knehrke

I heard that tick populations are closely tied to field mice, their most populous host, and that field mouse populations are impacted most by mast production. So, maybe the gypsy moth outbreak of the past few years will have one good outcome to outweigh devastating acorn crops?

It wasn't too long ago that we were sending her appreciation cards. It won't be too long until she's graduating. Time flies. My daughter is finishing college this year, and I don't know where it went. Watching them pupate into their adult forms is an awesome journey. It's great to see your daughter thriving.

I visit both sites with my morning coffee...content is getting a little bit thin now that we're in between seasons. I may need to start a bowhunting thread on FOC setups.

Dox will do you. It also has the advantage of inducing a mild mitochondrial stress response through an off-target mechanism that can help protect you against ischemia-reperfusion injuries like heart attack and stroke. lol. Some redneck scientist who posts here occasionally published that...

Neighbor of mine had seven of them feeding under a pear tree (!) this fall. I was in a stand one day when all he$$ broke loose, with deer running everywhere across fields and in front of me...three dogs came by less than a minute later. One of them stayed with an arrow through him. We can't let a deer lay overnight after the shot anymore. Even a couple hours is long enough for the dogs to find them. It's been an incredible resurgence, and I know there's guys who hunt them on our block. They are incredible, resilient predators.

I just reread my scathing take on Moultrie's latest offerings, then saw this lol. I'm glad to hear that the Edge has worked for you. I'm still in the once burned twice shy category, but hopefully Moultrie has turned it around. I do like their app, as well as their billing paradigm, where if you cancel early they pro-rate the month. Tactacam takes everything and if you read their agreement, can charge you an early cancellation fee to boot. I've never tested this - I always cancel service with them on the last day of my service period. Happy New Year!

Very nice! You will notice that if you're trying to smoke fish at 180F, you may need to use a small torch to get the chips started burning - but at 225F, it should rock.

I did a bunch of that when I first bought land. It seemed like it would be an easy way to establish cover. Turns out that without a weed mat and protection, the return on your time is virtually nil. I'm not sure that any of the hundreds of poplar, willow, elderberry, dogwood, or any type of cutting that I planted actually survived. That having been said, I also helped a buddy out doing things the right way with long rolls of landscape fabric and protection from the deer, and he has beautiful screening hedges now - so it works if you pay attention to the details. I never tried blackberry or raspberry from seed (I did plant some named blackberry cultivars for consumption). Any opening at all and those seem to sprout on their own from native stock if I don't mow. Raspberry is nice, but blackberry can become a messy tangle of impenetrable thorns very quickly.

I trained one of my first dogs over pigeons years ago, nearly 600 of them hit the ground between May and September. When the first goose dropped, the dog hit it like a freight train, then stood there like, "now what?" before dragging it by the head to us. For the next ten years. whenever a flight of pigeons would go over the house, the dog would get crazy. What a great way to introduce a young dog to the game! The fact that they decoy just like ducks made it even sweeter.

I love my forest clearing saw with a carbide head! Great for opening paths and clearing thick brushy stuff. I recall growing up down near Bath, there were quite a few areas where DEC had clear-cut and planted Poplar. I know it's not the most sexy of trees, but from what I understand, grouse can't survive without stands of young poplar. Winter food and cover I guess. So, that's a thought? I've used poplar / pine combos for screening, but that's about it. Salt the earth? Sounds biblical...

It may take years of effort, but a chainsaw is your best friend. There's plenty to be learned on appropriate tactics here: www.habitat-talk.com If you can knock down the invasive species, maybe spread a little seed for native grasses and whatnot, you will reap long term benefits. Plowing, tilling, glyphos, these things are short term solutions that fill immediate needs. It's good you're taking a more holistic approach. Remember, anything above browse height is wasted on a deer.

Give me snow and strong wind. Cameras don't lie: it's what gets the big bucks moving.

Heck, yeah! Life is chaos, and I want to respect my harvest. If I know I won't have time, then IMHO it's smart to pass. I don't know why, but it seems tough to get motivated when you know you're not going to pull the trigger - i'm a hunter, not a bird watcher. But motivation is a strange thing, too. If I have my sights set on a trophy buck, chances are I won't get a chance to pull the trigger, but I'm still hunt-crazy. Flip side is, once I've taken a buck, then what you're talking about creeps in...

I have a pair of the Arctic Storm. So far one year later so good. The tops are definitely snug.

