wolc123

I have shot exactly one bolt at a deer with my entry-level 300 fps crossbow and it pierced his heart at 59 yards. Although it hit the right spot, it only had enough energy to penetrate 8". The accuracy was there but not the energy. I like "pass thru". All of my other archery kills (with a compound bow) have been less than 35 yards. I don't think that "string" jump is an issue beyond 40 yards, because that is about the extent of a deer's "danger-zone" (where they will react to the sound of the release). That may vary a bit depending on how loud your bow is (my 300 fps model is not very loud). I have seen deer move very far after my compound's release (in the 15-30 yard range), and caught a couple shoulder blades as a result of that. The buck who's heart I hit at 59 yards never flinched at the release but did a very fast 40 yard dash to his death after the hit. Range is just one of many variables that need to be considered when taking a shot at a deer. Now that I know the energy limitations of my current set-up, I will limit shots with it to 50 yards. I picked up a range finder last year to help me with that. Range is just about the easiest variable there is to learn your limitations on with a crossbow.

That turkeyfeather thread with his daughter and the big walleye got me thinking of all the fishing partners I have had thru almost 50 years. I have had lots of them, starting with my mom's dad when I was three years old. He always wanted a boy, but got three daughters instead and was thrilled with his first grandson (me). Not many girls seem to get "bitten" by the fishing bug. My youngest daughter gets into it a bit at times, but it is low on her priority list. My wife seemed to like it a lot while we were dating and first married, but lost interest after we had a couple kids. A lot of friends have fished with me thru the years, and I can think of about a dozen who would probably go this weekend if I gave them a call. Fortunately, there has been one who has been along on every trip. A couple trips ago, in late August, He really made his presence felt. We were camping down on Findley lake, in the far SW corner of NY state. This is normally a slow time on that lake. The fish must get lazy when the water temperature reaches it's late summer peak. My friend's 20 year old son (who is about the only person I know who likes fishing as much as I did at that age), and me had tried every trick in the book, starting at sunrise, with not so much as a nibble. We went back to the campsite for lunch with our families. Mid-day is usually the worst time to fish there, but we grabbed our rain gear (the sky was turning grey) and headed back out after a quick meal with the girls. Back out on the lake, it soon began to rain. At times the showers were intense, but they did not last long. The wind was not bad, it was warm, and we had rain gear. Between downpours, music began to play. Apparently the rain had shorted something out in the wiring, causing our boat's radio to come on. It was a Christian channel and the song was about Jesus. Within minutes of the music starting, we landed our first fish (a northern pike of about 30 inches length). We decided to let the music play and I even cranked up the volume a bit. Over the next several hours, the action was almost non-stop, including a few "doubles" where we had to take turns with the net. Our boat's livewell could not hold all the fish. On that trip, we ended up with 15 keeper sized northers (all of which we released), and 3 smallmouth bass (we kept two of them to eat). About half of the northerns were over 30 inches, and the largest was 35. So much for "keeping quite to not scare the fish".

Range is just one of many variables that go into killing an animal. If most of the other variables are near optimum levels, then I know, from first hand experience, that it can be pushed out a bit with little risk of a wounded animal. Some of the more important variables include: Hunter skill, freedom from obstructions, target position, target awareness, wind velocity/direction, rest, and impact energy. String jump would not be a factor at 130 yards. In my experience, that has been the worst between 15 and 35 yards. With archery equipment, I have only shot one deer past 35 yards, and he did not flinch until the bolt pierced his heart at 59. He did a very fast 40 yard dash after that however.

If you do decide on a smoothbore shotgun for deer, an older Ithaca model 37 pump would be a good choice. Bottom eject, so there are no left/right concerns. There are lots of them around, so finding one in excellent condition should not be an issue. My grandad gave me his 16 gauge, with a "deerslayer" barrel when I was 16. I have also owned an older, 12 ga Remington 870 Wingmaster, and still have a newer Express and neither is as smooth as that old Ithaca. My only issue with that Ithaca is that it kicks like mule. It is a featherweight version, basically built on a 20 gauge frame, but the factory 16 ga ammo is loaded nearly as heavy as 12 gauge. That adds up to a heck of a wallop on your shoulder, more even than a Ruger #1 rifle in .458 win magnum that I fired a few times. I have killed more deer than I can remember with that old Ithaca, including my two largest-racked bucks, and I never noticed the recoil in a hunting situation. On the range is a different story however, and I always use a thick, pin-on recoil pad when practicing with it. That tames it down completely. For a rifle, I am pleased with my Ruger M77 30/06 and if I could only have one, that would be it. It looks good too, with a Redfield, Low-profile 3-9 scope, blued barrel, and laminated wood stock. More importantly, it has always gotten the job done for me, both on Western mule deer hunts and NY whitetails. I don't think they make them like that anymore, and if I were to buy a single new rifle today, specifically for whitetails in NY, it would likely be a Ruger American in .308 caliber. I will probably end up buying one of those in .243 caliber over the next few years. It would make a good pair, with my M77, 30/06. The light weight would be nice on the Adirondack hunts I have been getting more into lately, and the composite stock would be an advantage in adverse weather conditions. Everything I hear about them say's that they are amazingly accurate and reasonably priced.

I had not thought about the turkeys. They have been hitting my new plots pretty hard, mostly picking out the soybeans (which I added to the wheat/clover mix), as they sprout. They are leaving the wheat and clover alone for the most part. We have had near perfect rainfall since planting those around Aug 15 so those plots are looking great this year. I will get the wheat out quick on the old clover plots (dad has not fed it all to the chickens yet) before this Saturday's predicted rain. Wheat always provides a much stronger hunting season attraction to deer for me than clover, so I have nothing to loose by giving it a try.

As long as you keep the wind right, your smelly feet wont hurt you that bad. Heck, a lot of guy's take coffee into their stands, which is a far more powerful odor that deer associate with humans than feet (I drink hot apple cider up there in cold weather). On calm days, or with light variable winds, you will definitely struggle if your feet stink. If you can smell them, you can bet a deer will pick them up from a great distance. Maybe a strong cover scent such as skunk or fox urine would help you then. Even on days with a steady wind, with stinky feet, you will need to be extra careful of the route you take into your stand, as the scent trail you lay down will linger for a long time. There ought to be tons of info available on-line on how to deal with that problem. It might be a good question for your doctor. If you can't find anything else, ditch the rubber boots and try wearing Crocks on your way in and out of your stand (they are made from some "magic" material that does not hold odor). Carry a towel with you to dry your feet, and some warm, heavy wool socks to put on when you get to your stand.

I have been using wheat with new clover plots (planted Aug 15 - Sept 15) for quite a few years, because it is easier to find than rye, cheaper, and deer like it better. The wheat provides a good hunting plot in the fall. I never tried adding it to old clover plots, but it seems like a good idea. When my old clover plots get weedy, I usually just plow them under shallow and put in corn. The corn loves all that "free" nitrogen, which allows it to provide half-way decent yields with very little additional fertilizer. I do have a few plots of old clover where I can not easily get a corn planter or plow into, so I may give the "wheat before rain" a try yet this fall. Hopefully, my dad has not already fed the leftover wheat I gave him to his chickens.

In times of war, such as we are in now with ISIS, you will not see accurate public weather forecasts. That is a good thing, and certainly saves lives. It has been that way since the development of air-power, which is highly affected by weather conditions. If our enemy had access to accurate weather forecasts, they could time their attacks accordingly. It is much better to keep them guessing. With a poorly equipped, semi-dysfunctional enemy such as that we are facing now, it is even more important. They have smart phones and TV's, but that is about it. If you want to see accurate weather forecasts, vote someone into power this November who has the gut's to end this war, and make America great again. Don't blame the weathermen (and women) for doing their patriotic duty with their bumbling forecasts.

I agree that you will regret it some day even if you have the wall space. I just don't see the number of points you are missing as a good reason to use your buck tag to kill and mount a small 1-1/2 year old buck. The regret will hit you hard later when you are out hunting does and a monster presents a cake shot while you are "tagless". There is surely nothing wrong with mounting them if they are special in another way however, such as that "hard to get 6" .

