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wolc123

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Everything posted by wolc123

  1. I was on the fence about mandatory AR's in NY state for a while, but now I am firmly against them. The main reason, that I thought they might be worth a try, is that I thought they might improve hunter safety. I thought they might decrease hunting accidents, by slowing hunters down and forcing them to be more certain of their target. An analysis of data from the neighboring state of PA, indicates that did not happen there. Hunting accidents had been in steady decline in PA for many years prior to the AR's, and actually increased slightly the year they went into effect. Since then, they have continued the steady decline. That is a clear indication that mandatory AR's did nothing to improve hunter safety. The second reason that I am now firmly against mandatory AR's, is they would prevent my killing of any deer on many seasons, including the recently ended gun season. I had a buck tag and multiple DMP's, but I could not positively identify the sex or the number of antler points on the only deer that offered me a good shot this year. I thought I saw a spike by the ears as I squeezed the trigger when it trotted thru a shooting lane, just 50 yards from my stand. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was an antlerless doe, when I walked upon the carcass. I am glad that I can still chase after bucks (and does) during ML season with my gun tag. I had just a split second to make the decision to shoot that doe. I never would have taken that shot, had AR's been in place. I may or may not get another deer with my ML, but I do know for certain that it would have been a "tag soup" gun season for me if mandatory AR's had been in place. I suspect that would be the case for many others as well. Voluntary AR's is a great idea, that I have been practicing for many years (3 points on a side), but mandatory is a bad one, that I hope is never forced upon us.
  2. Nothing is my answer. Now that I am in my fifties, I am 100 percent satisfied with how things have turned out. I am very thankful for all the "learning experiences" I had in my teens, twenties, thirties, and fourties.
  3. I saw a fresh set of yote tracks out back while I was deer hunting Sunday afternoon. I placed a fresh doe carcass 110 yards behind my bedroom window that I finished butchering later that evening. My .22 LR and 30/30 are both by the bedside. I will use the .22 if a yote shows up while the kids are sleeping, otherwise the 30/30. Either one should get the job done. That will probably be the extent of my yote hunting this year, unless a "target of opportunity" shows up when I am ML hunting for deer thru next Monday. They normally don't last too long around here because have neighbors who are excellent trappers on each side.
  4. It sounds like it had to be, since he followed the blood trail right to the remains. He definitely needs to find some good trappers or the fawn population will be taking a big hit next year.
  5. I killed a large male with one a few years ago, using a Remington Yellow Jacket, at a range of 110 yards. That is the distance to the bait pile (deer carcasses, etc), behind my bedroom window. The .22LR does not wake up our kids, who are sleeping down the hall late at night, like my larger rifles do. The shot was taken broadside, behind the shoulder. I heard a "yip" at the shot, and found him the next morning, about 40 yards from where he took the little bullet. Coyotes are relatively thin-skinned and it don't take much to punch thru the lungs. If any significant meat needs to be penetrated, as would be the case with quartering shots, then you will want a little more punch. Two yotes presented targets that night. I also squeezed off a few shots at the smaller one as it ran off, but I do not believe that I hit it. Those shots were taken as it was quartering away at a flat-out run after loosing it's mate. Unlike deer, I don't mind taking a chance of wounding a coyote, and I will take any shot at one that offers even a remote chance of a hit. If I ever ran into that situation again, I would target the smaller of the pair first, as that will be the female and killing them does a lot more to reduce the population, than taking out a big male. The only time I use head shots is when the animal is held in a trap at point blank range.
  6. It was not a spectacular year for me up there this year. The only deer I saw were a couple antlerless ones, well out of range of my crossbow, as I carried that the day before the early ML opener. For the first time since my in-laws started working on their new home (5) years ago, I did not see a single deer over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. The hunting pressure was up a bit this year, as more new vacation homes are built in the area. That is probably the main reason for the decline in deer sightings. The highlight of the season for me was when I rattled in another hunter. At first I thought the dark shape moving up out of the swamp was a bear, until I saw he was wearing a bright yellow hat. It was the owner of the big lodge, down at the end of the lake. When he stopped by my in-laws place on his ATV later, he said I had really fooled him and he could have swore it was bucks making the racket. We got quite a laugh out of that. It was way too warm for any real deer action anyhow. That was the same day the Yankees played their last game, and I learned he was also a big fan. He convinced my father in law to let us watch the game that night. That would never happened, had I not rattled him in. It was a great game. I can't complain too much about the lack of sightings since I have been able to take (2) bucks and a doe up there, in the last four years. It just looks like I am going to have to start venturing a little deeper into the bush up there. Fortunately, the Southern zone has produced ok so far this year. We currently have enough venison to last us until next season. A little more by the end of ML next Tuesday would be nice though. If the seasons remain the same, I am going to be sure to use vacation days for all (3) Northern zone early crossbow next year.
