wolc123

I am very thankful for you and the fact that you keep bringing up religion. There simply can not be too much of Jesus Christ on a hunting web site (especially on a Sunday), and the downstate NY support is especially appreciated. Hunting and fishing are the two hobbies that position folks the best to absorb the blessings of His grace. You show me that there is some hope that NYC will finally get with the program and join up with the Christian revival that is sweeping our country right now. There is no one on this site that has strengthened my own faith in Him more than yourself and for that I am forever grateful. Keep up the good work, lets get it on for a few more pages. Maybe I will get the first word on page 3 also.

It is not that difficult Chef, all it takes is a little "child-like" faith.

Thanks Chef, You just hit on the best part of being a Christian. Those Jewish guidelines you are referring to may point us in the right direction, but strict adherence does not guarantee a place in Heaven. It is not "good works" that gets us there. It is much easier than that, requiring nothing more than the acceptance of Jesus Christ, The Son of God, as our Savior. P.S., I slipped up a little bit this morning and had some bacon (from a pig) with my eggs. Our family should be good with the "rules" for dinner however. I just finished forming up some venison hamburgs, mixed with raw egg, and put them back in the fridge. They will be ready for the grill later this afternoon.

I finally managed to get a 2-1/2 and a 1-1/2 acre corn plots in yesterday. It was not easy with the heavy rains we have had this spring. This is the first time I remember needing a 4wd tractor on the planter. I was able to drain most of the standing water from the plots earlier in the week by opening some ditches but some of the lower spots were still muddy. There is more heavy rains in the forecast today and later this week, so it was basically now or never for the planting. I was surprised that my old JD 246 planter did not plug up thru the muddy spots. I put new shoes on it a few years ago, and those probably helped with that. I remember it plugging up on some wetter years in the past with the old wore-out shoes that were on it when I bought it "well used" from a local sweet corn farmer. He was asking $200, and took $175 for it about 20 years ago. You could find used planters cheap back then, before the deer food-plot craze and the spike in scrap metal prices. The starter fertilizer did not go on quite as heavy as I wanted. It looks like it was 50 pounds per acre, on 36" rows. That was with the gate openings set at 3/4" on the planter's fertilizer hoppers. At least it makes the math easy for calculating input costs, right at $10/acre for fertilizer. I paid $10 per 50 lb bag of triple-15 fertilizer. Seed was free, and fuel cost for tillage was a bit less than $10/acre. Throw in a little more for cultivating and spraying in July, and my total input cost, for that 4 acres, should add up to around $100. Who says planting corn is expensive? After that corn is up about a foot, I am looking forward to trying out an old, 2-row, 3-point cultivator, that I just traded an old snowplow for. The row width matches my planter perfectly. Using that, on a modern 4wd diesel tractor, should reduce time and fuel costs considerably compared to the antique gas single-row machine that I used in prior years. My next project is setting up my 15 gallon, 12-volt tank sprayer and dual nozzles on that cultivator, so that I can apply the gly, just on the rows while cultivating. Leaving a few weeds between the rows (that the cultivator shovels miss), makes the corn plots much more attractive to deer than the "clean" ag corn on surrounding acreage. Those "weeds" are mostly white clover, which comes back very well on its own the year after the corn if you don't nuke it down completely. That saves lot's of cash, that would otherwise need to go towards clover seed. Free clover is always good. The free nitrogen it provides for future corn plots is even better than the food it provides the deer at night.

A President went thru the White House door, and did what he said he will do. We are all now drinking that free bubbalub, and eating that rainbow stew.

I have been shooting more deer off the ground the last few years than from up in trees. You hit right on the primary reason for that. I expect that percentage to increase even more in coming years because I am getting into still-hunting up in the Adirondacks. The tree stands that I do have are mostly less than 10 feet up, and all have rails all around. Only one of (4) deer that I killed last season was from an elevated blind. For those folks who do feel the need to get high up there in trees, the safety harnesses are a good idea, especially if their stand lacks a rail all around. I have no doubt that it is only because I do have Someone looking over me that I survived all those years up in high treestands without a harness or safety rail. I also understand that a safety harness won't keep me around when He decides to call me home. I do hope that when my time here is up, that I don't go from a fall out of a treestand. That seems like it would involve some pain and suffering. Cutting down those last couple dying ash trees this past winter will help make sure that does not happen to others or myself. The ladder to that elevated blind that both myself and a big guy from work killed deer out of last fall does need some attention. It was scary watching him get down from there after shooting the tasty button buck for us. I will do my best to find the time to make that ladder safer this year. Thanks for the reminder.

