wolc123

Thanks for posting that. My father in law gave me this well used one for Christmas more than 20 years ago. I had long carried this Shrade Sharpfinger (another American classic), which I prefer because it is easier to clean up after use and holds an edge longer. Nevertheless, I’ve always carried the Buck 110 while hunting up at his place in the Adirondacks, and that’s where I am now. I’ve used it on (3) ML week does and (2) Thanksgiving weekend bucks up here over the last 12 years. It always got the job done. I switched it out for a cheap, Asian, big stainless knife for most of this last ML week, mostly because of bears. There’s been a big one sighted nearby and I was worried that if I got a bad hit on it with my ML, I might need a bigger knife for backup. Now that I can pack a little more firepower (My Marlin 336BL), with rifle opening today, I’m going back to the Buck 110, for my last few hunts of the weekend. Hopefully, it will bring me luck. I’ll be switching back to the Sharpfinger, for crossbow hunting back home in the southern zone, next weekend.

I would recommend avoiding any type of call when hunting with subsonic weapon. Reason being, you want deer to be completely relaxed when you release your arrow/bolt. Any sound will put them on high alert. Save the calls till gun season opens up. If you absolutely must use a call during archery season, then use the lower heart as your aim point. That way they might still take the arrow/bolt below the spine when they duck your shot.

Sort of, because deer meat is packaged by volume not weight (ie quart and gallon sized bags are units of volume). The chest girth method uses a perimeter measurement around the deer and that is more directly relatable to volume, compared to the weight measurement. The chest girth measurement doesn’t change that much, as a deer carcass dries out, nor does the number of quart bags required to package up the edible meat. The scale weight reduces sharply as the carcass dries out though. Folks get confused about this, because the grocery store sell meat priced by the pound. In reality, the scale weight of the carcass don’t mean that much, because more than half of that weight is made up of water, and that percentage drops off sharply, the longer one takes to get the carcass on a scale.

I’ve killed (3) with neck shots, The second obe from the side, from a 10 yard range, with a 16 ga rifled slug. Only the head and neck were visible that time and I didn’t want to totally destroy the head in the trophy buck so u went for the neck, dropping him dead in his tracks. The first one was an inadvertent neck shot with my compound bow. That was actually the last arrow that I ever fired at a deer with a vetical bow and it happened in 2012, the same year as the one up above that I “necked” later with my slug gun. It must have caught a glimpse of my draw as it passed thru the hedgerow my stand was in, coming from behind me. When it turned broadside at 25 yards, I released my arrow. It reared down and back, taking the arrow just below the head. I had a mechanical broadhead and it ran off with the arrow sticking thru and about equal lengths protruding each side. The wide blades must have sliced the aorta or jugular because I heard him crash after about a 25 yard dash. The last one was the exit on a Perfectly placed Texas heart shot I took on an Adirondack 6-pointer back in 2016, with my scoped 30/06 from a 50 yard range. Obviously, that one also dropped in its tracks. That was probably the cleanest guy job I have ever had on a deer and there was no entry wound since the bullet entered the existing hole. I did loose the neck roast in that one though, which was a shame because that is one of my favorite parts. The bottom of the heart was also grooved a bit by the passing 150 gr Federal Classic bullet. I certainly wouldn’t hesitate to take those last two shots again, but I never again used a vertical bow on a deer, after that first one.

You got that right. The worst thing about the deer hunting up there, is how piss poor it makes the hinting seem in other places, regardless of how many more or how much bigger the deer might be. The ones up north are all worth at least double to me. A decent 3-pointer will trip my trigger up there, where around home in WNY, I’m usually looking for at least 3 points on a side. The best in world scenery and the solitude up there are worth that much to me at least. I’ve traveled to most of the lower 48, and none of them have anything on NY’s Adirondacks and Thousand Islands region, when it comes to the scenery. I’ve hunted the high desert of Colorado one time, and that was plenty. I could care less if I never cross the Mississippi again. I’m trying to talk my wife into looking for a decent chunk of land and moving to the town of Rossie (not sure if that’s how you spell it) after we retire. That’s about half way between her parents place and my family’s vacation cottage on Goose bay. I don’t want to be waterfront (taxes are too high), but half way between those places would give us plenty of fast (less than 30 minute) free access to it.

I’m looking forward to hunting deer up north this year. Last year was probably my worst ever up there, not even seeing a deer in (11) days of hunting. Things are definitely looking better this season, with recent sightings of at least (2) good ones. My wife was up there last weekend and saw a big doe with a fawn. Hopefully, I’ll be able to punch my antlerless tag on that big doe during early ML week this Saturday thru next Friday. There has also been a decent 6 pointer hanging around all summer, and it was sighted by her parents just after she left on Sunday. I’ll be after him all week with my ML and thru the next weekend with my rifle. I’ve got most of my gear packed and ready to go, and am heading out for the4.5 hour drive after work on Friday. I’m bringing along my scoped T/C Omega 50 cal ML, my open sighted Remlin 336 BL 30/30, and my J Stevens 16 ga side by side (for grouse). I’ll use my father in laws scoped Marlin 336 30/30, if it’s not raining, during the rifle season weekend. I’m also bringing some 16 ga slugs, and might try a deer hunt or two with my double. It fits right on st 50 yards with both barrels. It would be cool to get a deer or bear with that. I’ll also be doing lots of smallmouth bass fishing, in search of that elusive 22 inch plus bass to get mounted. I’ll release any others, but keep any incidental perch, for my mother in law. I can’t wait to get up there and am very thankful for the favorable weather forecast.

I’m heading to NY’s northern zone Friday, for early antlerless week up there. The weather forecast looks great. The leaves are just past peak, which is perfect for deer hunting mornings and evenings and fishing mid day. My favorite time of the year to be up there. I’m staying thru the opening weekend of rifle season. I have three tags that I could fill (two either/or and an antlerless) but I’ll be very thankful if I manage to fill just one. The scenery and solitude are so good up there, that I count every deer at least double what I do at home in WNY. I’ve been going up there that week for at least the last 10 years and this is the best weather forecast that I can remember. Might not even need my tree umbrella this year. It’s great to have free lodging and food (my in-laws live up there) and not need to purchase an out of state hunting license.

No

Nope, it’s black duct tape.

I went to a gun store up in g r he Northern zone whdd ed n we were visiting the in-laws during Labor Day weekend. My brother in law, a retired state trooper, got his background check back in about 5 minutes for his ammo purchase. We waited for around a half hour for mine and it did not come back in that time. I only had (2) boxes of 12 ga slugs, and a box of 50 cal ML bullets and sleeves. We had to go, so I left the two boxes of slugs there on shelf. They let me walk out with just the ML bullets. Hopefully, my background check comes back, by the next time I go up there during early ML week, (starts October 19). Otherwise, I’ll see if they will let me take an equivalent amount in dollars of ML bullets, and I’ll just but my other ammo on out of state road trips.

Works good for me. Stopped wiping it on trees because marks it leaves behind are ugly. Wipe a little on my boot heels before walking to stands. Take the top off and lay the stick down on my shooting rail when I get to stand. Killed several mature bucks (3.5 yr) while using it. One for sure wouldn’t have got without it because he stopped at my walk in trail, giving me plenty of time to stitch a slug though thick woods. Never would have been able to do that if he didn’t stop to smell my trail.

Placed in zip lock bag and duct taped to front leg during transport on cargo carrier .

Yes

Dog-proof traps work very good. I’ve taken and killed about (6) adult coons with them baited with dry cat food so far this summer (in addition to 3-4 in box traps baited with peanut butter wiped marshmallows. I Al as I took my first possum in a dig-proof this summer. The box trap / dog-proof combination works very good for getting the smart ones that figure out how to snatch the bait from the box traps. I still like the box traps though, because they don’t need to be staked and are easier to check from a distance. Cleanup is definitely tougher after a catch with the box traps though. I’ve been using dog proofs for about (5) years now and have averaged 5-6 coons a year in them, and about the same number with box traps. I use (3) dog-proofs and (4) box traps on 34 acres. NY state allows lands owners to take and kill “damaging” coons in unlimited numbers without a trapping license or any type of permit, but they need to be burried (they don’t say how deep) or burned prior to the opening of regular trapping season. In my case, the “damage” is always to the sweetcorn that I plant for the secondary purpose of my family’s consumption. I normally just dig a deep enough hole, to get about 6” of dirt over the carcasses. All going deeper does, is makes it take a a little longer, for the coyotes to exhume them. I’ll usually use the same holes for the next ones, after the coyotes dig up the prior. That saves me a lot of time. The coyotes will usually start killing all of the female and juvenile coons on their own, without needing traps, after they dig up a few and get a taste of that delicious fatty coon meat. They won’t mess with the adult males though, so those have made up the majority of the coons that I have trapped in the summer over the last 10 years or so. Local coon irradication is the primary reason that I plant sweetcorn every year. That sweetcorn draws coons in from miles around. Extermination of the local coons allows my field corn to last much longer (I plant that for the deer). No animal is more destructive on corn than the raccoon. Getting rid of them is also a boon to the local turkey population. The raccoon is surely the top nest predator in NY state, since the collapse of fur prices, and consequent absence of any serious fur trapping.

I picked up my license and tags at Runnings, just like I have the last few years. They didn’t charge any extra to print but everything was on plain 8-1/2 x 11 white paper. All (5) deer tags and (3) turkey tags were on the same sheet. I cut one out, completed it, put it in a zip lock bag, and duct taped it to my early antlerless gun season doe, prior to transport. I called it into the number and got a confirmation number (2) days after the kill (they give you 7 days for that). Other than the zip lock bag and duct tape, I didn’t find the process much different than other years.

Partly to preserve my shoulders as I get older, I put down my vertical bows permanently when the crossbow was legalized for the peak 2 weeks of the rut in the sz, back in 2014. I won’t be going out for archery season until early November, when that opens up. I thought about getting a doctors signature on the form so I could use a crossbow all of archery season, but there are too many other good opportunities for getting deer now (Holiday ML, EAG, etc.), that I didn’t feel it was necessary. I’ve even backed off on that quite a bit the last few years, since they opened up the mid September early antlerless gun season in our wmu a few years ago, and due to our daughters field hockey schedule. That field hockey actually took me out of last weekends early gun antlerless hunt and I only ended up filling one of my dmp tags this year. Depending on how I do up north in mid October during early ML and opening weekend of gun, I might be hitting those last two weeks of archery season pretty hard back home with my crossbow. That had been my primary meat getting time for a few years, until that early gun opened up. We could really use (3) average sized deer to provide most of my family’s protein needs for the year. I’m hoping that at least one of them will come during the sz archery season this year.

7:10 pm opening day of early antlerless gun season in WMU 9F. 38” chest girth mature doe was headed for my turnip plot and didn’t quite make it. Marlin 512 with 2-3/4” Hornsdy sst. 25 yard shot for my cherry tree stand.

132 lb field dressed doe (PA chest girth est) from last Saturday evening at my parents:

A little spot in the clouds thinned out enough for us to see it pretty good at work in North Tonawanda on Monday: I thought it was pretty cool. With the clouds, we didn’t need the eclipse glasses.

The recipe that my wife uses came from my grandmother who always used it on beef hearts and tongues. The absolute best tasting wild game that I ever had was moose tongue picked with that recipe: I’ve always liked the tongue better than the heart but deer tongues are too small to mess with. Moose tongues are bigger than beef tongues though. I almost always mix in a beef tongue or two with the deer hearts that my pickles for me every Valentine’s Day.

That’s actually the PA chest girth chart method, first introduced on this sight by G-man. As it turned out, that chart was a bit conservative, when it came to estimating the field dressed weight of a WNY deer. Several members here, myself included, checked it against scales (the one I used was a “legal for trade” butcher’s scale, while the others used those cheap Asian dial ones from Harbor freight, Bass Pro or whatever). All of them showed that the real weights were significantly heavier than that predicted by the PA chest girth chart. I’m guessing that the reason for that, is because the further north in the whitetail deer’s range, the heavier their average body weight. The largest chest girth I ever measured on one was this stout 6 pointer, back in 2017, at 43-1/2”. With a WNY correction applied to the PA chrart, the field dressed weight would have broke 200 lbs. I was never real big on weight because more than half of that field dressed weight consists of water, which has no nutritional value. Also, the weight of a field dressed deer is highly dependent on how fast it is weighed after it is killed. They start to dehydrate and lose water weight very fast . My biggest concert is always meat volume, not weight. The chest girth method allows for a more accurate estimate of that. I know about how many quarts of meat I need to feed my family, and how much my freezer holds, and how many bags to buy.

Looks like we got one guy here that hunts 99 % for big antlers and 1 % for meat. On the opposite end is me and I hunt 99 % for meat and 1 % for big antlers. Most everyone else has some other primary driver(s) and/or is somewhere in the middle on those two. The math seems pretty easy.

Mid April will less black fly activity, but May will be more fish activity. I usually hit a small Adirondack lake (near NW corner of the park) both of those times every year, and just about every other month (in-laws live on it so we get free food and lodging). A boat is your friend, as it seems that the black flies don’t often venture out far over the water, on the lake. Fishing from shore could be especially tough in May. I rarely fish from shore, but I have tried turkey hunting up there in May a few times, when I heard gobbles on the surounding hilltops. It usually doesn’t take too many black flies, to drive me back out onto the lake fishing. I’d at least take up a 2-man canoe, for you and your son, so that you can get out and away from the black flies if they become an issue. I prefer a rowboat, because they are more stable for fishing. I only use the outboard to get back when it’s windy. Mostly, I just row along and cast towards the shoreline in April, May, and October. During the summer months, the smallmouth bass suspend out over the center of this lake. The nice thing about that is, I can usually fish for days, on a single bucktail jig. I go thru dozens in the spring and fall, due to snags on rocks and sunken branches. I did fish Long Lake (near the center of the park) from my canoe one summer. That “lake” (really just a wide spot on the Racquett River) is pretty shallow out on the middle, and the smallmouth bass were hitting the bucktail jigs pretty good out there, drifted on the bottom. I had much more success out in the middle, than I did working the shorelines there. I think that was mostly because there was a lot less fishing pressure out in the center. Lots of bass-boats ply the shorelines of that highly pressured lake. On the smaller, deeper, less-pressured lake up on the NW corner of the park, the bass move out over the deep center in the summer, to follow schools of baitfish and to get oxygen. I usually watch for surface activity out there on calm mornings and evenings, row towards it, and fish the bucktail jig just below the surface (or a surface bait like a Zara puppy). These pics were from last Memorial Day weekend up there. There were no other boats on the lake, and I only had to share it with beavers and loons most mornings. I was trying for perch (no luck there) but caught and released lots of smallmouth (by accident).

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