wolc123

You hit the nail on the head there. A narrow 6 point from the Adirondacks is worth more to me than a big 12 point at home in the flatlands. How do they taste from around your camp? I am thinking that the oaks and the clear cuts might give them good food compared with the mostly bark diet those in the "forever wild" areas further into the park are stuck with. Those that I have killed around the scattered Ag fields and oaks in zone 6C (on the NW edge of the park) taste just as good as those I have killed in and around the corn fields at home. It is looking like a second consecutive extremely mild winter this year, which should make the deer hunting real good up there this fall. What is the story on the 235 pounder? I killed a heavy 8-pointer in 2014, that seemed to weigh more than me (200 lbs), but I need to get me a scale to be sure next time. There does seem to be some bruisers up there,

It sounds like your camp is on the south-east corner of the Adirondack park. The closest I have hunted to there was a bit north of Speculator, around Lewey lake, where I had my first run-in with and Adirondack buck. These days, I hunt the opposite diagonal corner, up in zone 6C. What is the area like down there? Are there any logged areas, or agriculture fields around? How about oak trees? Like grampy, I would like to hear some of your hunting stories. Up on the NW corner, there is some ag fields and oaks, and the hunting is pretty good compared to what I experienced closer to the center of the park. The best part is the scenery and almost total absence of hunting pressure. I have got to think that the same might be true down on the SE corner, in Fulton county. Maybe a little more pressure though, because of your closer proximity to New York city. There is no place I would rather hunt than the Adirondacks. The only problem with hunting there is that it makes hunting at home loose some of it's appeal.

Are there any oaks in your woods? Apples are good, but white oak acorns are best when it comes to attracting deer. If you can cut ash, maple, poplar, etc, and make more room for the oaks, that would be good. As Grow has explained, spring planting of clover, without knowing your soil PH, would be risky (it does not do well in acidic soil, which is to be expected in cleared hardwoods). Dig up some soil now and get a soil test, then add lime as needed as soon as you can. While it is working, you can plant something like buckwheat in the late spring. Deer and turkeys like buckwheat, it is cheap, does well in acidic soils, and will control weeds over the summer. It is not frost tolerant and should not be planted before mid-June in that area. By late summer, the lime will have taken effect. Then you can till up the buckwheat and plant a mix of winter wheat and white clover. Deer like wheat better that cerial rye and it is cheaper and easier to find. People only plant cerial rye because they don't know no better. I also add some soybeans to that mix, which are like candy to deer when they first sprout. That will draw deer to the plots from miles around. The first frost will kill the soybeans, but odds are that the deer will get them first. After they are gone, the wheat will hang on to give you good attraction thru spring. Mow it off before it goes to seed. The wheat will also control weeds, acting as a nurse crop for the clover. The white clover should then give you 3-5 more years of good attraction with nothing more than a mowing or two per season for maintenance.

There are quite a few deer farms in NY state. They would probably sell you as much blood as you wanted at $5/ounce.

The air strikes will weaken them but it will take boots on the ground to eliminate them. Hopefully Trump and Putin can work together like Eisenhower and Zukov did in WW2, squeezing them from the West and East.

I doubt he would go for that. He is a meat hunter and unless the deer happens to be perfectly aligned with the gun barrel, they say that a lot of meat gets wasted. I only ever saw (or heard of) that shot being perfectly executed one time. That takes more than good marksmanship. Hitting a broadside deer in the heart is relatively easy.

I hunted deer out of Galusha's camp on Lewey lake quite a few years ago. I think they still rent cabins. There was a small pasture directly across rt 30 from the camp. On the South end of Lewey there was a big grassy swamp area. Most of the rest of the area was pretty thick. Turkeys were few and far between back then, but I did have my first run-in with an Adirondack buck a stones throw from that little pasture. All of my Adirondack hunting lately has been on the NW edge of the park where the turkey population has been very good. Now, with a second consecutive "non-winter", it should be spectacular this spring.