Because a little iron in you diet is better for your body than copper, and cleanup is easy after the iron pan is seasoned. PM me if you have any old iron frying pans to give away.

If you don't do a soil test and are unsure of your soil ph, then I would go with a horse mix. That will do better in acidic soil. It contains more timothy and less clover. Deer like the taste of clover more, but the timothy grows taller and provides better bedding cover. If you have baled the hay off what is there now for 6 years, without adding fertilizer, it has got to be getting pretty thin. Have you spread any manure on it? After you reseed, I would stop baling it and just keep it bush-hogged once a year, cutting in late June. The green-cut hay, left to decompose on the field, will add nutrients back to the soil. The tender stuff that grows up after, towards fall, will provide some good night-time feed for the deer during hunting season.

Full inclusion of the crossbow would go a long way towards the elimination of tree-stand accidents. Eliminating the need to draw with a deer in close, eliminates the need to get real high in a tree. Also, a rail makes a great shooting support for a crossbow, and that rail also keeps you safer up in a stand than a safety harness.

I fry eggs in an iron frying pan on most Saturdays and Sundays (not enough free time in the morning on work days). I always use olive oil and get it hot before cracking the eggs. They never stick. I use a plastic spatula to flip them onto a plate when they are done, and to scrape any remains from the bottom of the pan. For cleanup after cool-down, I wipe it with paper towels, no soap and no water. I store the iron frying pans vertically, on hooks behind the stove. Usually there is enough residual oil for corrosion protection thru the week, if not I wipe with a little more olive oil. My iron frying pans are more than 75 years old. With a new iron frying pan, or one that has been misused (with water or soap), it might take 4 - 8 cycles as described to fix the cooking surface. I find cooking and cleanup easier with a seasoned iron frying pan than with a modern "non-stick" one. The iron that ends up in you is also healthy. I can't imagine why anyone would want to use those modern pans. What happens to that "non-stick" coating when it flakes or scratches off ? My favorite use of those iron frying pans is for frying up tenderloins or button buck livers (also using olive oil).

None. Unlike prior years, I did not hear any gobbling around the lake last Memorial day weekend when I was out in the boat fishing at sunrise. Also, I was scared of ticks in the woods and I don't care for eating turkey. My wife and kids like it, but the will have to settle for the store bought stuff. They did love the perch dinner that I was able to provide.

It sounds like you are on the right track with the pasture mix and corn. I am hoping to get that same combination out there by the end of the day tomorrow. I did get the pasture mix in prior to about 2-3/4" of rain that hit the Thursday before Memorial day. We got another inch or so after that, so getting the corn in was in doubt. I just finished the last pass with the disk, and with no equipment failures, I should be able to get about 4 acres of corn in tomorrow. It was all I could do with my largest 4wd tractor, to get my undersized disk through a mud-hole on the last plot. I lost traction and needed to straighten the disk and use the front loader to pull myself out (that front loader is almost like a "get out of mud free card"). Tomorrow, it will all get culti-mulched at mid-day and planted in the late afternoon. That last pass with the disk was the riskiest part (of getting stuck). They are calling for over an inch of rain Sunday, and more in the days after that, so it is basically now or never for the corn on my mucky, bottomland farm. The pasture mix is sprouting and looking good and I am glad to have got that in earlier. The corn is always what puts the meat in the freezer however. We did so well in and around it last year, that just a couple deer would probably get us thru this year. Happy planting.

