Core

I've seen a tree stump that looked like a bear and I've seen a beige rock that looked like a deer, so I can imagine a large mass at that distance initially seeming like it could be a deer at first blush. The mistake this dolt made was not positively identifying what he was shooting at. I never took at shot at that black bear stump, and I've never shot at a rock. Also this makes another case for hunter orange.

Wow 2 for 2. I didn't expect that What loads are you guys using?

Out again this morning, walked through an apple orchard (hilly so can see far down the rows), sat for a while in a nice spot, then went through the woods next to cover in perfect still hunting weather (soaked leaves, light drizzle). Saw nothing, spooked nothing. Really don't understand where the deer have gone this year. Last year I drew, during bow season, on four deer. This year I thought I was a better hunter--I've drawn on one deer, on day one. Think I am going to knock on a farmer's door right now who still has deer in his fields and see if I can pay for the next few weeks.

That does suck. On the plus though you had good land for 14 years. The problem was they were never able to associate your time with money. Many people have this problem; if money isn't exchanged for labor they don't see it as terribly valuable. That's why you provided thousands in labor for years but to them they were just doing you a favor and you would "help out a little" around the place. Even though to pay for the same would have cost them a good bit of real money. A neighbor and I are going to look more into leasing some land next year. I will probably start knocking on doors in the immediate area and not even asking to hunt; I'll open right off the bat with the fact I have money for it. But, I would require some lease agreement at that point and know that nobody else is hitting the land. State land is indeed free, but I'm leaving the house in a few minutes to "mine" and once again will be surprised if I even see a deer today. I've been striking out for many weeks now, can't even get one in view and I've scouted deep and gone to spots most people won't (I can tell by where their cars are parked!).

Nice. I may give it a go, see if it can hold zero. I wouldn't mind saving money on a new scope right now.

How much of this is people giving them turkey carcasses? Even I have always known that giving a chicken or turkey carcass to a dog is bad!

F&S had these for $219 down from normal $250. The scope doesn't look awful but this is it exactly: http://www.konuspro.com/en/site/product_description/3x_9x32mm_1 and I may just have to go out and grab a $100 nikon (dicks/f&s has the prostaff 3X9 going for $99 currently) as cheap scopes are a hassle to deal with.I didn't expect much from the scope going in, though. I wanted the stainless steel because I knew these tended to rust, even though it isn't actually "stainless"...as evidenced by the fact that it is already rusting and I haven't even shot it. Tiny bit of surface rust just where the primer goes in and then at the bottom of the threads for some reason. I just took these pics. I see no rust anywhere else and the bore looks good. The gun feels pretty good overall.

Goodluck. Those don't sound like fun

Yep and even then it has to be a utility knife (or claimed to be one). And even then if it's a locking knife it has to in theory be impossible to open by grabbing the blade and whipping the handle open (which in this context excludes almost all locking knives). I believe the NY gun laws are deliberately vague so that the police can basically pile on a charge if they feel like it. I carry a 3" blade locking knife fwiw. It can be flicked open but whatever.

You think that's bad, since Saturday morning I have gone hunting on five occasions, two including full days and the only deer I have seen was a buck walked right into a shooting lane exactly 30 minutes before I got in on that first day because I had been running late!

It's not that bad. At least you can carry a knife for self defense. Oh, wait that's illegal. Well, at least you can carry a tazer--oh, those are illegal, too. I still don't have a pistol, but I have a bad ass can of pepper spray. One day I would like to go through the 3-4 references I need. At least I'm in a "friendly" county and don't have to worry about an unfriendly judge (I don't think).

This is not a definition in NY SAFE, though. The law has not specified exactly the standard to which a magazine must meet to be considered fixed or detachable. I can't find the video now but I've seen one of people changing mags very quickly with these things. Moreover, once the upper is lifted and the mag dropped, the upper can then be pinned back into place, and at this point the rifle can accept the magazine. NY SAFE does address "accepts a detachable mag", which in the previous step we've shown is detachable (albeit with upper raised). It's just a gray area I wouldn't want to try and defend without precedent saying it can be defended.

I think field or dicks today has some entry cams at $29. You won't get cheaper. The moultrie 14 MP for $59 is also a solid buy.

Identity politics. Groups voting in monolithic blocks and, despite the angry protestations from the left about racism from the right, the democrats are filled to the hilt with these groups.

At Gander Moutain this thing is going to be $299. Looking at the Crosman site it appears similar to the very well regarded Sniper 370 that people have been raving about, except this is 3-4" narrower--but still appears NY legal (17" relaxed vs NY minimum of 14").

Been out enough didn't want to catch the ire of the family, and the weather was terrible anyway, though it was ok for the first 90 min or so. So I stayed home

By golly that does it. I'm off to LL Bean. I will wait if I have to and have the boots shipped. Apparently their insane warranty policy does indeed cover stuff like waders and rubber boots, so I will see about some lacrosse from their site. The boots that leaked this morning are total rubber 16" high "swamp tracker" boots with the field & stream name. Speaking of which, I was in a swamp yesterday, but only in and out of puddles as I walked around. Got back to my car at lunch and my feet were damp, now confirmed this morning. Reason I'm doing is LL bean is if I'm spending $150-200 for a pair of boots I need them to last. I don't need ten years, but I want at least a few years out of them. And I was really sold on the muck boot concept yesterday, regular hunting boots just would not have covered it (even the waterproof ones). 20% off at bean right now too. Unfortunately llbean might only have the 1600 G boots which is probably overkill for 40 degree NY deer season.

Guys, please confirm! Waterproof muck-type boots shoulid be able to withstand total submersion for long periods, correct? After some moisture yesterday I was hoping was because of snow coming over the top I just ran a test with my feet dunked for 30 minutes in a tub of water and I absolutely am getting water ingress in one boot. I plan on returning them. I suppose this was my fault for expecting more out of $100 boots.

Since the second week of October I have been out hunting about 15 times. I have had one (!) single deer come within range during that time and it was a 1.5 year old. With the dearth of deer available to me passing on one would be inconceivable. I will never voluntarily do it unless it is illegal to shoot or somebody at some point grants me 500 acres of private land. It just isn't a luxury I could consider. Passing on small bucks is easy when you're seeing deer most times you're out.

After my last post I go to ll bean, see how their main hunting boot is prominently mentioned--their first product, etc. And we have a local store, so off I go at lunch. And guess what? The store has NO hunting boots. Just stupid shoes and yuppy stuff for subaru drivers (low cut boots for example--they had nothing with a tall upper plus insulated. I ended up keeping the swamptrackers from field & stream. I really like them actually. They are totally warm and I've found myself now confidently going through stuff I couldn't go through in my other boots. Plus they ended up working in the snow in ways my old boots wouldn't have. I'll just keep those for fall hunting, but with the stuff I go through some seriously high-uppers are the way to go. I'd still like those bean boots, but my wife found me surfing the net to their site and shut that down

Some things not mentioned yet (some good ideas above of course). You could buy an AR15 and hunt deer with that. There are .223 built specifically for medium size game such as deer and many do kill deer with this platform. Recoil is a joke and kids can shoot them. You could buy an AR10 chambered in 308 and it will still recoil much less than a bolt gun. This is a much pricier option of course. Add weight to your hunting rifle.

ridiculous scrape found today along with tons more tracks. And yet no deer. Lots of fresh tracks since yesterday in this spot. Socks got damp.

Hit the public land today 90 min after first light. Not many cars there (two, one of which had five people standing around it) and they were both gone by 10:00. Two more showed up by 2:00 but hundreds of acres to myself. I do mean literally to myself. I walked off the road and then picked up tons upon tons of fresh tracks including pee spots, including blood spots (! Not many, but some deer was bleeding and I could not keep the trail as it was very little). I walked for a good while and could not kick up a single animal nor see one. Where I was the wind was very light with a big hill to the west and water to the east with about a 100 yard corridor. It's a really nice corridor, but no loitering; everything was just trails. I was going to sit in a field near the road until dusk, but that plan got canned for two reasons: At 10:00 am I was happily traversing marsh I never could before in my nice high new swamptracker boots when I managed to step in quicksand and water just popped over the top so my feet were wet (not cold but gross) Ignorantly, I bought a scope for my rifle that has no turret caps. This makes me a bad ass at the range playing around with it, but without caps my zero had been altered fiddling with the sling and having it over my back. I took a couple shots at a 50 yard target in the field to see if I had truly changed it and I had, so I had to go back to the range this afternoon to re-zero. I guess this is why people who hunt say get a scope with turret caps.

There is no registry of ARs anymore. The registration [of new ARs] which has now expired under NY SAFE was to allow people with NY SAFE non-compliant ARs to grandfather them in if they registered them. That is no longer possible to do. As such, there is no registration; any new gun must be compliant. As far as NY is concerned if the semi auto rifle has no more than a 10 round magazine and has a fixed magazine (so pinning one, or screwing it in with epoxy should work--but again this has never been challenged in court, but there are some stores that sell them "fixed" in this manner) you can add all the otherwise-banned features like pistol grip and flash hider. The state has not defined what fixed means, so that's why nobody really knows entirely. There literally no legal precedent for it in the state. Must it be welded? Must it be screwed and glued? Or if a 30 second screw driver can undo it, does that count? Nobody really knows for sure.

Nobody has, I promise you. I don't believe a single case has been brought by the state under NY SAFE that only dealt with mag compliance. My opinion on those is that they are not NY compliant and yes I've seen videos. I would not want to defend it in a court room. IMO you have two options in NY: a true, fixed mag that requires proper disassembly (pulling a quick pin doesn't count to my standard, but that is just me), such as unscrewing something with tools OR use a compliant stock like a thordsen, plus non-threaded barrel, etc. I think a lot of people who have tried fixed stock mags on ARs hate them and I would be in that category. I would go that route if thordsen wasn't legal, but it is and I find the stock perfectly comfortable.