wolc123

Also goes real good with button buck neck roast:

One nice thing about crossbow not opening up until peak rut time, is that it gives us more time to get ready. I moved a blind today, to a strategic location, about 30 yards from the intersection of corn, radish/turnip, and white clover plots. Hoprfully, the deer get accustomed to the new location (it was 100 yards further south) by opening Saturday. I saw two young bucks on my way back from the move tonight (a 4 point and a spike). They will be on my hit list on the second weekend but not on the first.

They certainly have nice high scoring racks, but probably wouldn’t taste as good as my little friend here. I saw him again tonight when I was out moving a blind. He had smaller buddy with him (a spike).

They were biting pretty good on the upper Niagara yesterday. I kept a few smaller ones for the freezer. This 20-1/32” was my biggest of the season and a fitting way to end it. I hooked and landed it while the Bills were leading 21 to nothing. Listing to them on the boat radio while fishing is way better than going to the game. In addition to beating up on the Washington football team, they kept all the annoying pleasure boaters at home. They usually churn my favorite stretch of river into a whipping froth with their wakes on Sunday afternoons.

You will have to pry my tape measure and chart out of my cold fingers before I put another deer on a scale. I did get a picture of a large bodied, narrow-racked 4 point at 6:00 pm yesterday, that might tempt my new 4 point on a side antler limit if he steps out there on opening day of crossbow:

Crockpot bb neck roast. ”to die for”:

I noticed while hunting a couple mornings and most afternoons of the early antlerless season this year, that the full half hour early was useful, as far as seeing details thru a decent scope. Only 20 minutes was useful after sunset (as posted for the area on the weather channels). The last legal 10 minutes was too dark to see anything thru the scope. Maybe, in an open field, with a full moon, that last 10 minutes will be safe.

This was the first year, in about 35, that I didn’t land any musky’s on the upper Niagara. I have not even seen one this year. They need to be 54” to keep out there now, but my guess is not too many short ones survive, after being played into a boat on light bass tackle.

We did ok on the last outing on the upper Niagara river this morning. No musky’s but I finally broke the 20 inch mark (by about 1/32”) with a smallmouth bass. This one felt like at least 6 pounds and earned a trip back into the river. We kept (6) “eaters” that were 13-17” long. If any one is out there fishing a tourney next year looking for a 7 pounder, try off the back of the 4 motor boat off Grand Island about half way between Beaver island and the bridge. Now it is time to clean some fish and get a tree trimmed for my new double stand (Thanks goose).

Spot on advice here. I will go out on a limb and say that it is at least 10 times easier to kill an Adirondack buck when there is snow on the ground. Even I managed to kill two up there in the snow, but I am still trying for my first without it. They can’t hide their tracks in the snow, they show up a lot better in the dense cover, and you can eliminate the vast majority of non-productive areas, simply by the absence of tracks. I almost got it done last year on opening day of gun without snow, but rain and this damn smart phone saved that mountain giant buck. I never even managed to get off a shot on him. I was in the right place at the right time (thanks to hunting the same area for almost 10 years). The biggest problem I have found with Adirondack deer hunting is that once you get a taste of it, it takes much of the luster out of hunting anywhere else (including out west for elk and mule deer, so that might not be a bad thing). The reason for that is that there has is no place I have been, in the lower 48, that rivals the scenery and solitude that we have right here in NY, up in the Adirondacks. It is no small wonder, that is where Teddy Roosevelt was, and what he was doing (whitetail deer hunting) when he became the youngest president this country has ever had (at age 42). I used to enjoy hunting the flat lands around home quite a bit more, before I had some success up in the Adirondacks. Now, I find myself thinking of being up there, much of the time when I am hunting from home.

Thanks to a fine young button buck, that I killed during the early antlerless season, and a little help from my friends, my venison supply is half way decent right now. For that reason, I plan on being a little more selective than usual with my buck tags during the first half of the southern zone crossbow and gun seasons this year. It will take a minimum of 4 points on a side ,or 3.5 yr old to trip my trigger this year. Normally it is 3 points on a side or 2.5 year. These two good ones, that my wife photographed on the back side of our block when she was coming home from the grocery store a few weeks ago, are definitely on my hit list.

For me it is 99.99 % about the meat and .01 % about the antlers. Nobody’s perfect.

I only hunt the last two weeks of southern zone archery season (after crossbow opens). I still have to get those sighted in, hang a couple more stands, and trim a branch near another. I should have plenty of time yet to get that stuff done, even after spending 9 days, up in the northern zone, for early ML week and opening weekend of gun. I am also planning on squeezing in one last upper Niagara river fishing trip this Sunday (we have plenty of vacuum sealed bass in the freezer now but I am still looking for my first musky this year). Then I will get my big boat winterized. I will likely combine a squirrel hunt with a stand setup and branch trim over at my folks place next Saturday or Sunday afternoon, if the weather is favorable.

