wolc123

I don’t loose any sleep over getting every last little bit of crud off after each use. I just wipe it dry with paper towels, then apply a light coat of olive oil. Any leftover crud may add a little to the “complexity” of the next meal, but no bad effects that I have noticed anyhow. Certainly nothing that an extra big swig of 12-horse can’t fix.

What are you using for cleaning solvent ? It takes me about 15 minutes to clean my stainless T/C Omega using Traditions foaming bore cleaner and a bore snake. I also use (2)T7 pellets. At the range, and before the first hunt, I coat the nylon bullet sleeves with T/C bore butter, and can shoot 3 or 4 , before cleaning is required. It took me a lot longer, when I used T/C liquid bore solvent on patches and pushed them thru the bore. I also struggled with buildup and corrosion in the breech plug. No more. Now, it’s just squirt some foaming bore cleaner thru the little plastic tube into the breech plug. Wait 10 minutes. Pull the breech plug and drop and pull the bore snake though the bore. Coat the breech plug with gorilla grease and reinstall. Done in 15 minutes with no rust or powder residue left on anything. For extended storage, I push a patch of bore butter through, prior to reinstallation of the breech plug. I don’t shoot that much, just as many as it takes to verify zero pre-season. I load it at the start of the season and leave it loaded until a shot is taken at a deer. After hunts, the ML is locked up in an unheated enclosure. If the deer is not DRT, I reload without the bore butter. If it is DRT, I don’t reload and clean the gun when I get home. Before I learned the trick of the foaming bore cleaner and bore snake, I thought about BH209. No way now, with all the misfire stories, supply issues, and high cost. I have never had a misfire with (2) T7 pellets and the cheapest 209 primers that money can buy. I think I have a lifetime supply of each now, thanks to a fellow member who now uses a smokeless ML.

Happy b-day boys.

Flip a coin.

I used a minnow pattern (black back / white belly) bucktail jig 1/4 oz last March, in the Pacific, for spotted bay bass and they were liking it. I tipped it with a small rubber swim bait. That was the only time I tried hair jigs in saltwater. I was using a cheap pos telescoping fiberglass rod, that fit in my suitcase, and 10 lb mono line. Certainly that was not a very sensitive combo. In freshwater, I use a 6 ft 1 pc, medium light graphite rod and 8 pound test fluorocarbon line. You can almost feel the bass breath on a light jig with that super-sensitive combo. That, and skipping the beers, until you have your limit of bass onboard, are important when it comes to detecting the strike on a light (1/8 -1/4 oz) hair jig. The clearer the water, the better the hair jigs work.

Maybe so, but I have a 2 years supply of vacuum sealed venison stocked up in our freezers now, so I am not overly concerned if a few get tipped off in the early fall this year. Topping the freezers off with venison, before next winter, should not be a problem if we have that beloved Holiday ML season again. I need to check the zero on my pellet gun with the open sights before I squirrel hunt with it. It has nice looking fiber optics on it. It also came with a cheap 4x scope ($39 special package price, .177 cal Marksman at Dick’s a couple years ago), and I had it sighted in with that. I pulled the scope off, because it has a horrible trigger pull (I guess there is a limit to what the Asians can do for $ 39), so that seemed to be “overkill”, plus it was mounted on the receiver and the barrel swings down to cock it. The open sights are mounted to the barrel. It has sling swivels on it and is not heavy, so it shouldn’t be too bad to carry to my roomier stands, in addition to my slug gun, crossbow, or ML. I have around 10 stands, with plenty of room for the 2nd “squirrel gun”, and just two that are too small. I think it would be legal, but a .22 rimfire would not be.

That’s all I have done with the reds. I think this year, during deer season, I am going to bring along my pellet gun (as a second “squirrel” weapon) on some deer hunts, beginning with the early September antlerless season. The silent report won’t spook off deer, and that will give me some squirrel time, when they are most active.

I just got back from my parent’s house, and mom made meatloaf for lunch. She used a mix of ground beef and pork. It wasn’t bad, but I prefer my wife’s, made with ground venison. I asked mom if she made it because meatloaf the singer had died. She did not, and was unaware of his passing. She did say that she had heard of meatloaf the singer, but could not recall any of his songs. I listened to “two out of three ain’t bad” and thought it was ok, not good, but not bad. rip Meatloaf.

Wolc prediction: Buffalo 37, KC 17.

And with open borders, getting workers down there should be a piece of cake.