I never used one, and I am very thankful to have survived 36 years of deer hunting with just one fall. That was way back when I was in high school, using a climber that I made in metal shop. I was able to cushion my landing by hugging the tree on the way down from about 15 feet. I suffered no major injuries, just some brush burns and torn up the sleeves on my jacket. Over the last two years, the ash trees that supported my last couple wooden stands have succumbed to the emerald ash bore, so I cut them down. I always made sure they were safe each year, before hunting season. I was very relieved when the last one was down on the ground. That one was put up by my older cousin more than 40 years ago. I killed my first buck out of it, but I sure did not trust that dying tree to hold it up any longer. I tried to be careful cutting that tree up for firewood, but managed to hit a few nails that were hidden over all those years, plus a little barbed wire that was grown over deep in the stump. Now it is all metal ladder stands with good rails, and new straps every year, or elevated and ground platform blinds with 3 foot rails all around. Not only do those rails keep me safe, but they provide great gun and crossbow rests. Shooting from a rest with a telescopic sight makes it easy to pick out the individual hair where I want my bullet or bolt to strike on the deer. Now that crossbows are legal (for the rut anyhow), I don't suppose I will ever again hunt with a vertical bow. As long as I don't do that, I can't see a need for a safety harness.

My corn plots are too wet to plant now. I missed a small dry window before last Thursday's 2-1/2" rainfall and got in a few acres of pasture mix instead. Hopefully, the fields will dry out enough so that I can get the corn in by the end of June. I have planted it as late as July 4th and still had pretty good crops.

It was about noon when we passed that buck, still holding his head up. He must have been struck minutes earlier. Apparently you need to be on the lookout at all times of day and night. After witnessing this today, I will be a bit less selective about filling my tags this fall. A small buck that I pass on, in hopes of a larger one, just might be the one that takes out a motorcyclist. If my tags are filled then I did my part, not only to feed my own family, but also to protect motorists.

We counted about 10 road-kill deer along the Westbound stretch of the I-90, between the Rt 81 Syracuse exit and the Rt 77 Pembroke exit on our drive back from the in-law's today. Traffic was backed up a mile or so, around Montezuma, as a state trooper was finishing off a young buck (looked like it had about 6" of velvet antlers). It still had its head up, but most have broken it's legs. I thought it was odd to see so many at this time of year. That is about the most I have seen over that stretch, even during the fall rut time.

The hardest recoiling shoulder-fired weapon that I regularly use is my grandads 16 gauge, Ithaca, featherlight deerslayer. That thing is built as light as a 20 gauge, but packs a load nearly equal to a 12 gauge. The light weight and heavy load makes for a nasty combination. That recoil has never bothered me while shooting deer but is not pleasant on the range. There, I always use a thick recoil pad clipped onto my shirt, which tames it completely. I have fired a friend's Ruger #1, in 458 Win mag, and that or any other center-fire rifle feel like a cap-guns in comparison. The recoil of .357, .41, and .44 magnum revolvers never bothered me at all, but when I briefly installed a pistol grip on a short-barreled, Remington 870 pump shotgun and fired a few 12 gauge slugs, my wrist was sore for a week or so. All the folks I hear complaining of recoil of rifles and pistols must not have a real grasp of what a light-weight shotgun does in that department.

About 3/4 of the deer I have killed, over the last 35 years, were on our farm. They all had one thing in common - stomachs that were full of corn. I vividly remember the first deer that I saw my dad kill, while I was still too young to hunt. He shot the fat 6-pointer, thru the lungs as it stood broadside, in the middle of the lane that runs to the back of the farm. After taking the slug, the buck ran about 100 yards into a corn field. What I remember most, is the two rows painted red, and dripping with blood, right up to where he piled up. When dad gutted him, he slit open the stomach and showed me how it was full of corn. That was the year after my grandad passed away. When he died, we sold the cattle, most of the farm equipment and rented out the land. The renter planted about 30 acres of corn that year. My first few years hunting here were hit and miss, usually getting a buck every other year or so. They all had corn in their stomachs. The neighbors planted it, but our renter stuck with hay after that first year. There must not have been much money in that, and after a couple years without getting paid, grandma gave him the boot. After a few years, I bought and old tractor and bushhog to keep things mowed. I let some of the less productive land grow into brushy cover. The hunting remained so-so, until I bought myself a corn planter. These days, the hunting is great as long as I have some standing corn in the fields. It don't take much. I have learned how to make the most out of the least, which involves taking out a lot of coons and a few other tricks. Last season, we took (6) deer in and around 4 acres of corn. The reason corn is so much more effective than any other food plot, is because it provides carbs and cover, at a time when the deer desperately need both. No other plot has that combination. Deer will feed at night in clover, wheat or soybean plots, but they will hang in that corn all day. Does and their groups will bed in there. My favorite time to hunt the edges of the those corn plots is around Veterans day, which corresponds to the peak of the rut. At that time, there are three things to draw in the bucks: Hot does, food, and cover. All that adds up to a nice full freezer, and maybe a wall decoration or two as a bonus. Good luck setting up your place. It sounds like you are on the right track.

I think removing that statue from it's public location is the right thing to do. General Lee may have been a good tactician of battle for a short while, but the cause for which he fought was slavery. It should come as no surprise what side God backed in the Civil war, and the side He supports has never and will never loose a war. Lee's army's back was broken with Picket's charge on a hillside in Gettysburg PA. There, he met the same fate as so many other "great" generals for lost causes, such as Paulus a Stalingrad, Rommel at El Alamein, or Napolian at Waterloo. Keeping that statue out in public glorifies that corrupt cause. God has always raised up great leaders in this country's times of need. Trump seems like one of them. Lincoln pulled off a master stroke, when he got the South to start that "shooting" war, by announcing the resupply effort to the Union garrison at fort Sumpter. That way, not only was the South fighting for a corrupt cause, but just like the Japanese at Pearl Harbour, they were the ones who shot first. Wars are seldom won by the side that shoots first, but they are always won by the side God supports. There has never and will never be a shortage of those who don't learn any of these important lessons from history, including a few misinformed Presidents, like JFK, who got us into that quagmire in VietNam. While America and it's leader may have stumbled a few times in the past, including the treatment of Native Americans and black slaves, it seems to be on the right track now. The USA has always been great, and it is getting better faster since November than it has in a long time. Hopefully, even NY and CA will catch up soon.

I prefer to minimize the challenge. For me, killing a deer at close range with open sights is less of one than trying to do it with a wet and/or fogged over scope. By the same token, in good weather conditions, it is a lot easier for me to put the bullet exactly where it needs to go, at long range, using a scope. I also prefer the scope at short range in good weather conditions. I use variable power scopes, set to the lowest magnification (2X or 3X), most of the time. I only crank them up to 7X or 9X, if the shot is long (greater than 100 yards) at a standing still deer, or on the range while sighting in. If my daughter does get on the rifle team at school this fall, I will probably get her a Ruger American 22 LR with open sights. That will be better for her to practice at home with. I don't think they allow telescopic sights for the matches (I know they did not back when I was in high school). If she decides to deer hunt, then I will probably get us another one in .243 caliber (with a 3-9X scope). I will also use that one for woodchucks and coyotes, since I traded my Ruger 22/250 bolt for the Marlin 336 BL lever.

Usually, I prefer scopes, but there is a time and a place for open sights. Still-hunting thru and around heavy cover in windy, rainy, snowy conditions is one for sure. Opening weekend of rifle season was like that up in the Adirondacks last year. I was not too happy with my scoped bolt-action then. So much not, that I skipped the hunt on the last morning and headed home early. Fortunately, conditions improved, for a scoped rifle, on our next trip up there over the long Thanksgiving weekend. I was able to us it to put a bullet exactly where it needed to go (from a somewhat difficult angle) to get the job done. With open sights, it is more of a matter of putting one (of several at times) "close enough" to get the job done at close range. I have seen about 4 deer while still-hunting up there for every one that I have seen while sitting, so having the right gun to do that in any weather conditions is critical. That means having at least one with open sights. The relatively high rate of fire, and ease of handling in heavy cover, are also big advantages of a compact lever, over a full-sized bolt action. Looks are of lesser importance to function for me, but enough of one to take pumps or semi-autos out of the running. I think levers and bolt-actions are way better looking.

I know, from first-hand experience and actual measurements, that 300 fps provides 8" of penetration (fortunately all the way thru the heart) into a broadside whitetail buck, from 59 yards, using a 3-bladed, 125 grain mechanical broadhead. I would be very confident in a full pass thru at 60 yards with an additional 90 fps, but I will limit future shots to 50 yards with my entry-level rig. Does anyone know if changes to the current minimum width and max pound restrictions are included in the crossbow bill that is currently tied up in state congress? I know that the bill includes "full inclusion", and classification as "archery" equipment rather than "ML", but I am not certain about what else it contains. The only way I would consider spending more money on a crossbow upgrade would be if full inclusion passes. The one that I have now is right at the current 18" minimum width. That does make it handle quite good offhand, compared to a many of the wider, faster, front-heavy models out there. Last season, it put a bolt diagonally thru a larger buck's body (in behind the shoulder and out the ham on the opposite side), and about 2" into the dirt behind him, from 17 yards. I got to see that one fall over dead, after he staggered off a little ways, dragging the leg that the bolt had exited from.

Those levers are fun to shoot. I had one years ago, and was starting to miss it, especially now that my in-laws moved up to the edge of the Adirondack park. A compact, fast-handling, open-sighted lever action is ideal for still hunting up there, especially on rainy days. I still have half a box of 170 grain ammo left from the old days. I am going to sight the new one in with 150's, to minimize the recoil for my daughter. If you can't find the key, shoot me a pm, and I can set you up with a 100 yard range, just over the Erie county line.

I like that baby. So much that I traded a scoped bolt-action rifle for a similar one (Marlin 336 BL) and a few boxes of ammo. My daughter and I have been sharpening our open-sight, lever-action marksmanship skills with her Daisy red-ryder BB gun. I put a "big loop" & adult-sized stock ($40 on-line from Chief AJ), and sling mounts on that $30 toy, to make it almost dimensionally identical to the Marlin 30/30 336 BL rifle. The BB's ($5.00 for 5000) are much more affordable than 30/30 or even .22 rimfire ammo, and the silent report does not aggravate her mother & little sister in the house (or the neighbors). The shooting game we play involves hooking a beer or pop can to a piece of bailing wire, and hanging it from a tree, 15 yards off our back deck. I pay her $1.00 for every can she cuts in half. She likes the challenge of hitting it as it is swinging, and can usually cut it in half with less than 50 shots. The skills she develops there should serve her well on rifle team in high school next year, and hopefully for some squirrel and deer hunting. I showed her how to increase the challenge by shooting the clip off and dropping the upper half. Maybe I'll give her a 5 dollar bill if she does that. It took me close to 100 shots to do it. I have shot the Marlin 3 times so far, at gallon milk jugs filled with water, from 40 yards, offhand. My first shot missed. I assumed it was high, and was able to pop both jugs in about 2 seconds with my next two shots, by aiming a little low. That "big-loop" really makes it easy to cycle that rifle fast, and should be real handy when wearing gloves while deer hunting in the cold. My daughter has not shot it yet, and complained it was heavy when she shouldered it. I think I will start adding weights to her BB gun, so she can work her way up to it.

I finished the first pass disking on new 2-1/2 and 1-1/2 acre corn plots this afternoon, after pike fishing on Silver lake with the neighbor kid for a few hours. Those plots are adjacent to similarly-sized corn plots from last year. Those worked out so well, that I decided to try the exact same thing again this year. The ground broke up real nice, and should be ready to plant in a couple more passes. I also disked last year's 2-1/2 acre corn plot. A friend gave me a bag of left-over pasture mix, that I plan on broadcasting there this spring. It looks like it has a lot of clover seed in it, along with some radish. If I did not have that, I would have put in straight buckwheat. I am not going to do anything with last year's 1-1/2 acre corn plot until late summer. Then I will disk it up and broadcast a wheat/soybean/white clover mix. That will give me a 20 yard shot, over the wheat and clover, to the corn from our most productive stand last season. My only other fall planting this year will be a 1/2 acre turnip plot on some old clover at the back of our farm. We have an old barn to tear down, and a new one to put up, so time will be short at that time. All in all, it was a pretty good day of fishing and food-plotting, and all of the makings of a good surf and turf dinner are in the freezer now.