wolc123

I can relate to that. Between my parent's farm and our's, I have about 100 acres to hunt for myself. It can get boring at times. That is where my wife's parent's place, which is adjacent to the 6.5 million acre Adirondack park, comes in handy. It never gets boring up there. When and if I retire, that is probably where we will stay.

Besides buying the family farm, marrying the right girl has worked out well for me. I worked very hard when I was young and single. I was the only grandkid that helped out much with the tough tasks like haying and cleaning stalls. All that sweat and drudgery eventually paid off, proving to me again that it really is better to give than to receive.

I won't watch another NFL game until all of the players start standing for the National Anthem. The Bills should have went to Toronto. Then at least their name could have made sense, we would be free of the tax burden and traffic issues, and the die-hard Bills fanatics could still make the trip to see them occasionally. They could call them the Canadian Dollar Bills. I don't believe Buffalo Bill Cody ever set foot in Buffalo. How can a team expect to win a Superbowl if their name does not make any sense ? Pay the Bills ? Maybe thats it. There are lots of ducks around here and they have bills. Who knows ? Go Yankees !

I don't do anything about it, and just hang my hunting outerwear in the basement until hunting season, then bring it up for the season and hang it in a back room of the house or throw it in a footlocker for trips up to the northern zone. I don't even make a point to wash it every season, unless it gets real dirty. I do believe that scent control can be effective, based on an experience that I had at about this time of year, roughly 10 years ago. There were a pair of camo coveralls that I had forgotten about, hanging in an old grainery out in the barn, where no human had entered in over a year. I put them on after work and walked back to the pond, for a little goose and bass action. I had my shotgun in my left hand and my fishing rod in my right. It was extremely hot that afternoon, and a doe and fawn were cooling themselves off in the shallow water. The doe noted my approach and charged right at me, showing none of the usual caution that old mature doe with fawns normally have. I am convinced that she had no idea what I was, and probably thought that I was another deer. She did not make contact, but ran at me snorting, coming within a few feet, several times. The fawn stood by watching and I just ignored her charges and went about my business. I laid down the gun and made a cast into the pond. The doe kept up her intimidation tactics. On my second cast, I hooked into a nice largemouth. When it broke water, the doe and fawn finally high-tailed it into the brush. I don't believe that a deer can smell me if it is upwind of me, but it is not always possible to get there, and there are always a few calm days. Someday, if I get desperate enough for meat, I might make a little effort at clothing scent control again. I don't see that happening too soon, based on the deer populations, and the ease of filling tags right now.

The northern bite has been in decline over the last several years and was the worst I have seen this year. I think it is related to the round goby which have exploded and which do not seem to feed the pike as well as some other species (like smallmouth bass and walleye). I have never targeted perch up there. Smallmouth bass are always my main target, and they have been steady with numbers down slightly but growth rate way up thanks to the round gobies. The largemouth bass bite has been improving the last few years. Good luck on your trip.

That looks like a sweet deal. Those things were way overpriced in the beginning. It reminds me of the butt-out. I never went for one of those until the price dropped to around $ 5. I have to admit now, that was about the best $ 5 that I ever spent on hunting equipment, if for no other reason than I was able to use it as a bore gauge to prove that I finally did make a perfect shot on a deer after 35 seasons of hunting. I will ask my wife to pick one of them blinds up for me when she goes shopping this week. Maybe that will help convince our daughters to go out hunting with me when we visit their grandparents up in the Adirondacks this fall.

The trailer appears to show things in a fair and balanced way. If anything it helps expose the loose ground on which the ant-hunters stand. For folks in the middle on the hunting issue, it seems more likely to turn them towards supporting hunting than against it. My only problem is the title choice "Trophy". I do not see any way to gain public support for trophy hunting. Now if they named it "Meat", I would probably be 100 % behind it.

Tie - I would aim for the hair half way between middle and back. The middle ups your odds of double lung but back ups your odds of a pass thru, and an easier to follow blood trail. Aiming for the point that optimizes your odds of a successful recovery is always best.

Sorry to hear that, My wife is still kicking but she loves them also (even the big ones). Whenever I catch one by accident I keep it for her. I only like the raw cheeks, washed down with a big swig of Genny cream ale.

Three and Four winters ago had some of the best ice cover on the lake in many years. That resulted in some very successful spawning and those year classes of walleyes are just reaching legal size this year. The next few years will probably be the best ever for big walleyes in the Eastern basin of Lake Erie. Now is the time to get them though. When they get up to the 5 pound plus range, they might take better photos, but are not nearly as tasty (unless you enjoy the flavor of zoo-planton in your white meat). Baked of grilled bass taste way better to me.