  7. Speaking of CSI, I finally got to try out the "bloodglow" that I bought 4 years ago on opening day evening of SZ gun season this year. This stuff makes blood glow bright green in the moon or star light. I heard a shot about 5 minutes after sunrise that morning, and soon received a text from my buddy, who was up in my best stand, saying he had knocked down a small buck. I wish he would have continued to usedhis fingers on his trigger instead of his cell phone. The buck crawled across an open field, then got back on it's feet and got away. We used about an hour of "prime time" searching to no avail. There was blood where it crawled but very little after it got back up. I am thinking his 12 gauge sabot slug passed thru above the spine, temporarily numbing the rear legs. I marked the last blood and went back after dark with the bloodglow. The four applications each consisted of a white pellet and a gray pellet that are mixed together with water. Those "four applications" did not last very long, maybe allowing me to advance the trail another 50 yards or so. The white pellets seemed broken up after 4 years in the package, leading me to believe that this stuff may have a shelf life. It did make the blood glow very bright, especially where the buck was dragging his body with his front legs. The blood got very sparse after he stood back up though. By the time I ran out of the mix, the blood spots were few and far between. I will probably order some more of this stuff, for next season. It seems to work as advertised, especially in rainy conditions, like we had on opening day, but does not go as far as I thought it would. I will probably get more than just one pack next time. I can only hope that little 4 or 6 pointer may have made it. I have not scene any concentrated "crow action" in the area over the last 4 weeks, so he might have. Having this stuff available, especially during archery season, makes me a lot more comfortable hunting right up to dark in coyote country or in rainy conditions. I suspect you would have recovered that doe if you had some.
  8. I saw more deer action on the last (3rd weekend) of Southern zone gun season than I did on all the days prior combined. There must be something to that "second rut".
  9. What we need is yes / no poll if you think it went in one eye and out the other. My vote is that is no. How about some Adirondack mountain oysters ?
  10. I was thinking the same thing, maybe a stray round passed by close and "vacuumed" everything out.
  11. I thought that might be the case, when I found my first Adirondack buck's carcass lying under a big pine tree a few years ago. He was laying on fresh snow, and there was not an external mark on him or a single drop of blood visible on the snow. His eyes were wide open, as I stuck the muzzle of my rifle into one of them, to check for a blink. I always do that when walking up on a deer in that condition. I rolled him over and there was no mark or blood on the other side, or under him. When I gutted him, and cut through the diaphram, the lungs were both like jelly. I could see three holes looking from the inside of the rib cage, one centered on a rib, and two off to each side. At first I thought all three of my shots hit him, but it turns out only the last one did. The other two were caused by bone fragments. A branch must have caught my first well-rested shot, as he stood by the creek down in the valley below the ridge I was on. My second shot was taken offhand, as he walked into another opening. Offhand is not easy for anyone at about 300 yards and I only took that one because I assumed my first one hit. Fortunately, the sound of that second shot must have caught his attention, causing him to stop walking just as I reached a tree to rest my heavy rifle on. It had to be that third and final 150 gr 30/06 bullet that struck the second last rib, as he was quartering away. It ended up inside the shoulder on the opposite side, dropping him dead in his tracks, but out of view from my firing position. I have also killed a few woodchucks with my 22/250, that did not have an external mark on them or loose any blood. A pointed bullet makes a tiny hole thru on the entrance side, and you can often not see it thru the hide. Inside, I am sure those chuck's guts were a jumbled mess, much like I found in that buck's chest. In the case of that 50 cal, if it really did hit the eye on one side and then pushed thru about 1/2 inch of the densest bone on a deer, it surely would have done a lot more damage coming out. I doubt anyone would believe that it passed thru both eyes if they first went and looked closely at a deer skull. A deer's head is not a hollow sphere of bone with eye holes on each side as many apparently believe. If it was, and the bullet just had to penetrate jello like eye balls and brains, Then I would go along with the in one and out the other theory. The problem with that is that the biological structure of the skull does not support it. Please take a look at a skull before replying to the contrary.
  12. 2-7 scope cranked up to 7 for the 175 yard shot. That combo holds a 3" group at 200 and I had a pretty good rest. The snow and lack of any blood helped convinced me of a miss after 300 yards of tracking. I never trust snow now, because small drops of hot blood cuts right through it. I might push a broadside shot to 200 now with that setup but any kind of an angle will keep me under 150 yards. There just is not enough energy on a 50 cal sabot load pushed by 100 grains of 777 to penetrate well beyond that range. With my open-sighted side-lock, 75 yards is about as far as I would shoot.
  13. If you do hunt with that side-lock, you might want to prime the channel behind the nipple with some powder, in addition to the normal load. I just remove the nipple, and force some powder down the channel with a nipple pick or a needle. Until I started doing that, hang-fires and mis-fires were a recurring problem, especially in real cold and snowy conditions. Firing off a few caps before loading also helps out a bit, but having that continuous band of powder, right up to the load, made it go off instantly, just like an in-line, every time. That is on the target range anyhow, and when unloading after an unsuccessful hunt. I never fired it at another deer since getting my in-line/ I am not taking chances, until my buck tag is filled, but I might bring out my old Traditions side-lock for DMP's if I am able to do that with my shotgun this weekend or my T/C Omega in-line early the following week. The only thing I killed with my old side-lock was a gray squirrel that I decapitated with it after a 2 second hang-fire (my point of aim was center lung). It would be cool to get a doe or better yet, a button buck with it. My Omega has hit right where I aimed and killed every deer that I shot it at. I did loose one of those because I wrongly assumed a miss, and gave up tracking a little too soon. With fresh snow, you would think at least a drop of blood would have showed on over 300 yards of tracks, but it did not. He made it another 50 or so, past where I lost his tracks, with a what was likely a single lung hit. The coyotes got most of him in the week it took the crows to point him out to me. The loss of that deer, 13 years ago, caused me to reduce my range with that 50 cal ML to 150 yards on anything other than a broadside shot. The ill-fated shot was quartering away at 175.
  14. Those are still 1/2" diameter and pointed. Imagine the angle that the bone fragments would be projected out at. How could that be smaller than the eye socket ? Take a look at how much solid bone is between the eyes in a deer skull. One quick look at a euro will show you that there is no way a 50 could pass thru from one eye to the other with that exit wound.
  15. How could the OP video guy get a 50 thru from one eye to the other without hitting bone ? Don't you have a deer scull handy so you could understand what I mean ? Even if the bullet did not expand, all the bone chunks from contact of that 1/2" diameter , pointed bullet would be expelled thru the exit side at a wide angle, creating a wound significantly larger than the eye socket. We don't see evidence of that in the clear footage of the right side eye at the end of the video.
  16. I almost went along with the "in one eye and out the other" theory, until I looked close at the internal scull structure on a euro that I had handy. Now I see that there is no way a .50 could pass thru there without contacting lots of bone. It would surely cause a much larger exit wound. Based on the video, the doe's left eye would have been the entrance. We get a good look at the right eye at the end of the video. I have had my hair parted by a shotgun slug. Based on how that felt, I have no doubt that the pressure of a round, with more than 10 times the energy, could cause that damage without making contact. Those of you who have not felt the shock wave of a bullet against your head, or don't have a whitetail skull handy to examine, are not in as good of a position to call this shot, so I can understand your confusion. So the video does prove that as long as the energy is high enough and the distance is close enough, then a deer can be killed with a miss. The guy was very wrong to call that "a very ethical kill" however. A head shot is never an ethical kill. I won't even take one on a squirrel. An ethical kill is one that is taken at a point that provides the largest +/- error, in all directions, of killing the animal cleanly. Anyone who has seen a deer with a missing lower jaw, arrow sticking out below an ear, etc, should be able to understand that. Again, taking a look at a euro, you will see that the deer's brain is only about an inch and a half to two inches in diameter. That is not much larger than a ping-pong ball. Contrast that to the heart/lung area that is closer to the size of a beach ball. A shot at a beach-ball sized kill-zone, from any range with any weapon, and from any angle, is far more "ethical" than a shot at a ping-pong ball sized kill zone.
  17. I rarely see any after Thanksgiving, but usually both of my buck tags are punched by then, which takes away most of my drive to hunt. If no buck shows up on this last weekend of SZ gun, then I am really looking forward to late ML because I will still have my gun buck tag. About 20 years ago, I attempted a shot on a very large buck, that had already dropped the antler on one side, as he passed thru the hedgerow below my treestand. Unfortunately, I was armed with my old side-lock, and only the cap went off. That was one of two antlered buck that I have seen during that late season. The other one was about 10 years ago. He was even larger and had both his horns, and I had my in-line ML. He responded to rattling but did not present a shot that I thought I could make. I have taken a few does and button bucks during that late season, but never one with a legal antler. Maybe this year will be the first.
  18. Does that mean it would be your final answer to the "one gun" question ? If so, then it looks like we have a clear leader.
  19. This is a very easy one for me and grampy has already given the right answer. My own grandpa's old, model 37 Ithaca, 16-gauge with a smoothbore deerslayer barrel, and a second barrel with a modified choke, will take any game in NY. I hunted with it for a few hours last Saturday morning on his old farm and I passed on a small-antlered buck at 40 yards, broadside. I am nearly certain that it would have put him down easily, just as it has on all but one deer that I ever shot it at. He just needed to take another step or two to get off the neighbor's posted land. I still have the weathered old 8-point rack of the last buck my grandpa killed with it nailed onto the front wall of our barn. The one miss was prior to mounting a 1.5X Weaver scope on it 34 years ago. Every time I have pulled the trigger with those crosshairs on a deer, it has ended up in the freezer. Only one of them took more than one shot. My biggest one took a slug for every antler point but that is a story for another thread. The last time I fired it at a deer was 6 years ago, when it took my second largest antlered buck with one slug to the neck from 10 yards. I will try it again this weekend. It's 100 yard effective range is just about right for a spot I have in mind, the ammo is cheap, and our venison supply is secure, so it is time for a little "nostalgia". 12 gauges are a little too big and 20's a little too small, but the 16 is just right in the center. This gun packs nearly the wallop of a 12 gauge and is almost as light to carry as a 20. A shotgun is more versatile than a rifle, and a pump is about the most dependable action, so this one is could be the correct answer to the "one-gun" question by universal standards. For me, it also has the sentimental attachment thru my grandpa. That, coupled with it's 100% effectiveness, since mounting the scope, would make it the last gun I would part with. There is not even a close second. I might part with the matching serial number modified barrel though if anyone needs one. It has not been on it since I mounted the scope. The only time I used it, when I was 14, I fired 14 shots at 10 grouse and did not hit one of them. The stock was a little too long for me then. Anyhow, that is the excuse I am sticking to.
  20. It is even worse if you are sitting in a tree hammock seat strapped below one in the rain. Those things hold water just like a bath-tub and collect it off the tree like a funnel. Don't ask me how I know. It is is good to hear that folks have shot deer during the rain under one though.
  21. So far you got recommendations for a couple $ 250 Barnetts that have gotten the job done for one reason or another. Hopefully, someone will chime in on a high-dollar model for you so you can unload that cash that is burning a hole in your pocket. Hopefully, you will meet with some success and I am sorry if I have offended you by speaking the truth.
  22. What make / model do you have with the loose screw ? What kind of effective range are you looking for ? I can't help it that you can't handle the truth. Eventually it will catch up to you. Until then I will keep up with the reminders.
  23. What entry-level crossbow do you have ? I am 3/3 on deer with my 300 fps, 150 pound draw weight, Barnett Recruit. All three bucks died within 40 yards from where they were hit. The shot ranges were 59, 15, and 30 yards. Penetration was marginal on the first and longest shot (only 8"), but fortunately that took the mechanical broadhead all the way thru the heart. I would call that Recruit a legit 50 yard weapon for deer and I purchased and use a laser rangefinder, after that marginal long range penetration, to be sure that I stay under 50 yards going forward. I really like the light weight, narrow width, smooth trigger, and ease of handling of this inexpensive model ($250 package deal with illuminated dot scope). Right now it is a tossup if and when full inclusion hits on whether or not I will upgrade a bit. I may just purchase another one of these for backup, as I am pretty content with a 50 yard range during archery season. The 30 yard shot that I made with the Recruit this year, in the fading light of the late afternoon, was definitely the riskiest of all the shots that I have taken on deer to this point with the Recruit. That shot was taken in the woods, at a walking buck, while the other two shots were taken across open fields at standing bucks. When I revisited that stand in the mid-day light, and saw my bolt stuck in the ground, I could not believe all the small branches it threaded thru on the way to double lunging that buck. I have a very good friend who struck and wounded a nice buck with his $ 1200 crossbow this season. The lesson here is that dollars do not provide certainty of getting the job done. If you have read any of my previous posts, you will know Who I give ALL of the credit for getting it done every time. If not, here is a little hint for you: Get yourself a Bible and read it a bit. In there you will learn who controls the fate of all living things, which certainly includes Whitetail deer. Stay on good terms with Him, and they end up in your freezer every time. No amount of money is going to get that job done any better. It is no wonder that He shows special favor on those who choose a Crossbow.
  24. I wonder if many folks have shot a deer from under one of those while it is raining? The rain hitting them is so loud it sounds like a drum. I guess they might be ok at high-powered rifle range, but probably not so good while bowhunting. Your odds are definitely better than mine will be while at work though. I still have (3) DMP's, and a buck tag to work on in the snow this weekend, and a antlerless only bow/ml tag for the following weekend (sorry about my error on that last one earlier JL - good catch).
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