You can not shoot within 500 feet of a building unless you own it or have permission from the owner. That might give the folks who don't get along with their neighbors some issues. I have shot one deer, a red fox, several coyotes, a rabbit, a raccoon, and too many woodchucks and crows to count, out of my bedroom window. It is really no different, from a legal standpoint, than a big, climate-controlled ground blind. I have no superstitions, but have never wanted for venison as long as I made an honest effort to keep things right with my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That basically comes down to 4 things: 1) Read the Bible every day 2) Pray every day 2) Take the family to Church on Sunday's 4) Do good stuff for others, expecting nothing in return. The more I do that, the "luckier" I get. There is no surprise there since it say's right in the Bible that He knows where every sparrow falls. What chance does a deer have?

Like grampy, my Ithaca, 16 ga model 37 is my favorite gun. It had been my grandpa's gun, and he willed it to me, along with a few others. I killed a lot of deer with it, including my first dozen or so and the two with the largest racks. I did not do so good on birds with it, using the modified barrel. I remember a grouse hunt with my great-uncle and cousin, when I shot about 15 times without even nocking a feather off from one. I do a lot better on those with the old Stevens springfield side by side 16 gauge that he also left me. That modified barrel has not been on the Ithaca 37 in about 35 years, since I mounted a 1-1/2 Weaver on the receiver, to go with the long cylinder-choke deerslayer barrel. Looking back, I would have rather had a model 870 Rem for my first buck. I did not have a slug in the gun yet (it was a couple seconds before sunrise) when the buck stepped out of the brush, right under my tree stand. Fortunately, he stuck his nose into the Hawken tobacco stain that I was making in the snow below my tree, giving me time to jam a "legal" slug up from the bottom. I hoped that it found the chamber when I slammed the action back. With a side-ejecting 870, I could have fed the slug directly into the chamber. A few years after that, I pushed the range limits a bit with it, allowing me to take my largest antlered buck. Had someone else not shot off a rear hoof a week or so prior, my own first shot, which took out the opposite diagonal front leg, would have never slowed him down enough so that I could run him down and kill him with my last slug. I also killed my second largest antlered buck with it, from about 10 yards away, 5 years ago. These days, I only hunt with it when I know that all shots will be less than 75 yards. That is not too often. It would be hard for me to part with it, since my grandpa left it to me and I killed my two largest antlered deer with it. I did not hunt with it at all last season, but I hope to this year. I am going to put up a stand, on my grandpa's old farm, in some thick cover where deer always seem to head later in gun season when the pressure is on. Shots would be close in there. It can't hurt to use grandpa's old gun on his farm where I know he used it to kill a fair number of deer. I have only killed a few over there, and none of them with that gun.

I would go back about 150 years and hunt whales from an open boat. Getting a harpoon into a big hump-back, tossing a couple loops of rope around the loggerhead, and hanging on for the Nantucket sleigh-ride would be cool.

I like what I see so far from Trump. Making his first official order of business a signature to begin the replacement of Obamacare was cool. That shows that he is a man of action, not just talk (like the last guy) and will follow thru on his promises. His recognition that having God on our side was "the most important" thing, during his inauguration speech, was very encouraging. The national prayer service was very good with diversity and representation of many religions, but with the largest focus on Christianity. That makes a lot of sense in this country where 75% still identify themselves as Christians but all are welcome. This should mark the start of the end of the almost free ride that the radical Muslim extremists enjoyed under the previous administration. Morale, under a new Commander and Chief with a clear focus on who the enemy is, already seems greatly improved in our armed forces.

I got my girls a BB guns a few years ago and that is what I have been using for most of my own target shooting these days. I don't reload, and the high cost of "real" ammo has forced me to minimize it's usage. I verify the zero of all my hunting weapons each season prior to usage, but that's about it. I think 5000 BB's cost less than $5, and they only go thru one side of a can, so they can be shot multiple times prior to loss. I let my girl's try out my Ruger 10/22 for the for time over the long Thanksgiving weekend up at their grandparent place in the Adirondacks. They loved not having to pump the Crossman 760 or cock the Daisy Red-ryder. I could not believe how fast they shot up the (3) 50 packs or 22 LR ammo that I brought up there. I just picked up a 333 pack of Winchester 22LR for our trip during their winter break. I guess we are all lazy. I like the self-reset "spinning plate" target a lot better on the range than running back and forth setting up the cans. Also, .22 is ammo is getting a lot easier to find, and dropping back down in cost.

That would have been an ideal situation to use "bloodglow" to locate the carcass. That stuff is supposed to make tiny drops of blood, that are invisible to the naked eye in broad daylight, glow bright green under the star and moonlight at night. It contains the active ingredient luminol and was developed for crime scene investigations. Rain is supposed to make it work even better. I bought a kit, containing enough for 3 uses, 3 years ago (cost about $20, ordered thru the internet) because not much bothers me more than not being able to quickly recover a wounded deer (most of our family's protein comes from venison). If nothing else, having it in my pack gives me the confidence to hunt right up until the last minute of legal daylight. Before I had it, I would usually pack it in about a half hour early, especially during archery season. "Backing out until morning" is nuts if you place any value on the meat (I don't care much about the antlers). I have not yet got to try it, because the seven deer I have killed since getting it have dropped dead in their tracks, within sight, or close enough that I could hear the crash. I guess that is good, but I am itching for a chance to try this stuff out, but not so much that I will not always aim for the most lethal hit possible on a deer.

I remember a situation, also involving a gutted mule deer, that probably would have scared some folks. I was dragging it mostly downhill, on a well-used hiking trail, along a creek, on the edge of a Colorado ski-town. Two, big unleashed dogs approached from below, and the fresh carcass attracted their full attention. I had shot the buck at about 9:00 in the morning. It was mostly downhill, so I decided to drag it out myself, about 5 miles thru the Rockies. Fortunately, I had water purification tablets and a canteen with me, and I must have drank 4 gallons of water from the creek while dragging that deer. The temperature was up to about 75 degrees by mid-afternoon when them dogs attacked. I had packed the inside with snow from the shaded side of a mountain and a bag containing the heart and liver were also tucked in there. The dogs tore open that bag and quickly chomped down the contents as I fumbled around for the sling-shot that was in my pack. I did not want to kill the dogs with my rifle, I just wanted to scare them off. Before I found the sling shot, two young women in brightly colored jogging outfits came up the hill and called off their dogs. They looked at me and the opened up deer and one of them said "Eweu, thats gross". I replied "Bambi was hurt bad, I was trying to get him to the vet but it don't look good now since your dogs just ate his heart". They did not reply, just continued on their way. Before I got back to our truck, parked at the trail-head, they came back down past me, again not saying a word.

It is looking better after we get thru this week. The extended forecast is showing no temperatures above freezing after that for the Northern part on NY state anyhow. We are heading up in February when my daughters have their winter break from school. Fortunately, my in laws have one of those floating plastic docks up there, that they leave in all winter. Also, the water level in the lake was at an all time high level, prior to freeze, thanks to the monsoon rains that came on opening weekend of gun-season. If the ice is questionable, we will just stay on the dock and drill our holes off the end.

I have hunted moose and bear in Canada and elk and mule deer in Colorado when I was younger. Those were fun and I am glad to have had the experiences. I would not want to do those again however (or any other "exotic" locations) because they pale in comparison to the whitetail hunts I have experienced in recent years up in New York's Adirondacks. The main reason for that is the scenery is so much better up there. The endless bush and lack of hills up in Canada leaves much to be desired, as does the high-desert of Colorado. It is also great to be able to drive your meat home easily, and to not have to fly, or buy an out-of-state hunting license. At this point of my life, I feel extremely blessed to be able to do my "ultimate dream hunt" several times a year. One thing I will give those other places, is that the moose and elk were very good eating, matching or exceeding corn-fed NY whitetail in quality of taste and greatly exceeding it in quantity. Getting it out of the woods and home is difficult and expensive however. To this day, moose-tongue remains the best flavored wild game I have ever tasted, while canned moose meat with gravy over noodles is awesome as well. The mule deer was so bad tasting, compared to a whitetail, that I would never consider hunting them again. I have no idea why elk, taken from the same area as them, taste so much better. I also don't care for the look of mule deer or elk antlers and shoulder mounts, but moose are cool.

I have to thank my internet-stalker Chef for bringing my best buddy Jesus Christ onto this thread. He is the one who determines when and where every person and animal's time on earth ends. Knowing that takes all of the fear out of any situation for those of us who believe in him. I will continue to pray for those who don't whether they appreciate it or not. It is really great to see our country moving in the right direction again with the new administration starting tomorrow. That win was just one of many prayers that were answered for me over the last year. I did pray for Chef to fill his buck tag, but The Good Lord has his schedule and we have ours. Hang in there Chef, it might happen this season.

Stop by in your bunny suit to help out at the barn raising. Probably no carrots, but free beer and venison for lunch.

I use them to store my boats, tools, lawnmowers, tractors and other food plotting equipment. Next year I am tearing them down and putting up a new pole-barn.

I am thankful that I need to shoot my crossbow to unload it. That forces me to practice throughout the season. That builds confidence in my ability to hit the individual hair that I aim at when a deer offers me a shot. I worked great this year, when a buck showed up the day after I unloaded my crossbow from my previous hunt. He was even at the same range that I fired my unloading bolt from. That bolt hit dead center on the bull and the one on the deer hit almost exactly where I aimed. He dropped dead in sight after taking the bolt diagonally thru the chest from my $250 entry-level crossbow. I may upgrade after full inclusion, but this thing has certainly smoked them every time so far, so I am in no hurry to change if it stays just the last two weeks again this year.

As a pure meat-hunter, I think the DEC does a pretty good job in NY state. I do understand why the trophy-hunters are not too happy. Consider a move to one of the other 49 states if you don't like what we have here. I like it that I can shoot any buck that I choose. For the last few years, I have passed a few 1.5 year bucks earlier in the seasons, and nearly every time was rewarded with a larger or older one later, but I still hope that we never see mandatory antler restrictions. I pass smaller 1.5's only because they have less meat on them, not in a quest for more wall decorations. If I have a buck tag late in the season and a 3" unicorn presents a shot, I am taking it. The only little tweaks I would like to the current seasons is full inclusion of the crossbow in archery season, and maybe a return to the October 15 opener. I miss having those first couple weeks of October for squirrel, rabbit and grouse hunting, but I just can't bring myself to hunt small game when deer season is open and my freezer is empty or close to it.

I am very thankful that I don't need to do deer drives to get plenty of venison to feed my family. Almost taking one to the head took all of the fun out of those for me. Do you and your buddies still drive after that? I rarely leave my stand or blind now, unless I know there are few if any other hunters around. Still-hunting up in the Adirondacks is pretty cool.

I only got scared one time while hunting. It was at least 25 years ago. I was hunting up in a tree-stand and saw a doe at the far edge of an open field on our farm. She was feeding along the hedgerow and was about 25 yards beyond the effective range of my 16 gauge, smooth-bore slug gun. I decided to climb down and try to close the range. Before I got close enough, she walked thru the hedge-row. On the other side was a long hay-field, about 100 yards wide, owned by a neighbor who does not hunt, but lets those of us on each side hunt there if we want to. I made my way thru the hedge row, which was quite thick with brush. I stepped out into the open and saw the doe out in the middle of the field. I did not raise my gun, because I noted orange, right behind the deer, at the far back corner of that field. I was also wearing a blaze orange vest and hat. I felt the pressure wave of the first shot against my face a split second before I heard it. It felt like someone had slapped me on the ear. I hit the dirt, and the next 4 shots sprayed chunks of it all over me. The guy never touched the doe, but scared me pretty good. It took about a half hour for my heart rate to return to normal. I also got scared once while trapping. That was about 35 years ago. It was mid-winter and I was on my way back from checking traps on our old snowmobile. I took a short cut across what looked like an open field. A new subdivision was under construction, and I found myself on some thin-ice over a basement hole that must have been recently excavated and filled with water. The ice broke and the sled went down. I got soaked below the shoulders. The temperature was close to zero. I left it there an bee-lined it to our house, about a mile away. Since I was already soaked, I took the crow-flies route, right thru the creek, rather than the long way around, over the bridge. I was numb from the neck down by the time I reached the house. I got out of my wet clothes, took a cool shower, and waited for my dad to get home from work. We went back there with a long chain and his truck and hauled out the snowmobile. It ran fine after it dried out.

It don't get much tougher than that, trying to draw a bow on a group of does. One pair of eyes will bust you every time. Killing a lone buck is child's play in comparison. Too bad you didn't have a crossbow, you would probably be eating tenderloins tonight if you did. t

I don't see it as a lack of common sense, but more of pure evil, greed and lazyness. People want to take short cuts and let someone else pay the bills and do all the work. It has always been that way and always will be. Someday, they will get what is coming to them. Until then, even the greedy, evil, lazy folks fear getting shot.