It looks like the action was a little steadier on Erie than it was on Ontario yesterday. We were not able to locate the kings out of Wilson Harbor, but did manage to land one 10 pound steelhead on a green and silver NK spoon, down 40 feet over 90 feet of water, straight out from the port. The largemouth were still hitting pretty good in the harbor, as well as the bluegills and I brought back another dozen of those to add to the forage base in my pond

Goldenrod always seems to take over a field if you do not cut it for a season. I usually let a small field or two go uncut every year and the deer definitely like to bed in that stuff. After the shooting starts in the fall, they seldom venture out into it during the daylight hours.

In 35 seasons my total kills is also around 100. I wounded one (a very wide 4-point) on our farm with a shotgun slug that was killed by a friend a couple weeks later. The butcher told him that the meat was no good due to gang-green and he was issued another buck-tag by the DEC. I actually did eat the liver from that deer (before I learned that it had gang-green) and he got to keep the rack. My shot was too far back, at the running broadside deer, and I hit him too far back, drilling the 12 ga sabot thru the hams without hitting the femoral or any bone. That was the last time I shot at a running deer. Having learned my lesson, I will never do it again, unless I believe that I hit it with a prior shot. I wounded a basket racked buck with my ML 13 seasons ago. That was the last deer that I wounded and did not recover. My mistake there was shooting beyond the effective range of my scoped 50 cal, with 100 grains of pyrodex. The buck was quartering away at 175 yards, I had a good rest and had practiced at 200 yards, where the gun consistently held groups under 3" diameter. More than likely my shot struck within an inch of my point of aim, but the buck made it about 50 yards beyond my widest circle after I lost his trail (about 400 yards past where he stood at the shot). Fresh snow contributed towards me taking that shot, but I never found even a drop of blood the whole way. The buck had shown no reaction of a hit, and that, and the lack of blood convinced me that it had been a clean miss. I learned that it was not a clean miss when I saw a neighbor who had been hunting that day, a few days later. He told me that he saw the doe that I had missed that day run by under his stand. My shot was not at the doe, but it was at the buck that had pursued her out of the corn plot below my stand. He said he never saw a buck. We found that buck, half eaten by coyotes, with the help of the crows a few days later. I will never take a shot at over 150 yard range with that ML again (I use a laser rangefinder now to help make sure) unless the deer is broadside. In my early years of bow-hunting, I wounded (4) deer, of which (3) were struck in the shoulder blade, with no penetration, and one too far back. The common thing on all of those is that "string jump" contributed to the bad hits. All of the deer were alert (3) were bucks that I had alerted by rattling or grunting within range, and (2) were alerted when they caught a glimpse of my draw. These days, I have addressed those issues by only using calls when I have a firearm (no problem with string jump when the projectile is faster than the speed of sound). I wait for crossbow season to open now during archery, which eliminates the need to draw with a deer in close. Of the (4) deer that I wounded with arrows, only the one that was hit too far back surely died from his wound. One of the shoulder blade hit bucks was killed by a friend a few weeks later, during gun season, and the wound was completely healed, with just a big scar over the shoulder. My experience has been that while more deer are wounded with arrows, many of those make full recoveries. That can not be said about gun-shot wounds, which are messier, and far more likely to be fatal. We can all learn lessons from wounded deer, and it would be nice if we could use an internet forum like this to learn of some of the mistakes that others have made. It is too bad that most folks lack the guts to post their mistakes. Apparently, they are scared of the anti-hunters. My fear is limited to one thing - see who can guess what that is so I don't have to piss some of the haters off and add it to yet another post.

This is an important topic and it hits on the one thing that bothers me more than anything else about hunting - wounding and not recovering game. It can happen to anyone with with any weapon. It takes some courage to post on a public forum like this, when it happens to you. I give those folks credit who have the guts to do that. Keeping it a secret is kind of wimpy, if you ask me. I can't believe there are folks here who are afraid of what anti-hunters might think. If the unfortunate does occur to anyone around zone 9F or 6C this season, feel free to post publicly or shoot me a pm. I have been waiting for for a chance to try the "bloodglow", that I picked up three years ago. This stuff, when mixed with water or windshield wiper fluid in freezing conditions, is supposed to make blood glow bright green under the moon or start light. Backing out, and waiting for morning to track, might not be such a good idea with all the coyotes we have around now in many areas. Deer Search is also a great resource, but might get stretched a little thin on weekends.

My girls like Rugers. I suppose two sevens (and an eight in this case) are better than one seven and a zero.

