wolc123

By by old camper. My friend, who traded me his wife’s old Durango for it, just pulled out with it:

I do similar. I pump a gallon of ethanol free into my car, to purge the line and nozzle, then fill the can. After that, I reinsert my card, and fill the car up the rest of the way with the “cheap” stuff. I have been doing that for about 10 years for about (10) small engines, none of which had given me any fuel problems during that period. In my opinion, the ethanol free gas is well worth the cost for seldom used engines. I use the cheap stuff in our automobiles, my old farm tractor, and two riding lawnmowers. Chainsaws, boat motors, generator, wood splitter, and power washer get the ethanol free stuff.

After about a half hour of range time, I have one gun ready to go, for the early September antlerless season. The skeeters were bad back there, so I didn’t have time to finish my Marlin 512, but the old Ithaca model 37, 16 ga is ok. The Durango worked well for hauling stuff back there. I need a new battery for my range finder (I think I got 5 seasons out of the first one). I didn’t bring the spotting scope, but the suv worked ok for checking targets. If I don’t get time to finish sighting in the Marlin, prior to mid-September, I will keep shots under 100 yards and stick with the Ithaca 16. I was surprised that it held its zero, after taking the barrel on and off the reciever, to which the scope is mounted.

That’s something I got to get done over the next few weeks. I received a new field car today (traded a buddy my old camper for it). The first thing I did with it, was see how it did on the trails back to the range. The Durango all wheel drive suv did very well. It has a much better suspension than the tractors I have been using to get back there the last few years. There is lots of cargo room with both rows of back seats folded down. I may take (7) guns back there next time. I will start with my Ithaca 16 gauge, which also uses Remington sluggers (I bought a case of them for $1 a box when a sporting goods store in Brewerton had a going out of business sale about 21 years ago). I am still very well stocked with those. That gun will definitely need sighting, because I exchanged the slug barrel with a bird barrel, for spring turkey season. It has a 1.5 Weaver mounted on the receiver. It is a smoothbore with an effective range of about 100 yards. The next one I will check is my Marlin 512 fully rifled bolt action 12 ga. It has an effective range closer to 200 yards (my longest deer kill with it was 163). I am pretty well stocked with sabot ammo for it. Those first two shotguns are scoped, so I will also bring back my open-sighted Remington 870 with short, smoothbore 12 ga barrel. That’s my rainy day gun and it’s effective range is about 75 yards. I am fairly well stocked with 12 ga rifled slugs, but not as well as I am with 16’s. If I have enough time, I will add my T/C Omega ML to the mix. I don’t expect that will need any major adjustments because it was right on the mark on a deer that I killed with it on New Year’s Day, just as it was on another, last October. If I have time to sight in the ML, I might as well also check my Marlin 336 BL 30/30, because I will be hunting with that on the weekend after early ML week, up in the northern zone. Guns number 6 and 7 will be my open sight Marksmen .177 pellet rife and my Ruger 10/22. I plan on bringing that pellet rifle along, as a second gun, on those September antlerless deer hunts. Squirrels will be “targets of opportunity” on those hunts, and the relatively silent report of the pellet rifle should not spook too many deer. I never go to the range without my 10/22, unless I don’t have room for it. That definitely won’t be a problem with the Durango and it’s gigantic cargo hold. Here it is, parked in front of the backstop, looking up at my 50 and 100 yard benches:

I took my wife for a ride in the Durango, when she got home from work. As we entered the field by the pond, a couple young bucks in velvet ran out of the tall grass. They looked like 4 or 6 pointers (1.25 yr olds). Most years, I would have all that tall grass cut by now. I did get one small field cut today and it was loaded with deer beds. Maybe I will leave that tall grass the pond field. I am also leaving a strip of even taller grass in my front, because I didn’t get any fieldcorn planted in that this year. The deer tend to come out into that field earlier in the afternoon, when you can’t see them from the house or the road. Usually, I have corn for cover, but the tall grass will have that job this year.

