wolc123

Daughter’s game is at 2:00 pm, so I can hunt till 11:30 or so. If I get one late, we might be a little late to the game. The deer skin pretty fast when warm though, and I should be able to have one skinned, cut in half, and in the fridge in about 45 minutes. Its about an hour’s drive to the stadium. Just about ready to start getting my stuff ready. I showered with scent free soap this morning and used scent free deoderant. I will wear my ScentFactor Jacket and treat my boot heels with Evercalm, every 200 yards or so, on my walk to the new tree blind on the front corner of our woods. I’ll also have a quart of hot cider for hydration, nourishment, cover scent, and deer attractant. I don’t care what the wind direction is, for that morning hunt, because that stand is up about 9 feet and the morning thermals should carry my scent up and out of play when I’m in it. If it’s from the south, west, or south west, I’ll walk in from the house. If it’s from the north, east, or north east, I’ll drive my field car (Durango), to the south west corner (about 300 yards away from the stand) one hour before sunrise, and approach on foot from there. I’m going with my CP Sniper crossbow tomorrow morning. I’m taking my laser range finder to check range to various landmarks so I know which of the (4) crosshairs to use. It will be interesting to see how that stock factory scope does in low light conditions.

Our daughter’s team won their first round college playoff field hockey game tonight, so no all day crossbow hunt for me Saturday. Hopefully, that will be a later game, but they don’t know the start time yet. I will need a little time to get a deer skinned and into the deer fridge, after the morning hunt, because it looks like it’s going to be a little warmer over the weekend.

I can’t wait. I’m torn between hoping that our daughter advances thru the college field hockey playoffs, or gets eliminated in the first round tomorrow night. Her playoffs have cost me most of the last (4) crossbow seasons. Either way, I’ll be out there for a few hours Saturday morning. That will be all day, if need be, if she looses tomorrow. The rut looks like it’s going to be just about peaked on that day. I just picked up (2) extra wmu 9F dmp permits today and I’m not going to be fussy with those. The first antlerless deer, that offers me a good shot, is going to get one from me. An antlered buck is going to need to be clearly 2.5 years old or older, or have at least (4) points on a side. There’s at least one, meeting those criteria, hanging around both of my local spots. My odds are probably best for DD-10, here at home. Not sure if his Timothy hay feeding pattern will hold, from this day in mid-September, but if it does I’ll be there with my crossbow.

Most likely not all on that one 60 acre piece. Deer wise up real quick, after you start whittling down their numbers. That’s the key to their survival. Two deer a year seems reasonable. Assuming an average yield of 50 lbs edible per deer, that works out to $ 30 per pound, just to cover the $ 3k in property taxes. That sounds very expensive. You could probably buy Wagu fillet mignonette or Alaskan king crab cheaper than that. I always shoot for $ 1.00 per pound on my venison, including most input costs. I don’t consider property taxes on input costs though, because I need elbow room anyhow. I just consider stuff like hunting license, ammo, fertilizer, fuel, and herbicide for food plots (I usually get free seed). I also don’t consider equipment costs, because I need that for property maintenance and gardening anyhow.

How many tags did you fill on that 60 acres last year ?

Fairly well stocked, thanks to the Good Lord and Redfields and Weavers:

Very good video. I agree with the guy’s grandpa: Weavers are for putting meat in the freezer, and Leupolds made sure that a guy couldn’t afford a freezer to put the meat in. That’s why it’s mostly been Weavers or Redfields for me.

Right you are, I was using the pre-Bidenflation cost. It looks like a 6 day, guided, est 85% success, Newfoundland moose hunt is up to $ 6k now. Even with that inflated cost, Luber would still be ahead, when it comes to cost per pound. ($ 6k for 500 lbs of moose meat compared to $3k for 100 lbs of whitetail meat.). He’d be getting 5x the (better) meat at just double the cost.