The one I shot the most with was my grandad's old Remington 510P targetmaster bolt action .22 LR that I had drilled and tapped for a 3X Bushnell Banner scope. It was a tack-driver for many years, but the accuracy dropped off big-time, and I was never able to figure out why. I traded it away, about 25 years ago, and got a Ruger 10/22 with a Simmons .22 mag scope. That is my favorite now. The 9 extra shots are nice, and it is as accurate as my old Remington bolt-action ever was. The only problem is that I don't have as much time to hunt squirrels now as I use to. I eat the squirrels, and use the tails for fishing lures, but I look at hunting them more as target practice for deer hunting. If it was not for that, my favorite squirrel gun, when the leaves are still up, would be my old Winchester, single-shot, full-choked .410. I can not recall ever missing a squirrel that I shot at with that. It is definitely not as good of practice for deer hunting though. All you got to do is get close with it. I much prefer to target an individual hair on any squirrel or deer that I shoot at. Aim small - miss small is the way to go. Doing that has helped me to put every deer that I have shot at over the last 12 years, with any weapon, into the freezer. Unfortunately, I can't say that about the squirrels. Two years ago, I dropped one from a tree with my 10/22 and I heard it hit the ground with a thud. It managed to crawl into a rock wall at dusk, and I was not able to recover it. I think that loss helped me go 4/4 on deer last year, and convinced me to pass on a few shots that I may not have connected on.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk That is pretty cool. The wet ground must have allowed you to sneak in there quietly. Was it windy ? Did he get up and run after the arrow hit him, and how far did he go? How far was the drag ? I am thankful to have access to some private land on the edge of the Adirondack park, where my father in law can usually get his ATV pretty close. It might be tougher this year though, because he just upgraded to one of those big wide side by sides. How many days have you bowhunted up there before taking that buck ? It would like to have few more vacation days, but I have to burn a few in early October this year for my nieces wedding down in VA. What the heck are people thinking when they get married at this time of year ?

How did that one happen? Did you walk in on him bedded, or did you ambush him as he walked in on you ? Either way, that is quite an accomplishment. I am going to get up there one day with my crossbow this fall and a day and a half with my ML and I am hoping for my first buck up there with either one of those weapons. A three inch, 110 pound spike buck up there would be worth more to me than a heavy-racked 200 pound 10-point in the flatlands of home in western NY.

When it comes to the taste of wild game, moose comes out on top, and the tongue is the best part. PM me if you get one and feel inclined to toss that out. Even the old ones taste great. My buddy killed one that was estimated at 8.5 years old in Newfoundland a few years ago and a frozen roast was a little tough, but the canned meat was to die for. Eventually, he thawed and canned all the roasts.

What amazes me is that more folks cant follow the simple logic of that. Anyone who thinks string jump is an issue at 60 yards is quite clueless. Why would a deer "jump the string" if it is more than 40 yards away ? That is well out of the immediate danger zone, where deer react to the sound of a bow dumping its energy into an arrow. My 59 yard crossbow buck waited patiently, rock-still, until the bolt pierced his heart. When it comes to taking a shot at a deer or not, with any weapon, there are a lot more important things to worry about than just range. The proof is in the results achieved, and if all other variables are perfect, there is nothing wrong with stretching the range a little bit. Shooting at a standing, distracted deer, from a rest, across an open field, with no wind, at 60 yards is relative chip-shot, compared to shots at less than half that range, at walking, alert deer, in the woods on windy days.

I have been running the NOCO 91 octane ethanol free stuff in all of my occasional use small engines, except for the lawnmowers and antique ag tractors, for the last (3) years and it has been well worth the extra 50 cents per gallon. (4) boat motors, (2) chainsaws, a generator, logsplitter, and power washer have started and ran great every time, no matter how long they have been sitting.

Have you ever heard the phrase "farmer fix". That means using items that you have on hand to get the job done. You would be surprised at what can be accomplished with a odd assortment of wire, duct tape, and nuts and bolts. Keeping some of that stuff in the toolbox on a tractor can often let you finish a job without a trip back to the shop, where a welder, power tools, and a larger parts assortment can fix many larger problems. One way to minimize required fixes is to keep equipment maintained in good working order. It makes sense to lube things up properly AFTER use. That way, you get the corrosion protection of the lubricant thru storage periods and it will be ready to use when the weather opens up a window of opportunity with no delay to "lube before use".

250 acres is plenty for two guys, but my guess is that the handyman also plans on bringing along his two sons, brother, father in law, and a couple of buddies. Your best hope of getting in there is a cash offer like Rob suggested.

Speaking of "girly", how is your deer fence working with all those pretty pink ribbons ?

It sure can get a lot better than that. Blue gives me a headache every time. I just enjoyed an aged Genessee Scotch ale with an awesome plate of venison goulash that my wife made for dinner.