wolc123

What is your opinion on this stuff ?

My dad has had a Polaris ranger for about 10 years. It has a very smooth ride. The only trouble with it, is the lights don’t work. That has been a pain in the behind for me twice so far this year. It works good for deer recoveries in the morning hunts, but not so hot on evening ones. Ma nagged him pretty good about that Friday night (as she was holding a flashlight looking at deer guts) so I am guessing that he will get them lights fixed relatively soon. I have used it for some light food plotting (sprayer and cultipacker) and it does fine at that.

It is snowing pretty good right now on the nw corner of wmu 9F. I am on doe patro in the lower level of my two-story blind out back. It has nice overhangs, which ought to help prevent a repeat of the scope fog-over issue, which hit me two nights ago on the opposite corner of this wmu.

That’s a beauty grampy. The Bible says, in black and white, that God determines where every sparrow falls. There is no doubt that He puts magnificent creatures like that big buck just exactly where He wants them to go. There is no place better than deer heaven (mankind’s food supply). The fact that your God daughter played the key role on that transition, on a Sunday morning, has got to make it extra special. I am praying that you are able to get back out there again soon and help another one along on that happy voyage.

You gotta be stacken them like cordwood this year with such brilliance.

I have killed all five bucks that I shot at with my $ 250 Barnett Recruit. I like it better than my $ 250 Centerpoint sniper 370. It is not as fast, which limits it’s effective range to about 50 yards, but it is much lighter an easier handling. The sniper may be good for 60 yards. The sniper is front heavy and almost needs to be used from a rest. The recruit handles easier than my Ruger 10/22 carbine and can easily be shot offhand. I prefer (2) decent economical crossbows for less money than one expensive fancy one. That way, if one breaks, I keep hunting with the other. The two different styles is also nice. I use the longer range heavy one from my blinds with good rests, and the lighter one from hang/on stands, offhand in standing corn, or from small popup blinds.

The local yocals got them moving already this morning. Just had to get on the brakes to miss three big flatheads, a few blocks south of my place, down Tack’s way.

I agree with that entirely. This was the first year, in the last 4, when I did not kill a deer on opening day morning of gun from a swamp-edge stand. I saw 5 there that morning, but none this Friday. I think they are mostly holed up deep for the daylight hours, now that a few shots have been fired. My saving grace this Friday evening was that bonus half hour of post-sunset hunting time they granted us this year, and some Evercalm on my boots to cover my tracks. That sun going down was like flipping a switch. A big old buck came out of the swamp, right when it dropped below the horizon. 5 minutes later, I saw him in the thick cover at the edge of a field where I have another stand. He was not going to get out of that thick cover. He paused between two big trees, at the trail I walked in on, 40 yards away (to sniff that Evercalm I would guess). That gave me time to clear my fogged scope and ventilate his rib cage. I am very thankful that the Good Lord put that buck where He did right then, with just enough of his body exposed to get a 16 ga slug to the right spot. I am also thankful for the light dusting of snow and the remaining 15 minutes of twilight. Without that, I am not sure I could have located his carcass, about 125 yards from my stand, in some real thick stuff. I am also thankful that the Good Lord is providing perfect hanging weather right now, making our insulated garage into a big walk in cooler. That old buck ought to be good and tender, a week from Monday, when I process him.

Sorry to hear about your illness and thanks for your service. We drove thru that area a few times this fall and it looks very nice. Our eldest daughter goes to Purchase university and we stopped by West Point, with our youngest, to check that out. If only they had a women’s field hockey team, she would have pursued that more. Neither of our teenage daughters has shown much interest in hunting, other than consuming enough venison to require 3-4 average sized deer for the last 10 or so years. The pursuit of meat (they really like venison tacos) has kept me from being much of a “trophy hunter”. I did notice less shots than usual, out here in WNY, this year. I have not seen a deer at my place, near Lockport, since the start of crossbow season, but have seen good numbers and taken a couple at my parents, near Alden. My extended family has been hunting Allegheny state park for the last 70 years or so, for opening weekend of gun, and they ask me to go every year (it’s been 37 years since I went with them). 10 of them went this year (8 hunted) and they saw only 6 deer. One cousin got a shot at a small antlered buck, but he missed. My oldest first cousin, who now lives in GA, stopped in to give me the scoop from their trip and check out my buck yesterday. He is up for a few more days, so I signed one of my dmp’s for him to use if he wanted and offered him what has been one of my better stands at home. He don’t know if he will have time to hunt any more. I was hunting with his dad (was also our next door neighbor and my godfather, who just past away recently) 39 years ago in Allegheny state park, when I killed my first deer (a button buck on a party permit). My uncle kept talking about that shot until the day he died. His son and I were talking about how many shots were heard on opening day years ago, and how that has diminished greatly lately, both around home and down at Allegheny state park. I still remember that first deer like it was yesterday. A pair of antlerless ones came barreling down a hill full tilt thru the woods. I got on the front one and led it like a rabbit, timing my shot for when it reached an opening about 40 yards away. It folded up just like a downed pheasant at my shot, which struck thru both front shoulders. The trailing deer skidded to a stop, turned and froze about 20 yards from us. I swung my barrel towards it, but my uncle yelled “no” (we only had one party permit). My dad got in some type of dispute with his brother and we stopped going on that trip a few years later. They go more for the “comeraderie”, card playing and such and there has been years when I have killed more deer at home on opening weekend than the party of 10-16 guys took at the park. On a couple years, when they were skunked, I provided them venison for their annual “planning party”. They might be looking for some again this year, which thankfully, I should be able to provide.

I had planned 8 hunts over this 4 day holiday weekend, but it looks like I will only make 4. I didn’t see any deer at home for the 3rd consecutive time Thanksgiving morning, so I was in no hurry to get back out there after the big meal. Nothing seen over at my folks house on a Friday morning, from the stand that I had seen 5 from on the opener. I also saw a scrawny, small racked 4 pointer from my afternoon stand over there on the opener. The single buck that showed up there 5 minutes after sunset this Friday was a keeper. Now we have enough meat for at least a year and a half, so not much motivation for me to hunt today. I did walk back to the scene of Friday night’s “deerslaying” to grab the seat cushion I left back there, my spent slug casing, and to check out the gut pile. Nothing has found it yet. I need to take my daughter to the train station tomorrow morning, then go to church with my wife. I will hit my far back woods stand and try for an antlerless deer for the 12-5 shift. If it is a mature doe, I will keep the heart and tenderloins and see if my brother in law wants the rest. If not, I will donate it to the venison coalition. If it is a button buck, I will butcher it the next couple days and find space for it in our freezers. I need to save room in them for the big guy, who is getting cut up next Monday after skinning next Sunday. The aging temperature in the garage looks like it will be just right all week. He should be pretty tasty, because it looks like he was eating lots of corn. Good luck to all those out there hunting tomorrow.

In 2015, I developed some painful sciatica, on my left side, that hobbled me up pretty good. It started in mid October and lasted until January. It hurt real bad to walk and it nearly immobilized me thru hunting season. I got skunked that year. Fortunately, some good friends gave us a couple deer, but on October 1, 2016, our freezer was nearly empty of venison. Some simple stretching exercises took care of it and I had an above average year (4 deer) in 2016.

The nice thing about making your own lures, in addition to the cost savings, is that nobody else has exactly the same thing. Sometimes, that makes a difference in high pressure situations.

Glad to hear that. It would suck to lose that extra hour due to such stupidity (that’s what not being sure of your target is) from one individual. Id be sitting on my buck tag right now, were it not for that extra half hour past sunset, that we were granted this year. I always wondered if antler point restricts might be effective at reducing incidents like this. To me, it seems that having a buck and a doe tag might lead to “brown down” type shooting behavior, whereas point restrictions might curtail that a bit. Data from states or NY zones, which have antler point restrictions, might be investigated for correlation to shooting accidents. If a reduction could be shown from that, it would be the only way I would support antler point restrictions.

I never tried them for ice fishing. For that I use minnows on tip ups and jigging Rapalas tipped with a minnow head on the center hook. I cut off the whole tail, skin it to remove the bone and meat, salt it, and nail it to a floor joist in my basement. For my crayfish pattern, I only use the brown hair from the back of the tail. There is quite a variation in colors, with some deer having nearly black tail hair while others are very light brown. Sometimes the darker jigs work better and sometimes the lighter ones do. I also make a minnow pattern, using some of the white hair for the belly and the “almost black” for the back. The minnow pattern uses a black head with while painted eyes with a black center dot, while the crayfish gets a solid brown painted head, which actually represents the tail of a backwards swimming crayfish. The minnow pattern works better for pike and walleye while the crayfish pattern is preferred by smallmouth, which is about 90 % of what I target. I tie the hair in bunches to the hooks and don’t use any of the hide on the jigs. Deer tail hair works better than body hair for jigs because it is longer and has better action in the water. Body hair is stiffer and stands almost straight out when you tie it to a hook.

I wonder what time this incident occurred, and if low light conditions in the extra half hour’s before sunrise and after sunset was a factor.

I came very close to doing that myself twice on opening day last Saturday. The first time was about an hour after sunrise when a lone, fairly large-bodied deer passed by at about 40 yards thru some thick stuff. I thought I caught a glimpse of a small antler and that kept me off the trigger. I was not 100 % sure, but I did not want to miss out on Adirondack deer hunting next weekend, so I wasn’t taking any chances. I would have had to shoot fast, when he reached a small opening. Later that afternoon, a small four point taunted me at 30 yards across an open field for about 15 minutes. His body was small, but would have got us thru another year, if we rationed slightly. When he put his head down and looked away broadside at 30, I had visions of an empty freezer and an unfilled little green tag, on January 2nd, and almost let him have it. I still don’t know how it feels, after 40 years of deer hunting, to have punched my buck tag, and then see a bigger buck when I am out chasing antlerless deer with dmps. They give plenty of dmp’s out for my home zone (9F), but I have a heck of a time filling them after opening day. God blessed me with a nice buck yesterday, so we should have enough meat for a year and a half or so, and I will be hunting grouse and bear next weekend up in the Dacks. I don’t know how I will feel if I see a buck up there, but I am sorta hoping I don’t.

A clean kill of any deer is reason to celibate, no reason for remorse. You still got ML season to chase a bigger one this year if you wish, and the Holiday time should simplify that considerably this year. If you want to stretch that ML season even longer, it opens up in two weeks up north (always a week ahead of the southern zone). There is usually plenty of snow up there then, which makes it much easier to get a buck.

Cold, medium rare left over turkey wrapped button buck roast sandwich. Red eye and red meat and it don’t get much better:

In simple terms yes that’s what I am saying, now go get a big one.

Actually it is because the plus minus and side to side kill zone is significantly larger on the THS than it is on a neck shot, if your weapon is a high powered rifle. The math works out to an approx 6 in dia circle vs a 3 in for the neck shot do it is twice as “ethical” by that measure. Did you take any math in school ?

That’s just how my Texas heart shot Adirondack 6-pointer looked, when I walked up to him. The hole in the front of his neck was the exit. There was no entry wound. My 150 gr .30 cal bullet likely mushroomed on impact with the spine (after it cut a shallow trough across the bottom of the heart), resulting in an exit hole about the same size as your 12 ga slug entry hole. I expected the worst, but that was amoung the cleanest gut jobs I ever had on a deer. Even the butt-out worked just as if should. Did your slug stay in that one and how was the gutting job ?

There are all kinds of ways to do it. On calm water, cast it out and let it sink to the bottom, then hop it back to you. Fish will usually strike on the fall, so a sensitive rod and low stretch fluorocarbon line help out a lot. One of my favorite ways to use it is on suspended fish, that are actively feeding near the surface, over deep water. That action goes on most of the summer in the small Adirondack lake where I go a lot. I watch the surface for fish breaking and row my boat near. Cast out the jig where you seen them splash and they will often hit it just after it lands. No worries about loosing jigs on snags up top over deep water. I have caught dozens on the same jig that way. No tipping is needed with the pattern I tie. It looks just like a crayfish which is just about the favorite thing the smallmouth likes to eat. The clearer the water the better they work. I caught my largest of the season last year (20-1/8”)on my home water (upper Niagara river) this year, simply bouncing a quarter-ouncer along the bottom on a drift in about 20 ft depth:

I always try to hit a particular hair when I shoot at a deer, but I can only say with certainty, that I struck exactly on my intended point one time. I know that, because there was no hair at that point, over a diameter about equal to that of my .30 cal bullet. The near misses are a fact of hunting, which why it is usually best to aim for the point that provides the most room for error. There are always exceptions, and I would go along with the neck shots, inside of 50 yards, if you are extremely confident in your rifle. I still wouldn’t do it, unless it was all I had to shoot at, because of my fondness for neck roasts. The center-lunger is going to wreck less usable meat for me.

I did disrespect a big grey one time, with my 50 cal sidelock ML. He made the mistake of showing up at sunset on the last day of the late deer season . I had to shoot the thing to unload it anyhow. Classic case of showing up at the wrong place at the wrong time.

I always go for the neck when a finishing shot is required, from point blank range, but I don’t like it as an initial shot. I only did that once, on going on a hundred deer I have shot. The only reason I did it that time, was the big buck appeared suddenly at point blank range with just his head and neck exposed. The problem with the neck shot, is that unless it strikes the spine, there is a good chance the deer will get away, and suffer a wound that might take a week to kill it. Is it really worth taking that chance to save a little meat ? Also, the neck roast is one of my favorite parts of the deer. I did strike the neck with my first shot unintentionally two times. Once on the exit from a Texas heart shot with my 30/06 (lost that neck roast). The other was with my bow when the buck ducked my shot and caught my arrow in his juggular. To me, taking an initial neck or head shot shows some lack of respect for the animal and I don’t even do it on squirrels.