I am on my second Foodsaver. My first one was the ”plus” model and it lasted about 10 years. It lost suction at 7 years and I took the pump apart and found a little speck of grit in it. I cleaned that out and got 3 more years out of it. You might want to try opening yours up and looking inside the pump. When it lost suction again 2 years ago I couldn’t get it working again so I started using my spare base-model and that has worked well on 3 deer so far (one this year) and hundreds of fish. We go thru an average of 3 deer a year and I usually just zip lock the first one killed. It is usually gone in a few months so vacuum sealing that one would be a waste of time and money. Zip lock freezer bags are much faster to use and much cheaper. Vacuum sealing is only worth it if freezing more than 3 months. I did vacuum seal most of the button buck I killed a couple weeks ago (during the special early antlerless gun season) so that I could save that extra fine tasting meat for special occasions. The liver and tenderloins were the best that I have ever tasted. I can’t wait for the neck roast. We will eat that soon as it is in a 1 gallon zip lock bag.

Sometimes the 5 pt is the biggest deer in the woods. That was the case with the (3) 3.5 year old bucks that I killed on 3 consecutive years in this photo. The 5 point (was originally a 6 but broke one off in a fight) on the lower left had the largest chest girth at 43”. The larger racked one above and to the right only measured 42” and weighed 182 pounds. I am “educated guessing” the 5 pushed 200 pounds. Of those two, I’d take the stout 5 first any day. More tacos for the kids. For me, it really is all about the meat. The only reason I pass smaller racked bucks is that the larger racked ones generally have more meat. That is not always the case though, as this example shows. I would get more meat from antlerless deer if I was able but the local farmers usually have most of them shot by the time I can get my crossbow or gun on them. That forces me to be somewhat selective with my two precious buck tags in order to insure that my family has enough deer meat for the year.

Hang it up and wait for crossbow the last 2 weeks.

The same argument could be made about recurve and longbows, or even compounds when crossbows are legal. For some folks, deer hunting is “a sport” where it is mostly about “the challenge”. For others, such as myself, it is mostly about gathering “free” meat. I always look to use the most lethal, legal means available to help make that happen. The quicker the animal is dispatched, the less it suffers and the better the meat tastes. I had a couple of .22/250’s, one for over 10 years. I liked it so much, that I bought the second one. Their primary jobs were killing woodchucks, but they also worked very well on foxes and coyotes. What I liked best about them, was that they always put the bullet almost exactly where I wanted it to go. I considered using one for deer, but backed off after a little research. I do miss my first .22/250 a bit (I traded it for my new “foul weather deer rifle” , a Remlin 336BL 30/30). I will miss it a little less after I break that one in on a deer. I no longer shoot at woodchucks from long range, and have been doing ok on them in close, with my Ruger 10/22.

Ok, the .17 rem is the new leader for worst deer center fire cartridge, others on your list might be argued compared to .22/250 and .223.

Not sure about the “for sure part”, more like by a very slim margin. We may have identified the two worst center fire cartridges to use for deer. Any other nominees out there for ones that might be worse than these two ?

You might loose one less chop with a center lung shot from a .223 compared to a .22/250 firing the same bullet.

I would take the .223 over a .22/250 for deer because it is slower, so wrecks less meat, and has much better ammo availability. Still a horrible choice though.

Can anyone come up with a worse choice for deer, in a center fire rifle, than a .22/250 ?

I can think of one good use for a tape measure on a buck. I wonder what it’s chest girth measured ? 43” is the biggest of any that I have killed and measured so far. Chest girth can provide a more accurate method of predicting edible meat yield volume from a deer than weight, since most of what that weight measures is water. Water has no nutritional value.

I took my hunters safety course when I was 12 or 13 at at a summer camp. I got my first small game license when I turned 14, as soon as the town hall opened up after Christmas break (I share a birthday with Jesus Christ). I did some rabbit hunting in January of 1978 (if my math is correct) with my dad. I carried his old Ithaca 16 gauge double with Damascus barrels. Only the left side worked. He carried his Browning sweet 16. We only went out a couple times and didn’t see any rabbits. Our English setter didn’t do so well with those. He was big into hunting wild pheasants, but they were mostly all gone by that time. I didn’t kill anything that first year. The following season, I killed a few squirrels with my grandfathers Winchester single shot .410. I may take that out again for those in the next few weeks. Too many leaves on the trees for my .22.

I went into the woods when it was 21 to nothing but all I saw was chipmonks. Way too many leaves in the woods, I should have stuck to the field edge. I will be making a grey squirrel hunt over here, prior to opening of crossbow in November, and bring along my pole pruner. If I remove one branch I would have had a nice shot at momma doe last Sunday.