wolc123

That doe is special for sure and deserves a mount. The prior owner of a tavern that I have frequented for many years had a "tail up" back-end deer mount that was pretty cool. They had a lot of other mounts there, including big-racked whitetail bucks, elk, water foul and small game. Many years after a change of ownership, and the removal of all that taxidermy, everyone still talks about that deer back-side the most. I think that's what I would opt for with an "extra special" doe. It sounds like you have a awesome property there and it is great that you were able to share your story with your MIL before her passing. Good luck thru the rest of the season.

Did you use a grunt tube or rattling to bring the buck into range? When you drew your bow, was the buck's eyes partially in view? If your answer to either in those questions was "yes", then the buck was in a state of "high alert" when you took your shot. 25 yards is just about the range where "string jump" is most severe, especially on a deer in "high alert". I have hit a few in the shoulder, one doe (or another in her group) probably glimpsed my draw, one buck I rattled in, and the other I grunted in. I know that feeling you have now all too well and I hope to never have it again. I had some consolation later with one because a friend killed him with a gun a month or so later and he was healed up with just a big scar on the shoulder I hit. The other two still haunt me more than 30 years later. I don't remember all of the deer I have killed and recovered during archery season but I will never forget those that I lost. Lots of folks are not bothered too much by wounding deer and go right back out the next day, sometimes wounding more before the season ends. I was never able to do that, and always hung up my bow for the remainder of the season if I could not recover my deer. That is a personal choice for you alone and I don't mean to sway you one way or the other. We all make mistakes and that is how we learn. I have stopped using grunt calls and rattling during archery season (I don't want the deer to have a clue that they are about to get hit). The last few seasons I have even stopped using my vertical bow, since they legalized the crossbow. That eliminates the need to draw when the deer are in close. If the unthinkable does happen again someday, I picked up a product called "bloodglow" two years ago (about $20 for enough to track three deer). It is supposed to make blood glow under the star and moonlight at night when mixed with water. It is supposed to work even better in the rain. I hope to never need it and the (3) deer I have killed since getting it have all died on the spot or within 40 yards of the shot. I always used to pack it in a little early on afternoon hunts, to allow some time for daylight blood-trailing but having the bloodglow in my pack gives me the confidence to hunt right up until legal sunset.

What you already have, plus a whistle, space blanket, small folding saw, protein bars, flashlight, extra batteries, and extra ammo (caps,bullets,powder). A canteen and water purification tablets also come in very handy if you have to pack or drag out a deer a long way. I don't worry much about the purification tablets in the Adirondacks because fresh, clean water is easy to find in deer season up there and I have always been able to get my father in law's ATV fairly close to where I have killed deer. I do remember drinking gallons of "questionable" water as I dragged a mullie from high up a mountain, about 5 miles, down to a trailhead one year on a western hunt however. Each time I emptied my quart canteen, I would go down to the creek, full it up, and add another purification tablet. It is unreal how much you sweat dragging a heavy load at high altitude and warm temperatures. If you do happen to get into a survival situation, remember the "rules of threes": You can go 3 seconds without thinking, 3 minutes without air, 3 hours without shelter, 3 days without water, and 3 weeks without food.

I don't have a whistle in my hunting pack, but I think there is one with a compass and a waterproof match container in the toolbox on my boat. I am going out to the barn right now to get it and I will pack it away for my Adirondack ML hunt next weekend. The extra compass and matches wont hurt nothing either and it takes up less room in my pack than the new butt-out 2 that I just picked up.

Do you use regular black electric tape and do you shoot thru it? I would like full inclusion mostly because that would make it easy for me to fill my DMP tags. Right now, the does and fawns are still out on the clover plots feeding during daylight hours. That always changes, after a few weeks of archery season pressure, when they become almost completely nocturnal. I have always struggled taking does with a vertical bow because they are almost always in groups and fooling all those sets of eyes while making the draw is no easy task. The crossbow eliminates the need to draw while they are in close, which would make it very lethal on does compared to a vertical bow. I would not trade the first 14 days of archery season for the last however, because the last 14 days before gun season always includes the peak of the rut in the Southern zone. That is my favorite time to hunt.

Venison tacos are the best, and that is what we used our last pack for this week. I might just have to thaw out some roasts and put them thru the grinder. With the cold weather coming in, your luck should be changing soon, so get ready for one. I look forward to seeing some pics and I just put in a good word for your son and Turkeyfeather's daughter with my buddy JC. He has helped our family get all the venison we need every year.