A buddy dropped of my new field suv today. It’s been a long time since I had a Chrysler product on the farm. 22 years ago, my first field car was a Plymouth Volari, with a slant-six. This Durango is pretty smooth in comparison. The all-wheel drive and long suspension travel seems to take the ditches pretty well. I didn’t see any coon damage yet in the corn, but the early sweetcorn and the rr fieldcorn is making ears, so it won’t be long now. The rr stuff is over my head now. I can’t wait for Holiday ML season. Hopefully, the city folks who have been moving in on our road lately, won’t complain about the “unlicensed vehicle”. The color blends well with my pole barn, so maybe they won’t notice it. I like to use enclosed vehicles, to get downwind of the deer, when I start my hunts. That works a lot better than an atv for that. I use my old Silverado plow truck, up at the in-laws place in the northern zone, for the same purpose on the logging roads.

No problem. That’s the best thing about saving antlers. You can’t eat them, but a quick look at them still brings back many details of the hunt. I usually roll up the carcass tags, and stick them in the brain cavity of euro mounts (or staple them to the back of the shoulder mounts), to help me remember the dates. That’s pretty much the extent of my written “record keeping”.

The late sweetcorn looks better than I was expecting (last 4 rows on left). A couple heavy rains over the last week must have done it some good. I have been seeing a big doe back there almost every late afternoon, and I figured she probably had it all chewed down to the ground. She hit it pretty hard, right after it sprouted. The early stuff on the far right is starting to make some ears now. As soon as I notice some chew marks, I am going to get a few traps out there for coons. My corn-picking/trap-checking all-wheel drive suv is supposed to be delivered later today. I hope to have the first sweetcorn harvest of the year, before next weekend, so I can take some up north camping. Sweetcorn cooked on a campfire is usually pretty good. I’ll use up some marshmallows (wiped with peanut butter), before we go, for box trap bait.

12-pointers are cool. Around 30 years ago, one got killed by a car around the corner from our place. The driver didn’t want the carcass, so I took it for the meat. That thing made about 100 pounds of grind. That was back when I was in my “trophy stage”, and I knew of a guy who would do shoulder mounts for $ 125. It took over a year to get them back, so that was the only time that I used him. The 7-point behind it, is my first antlered bow-kill. That was from a year or two prior. I killed a 10-point the same season, with my shotgun, from the same stand. I got a price break from a faster guy, to mount both of those. I ended up with the 6-12 collection of shoulder mounts ( currently lacking just an 11) by pure coincidence. A wide 9-pointer might be my highest “scoring” rack. My uncle mounted that one for me. My buddy had a big buck that his grandad had killed redone into a larger cape and he gave me the old one. His grandad’s buck’s rack looked silly in the small cape. My dad made a walnut board for the back and I attached my first antlered buck’s little 6-point rack into it. That little cape is just the right size for the smaller rack. The only one I have had mounted, since getting past the “trophy-stage”, was my first Adirondack buck. It just happened to be an 8-point. I only did that for my father in law. He wanted it for a wall decoration, in his house up there. My hunt continues for the elusive 11-pointer. I was a week late and two broken off points short last year. Hopefully, I can top off the freezer this year, during the early antlerless gun season. That will allow me to be more selective later with my buck tags.

I wouldn’t worry about it. I am not sure it is illegal, if they are not hunting. If it is, and the DEC sees it, they will take care of it.

I noticed the same thing. Constant change quickly invalidates historical records.