Whereas I own land in Ogden that I paid $2K an acre for, eight years ago.

Gotta love a rack that you could use to make an armchair! And nice to harvest him before he starts to go downhill much. Congratulations to the lucky shooter!

Two of our group scored on Sunday with decent eights, and two more got it done last night, one with a bonus doe thrown in for good measure. The bucks were all 2 1/2 -3 1/2 year old deer; the doe was a swamp donkey. We are seeing good numbers of scrub bucks and tons of doe. I suspect our luck is due to a late soybean harvest of very small plants that left 30% of the beans still hanging in pods. The field was planted after the summer drought started and never took off. Bad for the farmer, great for our season.

x2 - x3 since Chris just posted at the same time as me lol - on the Masterbuilt. I believe that modern pellet smokers are also set and forget, but don't own one.

Hmmm...a battery that's manufactured by "Nojoke", which I thought was Asian at first until I realized that it simply says "No joke". No joke. And the delivery date is between December 28th and January 7th. Run. Run very fast.

When it comes to rods, I'm strictly a Sage guy, unless I'm building it myself. My problem is that I don't fly fish saltwater nearly often enough to justify the amount of specialized equipment that I have bought or built. My dad ran a fly shop down in Bath for years, but that only fed the addiction. Now that I'm older, and of slightly greater means lol, it's only gotten more stupid. Do I really need to build a new 8-wt for Belize? I can barely throw the three I own now. But I really, really wanted to try that CTS Affinity X blank, mom...

So, in areas where you can't use a rifle to hunt for deer, you'd generally be using a shotgun - and in my reading, that would be a legal implement to shoot a coyote in the dark, even during deer season. So, incidental encounters will generally be legal to shoot with whatever gun you're using to hunt deer, almost anywhere in NY. Without doubt, if rifles are legal where you hunt, coyotes are legal targets day and night. First shot 6:36 on Saturday, 6:26 on Sunday, in region 8A.

I am a huge fan of Ross Reels, and the Evolution R Salt is their hallmark saltwater model. I've also fished with a Nautilus and been extremely pleased. We are headed to Belize in March - I'm building a new stick on a CTS blank, thinking about putting a new reel on it, but not sure I can justify the cost for what amounts to a yearly destination trip. I will mention that a nine weight is awfully big for bonefish. Permit and tarpon, yes, but if I had to choose a single, do-all blank, I'd go with an eight. Of course, if I had to choose two, I'd go 7 & 9. So there's your unsolicited advice, worth every penny you paid. Oh, and practice, practice, practice. Saltwater casting isn't anything like fishing around here. I've been guilty of spending thousands on a trip, only to look like, "an old woman swatting a bee with a broomstick" in Patrick McManus's words.

Exactly!! They are providing "guidance" that is explicitly at odds with the letter of the law. Why write a law if you're not going to enforce it as written? Amend the dang thing before you pass it! This is the kind of stuff that happens when you pass arbitrary, retaliatory, late night, closed room rules. I guess it's up to folks with an ounce of sense to try to interpret the mish-mash that our legislators vomited forth in response to the Supreme Court ruling. Honestly, I feel like by taking a hard stance on gun control, this is the mess we get. Maybe we should be working with our adversaries to format common-sense gun laws that actually make sense. I fear that otherwise, this is the future.

The law is written "fireproof". DEC says they will accept plastic. But that doesn't change the law. Our legislators are idiots. Details matter.

Purchased from the dark overload bezos on amazon. Prices are dropping fast, so if you're thinking for next year, wait. I've used a couple brands, Nermak I recall is one, Lossigy is another. It seems like you can find 12V 10 Ah for ~$40 and 8 Ah for ~$30. I noticed that there's a 16 Ah cell for $60, but I don't know if it fits into the Remington plastic ammo case (which you should be able to find for ~$5 (item # PLA1312P, exterior dimensions are L=11.63in. x W=7.13in. x H=5.13in). If you run an external setup, be aware that the cable connector to the camera can differ by brand. Standard 5.5 mm x 2.1 mm works in most brands, and I purchase the ones from Steathcam, but Tactacam takes 4.0 x 1.7 mm...I think others like Spartan, Covert may as well. Verity before purchasing; they're cheap (Bolyguard makes a bunch of configurations), and if you're handy you can build them from parts. Don't forget to protect them from chewing by using plastic corrugated wire wrap. Also, I wrap the cord around the top of the camera once so it can't simply pull out.