wolc123

I can’t say for sure that it bothers the deer, but it definitely puts a damper on my archery season hunts, when a neighbor starts target practicing with guns. I can’t remember ever seeing a deer after that gunfire had started. in order not to subject others to that same bs, I try to finish checking the zeros of all my firearms by early September. Most of my target practice before that, and all of it after, is with BB guns.

I don’t miss bow hunting at all. I have not done it since 2013. I much prefer going up north with my ML and rifle in Mid-October. I am really looking forward to southern zone crossbow opener this Saturday though. I would say that my average venison harvest, prior to the opening of regular southern zone gun season, has more than doubled, since I quit the bow, picked up the crossbow, and started the early northern ML/rifle trips. The additional benefits of giving up the bow are massive time savings, not needing to maintain proficiency with it year round, and much less wear and tear on my shoulders. The crossbow was a God-send, and I don’t even mind that the season is only two weeks long. Those were always my favorite two weeks of archery season anyhow (peak rut) and that saves me even more time and gives me an excuse to go up north for early ML and the rifle opener. I will take the early antlerless gun season that they gave us this year, over full inclusion of the crossbow any day of the week and twice on Sundays.

Some folks just ain’t all that bright and you can’t fix stupid.

There is no charge for those extra dmps, but I am going to donate $ 10 towards the venison donation coalition. They were able to take an extra $ 10 for that at the Lockport Walmart when I picked up my first two dmps in August. I will see how they do up in North Tonawanda tomorrow. The new holiday ML season will greatly increase my odds of filling those extras. I have to assume that Erie county is ok with the holiday ML season, since I have not yet heard that they shot it down.

Congrats on the kill. Any deer with a bow is a trophy. Generally speaking, the younger the buck, the better they taste. My favorites on the table are those without protruding antlers, or with spikes shorter than 3”. Not only do they taste the best, but they can be legally tagged with a dmp.

Live from my heated workshop trying to repair the plastic latch that I busted on my tree hammock chair last week:

In the 15 or so years I have had that generator, I only used it once or twice for power outages, that lasted more than 4 hours. I run one extension cord to the sump pump, one to the freezer, and another to the house for a light and the tv to keep the kids entertained. I keep the generator maintained with an annual oil change and use it a few times each summer to power a weed whipper, at the far edges of our lawn, or for a circular saw, air compressor, and drills for tree stand service. I hate battery operated tools. I also keep the gas tank topped off with relatively fresh, stabilized ethanol-free stuff. I need to keep the gas tank shutoff valve closed on that generator’s engine or it back feeds thru into the crankcase. It always starts on the first or second pull

Good luck to you guys out hunting this weekend. I am on the sidelines, until crossbow opens next Saturday. Hopefully, I can connect with one more average sized deer, which would give us just about enough meat to make it thru another year. This is what I saw when I walked out the back door this morning. It looks like the borderline 8 point that taunted me during the early antlerless season. He is happily munching away in my front corn plot right now

I have had my share of trouble with that, with several sump pump failures, resulting in an inch or two over the whole basement floor, and about 4 ft of water during the legendary October storm that hit WNY more than 10 years ago. I was out of town for work when that storm hit. It closed the Buffalo airport, so I flew into Rochester and rented a car there for the drive home. The power was out when I got home. I was so tired, when I finally got home around 4:00, that I didn’t even bother looking into the badement, but went right to bed. That turned out to be a big mistake. I only did that because I thought I could depend on the water backup sump pump that I had installed a few weeks prior. Little did I know, that the storm was so widespread, that the main water pumping station on Lake Erie was also without power, so there was not adequate city water pressure to power my water backup pump. The 10 psi or so trickle, that flowed into our house from the 3/4” feed pipe, was not enough to power the pump. It merely added to the rising flood in the basement. By the time I looked down there, around 9:00 am, the water was 3 feet high and rising. My dad lives about a half hour to the East, where they still had power and he had a generator. My brother brought that over and we stemmed the tide at about 4 ft. My two gas furnaces and hot water heater, were extinguished, and my freezer was half submerged (fortunately the only meat lost was some fish, because I had not yet started filling it with deer meat). Our power remained out almost a week, but I was able to keep the basement dry with that generator and my submersible sump pump. Surprisingly, when we cleaned everything up and dried things out, both furnaces still worked, as did the hot water heater and freezer. I had a bunch of rifle ammo that spent more than 4 hours under water, but there were no misfires from any of that after. Our basement was unfinished at the time, so our only real losses were about 8 quart freezer packages of fish and a chicken or two. The steps I have taken, to largely correct my basement water problems, are: 1) Purchased the best submersible ac powered sump pump that out local Home Depot carries. 2) plumb that pump such that the water is drained far away from the house. 3)purchased an 8 hp portable generator. 4)have a cheap, ac powered pedestal-style sump pump set up and ready for installation if my primary pump fails. I have replaced my primary 3 times under warranty with the backup handling the load when I went to Home Depot for my free replacement. I keep the box with the receipt on a shelf high up in the basement. I think they are down to a 5 year warranty now, but they usually fail between 3 and 4 years. The cashiers at the Home Depot service desk in Lockport have always been very cooperative, when I pick up my new pump. It is usually the float switch that fails. 5) get rid of the water backup and dc backup sump pumps that have not performed worth a crap in my application. 6) keep the sump pit clean and listen for pump operation when it rains. 7) don’t store anything that could be damaged by an inch or two of water on the basement floor.