My mother in law sent me text, saying that she fried up the (4) perch that I caught for her last week for dinner tonight. She said they were very good. I’m hoping that all of the nearby corn will be harvested, and that there will be some snow on the ground, next time we go up there on Thanksgiving weekend. That will greatly improve my odds of getting a buck up there. Back here in WNY, Im taking this weekend off from hunting. I’m trying to get everything ready for winter. I got most of the leaves swept up off the lawn and piled up yesterday. I did the roof work today, sweeping out the chimney for the wood stove and cleaning the leaves out of the gutters. If the weather cooperates next week, I might try to cut the lawn one last time. I took the deck off my primary mower, to give more clearance for pulling the leaf sweeper, so I’ll need to use my backup mower for the last cut. I put the snowplow on my Farmall Cub. That works good for pushing up the leaf piles from the area where I dump them with the leaf sweeper. Before the snow flies, I got to get the rear chains on that Cub, and try to get the lights working again. I had to straighten out the plow frame before I mounted it because I bent it up a little in a failed attempt to use it for a front hitch to move my boat. Apparently, that was a little too much tongue weight for it. My 22 ton vertical hydraulic press (log splitter) made short work getting it straightened out.

Yes. For that amount you could take a guided moose hunt to Canada and come back with 4x the (slightly better) meat than you might get, if you tagged out on whitetails, on his 60 acres. My recommendation would be: offer $150 to lease the 15 acres of woods. See if you can find a farmer, who would pay $2850, to lease the 45 acres of tillable.

Ive always avoided Leupold scopes, because they were too expensive, however I did buy a new Redfield Revolution that was manufactured during the brief period when they were the “parent company”. The quality of that seems ok but not quite up to par with my older “made in USA” Redfield scopes. Hopefully, I’ll never need another new scope, because I don’t know where I could get one now, not being into the foreign stuff. I’d probably take my chances on a used one.

That looks good. Ive got to wait until Valentine’s Day to eat any myself, because my wife only makes it once a year. Hopefully, I will have a few more hearts, to add to the two in the freezer now, by then. I wasn’t able to get any more during my last (9) days of ML and rifle deer hunting up north. I Hope to be able to add up to (5) more to the batch between November 4 and January 1.

I had a very comfortable spot to sit in the rain for my 9th morning in the north woods, but no deer seen. The drive home went well and i am all unpacked. No more deer hunting for me until sz crossbow opens on November 4th.

I like his writing style, very blunt and to the point, and not the least bit “politically correct”. Way different and better than most of the stuff in print these days.

I have been in position, down in the steam bottom hot-spot, since 15 minutes before sunrise. I drove the plow truck down to the trail-head in the rain to save a little time and stay a little drier. There are a couple old, falling-down lean-to’s nearby, one of which held a soft-topped, swivel-based chair with arm rests and full lumbar back support. My father in law uses that for hunting beavers in the stream. I dragged it out a short distance, propped it up level next to a pine tree, and rigged my tree umbrella above. The rain had been falling steady, but I have been relatively dry and comfortable so far. Two problems I had in the rain yesterday, in my camp chair under the umbrella were wet knees on my bibs, from moccasional drops that struck them, and inability to swivel for 360 degree shot capability. This chair lets me shoot all around, and I’m wearing my insulated chest waders today, so no problem there. Today’s issues are it’s about 10 degrees colder (36 F), and the wader rubber boots are not as warm as the Timberland-pro insulated leather, composite-toe loggers boots that I had worn on my prior hunts. My knees are staying dry though. I’m going to try and hold out here until around 11:00, then head back for lunch with the in-laws, then pack up for the 4.5 hour drive home. Maybe I’ll make that 4 hours, to my parents house, and have supper with them. Only the appearance of a buck, with 3 or more points on a side or a bear in the next (2) hours, could throw a wrench in my plans. Our buddy, from down at the end of the lake, left his Cat #12 road grader parked blocking the trail so I’d have to drag any carcass out by hand. At least that makes for a nice, smooth drive back to my in-laws house, with no potholes.

Here is an oldy (written in 1962) but a goodie, that I am about 1/4 thru:

Just saw this. Is it’s too late to start now ? Ive never held any political office, but I did visit my favorite President’s house and farm this summer, during the barley harvest. It does seem like we could use a little Barnyard Diplomacy right about now.

I made it thru another day with no deer sightings, making 8 straight. Just one more hunt to go, in the morning. I’ll be going to the stream-bottom spot, which is where I’ve seen the most deer here over the last 10 seasons, but never killed one. I have been doing this (9) day hunt/fish-cation up here for the last 5 or so years and have never made it all the way thru without seeing any deer. One year I made it up on Friday, with enough daylight left to catch the last hour of crossbow season. I saw (3) antlerless deer, standing on the main camp driveway, on my walk in and that was it for that trip. Last year I saw the most, stumbling into a herd of 10-12 on my walk in one morning, about 45 minutes before sunrise. 3 days later, on my last Sunday morning, I went back to that spot and again spooked (2) out, before legal light. I sat there anyhow, and a “just barely legal” spike buck came in and tempted me with a 30 yards broadside shot (I passed). i would put my odds of seeing a deer tomorrow at about 20 %, and my odds of killing a buck, with 3 or more points on a side, at about 5%. It’s too far of a walk to carry my camp chair. It’s supposed to rain again tomorrow, so I’ll have to suffer a wet butt, with my tree hammock chair under my tree umbrella. It catches runoff from the tree. Since it’s my last day for hunting up here, I don’t mind if my bibs get wet. I won’t be needing them again until crossbow season opens at home on November 4. I’ll hang them out in my hunting room when I get home and they will be dry by then. It stopped raining here at about 10:00 today. I hunted till noon, went back for lunch, then helped my father in law with some pre-winter projects. We went over to see our buddy, at the far end of lake, about the incident at the gate the other day. A big old overhead structure almost came down on my father-in-law. I bruised my left upper arm a little, while up on an extension ladder, holding it back. I held it, until he got his tractor bucket against it, then I screwed down a support brace. We were very fortunate that no one got seriously injured or killed. Our buddy said that he had a new blade on his chainsaw, and why don’t we just go cut it all down. We went back with my father in laws loader tractor, chains, a long rope, and the plow truck. It took us about an hour to cut down the old structure and clean up the mess. We even yanked out the offending new pole, which was improperly on the disgruntled neighbor's property. That little dispute turned out to be a “blessing in disguise” because without that new pole holding up the old rotted overhead gate structure, it may have fallen and killed someone. Had the new pole not been on the neighbor’s property, we never would have known how rotted the old structure was. Even though we got all the work done, I skipped the evening hunt for 5 reasons: 1) my freezers pretty full at home 2) It started raining again 3) The local deer have been missing in action 4) It’s shower night 5) I wanted to clean my ML. All this stuff is gone now ^, except for the rock gate post bases. My father in law and his buddy are already planning an elaborate new gate structure, none of which will be on the disgruntled neighbor’s property.

I still have it and have been using it all week. It’s no good in heavy rain though, because it collects the runoff from the tree and gives me a wet butt. I do miss the swivel feature with the camp chair though. The camp chair is just as comfortable, after I get it blocked up and level. Definitely a pain to carry, compared to the hammock seat, but quieter and faster to take down. One of the plastic teeth on the clip on my tree hammock has been broke off for about the last (5) years. I always need to made sure I buckle it with the good tooth on top, or it lets go when I sit in it I always pile up the leaves under it, just in case the other tooth breaks off. Clearing then leaves under my feet also makes for a quiet turn, when the deer shows up behind me. I definitely like the full 360 degree shooting from the tree hammock. All of my raised blinds have swivel office chairs on them, for the same reason. The only time I can’t shoot, in any direction, is when it’s raining and I’m in that camp chair, or in one of my two ladder stands or my two hang-ons.

I’m out up north for opening day with the bang stick today. Already have a freezer full of venison, thanks to early antlerless gun season back home, so I’ll definitely be looking to ruin a little meat with a shoulder blade shot today, if I get a chance for one . I also don’t like trying to follow a blood trail in the rain. It’s nice and dry, here under my tree umbrella, but the rain is showing no signs of letup. I brought along plenty of hot cider and candy bars. I may hang out here till past noon. I’m not really looking forward to the heavy lifting that my father in law has planned for me later in the barn, getting the back ring chains on his snow plow tractor. I also might be able to catch some “lunch push” action, from folks hunting the state land and the big hunting camp, just across the main road, from where I am right now. My wounds (cut my finger a little on a wood screw) are almost healed from one of the prior big jobs that I helped him with. My biggest problem, so far today, was building up the drink holder in my chair with enough broken sticks to hold up my cider cup. Now, if only a big buck don’t show up and spoil the peace and quiet.

