wolc123

test picture seems to be working ok for me.

I have been rowing a lot more the last few years, but I still like having a gas outboard on back, for when the wind picks up. Rowing against the wind (or the current) sucks, as does using an electric motor. I haven’t done much wading , for reasons you described.

Generally, a Roe and drift technique works better on deeper streams and rivers while it is better to Wade small, shallow waters.

Yes, I agree that a sickle bar would be best, but now we are talking (3) tools. If you had to pick just one, and only had time to cut most of your acreage once per year, and that consists of weeds, thick hay, light brush, and a few clover plots, then I still think a light duty or a medium duty bush-hog is the best pick. One issue (positive this year), with taking off the hay, is that you don’t get something for nothing. That means that you need to add fertilizer to bring back equal or greater forage the following year. If you chop up and leave the hay, if usually gets thicker the following year That said, current fuel prices have got me leaning towards giving away a few fields of hay this year. My neighbor would probably like to have it. Maybe fuel will be cheaper next year. Even is it’s not, it will be thinner and take less fuel for me to bush-hog, than it would be if he doesn’t take the hay off this year.

Medium-rare blackstrap hoagies: Way better than the PB&J sandwich I had for lunch.

Which one would you use for cutting hay that was real thick and 6-8 ft tall, like that to the left of the deer and my old Ford in this picture ? My current 5 ft, Medium duty Bush hog will handle 3” brush pretty good, but I have to drop my 43 pto-hp tractor down to low range to cut that thick hay once per year. I could easily cut it in mid-range, with the light-duty 6 footer, that I had previously, but that would only handle 1-1/2” brush. The problem with that 6 foot light-duty was it was a lot heavier and took up more space, so I couldn’t use that little 8n Ford on it, if I wanted to (didn’t have enough hydraulic power to lift it). It was also a pain to store, compared to the 5 footers. I can’t imagine a flail mower doing very well on real thick and tall hay or weeds, but I never tried one. My experience on them is limited to mowing grass with an old 6 footer a long time ago. We had a 5 ft heavy duty bush hog also back then, which I always used for “once a year” mowings of tall weeds, with a Ford 3000 gas tractor . To me, the flail mower is more of a maintenance tool and if someone must have just one or the other, a light or medium duty bush-hog might be a better choice.

We use to have a pike tournament every year on Silver lake in wny. I won a few of those using mostly a big jig & minnow while most of the other folks were running big shiners and bobbers. Up in the St Lawrence, nothing works better on pike than a big willow leaf chartreuse spinnerbait, slow rolled over the deep weedbeds and a big rubber bass jig with a rubber shad tail trailer, cast along the deep weed edges. You’ll outcatch live chubs on bobbers at least 2:1 with that combo.

I always liked a big jig, tipped with a small minnow for pike. I could usually catch more pike that way, using cheap “by the scoop” perch minnows, than I could with big expensive golden shiners. For the jig, I like a 3/8 oz black back, white belly bucktail with painted eyes. My hooking percentage was never stellar with a big shiner below a bobber. By contrast, very few pike are lost after they strike a jig. They are way easier to hook that up at than bass are. You can’t miss the strike. They will rip the rod right out of your hand if you are not holding on tight. One sip of beer costs me the ability to feel the strike of a bass on a jig, while pike jigging while impaired is quite doable. If you don’t want to mess with the minnows, those little rubber shad tail baits work almost as good for tipping the buck tails.

Well at least you’ll get them cheap if you plant today.

Obviously because they don’t know no better.

Today is the absolute worse day of the year to plant a tree. They should only be planted in months with “R’s” in them. Let the nurseries care for the potted trees thru the summer. Take some time to figure out what you want, pick it up and plant after September 1st.

If you just want to shoot “a deer” then setup downwind from a well used trail intersection (also approach it from downwind). Mature bucks seldom use the “well used” trails.

This one just ran across our back yard, as I was setting up the pool. I think he might be 3.1, if it’s the one I saw a couple times out back last season. I passed him twice as a 1.5 (once in crossbow once in gun season). As a four point his first year, he had one side antler that was normal and the other side at an odd angle. He had an 8 point rack, during early September gun last year, that was funky on one side. He fed 20 yards from my stand for about 10 minutes on the first evening of that season. I never saw him, when I could have legally killed him, but I didn’t hunt back there much then, and probably would have passed him up to the last day of Holiday ML, if I had seen him due to his small body size last year. Today’s also had a funky right side, and his body looks bigger, so I think it is him again. If he shoes up in range after crossbow opens this year, he won’t be getting a pass. Somebody’s got to take those funky racks out of the gene pool. Don’t matter to me, because I am mostly in it for the meat.

Happy birthday Fletch.

Happy birthday AH.

Happy birthday Moog.

My guess is 2.1 years old with about 75 % certainty, based mostly on the size of the antler bases. They are too big for a 1.1 and body is too small for a 3.1.

Big sheephead and (5) smallmouth (largest 19-3/4”) this morning on the upper Niagara:

Not a bad Father’s Day morning on the upper Niagara. (5) “keeper” smallmouth (12-1/8”, 12-3/8”, 17”, 18-1/2”, and 19-3/4”). My buddy caught (2) and I caught (3), plus a 15ish pound sheephead. I release all bass over 20”, so that last one was just shy of “freedom”.

I don’t even like electric powered boats. I took only an electric outboard with me on a fishing trip on Easter weekend this year. It sucked whenever the wind picked up much more than a light breeze. I was a much happier camper on Memorial Day weekend with my 2 stroke gas outboard. I lack the patience required to be content with electric primary power for any type of motor vehicle. Electricity is just fine for secondary power, but it is ludicrous now and always will be, for primary power. That said, there may be a place for hybrids, but I don’t think mankind will ever get smart enough or politically aligned enough to pull that off. We are heading down the full electric road and there is probably no turning back.

I just wrapped up planting our garden this morning. (2) more rows of candy corn (89 day), and (2) rows of silver queen (92 day). I planted (4) rows of cappuccino (72 day) and (2) rows of candy corn on the weekend before Memorial Day. That is about a foot tall now and I cultivated and hoed it, after I finished planting this morning. That makes about a half acre total of sweetcorn for us, in addition to the (2) acre field corn “deer/turkey garden” farther out back. I hope to get that cultivated and sprayed next weekend, because it looks like the grass and weeds are growing faster than the corn back there. Usually, the coons start hitting the sweetcorn, just after it starts making ears. I start trapping them at that time (late July). NY state allows landowners to trap and kill “damaging” coons before the October start of regular trapping season, but the carcasses need to be burried or burned, prior to the trapping season opener. After that, they can be tossed out in the fields to feed the buzzards. The furs have not been worth the effort to remove for going on 20 years now. A couple deer came out, in the adjacent clover plot, as I was hoeing this morning. It looks like they chewed a few corn plants down to the ground the last few days. I thinned it out a little further today with the cultivator and hoe. Hopefully, we will have plenty of fresh sweetcorn throughout the months of August and September. I can’t wait to start taking out the coons. I don’t get them all, because that’s impossible and because field corn that has been knocked down by coons is more attractive to deer (and much more attractive to turkeys), than standing corn. With only (2) acres of field corn planted this year, I’ve got to get most of them or it won’t last thru the Holiday ML season.

That’s right, Watts on second and Idanoes on third.

The food plots were dried out very well today and I got about 4 acres dragged, where I had corn last year and will be planting a wheat clover mix around September 1. Before I started, I put 4 new NGK sparkplugs in my old Ford 8n tractor. It ran nice and smooth on the my 6 ft section drag today. I got about 15 years out of the Champion H-12’s plugs that were in it prior. I knew that the low idle roughness It had been suffering was not caused by the points or wires because I put a whole new distributor and new wires on it last year. I don’t ever remember it running as smooth as it did today. I hope to get in the last of my sweetcorn in the morning, in another small spot that I got worked up with the drag tonight. That will be the last of my spring planting for the year. The RR corn, that I planted the weekend before Memorial Day, looks like it will be ready for cultivating and spraying next weekend.

I use very little spray also because I like to keep my venison as “organic” as possible. I usually get 3 years out of a 2.5 gallon jug of gly. I am thankful to have bought a fresh jug of that last season, before the big price spike this year. The only place I use it is directly on the corn rows. I cultivate in between. I need to do that next weekend if I can because the grass is now growing faster than the corn.