Won't you be toting your ML over the last 7 days? I only plan on using my crossbow if it is warm and rainy on those days up in the Northern zone (you got to keep your powder dry). The reason for that is, I am lethal out to 125 yards with my ML and just a shade over 50 with my crossbow. I would certainly buy some better equipment and extend that a bit if they allowed full inclusion. Down here in the Southern zone, we have no early ML season but they allow us 14 days, at the end of archery season, to use the crossbow. Hopefully that will be antlerless only for me this year, if I can get my ML/archery buck filled up in the northern zone next week.

When I finish a hunt, I fire a bolt tipped with a field point, of the same weight as my hunting broadheads, into a target bag. For afternoon hunts, the bag goes under a floodlight in the back yard. That makes it easy in the dark, with the illuminated red-dot sight my crossbow. Placing that bolt dead center on the bullseye not only unloads the crossbow, but also builds my confidence for the next hunt. I made a target bag by filling an empty nylon seed bag with old towels and rags. It did not cost me a dime, stops the bolts better than those store-bought foam block targets, the bolts pull out easier, and it is lighter and easier to transport. A small minority of selfish, elitist bowhunters has delayed the crossbow into archery season in NY and still prevents "full inclusion". They don't want to share "their" deer with folks who don't have the time or ability to master a vertical bow. They would rather see motorists kill deer than "lesser" hunters.

Good luck out there with your boy on the youth hunt. I like your plan of getting him some experience with the gun and crossbow before the compound. That is what I plan with my daughters in a couple years, if they are willing. They are still in middle school and have been shooting well on targets with their bb guns. They both play field hockey now and have expressed some interest in joining the rifle team when they get to high school. One thing is certain, they both love eating venison, which puts some pressure on me to produce. It will be great when they can help me get it, not just eat it. They just finished off our last package of grind (they like that the best), leaving us with only about 30 pounds of roasts and chops in the freezer. Hopefully, I can start to re-stock during a 9-day, Adirondack ML and rifle hunt, beginning next weekend.

It sounds like broadhead made it most of the way thru at the shot, but was stopped by the front leg on the opposite side. The back third of the arrow was sheared off when her front leg (towards you) came back at the start of her death run. The front 2/3 came out when her front leg on the other side buckled and she fell down dead. I would guess that she was slightly quartering away, just like the other two. Broadside would have been a pass thru. Personally, I like quartering away because it gives a little more room for error. The only downside is it costs you a shaft and the blood trail can be tougher without an exit wound. Congrats on the doe, that should be some good eating.

There are lots of folks who won't age deer no matter what evidence is presented that aging improves the texture and flavor of red meat. They "know better" for reasons beyond my understanding and that of most butchers. The point I disagree most with, in the above article, is the section on ground meat. My experience has always been that ground meat from aged deer is not as "chewy" as that from deer that are not aged and still have the "rigermortice" in the meat. I verified that once again last season, when I ground and froze a 2-1/2 year old buck and doe the day after they were killed. The grind from both of them was significantly chewier than a 2-1/2 year old buck that I aged for a week before grinding on the year prior. A 1-1/2 year old buck, that I aged for a week prior to grind last year, was at least twice as tender as those two "quick ground" ones. I am certain that was due more to the aging than his age, because I could not tell the difference in aged 1-1/2 and 2-1/2 year old bucks the year before (another good reason to pass on the 1-1/2's early in the season). I don't always have the time to age deer and at least the grinder makes it edible with rigermortice still in it. The article is right on about leaving the hide on to insulate against high and low temps. It is the temperature of the meat that matters. An old fridge is perfect for maintaining near ideal aging temperatures over a week or more. He touches a little on water being necessary for bacteria growth (some of you fellas that like to rinse the cavity out with water might want to pay attention to that) - not a smart move unless you rupture the stomach or bladder. There is an easy way to tell when the meat is aged long enough (the guy is right on that it gets there faster when it is warmer), and that is to feel the meat. Feel it right after you kill it and remember what it felt like. Let a 1-1/2 year old deer age a week at 40 F (less time warmer, more time colder, and less time for younger deer, more time for older deer). It will feel tough, like a pencil eraser when the rigermortice takes hold, several hours after death. After that breaks down, in a week or so, it will once again feel like it did when fresh killed. That is the time to process it and freeze it. Many hunters can stomach their venison but their wives, girlfriends and others can not. If you age it properly, it will taste just like fine beef. Think about how much better hunting would be if they liked the meat. My wife is always twisting my arm to hunt more because her and the kids love the meat. She is sending me away to the Adirondacks with her folks for 9 days next week because she used our last pack of grind yesterday.

Here the second best reason to hunt the edge and not the center of the Adirondack park. The primary reason is that there are a lot less deer in the center. Deer need food and the mature forest at the center provides very little compared to the mixed farmland and logged forests on the edges. My Verizon cellphone provides excellent coverage in zones 6C and 6F at least. That makes it real nice after you get a deer (or bear). Just call camp and get someone to get an ATV as close as possible to your location (been there done that).

About 20 years ago, I dug a small pond (just under 1/4 acre x 6 foot deep) using a 3-point scoop and my old tractor. That took about (2) 50 hour weeks on that very dry summer, and the tractor needed a valve job after I finished. I dug it at the lowest point on our farm, and it has held water thru every year but this one. About 15 years ago, we had a dry year and it got down to about a foot left on thanksgiving weekend, but started filling back up after heavy rains that weekend. When I went back there this morning, all the water was gone, with just a few feet of mucky sediment in the bottom. As the level has dropped over the summer, the great blue herons have been cleaning out all of the frogs and fish (bluegills and bullheads). In a couple hours this morning, using a larger, 4wd tractor with a front loader, I was able to clean out all of the sediment and dig it about a foot deeper. It took almost as long to pressure wash that tractor afterwords as it did to clean the pond. I am kind of thankful now for the drought we had over the summer, because I did not need to rent a backhoe or pump the pond out in order to clean it. The deer use that pond a lot, so hopefully we will get some heavier rains now to fill it back up (Come on Matthew). Hopefully it will also get cold enough to freeze it this winter. We all missed skating back there last year when it never had safe ice due to the mild winter. It feels good to get that, the last of the remaining big , pre-winter jobs done. We just used our last package of ground venison, and all that remains in the freezer is about 30 pounds of vacuum-sealed roasts and chops. I definitely have some incentive now for a trip up to the Northern zone next weekend for some ML hunting. If I can do well up there, then I can leave the doe and two fawns alone who were watching me clean their bath tub this morning at home.

My 2000, 3/4 ton Silverado is still going strong but only has about 90k miles on it. I stopped using it as my daily driver about 10 years ago. Road salt has damaged it a little, with the break lines, calipers, fuel line, trans cooling lines, driveshaft, and rear diff cover all needing replacement. I drive it a lot in the winter when the snow is to deep for my car. I never had any non road-salt related problem with it, and it has never left me stranded. Even when the driveshaft rusted out and dropped, I just pulled it out and drove home in 4wd.

I have had lots of good experiences with Bass Pro. Mostly it has been internet and and catalog purchases going back quite a while. I still use the Garcia Ambassader 5500C fishing reel and Eagle silent 60 flasher that I bought from my first catalog purchase there in 1981. By charging all of my business travel expenses and gas to my BPS card, and paying it off every month, most of my sporting equipment has been free for the last 10 years or so. I have also been up to the store in Niagara-on-the-Lake Ontario a few times and the staff there is extremely helpful. I did visit the Auburn store once, and the service there was ok, but certainly not stellar like it has been up in Canada, every time. About 15 years ago, I ordered a pair of weatherproof insulated camo bibs in preparation for a western hunt. When they arrived, they were way too big. I called the store and they sent me out a new pair the right size, which arrived 2 days later (just in time for the trip) at no extra charge. They even covered the return postage on the big pair. That was the only time I tested their return policy. Everything else I have "bought" there including the Bass Pro brands (Red-Head, etc) has performed very well. I just got a new, lightweight, BPS brand spinning reel this summer, at a very low price, and it has been great. Bass Pro Shops has been my favorite store for a long time. Hopefully this deal will make them even better.

Thanks guy's, that is very helpful information for me. I am down to my last couple boxes of those Federals so I would like to make every one count. It sounds like I can hold on the backline and be good to about 350. I think I can live with that. After the leaves come down, I will use my new Laser rangefinder to be certain of the range at that hot-spot.

The problem with iron sights is that your eye can only focus at one distance at a time. Do you focus on the rear sight, the front sight or the target? This gets a lot worse as range increases. A good scope makes up for that with lenses. Parallex can be corrected to make everything crystal clear at various ranges including the cross-hairs and the target. The only time I prefer iron sights is for short range work (less than 50 yards) in foul weather conditions.

Where would it be at 300 yards Pygmy? I ask because I am shooting similar 30-06 ammo from my Ruger M77 (Federal classic 150) and today it was also dead on at 100 yards. For many years, I had it hitting 2-1/2" high but a couple weeks ago it fell out of my truck and hit the dirt when I got back from the range. After tightening all the scope mount screws and shooting it again today, the 100 yard 3-shot group was centered right on the bull. I have a hot-spot that offers a good 300 yard shot, after the leaves are down, so I would like to know what holdover to use (if any). With the 2-1/2 high zero, I did not have to worry about holdover out to 350 yards. I decided to leave it where it is for several reasons, first I am somewhat of a cheapskate and I hate to waste ammo. Second, I am going to hunt the Northern Zone Opener on October 22 this year and there will likely be lots of leaves on the trees, limiting range. And third, I always tend to aim a little high on long shots anyhow.

Where would it be at 300 yards Pygmy? I ask because I am shooting similar 30-06 ammo from my Ruger M77 (Federal classic 150) and today it was also dead on at 100 yards. For many years, I had it hitting 2-1/2" high but a couple weeks ago it fell out of my truck and hit the dirt when I got back from the range. After tightening all the scope mount screws and shooting it again today, the 100 yard 3-shot group was centered right on the bull. I have a hot-spot that offers a good 300 yard shot, after the leaves are down, so I would like to know what holdover to use (if any). With the 2-1/2 high zero, I did not have to worry about holdover out to 350 yards. I decided to leave it where it is for several reasons, first I am somewhat of a cheapskate and I hate to waste ammo. Second, I am going to hunt the Northern Zone Opener on October 22 this year and there will likely be lots of leaves on the trees, limiting range. And third, I always tend to aim a little high on long shots anyhow.

That's an awesome buck for sure. My blood was already pumping, in anticipation of a hunt up in zones 6C and 6F in a couple weeks for ML and rifle. Now I am probably going to need to get on some blood pressure meds. I just got back from the range out back, making sure my '06 is still on. I had it and my 50 cal ML hitting right where I wanted them a couple weeks ago, but it flopped out of my truck, onto the grass, when I opened the door back up at the house. It was hitting 2-1/2" high at 100 yards, prior to the fall and now, after tightening all the scope mounting screws, my 3 shot group was 1-1/2" diameter, centered on the bull. I left it right there. Hopefully that is a sign that I will have a nice easy close-range shot this year. I also picked up a new hard case, and will definitely handle my weapons more carefully after that mishap. Good luck hunting up there this fall.

That is why I would like to see the season on them be eliminated and let us hunt them year-round. It would not take long to get them under control if they did that.

I just looked it up in the regs book and it say's that coyotes can actually be hunted from October 1 thru March 26 so that includes most of fall, all of winter, and a little bit of spring. I used to be a coyote "hater" myself, but I have learned to live with them. They fill an important role in the harvest of the weak deer. That makes the surviving deer stronger and healthier. Coyotes are fun to hunt after deer season ends. My favorite method is to shoot them at night, from my bedroom window, over a pile of deer carcasses out back. I even pick up a road-kill deer when I find them after deer season ends, to add to that pile. There are plenty of coyotes around now, and I would prefer the season be open all year. The pups are most vulnerable in early summer before they learn the ropes. I could easily pick of entire litters with a semi-auto, .22 rimfire while cutting hay.

I just looked it up in the regs book and it say's that coyotes can actually be hunted from October 1 thru March 26 so that includes most of fall, all of winter, and a little bit of spring. I used to be a coyote "hater" myself, but I have learned to live with them. They fill an important role in the harvest of the weak deer. That makes the surviving deer stronger and healthier. Coyotes are fun to hunt after deer season ends. My favorite method is to shoot them at night, from my bedroom window, over a pile of deer carcasses out back. I even pick up a road-kill deer when I find them after deer season ends, to add to that pile. There are plenty of coyotes around now, and I would prefer the season be open all year. The pups are most vulnerable in early summer before they learn the ropes. I could easily pick of entire litters with a semi-auto, .22 rimfire while cutting hay.

I am waiting for the October 15 Northern zone ML opener this year before I go out. Two years ago, I was not able to practice with my bow, due to some major surgery. Fortunately, that was also the year that the state let the cross-bow in for the last 14 days of archery season in the Southern zone and the last 10 days in the Northern zone. Since getting a taste of crossbow hunting, I doubt I will ever hunt with a vertical bow again. It is so nice not to need to draw with deer in close, and to be able to fire from a rest with a telescopic sight. I can't imagine a situation where I could get a bad hit on a deer under those conditions. While I would love to see "full-inclusion", hunting both zones and having the openers about a month apart makes it bearable for me the way the rules are now. I do feel sorry for those crossbow hunters who don't have the opportunity to hunt both zones however. Maybe the state will get things straightened out and allow full inclusion prior to next season, but I won't bank on it or upgrade my entry-level crossbow equipment until they do. It may be a while yet before the current crop minority of elitist, selfish anti-crossbow bow-hunters are old enough to realize that full inclusion would give them a few more years in the woods. They still have a lot of fight in them as we will probably soon see in response to this post.

I don't care for manual digging much either. We had our septic tank pumped last week and the top of the 4 foot diameter, 500 gallon tank is 4 feet below grade. I took out the first 3 feet in about an hour with my loader tractor, but that last foot took twice that long by hand and gave me blisters. I can only imagine what my hands would look like after digging twelve, 4 foot deep holes. I understand the manual requirement under the house. The last time I used a backhoe near a house, I managed to cut an electric line, and a water line that were not close to where the homeowner thought they were.