belt, and chair don’t weigh much over a pound. Way faster setup than a pop up blind or even my tree hammock chair. That said, I would have preferred to have a small 3 legged stool, that clips to my belt, so I could carry the gun without the sling when walking in. Those stools are not nearly as comfortable as this camp chair, but go thru thick cover when walking, a lot easier. I had one of those, but I lost it somewhere. I think it cost $ 15 at Aldis a few years ago, the same year they sold the $ 30 pop up blinds.

I was snug as a bug in a rug out there in this setup, till 30 minutes past sunset. Didn’t see any deer though.

Sorry to hear about you mother Brian and sorry that you had to deal with a road rage ding bat on such a somber occasion. Prayers sent for you and your family. Thinking about you and your tent camp, as I am under a tree umbrella, in the pouring down rain with my ML, up here in the Adirondacks. Hopefully it lets up before dark, so I can get back to my in-laws house, without getting soaked. I chopped a finger off of one of my gutting gloves to help keep my powder dry.

TSC has 1500 watt infared (electric) heaters for $ 99 ea. They are rated for 1000 square ft. I’d put a couple of those down there and set the thermostats at 55. They probably need to be plugged into 20 amp outlets. It sounds like the Democrats want to get everyone on electric heat anyhow, so you will be ahead of the game.

The shopping trip went ok. We found a bait/tackle/hunting shack, 11 miles away that had grunt calls for $ 11. They had a decent selection of guns and ammo (no 30/30 or .410 which is all that we wanted). They were also out of hunting stools. The market in that town (Edwards) only had one item on our shopping list (milk) and it was a couple days past the expiration date. I left it there, and we drove another 12 miles North to Governour. Price chopper there had that and everything else on our grocery list at a very reasonable cost. We couldn’t find a hunting stool there either though, trying Tractor Supply and the big 3-story hardware store. I found a little folding camp chair in my in-laws attic, and I am rigged for rain in it now, under my tree umbrella. The rain just started falling hard and it’s working well. I am up on a stone ramp, that was made back in the early part of the last century, for loading barrels of maple sap on wagons. Other years, I set my pop up blind up here, but I left that home this year. This is the only decent location, that I have found up here, for evening hunts with a south wind. As long as the wind is light, and the rain comes straight down, this setup seems like it will work ok. Visibility in this open setup is way better than in the pop up blind. I have seen many antlerless deer from this spot, but never a buck and never a doe when there was no snow. Hopefully, one or both of those will happen tonight.

I haven’t been there in a few years, but we use to hammer the northern pike there in May. We also caught a few walleyes, at that time, and did ok on largemouth bass in the summer. We took many limits of northerns, but maybe only one or two of bass. I can only remember catching one smallmouth bass in that lake, but it was a real good one (maybe 5 pounds), more than 40 years ago, the first time that my uncle took me pike fishing there in May. Of course, the season was not open yet, so we had to let it go. I did get a picture of it. It hit a big pike shiner, below a bobber, up near the NE corner. My daughter and I got skunked the last time that we went there on the second Saturday in May, about 4 years ago (trying for pike). I have not heard many good reports from there in recent years. My sister lives 5 minutes from the lake, and my next door neighbors growing up had a cottage there, so I spent many days on that Lake, probably more than any other water in the state. I bought my boat from the big marina down on the sw corner of the lake 33 years ago, and fished the spring tournament that they had for customers for several years.

Speaking of corn, it’s crazy how fast the deer wiped out mine this year. I put in less than half of my normal acreage this year, due to high fertilizer and fuel costs, and the neighbors didn’t plant any. I had high hopes for it, during the Holiday ML season, but I think it’s probably all gone right now. I do have quite a bit of good heavy cover back there, a decent looking brassica plot (whitetail institute tall tine tubers), and plenty of winter wheat and clover, so hopefully that will be enough to hold some deer around till January 1. Standing corn is like money in the bank, when it comes to holding deer in late December.

Must have been a night for blowing does. Several blasted me up in the Adirondacks. I too am thankful that I made it back to the house, for the last 15 minutes of the game, to see the Bills crush the Chiefs. This is the Bill’s year. Think 85 Bears. They will win out and have a perfect record except for a single fish glitch. 90% humidity and 100 deg field temp are what caused that one.

It varies a lot by region. Generally speaking, folks in wny seem to be pretty courteous drivers. I rarely have any problems there, while driving back and forth to work, but I take backroads most of the way. Different story up here in the NW part of the Adirondacks. Rt 3 attracts tailgating dipshits like flies on crap. Not looking forward to the drive back and forth to town this afternoon, for supplies. I noticed downstate was pretty rough also. I’m glad that our oldest daughter decided to pull the plug on that hell hole, after a semester and a half. The driving around Rochester, where our youngest goes, is a piece of cake in comparison.

Accuweather got the wind direction right this morning but they missed the velocity. Forecast said 10 mph sse, and it’s closer to 20. I doubt the deer will move much in this. I think maybe I’ll catch a nap in the tree hammock. If a deer or bear gets close enough to wake me up I’ll try and shoot it.

I like a 50/50 mix of Frank’s and Hunts ketchup on my scrambled eggs and tater tots or home fries.

Tailgaters suck. That’s real popular up here near my in-laws. Rarely do I pull into their driveway, off the main highway, when there’s not someone right up close behind me. It almost seems like they make sport of seeing how close they can get to me, before I turn into the driveway. Their driveway was never very well marked, and it is around a curve, so I always need to slow down and even missed it a few times. They put up a big yellow “driveway ahead” sign this summer, and that makes it a lot better. There was still a dork right on me, when I pulled in Friday night though. Another even worse one (he was about 20 feet behind me while I was going 9 mph over the speed limit) passed me a few miles before, then got hung up behind some slower traffic ahead. I thought I’d give that one a little taste of his own medicine, so I got right up as close as I dared with my big 3/4 ton Silverado, for a mile or so. He was driving a big black Ford pickup. He seemed to take the hint and backed off a little from the car he was right on. There sure is no shortage of tailgating dip-shits up in this area.

The ssw wind wasn’t quite right for the spot that I hunted last night. Accuweather said sse, I should have used my milkweed pods because it was ssw. The group of deer that I saw there the night before looked like they had come from the north, so I thought it would be ok where I was. Ad it turned out, there was a little draw thru the small finger ridge at that location, and twice I heard deer approaching that, from directly downwind. The first was a single, around 5:50 pm. I couldn’t see it thru the heavy cover, but it sounded maybe 50 yards away when it must have caught my scent and snorted. I remained there, in my tree hammock chair, until 15 minutes past sunset, as the light was fading fast. I could still see pretty good thru my old Redfield scope. As I started folding up my chair, making a little noise, multiple deer snorted from about the same direction, but a little farther away than I had heard the single earlier. They must have smelled me and hung up out there, until they heard the chair rattling, then snorted and retreated back where they came from. I am on my “shower every other day” vacation schedule, and I took one last night (after the hunt) with scent free soap and shampoo. I should be able to get a little closer to downwind deer today. I will wait for an easterly wind, before I try that spot again in the evening, and verify it with milkweed before I strap on the chair. Depending on today’s wind, I’ll probably hunt the north end of the ridge where I did the last two mornings. That’s where I killed my last deer up here, and I really want the grouse that I saw up there yesterday. It’s supposed to rain this afternoon, so I am going to run into town for supplies. I want to get a cheap grunt call (I left my good one at home by mistake), and a small hunting stool (the tree hammock chair collects water off the tree while under the tree unbrella). I also need another gallon of cider. I am mostly after a doe this early ML week, so I haven’t tried any rattling (I did remember my rattle bag) or grunting. I’d like to try it this Saturday, when gun opens up and doe season closes. I think that the single deer that I heard early last night was probably a buck.

It’s my favorite time of the year, up at my in-laws place in the Adirondacks (early ML week). I am deer hunting each morning and evening, and fishing at mid day, for 9 days including all of this week plus opening weekend of gun. Our fish supply at home in the freezer is adequate, so I am strictly trophy fishing now, all catch and release, unless I get one over 22”, which I will keep for my father in law, to decorate his wall (he likes to decorate with native species). I caught and released one that size here on this week in 2016 (because it was not my largest ever (I got a 23 incher about 20 years ago on Lake Erie). He still gives me a hard time about that, so I told him I would keep another, if I ever get one that long. In the years since, I have just broke 20” here a few times. I thought I had the 22” yesterday, but came up about 3/4” short, with this solid 21-1/8” behemoth. Like most I get here, it went for a 1/8 oz bucktail jig. The fight it put up was intense. One nice jump, soon after hook-set, then lots of digging for the bottom, for at least 10 minutes on 6 pound line. That’s my second longest bass here. I hope it survives as it was hooked deep and bleeding a bit. I carefully removed the jig, and it seemed ok when I let it go.

A couple more calamity’s this morning. I only held out until 11:00 up on the ridge because the wind picked up and I was getting hungry. No deer, and no more grouse showed up. As I was packing up, I forgot that I had unzipped my pack. When I swung the belt around back of me, everything dumped out. Fortunately, I had cleared the area at my feet of leaves, so that I could swing the hammock chair silently, in case a deer snuck up behind me. That made it easy to find everything. There were a couple milkweed pods that I didn’t realize I still had. I will be able to test the wind direction tonight. Back at the in-laws house, no one was home. No note, but still some cold pizza in the fridge. I knew my mother in law wasn’t feeling too good the nigh before, so I suspected the worst. I saw the neighbor out and I almost walked over there but I called my wife (who is back home in wny). She is a certified medical assistant and her mother had texted her earlier. After explaining her symptoms, she advised her mother to go to an urgent care facility in the nearest town. As it turned out, she fainted as my father in law was getting ready to take her. He got the neighbor to help get her up, revived her and took her to a little hospital out in the Adirondack boondocks. They pumped her up with some saline solution, gave her some meds, tested her positive for covid, and sent her home. She looks a lot better now than she did last night. Hopefully, she won’t have too much trouble getting dinner ready for us around 7:00 when I get back from hunting, and see how the Bills/Chiefs game went. While waiting for them to get back from the hospital, I removed the heavy Honda 4-stroke outboard from the party barge and put it in its winter storage box down on the dock. That damn thing is way too heavy to carry up those 22 stairs. When they got home, after seeing that she was ok, I went out fishing a bit, trying for that elusive 22 inch smallmouth. I caught (4), (3) on bucktail jigs and one trolling a silver shad rap. The largest was close but no cigar at a solid 21”. It still had lots of fight in it for the cool water temp, and is the second largest bass I have ever caught in this lake. I’m up at the spot where I saw the group of deer last night. It’s real close to the house, so I’ll give them until 6:40 to show up (5 minutes left of legal shooting time).

Last Monday, I got a ride in a fancy car down to Lynchburg VA for work. We went to Dick’s down there, and stocked up on ammo. My driver/coworker got all kinds of pistol ammo, and a couple of boxes of 160 gr Hornady Lever Revolution 30/30. I have been trying to get 30/30 ammo in NY for over a year, but was unwilling to pay $ 47 per box for that fancy stuff down there. My guns are sighted in with 150 gr Federals. I have (4) of those left and my father in law has about (30). I also have (19) Winchester 150 gr super-X’s. I did pick up (4) boxes of Hornady 12 ga SST 2-3/4” slugs, which I have been unable to find lately in NY. They had those for $17 per box. Unfortunately, I got called back for an important meeting Friday. I had to leave my ammo down there with my driver, since I couldn’t bring it back on the plane. As it turned out, I missed a connection in CLT airport, so I had to spend a Thursday night in that airport and missed the meeting at work Friday morning. I did get back in time for the lunch pizza party there, which I mostly financed with a recent “silent auction” tractor purchase. I also made it up to the Northern zone, for my planned (9) day early ML week / opening weekend of gun season hunt. Hopefully, those (4) Federal 30/30 bullets I have left will be enough to get me a buck up here. I don’t know when or if i will get my 12 gauge slugs back from my driver. He’s also got my Little EDC knife, in the Dick’s bag of slugs.

I made it up at sunset Friday, but I didn’t sleep too well. Probably because I needed 28 fluid oz of Coca-Cola to keep me awake on the thruway for the drive up after no sleep the night before. I didn’t see any deer Saturday morning up on the ridge top where I killed the old doe last year. The south East wind was blowing a little too hard for much natural movement. I carried my binoculars up with me in the morning, but they seemed to be more of a pain to carry than they were worth. Had I not left them back at my in-laws lake house, they might have helped me get a deer on the afternoon hunt. I still-hunted my way back from that, at sunset. About halfway back (15 minutes after sunset), it was still light enough to see and legal to shoot. A group of 2-3 deer spotted me before I spotted them, about 100 yards thru the young hardwoods, and high-tailed it over the ridge. Had I been walking and scanning with binoculars, as one should while still hunting, I might have seen them first. That’s the secret to getting one that way. I blame that mistake on my lack of sleep. My hope is that that group of deer don’t know that they are being hunted. Lots of people walk the trail I was one. Hopefully, those deer just think I was someone walking out to the mailbox, or something. The wind looks like it will be right tonight, so I am going to get setup on the spot where I seen them. A side benefit is, that spot is close to the house, so I can stay longer in the “ambush” location. I got a good nights sleep last night, so my odds are better of knocking one of them deer’s lights out tonight.