wolc123

I am about in the middle on the stand move thing and willing to experiment. My climber days are behind me now, but I know they can be effective. On more than one occasion, in my younger days, I had mature bucks come in to investigate, just minutes after I reached altitude in my home-made climber (Baker copy). The sound of a young whippersnapper climbing with that must have been similar to two bucks locking horns or something. Finding the right tree in the right spot was the biggest problem with that. The key for me now, seems to be minimizing usage of a particular stand. The first hunt of the year, from any of them, is usually the best. I have scored on three consecutive years from my gun opener hang-on, but I don’t hunt it prior to that day. I have good confidence in the short ladder stand that I placed last weekend. I trimmed some good shooting lanes from it, but I won’t go back there until early November peak rut time. I have one hang on in reserve. I may experiment with the “just on time” deal with that this season, depending on my observations, and if I have any tags left after my 10 day trip to the Northern zone next week, and sticking with the “old reliables” and my 3 new stand locations at home for a while this season.

I am glad to hear of the delayed foliage turn report. It is usually a little bit post-peak, by the time I head up for opening of early ML. The best scenery up there for me is a dead even tie between peak fall color and first good snow cover. The hunting is 10x easier with the latter, but the fishing is better with the former. Hopefully, this will be one of those rare years, when both of those happen in the 10 day span when I am up there starting on Friday October 15. I am also glad to hear of the missing coyotes this year. I noticed the same thing in my trips up to the NW corner of the park this year. I had an encounter with one up there a few years ago and I think they put a hurting on the deer numbers when there are too many around. That also hurts themselves. Rumor has it, that distemper has wiped most of them out.

My buddy Joe invented it, about 35 years ago, near the end of a long weekend snowmobile trip, to Allegheny state park. All of our beer was gone on the last day, but someone found a bottle of vodka. The only thing we could find to mix with it was milk. Fill a cup with ice (or snow), pour in a shot or two of vodka, top off with milk, and stir. Not half bad, and it has been my go to mixed drink ever since. At fancy joints, cruises, etc., I always ask for a White Russian, but tell them to hold the Kallua (I don’t think they have that in Russia anyhow). My favorites are made with crushed ice, Finlandia vodka and 2% milk. This is the only mixed drink that I have found, that I am able to consume in fairly large quantity, with little to no “ill effects” the following morning. If it ain’t broke, I ain’t fixing it. Also, much of my family and friends are in the dairy business, so I like to support them any way I can.

The devilrats and the traitor are coming for you.

I can handle, and often do very well, when fishing in any two of the following three conditions: rain, high winds, and cold. The three combined is a definite no go however. I always bring my full rain gear when we do our annual summer trip to the St Lawrence (cold is rarely an issue then), and have taken some of my best fish up there in the rain. The good things about the rain is that it eliminates all the pleasure boaters and most of the fisherman so that you can have any spot you want all to yourself. The Buffalo Bills playing has a similar effect and I took full advantage of that last Sunday. Also, the clouds reduce the sunlight into the water, making the fish feed more aggressive at mid day, than they do in sunny conditions.

All true and yet left field, versatile hunter, bowman Mike, and chef have not and will not admit that they made a mistake in voting for this devilrat party puppet, and that list does not even include his biggest fault - support for all abortion including late term. ain’t they special. I thank the Good Lord every day that Trump was able to seat three conservative, strongly pro-life Surpreme Court justices. That should go a long ways in thwarting the continued slaughter of helpless unborn millions that has gone on far too long in this formerly great country. It will be great again when the devilrats are out of power.

That what I played last night. All they had was Labatts blue light…. Yuk. I could only handle two of those, then switched to my favorite mixed drink - vodka and milk.

I can’t remember the brand but it looks like Amazon has a similar one called heyeasy for $ 32.

Looks like worms.

I am not heading up until October 15, so plenty of time yet to get ready. I need to tie up a few more 1/8 oz bucktail jigs, which work real well on the smallmouths, along the shoreline in October. I have checked the zeros on both of my ML’s and located most of the other gear I will need, including my tree hammock seat. I just finished setting up my last southern zone tree tree stand this morning so I should be all set for opening of crossbow here a week or so after I get back from up north. Hopefully my buck tag will already be punched up there with my ML’s, but I should still have 3 dmp’s to work on, and maybe my gun season buck tag.