I have not kept many records, but I do keep most of the racks from the adult bucks. I can remember the details of most of the kills, when I look at them. I started a journal on this site this year, which makes record keeping easier. I have one gun deer kill on the books already for 22, and I aim for (7) more, before December 31. Hopefully this site keeps going a lot longer. Before getting married and starting a family, I went through a brief “trophy” stage. Meat volume and quality have been my primary concerns for the last 20 seasons. I thank the op for a tip that gives me a good estimate of meat volume - the PA chest girth chart. Way more accurate than the “indirect” weight measurement, since most of a deer’s weight is made up of water, which has zero nutritional value. Our family will be be eating pretty good, if I can use my buck tag(s) on those with 42” or larger chest girth. What they have growing out of their foreheads don’t mean all that much to me, other than nice grab handles for dragging and reminders, up on the wall, of past hunts. If I killed an 11 pointer, I would likely do a shoulder mount. That would complete my 6-pointer thru 12-pointer shoulder mount collection (the 12 was a vehicle kill). I narrowly missed the 11 last year, killing a post-rut 9-point, that went into the rut with 11 points.

You got that right. I ran outside, to the new camper, to crank up the roof top AC unit. I waited about a half hour (until it got down to 75 in there) before I went back in it to do a little work. I can take the cold a lot better than the heat which is why the Holiday ML season is my new favorite time to hunt deer, just edging out the peak rut two week crossbow season.

Yes

I am glad to see that 9F has high chances again this year. I hope to fill at least one dmp, during the early September antlerless gun season. I have a mature doe picked out. She’s been chewing off my late silver-queen sweetcorn, soon after it sprouted. Maybe she will taste like that, which has always been my favorite variety of sweetcorn. I am pretty certain that it will be warm again, like it was last year, and I only have room for one in my deer fridge. That means I will need to wait until the second weekend of that season to fill my second, first round dmp tag. I will go back for the two second round tags, which also have high chances in 9F. I will definitely save one of those (2) for the Holiday ML season. That is my new favorite season. There is nothing quite like being able to hunt deer on paid vacation days.

I made a quick survey of the back 30 while my wife was getting dinner ready. My 2 acre rr corn plot looks a lot better after the 1-1/4” of rain we got Sunday night. It shot up at least a foot since then and is now over shoulder high. Should make for some good Holiday ML hunting if I can keep the coons out of it. Somebody mowed the gas line good and wide this year. That will save me some diesel fuel when I cut the rest of the tall weeds. My little pond came up about a foot from the rain. I got to cut the fallen ash, blocking my view to the clover plot from the upper deck and patch the floor on the lower deck of my 2-story blind. It looks like there is lots of acorns started on the big white oak next to that.

Sold, lock it up.

I garbage picked another one yesterday, on my drive over to my parents house. This one is padded, with a torn leather seat cover. The swiveI, casters, and height adjustment on the base are in great shape. I think I will duct tape the rips, and use it in my pop-up blind this year. That way, I can keep using my box seat on the range. This following one is a folding seat that I made. I had it and a few others just like it for many years on a stand that was about 50 yards from my current poplar tree stand, on the same hedgerow. I killed about a dozen deer from that stand, over about 30 years. I cut it down a few years ago when the Emerald ash borers started killing the tree. That stand was up about 12 feet, considerably higher than I am comfortable hunting these days. The little wood seat was not too comfortable, but it never bothered me when I was young. The foldaway feature was nice, because I preferred to stand up while bow hunting. I killed my first and farthest crossbow buck with a 59 yard shot thru the heart from that chair. I also made my farthest shotgun kill from it (a doe at 163 yards). There were at least (4) mishaps from it, including a basket-racked 8 point that I probably hit right where I aimed with my inline ML, but failed to recover. My old sidelock ML misfired, when another one-time 8 point, that had shed one side, walked right under it on the last day of ML season. I dropped my Marlin 512 from it once, shearing the #10 scope base screws, and another time I dropped the clip from that gun into the water-filled ditch below and didn’t get it back until the spring. It is upside down in the picture. The large brass door hinge on the back of the seat is screwed to the tree, and a smaller hinge under the middle is attached to the diagonal support. That folds out of the way when down, and stops against a small wood block attached to the tree a few inches below, when up.

No, but there was a big snapper in the side yard, not too far from that spot, a few weeks ago. That appears to be a ping pong ball. Thanks for the tip. I located some other evidence in the pool supply box (red solo cups). Apparently, there was some beer-pong action going on, when the kids had friends over the other night. I also found a full Miller lite in the grass back by the fire pit the next morning. I’ll drink that in a pinch, if I run out of Genny:

The only things that I have not tried yet in the “new” camper is the propane powered stuff: stove/oven, heater, and fridge. It has two onboard 20 lb propane tanks, which show 1/2 full and full on the gauges. We normally don’t use any of that stuff on our summer camping trip. The kids like riding their bikes to the camp store each morning, to pick up a bag of ice for the coolers, and coffee for my wife. We will not be able to use the AC up there, because our site lacks electric. I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to use it at home either, because I don’t have a 30 amp, 110 volt hookup. I stopped at Home Depot on the way home with it, but they lacked the proper breaker. I will order one thru Amazon and wire 30 amp/110 volt hookups for it inside and outside the barn. I have a 30 amp 220 volt service out there, and all the 110 volt outlets have 20 amp breakers. The little Carrier roof-top AC unit seems to work fine plugged into one of those, with an adapter and a 12 ga extension cord, thru the camper’s inverter . For now, I make sure to keep the AC on low, and don’t dare try the fridge on electric, while running the AC. The new camper has about (6) little 12 volt fans inside, all of which are plugged into cigarette lighter plugs. They power off the inverter, when plugged into AC, and the two batteries in our “camper special” truck, when plugged into that. Hopefully, those fans and the shaded campsite, will keep us cool enough on our upcoming trip. It is usually not ever too hot up there, on a little peninsula on the St Lawrence. I was a little worried about the camper’s water tank. I put about 10 gallons in it yesterday, to try out the 12 volt pump, sink, and toilet. My wife saw water dripping from underneath, shortly thereafter. It turned out that there was a drain valve on the bottom of that tank, and I didn’t have it all the way closed . The previous owner only had it for one season and never used the water system. He said the prior owner (original) was a freak about maintenance and had winterized it the year before. The “new” camper was manufactured in 1989 and the original owner had always stored it inside. It only sat outside when he used it, the first 22 seasons, and all of last year. I must have bumped the valve slightly open when I was messing around down there. Pink RV antifreeze flowed from the sink and toilet when I first turned on the pump. Everything seems ok now, with clear water flow and no more leakage (with the drain valve all the way closed). The guy was originally asking $ 3200 for the camper, and said he would take $ 3000 as we were looking it over. I was a reluctant to part with the cash. Another interested buyer showed up, while we were there, so I went for it. If the heater, stove/oven and fridge turn out to work ok, then I would say that we got a very good deal. New truck campers, comparably equipped, are around 50k. This thing seems very well made and has all top-quality appliances. I like the big “picture” windows, compared to the little ones in our prior (1986ish) truck camper.

First night in the new camper. Beautiful temperature tonight, windows and roof vents all open. I just heard a group of coyotes yipping like crazy out back, must be a bunch of young ones. This thing is very roomy inside compared to our old one, but it has considerably less storage space. We need to cut back on a lot of the unnecessary items that were cluttering up the old one. Winnie and piglet get to stay.

My first attempt at the extension was a cantilever section off the deck. That didn’t pan out so well. A single 4x4 pt post, in the center next to the pool, took care of the problem. I poured half a bag of dry concrete into the hole below the post. It has held up very well, going on 7 years now.

That is what I have done, most years (look for a buck with at least 3 on a side), but the early antlerless gun season, that they started last year, was a game changer. I hope for a mature doe or two then this year. If I can pull that off, then I will hold out for an 8-pointer or better, in the southern zone, and/or a 6-pointer or better, in the northern zone early ML season. The only wildcard for me, is the northern zone rifle season. I really want to see how a 30/30 performs on a deer. Does are off limits up there then. A 3” spike buck, with one side busted off, might be in trouble up there if we cross paths.

Ideally, you walk out your back door, don’t go up or down any stairs or ladders, and jump directly into the pool. like this: