wolc123

My opening day of southern zone gun season stand is a hang-on with a non-rotating seat. Since it is fixed, I can’t do nothing about the wind. I do have it positioned, such that the primary, swamp-edge deer travel route is on my strong side. A couple years ago, a group of three antlerless deer strolled by on my weak side, within 40 yards. I sure wished I had a swivel seat then. Fortunately, they were on my strong side on their return trip, an hour or so later, and I was able to drop the fat lead doe with my 16 gauge Ithaca pump. That fixed chair is reasonably comfortable, but someday I will probably replace that cheap hang on stand with a big comfortable elevated blind with a swivel chair. I will not do that, until I sit thru an opener with no deer action (if it ain’t broke don’t fix it). For the last (4) seasons, I had good opening-day action from this stand. Any change that I make, might alter the deer pattern and put a stop to that.

What do you do if a deer comes up from behind or on your weak side with that ? I always try to guess where they will come from, and position accordingly, but almost as often as not, I guess wrong. With a swivel chair, or the tree hammock, I can silently turn for the shot. I can easily think of two bucks, where exactly that happened. One was a photogenic 9-pointer, that snuck thru the woods behind me on the day after Thanksgiving last year just after sunset, as I watched over a clover plot. The other, was that infamous Texas heart shot Adirondack 6-point, that snuck up behind me as I sat in the tree hammock chair. Each of those would have likely survived a bit longer, if I had not had an easy and quiet rotating chair.

Damn, that is a big one. No wonder all the neighborhood kids are always on it. I remember growing up, we had an 18 footer and our neighbors had a 24 footer. That one always took longer to warm up. We would run over and jump in that, then run back to ours, and it felt like bath water, in comparison.

The older I get, the more comfortable I like to be while deer hunting. Usually, I garbage pick the chairs, that I use in my blinds. Last summer, I found a super comfortable one at a barn sale, and I paid $ 8 for it (the guy was asking $ 10). I only bought it because I have never sat in a more comfortable office chair. It has adjustable height, back rest and arm rests. It is padded with weather-proof covering. The swivel turns silent. Best all, I killed (3) deer from it last season establishing a new record for me from a chair in a season. It’s definitely my favorite hunting chair now. Here it is, when I pulled it after spring turkey season. I almost got a turkey off it, but it was a hen, nor a tom, that I called within range and they are protected in the spring. This tree hammock is my second favorite. It is more comfortable than the $ 8 chair, but it cost me about $ 30, and I never killed more than 1 deer from it in a season. I got a mature doe from it last year, that I have been trying to kill for the last (3) seasons, up in the Adirondacks. It is almost too comfortable, resulting in my dozing off in it a time or two. It is super light and easy to carry. Like the swivel chair, it allows easy 360 degree around shooting. I have to be careful setting it up now, because the latch on the tree strap is broken on one side. If you latch it with the broken side up it will dump you on your rear end. Piling up leaves under it at least cushions the fall if that happens. It also don’t work too well with a tree umbrella in heavy rains - you get a wet butt. When I am hunting from it in the Adirondacks, with the tree umbrella (light rains only), I hang my orange hat up above so that it will be visible to shooters on adjacent ridges. Not sure if that’s legal, but it beats getting shot by someone who sees movement under the umbrella. This is my newest hunting chair, that I garbage picked a couple weeks ago. The lower section, with height adjustment, castors and swivel, is in like new condition, but the cushioned seat was damaged. I cut off a cheap plastic lawn chair, with back and arm rests, and replaced that. I will probably carry in a padded seat cushion, when I hunt from it. It will go in my poplar tree blind (one of (2) new elevated blinds that I put up last year). The one over at my parents place in a cherry tree got the $8 chair.

The heavy usage definitely minimizes the vacuuming needed, especially with a smaller pool like ours (15 ft dia). I am only on my second chlorine tablets in the floating dispenser so far this season. I did have to repair the top on that dispenser with a little jb weld though.

That .22 ammo would be great for dispatching trapped coons and possums. Accuracy don’t matter for that. I hold the barrel right next to their heads. That has been my biggest usage of .22 ammo, the last few years. I have been doing all of my target practice with a BB gun, for about 5 years now, to conserve ammo and to minimize aggravation of the neighbors . I give coons a single .22 shot, to the intersection of a x formed between the eyes and ears. Pussoms get that, and a second shot, behind the shoulder. They have a little pea brain that is hard to hit consistently, and they will play their name, if you miss it. The double lunger always does them in.

Cottonwoods are the worst. We have a bunch of them upwind of out pool and have the same trouble. This year haven’t been as bad, because I didn’t set the pool up until June 21, due to the cool spring. That missed the bulk of the cotton drop. I am only on my second filter cartridge so far. I change it when the pump discharge slows to a trickle. I’d love to get rid of them poplar trees, but my wife likes to sit on the back deck and listen to the sound of the wind thru the leaves.

Catch a skunk in a box trap and take it for a ride out to the country.

I think it great that folks have the work from home option. It’s not for me, but it cuts down on the rush hour traffic, which is a great benefit to me.

It looks like my 2 acre rr corn plot out back made a little better than “knee high by the 4th of July”. After almost (2) weeks without rain, we finally got a decent shot of that today. That probably added 6” to the height of this corn, and helped out my 1/2 acre sweetcorn planting. The 2 oz per gallon of gly that I sprayed on the rows of rr corn while cultivating on June 25 gave me a very good kill on the weeds. It looks like the deer trimmed off a lot of the last couple rows of late silver queen corn that I put in a couple weeks ago. My earliest planting of 72 day cappuccino sweetcorn looks like it is still a few weeks away from making ears. I will start trapping that for coons as soon as it does. If I can keep most of them eradicated from the area, that 2 acres of rr corn out back just might make it all the way thru the Holiday ML season this year. It sounds like NY has already approved that again and I should be able to hunt every day if it this year. Another nice thing about today’s rain, is that it kept down the dust, so I was able to cut the lawn for the first time in a couple weeks, and work up the adjacent wheat/clover plots, without creating a big dust storm that makes it hard to breath and plugs the tractors air filters.

Not sure it was him, but I hope it was. JC always has the final say.

Since you brought it up Paula, here is a picture of “forky”. He may very likely be the mean little buck that gave his life , so that my buddy could drive a virtually “free” car. Sorry I couldn’t get a better picture. Glad to hear that the op is finally getting his truck back. Sometimes, these stories have happier endings. Bottom line is, it always works out, just as The Man Upstairs (JC) intends it to.

I like ours (15 ft diameter x 4 ft deep). It’s big enough for an adult or two enough to swim in and small enough to easily put up and take down each year. My wife paid $ 200 for the package, that included a filter pump, about (5) years ago. I’d say we got our money’s worth. I use it almost every day, when the temp is above 80. Maintenance is easy, put a chlorine tablet in the float, and change the filter element every couple weeks. It is small enough that regular usage eliminates the need to vacuum. I extended our back house deck, with some pt lumber scraps that I had laying around, so the kids don’t track grass clippings from the lawn into it. Open the sliding door from the house, walk across the deck, and dive in. I wouldn’t want a bigger one. We had an 18 footer when I was a kid and that was a pain to maintain. It needed regular vacuuming and was too big to take down and put up every year. It had a separate raised deck and grass clippings were an issue. The toughest part of the setup, for our little 15 footer, was grading a level spot next to the house so that I didn’t need a separate deck. I only had to do that the first year. When our kids were younger, we had a 15 ft trampoline that we kept in the pools place (with easy deck access), for the other (8) months of the year.

My wife and I had a decent Holiday weekend up at the her parents Adirondack home. The smallmouth bass were fairly cooperative. I landed (15) over 12” and (3) shorts ((5) “legal sized” each day, all released). The last one I caught this morning was the largest (18”). All but one were very healthy looking and fought well. Most of them went for a 1/8 oz brown bucktail jig, tossed to bass that were chasing minnows up onto the surface, over deep water far from shore. That’s a fun way to fish and very efficient. I used just one jig, all three days, and never retied. No fish threw the hook, even though I pinched the barb to simplify release and to increase their odds of survival. I caught (2) “keepers” and a short on a trolled silver hotntot. That usually works much better in October. I burned 2 gallons of 16:1 oil mixed gas in the 5.5 Johnson over all three days. I usually don’t keep any bass up there, until the fall, when it is easier to keep the meat fresh. NY state health advisory says women and children shouldn’t eat any bass from the Adirondacks, but ok for men over 50, same as the St Lawrence River. I keep enough bass each year for (12) vacuum packs for me, from the Adirondacks and the St Lawrence, and (12) packs for my wife and kids, from the Upper Niagara River and Lake Erie (fish from those waters are ok for women and children. That gives us all enough fish for the recommended amount of 1 meal per month from NY waters. We all like bass. I give any perch that I catch to my mother in law. It looks like the deer population is good up there, based on the distinct browse line on the Hemlocks around the lake. There has also been an increase in bear sightings this year. That, and the best of the year smallmouth bass fishing, really has me looking forward to the early October ML week this year. I might go up early, and catch a day or two of crossbow, the week prior. browse line: Notice how the branches all stop about 6 ft short of the water line. That “trimming” was not done by professional landscapers. It makes it nice for casting the shoreline with top water baits, etc. That top water action usually peaks around Labor Day. One Labor Day morning, a year or two ago, I took (5) keeper smallmouth on (7) casts with a top water bait, without leaving the dock. I almost hit that catch rate with the 1/8 oz jig, just below the surface this morning, getting (3) keepers on my first 5 casts, at the hotspot.

Happy birthday.

Happy 4th. It was great morning for smallmouth bass fishing.

It took just over an hour to get (5) smallmouth bass this morning, all on the same 1/8 oz bucktail jig. Just one other guy out there in a kayak. The lake was dead calm at sunrise. I made a few casts with a Zara pooch from the dock, with no hits. Then I motored over to the big underwater bar, where I had the most action the last two days. It looked like the water was boiling near the tip of that bar, as the bass were chasing minnows up to the surface. I caught (3) there on my first (5) casts. They scattered a bit after that. I was able to get two more by rowing over to where I saw something breaking the surface and casting the jig to that spot. The last one was the biggest (18”). The shortest one this morning was 14”. All but the fourth (16”) fought very good. I was thankful that the last and biggest one didn’t break off, because it really pulled. The improved cinch knot, twice thru the hook eye, is pretty strong when you are not bouncing the jig off rocks on the bottom. That’s the best part about fishing for suspended bass in mid-summer. They also fight like mad in the warm water.

Yes, it was easy because it was on my jacket, which I put on as soon as I got home from work, and put a primer on my ML, with about 10 minutes of legal light remaining. It was December and quite cold out, after I opened the window and started scanning the standing corn in the field behind our house. I watched the deer stand up in the corn, and make his way to the edge, where I had turnips planted. With about 3 minutes of daylight left, I dropped him in that little turnip plot (about 100 yards out back) with my T/C Omega. i put on my boots, went back with my loader tractor and tagged and gutted him, then hung him in the garage and butchered him the following week. I thought it was a doe, but I was not too heart-broken that it turned out to be a button buck. I had a dmp tag, it was the last day, we needed meat, and that was the only deer that I saw. With just 10 minutes, I didn’t have time for a full-blown hunt, so the bedroom window was the best I could do. I had the same plot rotation again last year, and tried that once or twice, but didn’t see anything. You can’t skip any of the rules, no matter how big and fancy your blind is. I have probably killed a dozen woodchucks from that same window, and I may not have had the back tag on for all of them. I also got a coyote, a red fox, several coons, and a dozen or so crows, from that window. I pile deer, and other carcasses back there, and that pile attracts plenty of visitors. I will have a better view from that window, now that the old barn is down. No time to make fancy food plots back there this year, but I will try to set it up good next year. Maybe I can squeeze in a little turnip plot back there yet this year, and leave some of my late sweetcorn standing. I did not plant any fieldcorn in that field this year, and that is the real key to holding deer during the late ML season. This velvet 3.1 yr old buck would have been a 50 yard chip shot from that window, on June 21, when I was setting up our pool in the back yard: He was on the near bank of the creek. I pile the carcasses right behind him, on the opposite bank. The button buck stood about 50 yards behind him and a little to the right.

A 5th “legal sized” bass this evening and (2) more shorts on jigs. Nothing at all trolling the plug today. (2) 16”, 15”, 17” and 14” on the jig. Not as many fish, out suspended over deep water as when they are along the shoreline earlier and later, but way less snags. I have not lost a lure in two days of fishing, unlike Memorial Day weekend when I went thru almost a dozen jigs. Good thing they are almost free.

Yes I did it once from our bedroom window and I would do it again without hesitation. You still need to put on a back tag and obey all the game laws (minimum of 500 ft from building without permission etc.). Mine was a bb on the last day of late ML season, and in full accordance with all NY state game laws. Those are the best “trophy” of all, on the table and as far as my wife is concerned. It was the only time that she was able to thank me in the same spot where I made the kill. That’s what I call a win win deal.

Hopefully, He’s been able to talk some sense into her, now that He has her where He wanted her. If you think anyone besides JC has the final say on any living things departure (whitetail deer and sparrows included) then you got another thing coming. Sometimes, thanking Him for his perfect timing is in order. He set me up good a few times last year also:

I am thankful for His timing on moving her along there. Had He waited a few more months, Trump wouldn’t have been able to flip that seat and we’d have been stuck with R vs W for many more years.

Thank you Jesus for taking RBG when you did. That timing was perfect for ending this American Hollocost.

Deer seem to like winter wheat a little better than rye. I usually plant it with white clover after September 1, then mow it the following June. Deer come from miles around to dig thru the snow for that wheat. Its also high on their preference list in early spring .

I trolled once around the lake and got nothing. Drifted across the area where I got the 2 early, saw one jump and caught it on a jig. Caught another 2 casts later. All (4) were within an inch of each other on size. Back to trolling again now, trying for number 5 for the day, or 10 am, whichever comes first.