One big advantage you have with bow-hunting, is that it is legal to take anterless deer during archery season. In about 20 years of hunting up there, I have seen roughly 10 antlerless deer for every antlered one. For many years, it has also been legal to take them during the early ML season, but the state is taking that away in a few zones this year, in effort to boost the population a bit. We have never had as mild of winter up there as we got last year, so I would expect the population to be good this fall. As has been mentioned by previous posters, the foliage limits your visibility during archery season, so locating feeding area's is critical. There is not much food available deep in the forests which have mostly never been logged. It sounds cool to hike in miles from the road. There you will find peaceful scenery, but not much deer action. In some areas, the cut areas on the roadsides are the best food that the deer have, so the best hunting is often very close to the road. If you can locate old, long-abandoned farms along these roads, and find old fence lines, that is a good area to look for trails. In the central Adirondacks, I have found deer hair stuck on some old rusty barbed-wire. The last time I did that, I located the nearest patch of heavy cover, circled around down-wind, and walked up within 40 yards of four deer. One ran off to my left, and three straight ahead. It was early rifle season, so I could only watch them bound away (those three lacked antlers). I saw only the rear and tail on the one that ran left, but it's tracks were significantly larger than the other three so I suspect it was a buck. That cover was only about 50 yards off the main highway (RT 30). Certainly that area would have been a prime spot for a bow stand. I would concentrate on edges and food sources. Lakes, creek-bottoms, and beaver ponds are good, but mast-producing trees are best. There are not many of those in the central Adirondacks, but they are fairly abundant on the edges. A few years ago, I was out in my boat on a lake fishing in the fall (ML season) and heard a deer snorting up on the adjacent hill top. The next morning, I snuck up there from downwind and noted several deer feeding on acorns on the next hilltop (out of range). The following season, I got up on that oak ridge before daylight, and a group of five or six antlerless deer, led by a huge doe (which I killed), walked to within 20 yards of me, soon after sunrise. That would have been a prime spot for a bow stand. I had no issue, slowly pointing the ML at her chest, but drawing a bow from the ground would have been tricky with all those sets of eyes. I have had many less encounters with deer in and around the Adirondacks, than I have killed in the Southern zone of NY, but every one was memorable, due to the "best in world" scenery up there. When every thing does come together, as it did for me two years ago when I killed my largest-bodied buck ever up there, you get a little taste of what Heaven must be like. My "taste" came late in the fall, with all the leaves down, and snow on the ground, from a bit over 300 yards with my rifle. In close with a bow, with the brilliant fall foliage still up on the trees, would be even better. Good luck up there this fall.

Making that perimeter cut carefully takes some time however, and it is usually "prime-time" that could otherwise be used pursuing some more venison. From the video's, it does not look like much "brute force" is needed. The trick seems to be rotating it just 1-1/2 times after insertion, before pulling it out.

Amazon was selling the butt out 2 for $6.99 today, so I ordered one. That seems like a reasonable cost for "the best piece of gear ever". Hopefully, I will get to try it out on some deer in a few more weeks.

Tracking the "double-lungers" is cool, especially when they run into a field of standing corn. You know they won't get too far when the blood is dripping from the stalks on each side. I have been looking forward to a night track, since I picked up some "bloodglow" a couple years ago. That "CSI" stuff, when mixed with water, is supposed to make tiny drops of blood glow brightly under the star or moon light. The trouble is, the two bucks I killed since getting it have fallen dead after a 40 yards run (heart shot bolt), and in his tracks (diagonal thru chest, quartering away - 30/06 rifle). If anyone hits one with a bow and can't find it at between OCT 1 and OCT 14, shoot me pm and we will see how it works. If I find your deer , I would only ask for the heart and liver (if it's a young one). After that, I am heading to the NZ for ML season.

With bucks, I like the center lung, just behind the shoulder, mostly because it gives the greatest margin for error, but also because it ruins very little good meat. I don't like hitting the heart with a gun, because that is one of my favorite parts to eat and the "shock" of the bullet really messes it up. I have often gone there with arrows (and a bolt) however. That don't ruin the tissue and just makes for a little less slicing later when cutting it up to eat. I do prefer shoulder shots on doe with a gun, and am willing to sacrifice a bit of meat there for two reasons: If she has fawns with her, as is usually the case, dropping her in her tracks makes it easier to keep the family together on their journey to "deer heaven" (my family's food supply). Second, having that "fresh doe" in range can attract a buck to the same spot, sometimes in just a few minutes. Trading a few ounces of meat for a good chance at a "double" or more is a real good deal.

I have been hunting from the ground more lately and being able to move easily as wind changes direction is a big plus. I picked up one of those light weight, hammock chairs, with a single pedestal that straps easily to any tree and makes it real easy to move around. When you are on the ground, you can always have the wind from the best direction. That could be part of the reason why the last two mature bucks I killed were from the ground. Also, bucks have a tough time getting old if they don't learn how to avoid danger from above.

No idea, never heard of repetitveness. Maybe it is time to move the thread back towards wind direction. No more math questions please. I see "west" in a lot more posts that "east". Any other theories as to why that might be?

Yes, No, No. That was 3 questions. "a" = 1. How did you do in math back in the day?

Yes but not big enough to measure with currently available instrumentation. Every action has a reaction: Beer + Beans = Fart

"Local weather disturbances may provide that "force" and cause the wind to temporarily deviate from the prevailing westerly direction." That should cover it Rob, any more questions?

Physics might explain the prevailing west wind. We have day and night because the earth is round and spins, like on an axis, at one revolution per day, while orbiting the sun at one revolution per year. Because the sun rises in the east, the earth's daily rotation must be towards the west. If not, then those folks to the west would see the sunrise earlier than those to the east. What we feel as "wind", may be air standing still, but the ground below it rotating towards the west. Newton's law say's that a body at rest stays at rest, unless acted on by a force. Local weather disturbances may provide that "force" and cause the wind to temporarily deviate from the prevailing westerly direction. Knowing the diameter of the earth, it would be easy to calculate the average velocity of the west wind over a long period of time. It is quite a stretch to think that this stuff happens as it does by random chance and without a divine creator.

About 10 years ago, up on Long lake, an old codger and his wife nearly cut my canoe in half with a rowboat powered by a 15 hp outboard. I was drifting for smallmouths, using a 5-gallon bucket as a sea anchor to hold sideways, near the center of the lake. That prevented any quick, evasive action on my part, as I noticed them heading right towards me. The woman was in the bow with her back to me. She had a towel or something, held up on an oar, completely blocking her husband's view of what was out front (me). I timed my yell for when I thought it would do the most good, and they swung hard port, just missing me, as they steamed by at full throttle. Visions of JFK on PT 109 flashed thru my mind.

For many years, I would estimate the yardage and I got pretty good at it after lots of practice on the range with my bow and a full-size 3D deer target. That method works well if you have a lot of spare time. Lacking that these days, mostly due to family responsibilities and work, I now use a laser rangefinder. I bought it last season, after hitting a buck about 6" lower than the hair I intended to hit, due to underestimating the range by 9 yards, the year prior. Fortunately, he only made it 40 yards after taking the arrow thru the heart. I don't actually range the deer with the rangefinder, but use it from my stands, on landmarks (trees, rocks, stumps, etc.), especially spots where I think a deer might present a shot. The one I bought works very well from 10 to 400 yards and I use it with a crossbow, ML, smooth bore and rifled bore slug-guns, and a rifle. I know the effective range of all these weapons from time on the range, and the rangefinder allows me to stay within that with no "guesswork". It has a feature to measure the true horizontal distance, which is a concern if you are hunting from a higher elevation than your target, such as a tree-stand or a mountain ridge. Again, due to limited free time, and the legalization of the crossbow (for a short part of archery season anyhow) I no longer hunt with a bow. When I did, I used a single pin and I learned where to aim on the deer's vitals based on the estimated range. My bow shot relatively flat from 5 to 25 yards, and all of my shots were in that range. If the deer was close, I would aim low, at the heart, if far, "high lung", just below the spine. That usually resulted in a center-lung hit. I don't recall ever missing low, but I did strike a couple in the shoulder blade, when they "jumped" the string after hearing the bow release. Fortunately, they usually recover well from that injury. A friend actually harvested one of them a month later whith a gun and his shoulder was all healed up with just a big scar to show for it.

While bass fishing up there earlier this summer, I caught a couple (24" and 27") on a drift a few miles downstream of Wellsley island, out in the main channel on the US side, in front of goose bay. I never target walleyes, but have caught a few others by accident up there over the years, mostly in that same area. This was the first time with two in less than 15 minutes however, so maybe their population is up a bit. They were in 28 and 30 ft depth, on the edge of a a narrow shoal, which rose to within 5 ft of the surface and dropped off to over 60 ft deep on each side. The smallmouth were fewer, but bigger than normal this year (stuffed from round gobbies I suppose). The walleyes also looked to be fat and well fed. I hope you knock the heck out of them to make room for more bass.

I like a mix of winter wheat, white clover, and soybeans planted in late August to early September. Get the ground tilled up, adding some 5-10-5 fertilizer, prior to the last pass with a disk. Broadcast the wheat and soybeans, then cultipack. Broadcast the clover, then cultipack again. The sprouting soybeans will soon draw in deer from miles around. They will hang around thru hunting season to feed on the wheat. Bushhog that down the following late spring, before it goes to seed. The clover will then give you 3-5 more good years with just one or two mowings a year. Prior to all that, a soil test to determine the PH is a good idea. Lime is often needed to get good clover plots but wheat will grow on poor soil.