The main plan worked out well for the stand setup. I stayed out little too late playing cards last night, so didn’t get much squirrel hunting in this morning. I only saw one red on a walk thru the woods. I passed on the shot with my .410 because they are too small for a good meal. I drove my truck into the trailer park and found that The dead end road I noted on google maps satellite view ended about 10 feet from my parents woods. There was even a nice little path, bordered by flowers, leading up into the woods. It was an easy haul from my pickup parked there, to the tree I picked out. I set the ladder (7 ft high platform, 9 ft high seat), on the back edge of the swamp near a couple of trails. I trimmed a few shooting lanes for shots up to about 35 yards. The nearest trailer is about 400 feet away. Now I have a crossbow stand on the back edge of the swamp and a gun stand on the front. The spot I picked out is on the west side of the swamp, very close to the spot where I had my first encounter with a 182 pound field dressed, 42 inch chest girth, busted up 3.5 year old 8 point, that I later killed with my shotgun back in 2017. He was standing near the middle of the swamp, and I shot him from my gun stand on the east side. The swamp was not as high as I was expecting, considering all the rain we had this summer. I should be able to access the new stand from my parents side wearing ankle high rubber boots, which would be best anyhow, with the prevailing west wind. If a deer expires on the trailer park side of the swamp this year, I will use this dead end road for carcass recovery. I have had enough of “swamp drags” after one last year and the one in 2017 when that fat horse dropped right in the middle. My brother brought back a big plastic sled, which we used to float that hefty carcass out.

My favorite, venison cabbage rolls.

My plan for tomorrow is to head over to my folks place for a little early morning squirrel hunting, and to trim the branch that hid a big doe during the early antlerless gun season. After that, I am going to try to setup my old single ladder stand in a spot on the back side of a swamp over there. The strip of woods between the swamp and a trailer park is only about 400 ft wide. That takes it out as a gun spot but I could hunt it legally with a crossbow. I have a primary and a backup plan to get that done. Main plan: a look on “google maps” shows a dead end road thru the trailer park that ends close at my folks woods. I will load my stand in my puckup, back up as close as I can on that road to the woods, and make the short carry over dry ground. I have never been in the trailer park so I am not sure what to expect. One of my old high school buddies is part owner of it so I will drop his name if anyone gives me any trouble. Backup plan: If trouble still comes with the primary plan, my new chest waders arrived in the mail yesterday. I will put them on and make the long carry, thru the “extra full” swamp. That will take a lot longer but should be doable.

It will be very interesting to see what Erie county does, since I think it has more registered snowmobiles than any other county in the state.

Fortunately, most of the folks I know who belong to the local snowmobile club (northern Erie) are also hunters, so I suspect they know better and will discuss both sides. They had a meeting tonight in fact. I should hear, by tomorrow night, what was discussed about the issue.

I would be inclined to close my property to a snowmobile trail if the local snowmobile club lobbied the county to opt out of the Holiday ML season. I suspect that many others would do similar.

Ok at 20 but what about 49,50,51,52,53,54,55….

Two suggestions to prevent this from happening in future years: 1) Make some thick, sanctuary areas on your land and stay out of them at all times, except possibly for some late winter hinge cutting. This will encourage deer to bed on and spend more time on your land. 2) Put in some wheat/soybean/white clover mix plots around September 1. I can’t think of anything more likely to draw deer away from apples and acorns than fresh sprouted soybeans. The only way you can get that in early October, is to plant them in early September. If I was in that situation this year, I would find someplace else to hunt until November 1st or so. Let the deer start to feel safe on your ground, with no traces of human scent around (don’t even pull camera cards). Hit them by surprise, just as the peak rut begins. That is my plan for my own back 40 even though I have seen a buck or two in the daylight, nearly every time that I have been back there, over the last 3 weeks. I have some good sanctuary areas, but no soybeans this year.

This one, only because I have never seen a deer pass so peacefully from this world to the next, and one of my best hunting and fishing buddies made that trip at the exact same moment. RIP Joe, 11/22/20

Fun way to get free meat, same as fishing.

The only thing I will be hunting, until October 16, is squirrels. Do they count for anything ?

The two new tower blinds that I put up earlier this year, which use 8 ft. Home Depot landscape timber’s for front legs, are considerably more stable than the “new to me” ladder stand that I posted up above. That is with just a single 2x4 brace tying the two legs together at the bottom. They also have the nice solid 3ft barn wood wall to hide behind and for a very stable safety/shooting rail. 4 new stands or locations of old ones for me this year but I have only broken one in with a a kill so far. I aim to get a fifth one up this weekend. That one will be too close to a trailer park to use s gun from but will be great for crossbow. No more locaI hunting for be until crossbow opens up though. I am hoping that I can fill a tag or two up north with my ML’s before that happens. I just ordered some chest waders from Amazon, so that I can try sneaking up on them, in the creek bottom, with my little carbine sidelock ML.

The best part was the material cost (free). I had all the stuff laying around. A neighbor threw away a fiberglass truck cap, which I used to replace that aluminum one on my pickup. That cap was my all time best garbage pick. Second best was the power washer that has saved me hundreds in taxidermy charges for euro mounts.

My current step stool is a bit short for that one. Looks like a good place for the extra 5 ft of steel ladder, that I had leftover from last nights ladder stand setup.

10 ft deck height is about the max for me. I did not mind heights as much when I was younger. The only thing I didn’t like about that ladder stand I put up last night, was that the front part of the safety/shooting rail is a bit flimsy. I posititioned the platform so that I can utilize the stouter, corner section of the rail, for long shots down the gas line.