It takes me about 1.25 times as long to process a doe compared to a buck. No big deal for one or two, but that adds up with more. The outer stuff ain’t so bad to trim, and I usually knock that off on “skinning day”. I final process the following day, and that is where the extra time really hurts. That extra fat is not just on the outside, but also within and in between the interior muscle groups. If I leave too much of that in, it adversely effects the quality of the grind (“roof of mouth sticking”). I can just drop the buck chunks into the grinder, with very little extra fat trimming. This is simply the way that God designed the beast. Does pile on fat and get “smarter” thru the rut, while bucks loose the fat and get dumber. It is no coincidence. That is how the species survives and flourishes. very little fat trimming needed on this 42-1/2” chest girth buck from last year:

I have a harder time with mature does, than mature bucks, so I would rate them as “smarter” by a long shot. Killing a mature buck just comes down to being in the right place at the right time and sometimes passing up on a small one first. Killing a mature doe, takes a lot more hard work and knowhow, at least for me. My harvest numbers back that up. If we consider “mature” as 2.5 years, then I have killed (6) mature bucks and (3) mature does over the last (6) years, along with (1) 1.5 year old buck and (1) 1.5 year old doe. (4) of those older bucks were at least 3.5 years old, as were (2) of the does. Mature bucks may be “smart”, for 50 weeks of the year, but those other 2 weeks are very often their undoing. Sorry, I only got a picture of one of those older does on my phone, but I do have all of the bucks: I am thankful that I don’t have what it takes to consistently kill older does, and that the old bucks are way easier for me to kill. Those bucks are a lot easier for me to process. I hate spending all that extra time that it takes me to trim out the doe fat, almost as much as I hate it sticking to the roof of my mouth, when I butcher and eat them.

AFC championship in Buffalo this year.

You will find a live 2022 thread in the deer hunting section, if you scroll down a ways. It often takes folks a while to flip their calendars.

My wife made stir fry with button buck back strap for dinner tonight. That was some damn good eating for sure, and definitely the best Asian meal that we have had. All the ingredients, besides the meat, were from “Blue Apron”.

It might count if you put it in the 22 thread.

Prayers sent for Mike.

Apparently, she don’t care too much how big they are, since she hit me. If she were super selective, she would hold out for the likes of fsw.

I only tried hare once and it was horrible. We had also killed a few grouse that day, up on Tug hill, and they were great as always. I would not shoot another hare. All off the other rabbits I have eaten were cottontails, which taste a hair better than chicken to me, but no where near as good as grey squirrel. I have never tried domestic rabbit. I might give red squirrels a try, especially if I can ever get more than one in a sitting. They are super jumpy and much harder for me to hit with my .22. That is what I usually carry squirrel hunting, when the leaves are down. Maybe I will use my .410 a little more, to increase my odds with the reds. It seems to me that a red squirrel is closer in size to a chipmunk than a grey squirrel. Do any of you red-eaters eat those and if so how do they taste ? I think they may also be killed in unlimited quantity and year round. I wouldn’t bother with chipmunks, with the current cost and availability of .22 ammo, but a pellet gun might do the trick, if they are tasty and times get tough. Our kids had pet guinea pigs for a while and I always wondered how they would taste. I hear they are a delicacy, down in South America. After I retire, I think I will look into going down there, on a wild guinea pig hunt, and find out. It seems like that would be more of a challenge than big game.

Same here

Never heard of meatloaf the singer, but I have been trying to talk my wife into making me some venison meatloaf for the last few weeks. Ever since someone posted that video of the guy up in Maine, tracking down Brutus the buck, and toasting up a meatloaf sandwich after the kill. Some of those songs did sound familiar, but I never cared much for disco.

I have killed a few, but never ate one. They seem too small to mess with, almost like a chipmunk would be. I only shot them because they seem to run off the greys, which I do like to eat.

They are a pain to clean, and it takes more of them to make a meal. One rabbit is enough for me, but I could easily eat four squirrels. We have eaten them together lots of times, and squirrel has always came out on top for my taste. Even our kids think so. They fight over who gets the squirrel out of the crock pot. I get stuck with the rabbit most of the time. My wife prefers the rabbit. She says the skinned squirrels look too much like rats.

Back on topic, Do you like rabbit better than squirrel ?

I find walleye easier to catch than bass. They will actually strike a hook and worm, in 5 ft of water, directly below the spinning prop of my gas outboard. I need to sneak up to bass in shallow water, using the wind, oars, or an electric motor. In addition to the better flavored flesh (if properly prepared), the bass must have the bigger brains.