It’s over a hour past sunset and I’m in my camp chair, under my tree umbrella, on the north edge of the south ridge. I’m about 150 yards from a main highway and there is a big block of state forrest, and a huge hunting camp, on the other side of that. There is a steady rain falling and the wind is steady from the sw at about 10 mph. I haven’t seen a deer up here thru all of ML week, but a small one got flattened on the road, within 200 yards of where I am now. My plan is to sit here until 11:30 or so. My odds of seeing a buck from this spot are probably better than anyplace else I can think of. (3) years ago today, I blew a chance at the biggest antlered buck I ever seen up here, about 200 yards to my east, along this ridge. I am also very close to the spot where I lost the trail of a one-antlered 2.5 year old buck, that I got a bad (high back) hit on last December. I also tracked a big doe and her fawn to this same spot, a few years before, after I missed her in the snow with my ML during the late season. So this seems to be the spot where they go when they are shot at, hit, or pressured. I’m in no condition to pressure any deer today myself, after a week of walking these hills and lots of “bull work” for my in laws, getting their place ready for winter. Hopefully, somebody else pushes one to me today. I have not heard any shots yet. I put my orange hat on top of my umbrella to hopefully keep anyone from “shooting at movement” from the taller ridge to my north. Not sure if that’s legal, but you can’t see the hat under the umbrella, so common sense trumped the law. I do wear the hat when walking in and out.

Ive never seen a moose in NY, but they have been reported all around the spot where I am hunting today, on opening day of rifle big game season, near the border of wmu 6C & 6F. I have hunted them in the pines up in Northern Quebec though. We used cone shaped calls made of birch bark to make a sound similar to what FL describes. I still have one of those moose calls somewhere. I can’t remember if that was supposed to represent the sound made by a rutting bull or a cow on heat.

Today was the last day of early ML season and I managed to get thru the whole week without seeing a single deer. I hunted the morning up on the north end of the east ridge (red sky in morning - what’s that mean ?), and the last hour at a spot close to the house. One glimmer of hope for opening day of rifle tomorrow though. My mother in law saw a small deer, that appeared to be flattened by a semi truck, just to the left of the driveway into camp. Maybe that means they are moving in. I’ll be hunting down that way tomorrow morning for opening day of rifle season. It sounds like it’s going to be a wet one, so I’m thankful I’ll have my rifle and not my ML. Keeping the powder dry would not be easy with that. Im sure that my tree umbrella is going to get plenty of use. I’ll probably carry in my camp chair also, because my tree hammock seat tends to collect runoff from the tree it’s attached to, during heavy rains. I’ll be hunting pretty close to where I’m parking the plow truck on the logging road, so it will be no big deal carrying in the chair. Hopefully, some “opening day” hunting pressure across the highway, on a big block of state forrest, will push a buck over onto our side. I’ll be looking for one with at least 3 points on its side, or clearly at least 2.5 years old. No need to “settle” for a smaller one, because our deer meat situation is ok at home, right now. Aside from hunting, we did finish up the last of the outside work, to get the place ready for winter. Fishing was tougher today than yesterday, but I did add one more smaller perch to the bucket, so I had (4) to fillet for my MIL. I also got (3) smallmouth 12-1/4” , 14”, 15”, all on the same 1/8oz bucktail jig that I used yesterday. High winds made the fishing tougher today. I caught them all anchored near the spot on the south end where they were hitting best yesterday. I tried trolling, once around the lake with a diving plug but no hits doing that. No more fishing for me on this trip. The 5-1/2 Johnson ran very well and is now stored in the shed, along with the other gear. The 14 ft rowboat is hauled up and flipped over for the winter, and the last docks are pulled up. The only heavy work that remains is getting the chains on my father in laws snowplow tractor. We can do that in the barn, so the rain shouldn’t be an issue.

Is it windy where you are at ? It’s blowing about 25 mph from the south, up here on the nw corner of the park. I’m going to still hunt my way up to the top of the ridge just to have a look around. If there’s anything up there, they will never hear me coming in this wind.

Same here. I know a lot of guys who hold off in the does because they expect a buck to be following. One time I shot a doe early on opening day of gun. Two bucks showed up 10 minutes after I discharged my ML on the doe. I dropped the bigger one right next to her carcass, with my backup gun (open sighted, short barreled Remington 870 smoothbore). That was the last deer that I killed with open sights. I’m going to try and do it again tomorrow, on Northern zone opening day of Rifle season, with my Remlin 336BL. I got to use that, because it’s supposed to rain all day, and my father in law don’t like me getting his scoped Marlin 336 wet. Today is my last chance to get a doe up here with my ML. It’s not looking too good, because I have not seen any sign of a deer all week, not even a track.