Congrats on the awesome peak-rut buck and nice shot.

I did that last week on the recommendations of folks on here and it worked great at keeping the powder dry in my ML during some good rains. It did not seem to effect accuracy at all with hitting right on the shoulder blade (exit hole visible in photo) where I aimed.

You do not need to wear orange with a crossbow, only with a firearm. The crossbow is subject to SOME of the same rules as a ML in NY, but that don’t make it a firearm. It sounds like some folks here are still a little confused by this. The NY setback rules might help clear that up a bit for them, and indicates another example where the “SOME” applies. You need to have permission from a building owner or tenant to fire a firearm (a ML is considered a firearm by all 50 states) within 500 feet. The NY setback for a bow is 100 feet, and 250 feet for a crossbow. If NY truly considered a crossbow a ML and/or a firearm, then the setback would be 500 feet. I am very thankful that they don’t, because there are a bunch of buildings within 400 feet of the stand location, on which I have the highest hopes for my crossbow and the last two weeks of sz archery season. I don’t feel like knocking on all them doors for permission.

Congrats on the great buck. That looks like a real stout one. Make sure you get his chest girth measurement.

Right before it stops raining.

The ground is tough for sure. I did that in a tent, for quite a few years on our annual summer vacation, up on the St. Lawrence river. I sprung for a cot this year, and it made a world of difference. The cot is especially nice when it rains, because it seems that the canvas floor of the tent always got wet. Hunting from a tent seems like it would be neat to try, as long as it was warm and dry enough.

Here’s my accommodations up there:

60 miles due west of there, the rut kicked off on opening day that Saturday, or the day before. I saw no scrapes, walking the same trail on Thursday, but found a few on Sunday. it’s cool that you guys had largemouth bass there. They don’t fight as hard but I like eating them a little better than smallmouth. That’s pretty much all there is in the lake where I stay. This was likely my last of the year, caught and released on opening Saturday of gun season: I might try one more time on the Saturday after Thanksgiving if the lake is not iced over then.

So that’s where the missing signs went that I put up along the back of my parent’s woods. I thought some aborigins (folks I don’t know) from the adjacent trailer park probably pulled them down.

Al’s younger sister ?

Smart cop, and that’s why I don’t get within 10 yards of a live one. The shotgun blast has yet to damage one of my box traps, some of which have taken several. My local skunk population must be down now, because it has been about 3 years since I caught the last one, in August or September. That also might be because I have been growing sweetcorn and trapping “damaging” coons farther from the house lately. It seems that skunks are more prevalent closer to houses, probably because there are less natural predators there.

Placing a sheet over the box trap, then drowning, is an option but it takes more time and effort than a shotgun blast to the head from 10 yards upwind. That is also about as close to a live skunk as I feel comfortable. I have done that with a dozen or so, caught while targeting “damaging” coons in the summer in my sweetcorn. None of them got out any spray. For ammo, I mostly use up old 16 or 12 gauge shells that I can no longer read the numbers on. From that range, shot size or choke don’t matter much. The only thing that sucks is I have to go back up to the house for a shotgun when I find a skunk in a trap. I carry a .22 for the coons and possums. I didn’t get any of those last year. If I did, I would have released them for two reasons, to eat ticks and to save ammo. The damage that possums and skunks do to sweetcorn is very insignificant compared to coons.

I had a real comfortable pair of Redball chest waders, that I hadn’t used in about 30 years, so I cut the top off when I needed a new pair of rubber boots. Those cut off wader boots are what I use for hunting when it’s warm now, but they are just a bit over ankle high. About two years after I cut them off, I regretted it because I was seeing lots of deer activity in the swamps at my in-laws place, up in the Adirondacks. I ordered an insulated pair, made somewhere in Asia, for $89 from Amazon this fall specifically for that purpose. They are comfortable, but I ended up filling my antlerless tag up on the high ground up there early last week, so I didn’t use them for hunting the swamps. They worked great for pulling out the boats and docks, so I left them up there. I also regretting that decision now, because I imagine that the swamp near the back of my parents woods in WNY will be quite full, by time I get out with my crossbow on November 6.

Good, now I won’t have to redecorate:

That’s where Genny cream ale is best.

I don’t even drink while fishing (most of the time) let alone hunting. The first thing alcohol does is dulls your reflexes and increases your reaction time. I start to loose the ability to detect the soft strike of a bass on a jig with my first sip of 4.5 % alcohol beer. folks who drink while hunting are either alcoholics, or lack a basic understanding of how drugs effect their basic bodily functions. I see nothing wrong with celebratory drinks afterwords though, and it has been medically shown that those who average 1-2 drinks a day are generally healthier and live longer than those who have none. Cheers: