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Thank 's to All of You. Doing a snow day project ( which I have not done in 10 years). Cleaning up the basement, and organizing my fishing gear for this spring.

Looking out the window Right Now there are 7 deer out back scrapeing the ground and trimming the pine trees , all of them are healthy looking.

Changed over from heavy rain to snow here just before noon, deer are out there filling there bellies ( they know something is up) counted at least 10 in the last half hour.

Are these apple trees for you to harvest fruit from or for the animals to eat what they can reach and what drops on the ground ?. I have a few I prune every other year and some I do not prune at all, they are all older trees and the apples from the pruned trees do not get as big as store bought ones. As far as the deer go they eat the ones from both ,until all of the fruit is gone. My neighbor does not do any pruning at all and the deer are at there trees all of the time.

At what distance ? I have shot every round from a 100 grain bullet to a 220 grain bullet out of my Remy. 700 BDL at 100 yards off of a bench and there was no more then an 1/8" difference , in between them all. Out beyond 200 Yds. might be different

The one which you hit what you aimed at the most.

We will see if I can christen my Ruger #1 in .280 this year .

Dropped my first buck the first year I owned my property here in the catskills with my sporterized 6.5x 55 swede with a 140 grain hand load at 100 yards threw the heart , left a nice blood trail .

If you are not shooting off of a good solid bench with a quality front support under the front of the stock ( not the barrel) and a good support under the rear of the stock and squesing the trigger not jerking it . It could be you not the firearm. Take one or two shots and let the firearm cool off for an 1/2 an hour or more, come backand take 2 more shots and see if it hits near the first 2 shots , if it is , then you have a problem with the barrel moving as it heats up , when taking a number of shots all at once. That is why well known benchrest shooters only take 5 shots at a time . And I am willing to bet your barrel is not 1" diameter or more as on there rifles . Hope you find out what the problem is .

After 60 years of hunting all over the Catskills I bought my own property here . Not quite as large as yours .Now being here almost 20 years, I have cleared a good portion of my property and planted a number of small food plots. After that amount of time I have a pretty good idea of where and when the deer travel on my property.So I have no reason to hunt the farms around me that are for the most part for dairy or meat cattle.And there is also plenty of DEP land to hunt also which the farmers plant corn or cut the fields for hay.

I am in 4P and I got a DMP this year. , A few reason there are not as many hunters as in past years .The old time hunters have gotten to old or health related problems to walk the rough country here, The woods have gotten over grown, without clear cutting, ( which leaves very little or no brose for the deer to eat.A lot of the newer hunters do not want to put in the time stalking the deer , they want to sit in there tree stands and wait for a deer of there choice to walk by or ride on there atv untill they see one. The DEC did a good thing by cutting back on the DMP's the amount of does have really declined in the past 10 years, Have started to build back up in the last 2 years. Antler restrictions are working too , there are some bucks walking around in the past few years with some nice racks. I am talking about he wooded area that I live in on the side of a hill , not about the open farm lands. that I do not go near.

had a spike and a 4 pointer , both clean antlers with a bunch of does in the back yard this morning.

I have a few stopping to brose with there moms almost every day on my property.

go to there site for fish stocking ,www,dcswcd.org , has all the info there. Runoff from the driveway might have something with the fish no longer ther e . also mink love live fish, herons and eagles also. I have lost some 20" fish to them. Trout prefere a fast moving and cool water', I would hire an excavater and dig that 20' x 20' pond at least 10 feet deep and put some structure in it for the fish to hide under also .

It all boils down to what The Gun Likes not what you like . No two barrels on the same make of gun are the same.

Like they say It An't Over Till It's Over, It is 38 deg. here now and Snowing , Fine Flakes and going dowwn to the 20;s tonight , They say it is going to snow all night.

I am on allopurinol daily also and take colchicine when it kicks up. Black cherry juice helps, cut back on the sea food and booze.

I had one 22lr. For many years shot many boxes of ammo , no problems at all .

THIS. In the past 60 years I have had many rifles from stock factory ( mid priced ) to there top of the line, Custom made rifles with custom barrels and related parts, and custom bench rest rifles . I wasted time and ammo with the so called BBL break ins. First what are you shooting the rifle off of, Second it could be you and how you are holding it or pulling the trigger ( let another person shoot it ) and see how they do with it, Next spend the time and money to find out what ammo the rifle likes.And most important was the rifle and components assembled and adjusted properly. I have had bench rest rifles that shot 1/16" center to center bullet holes in a target at 100 yards And top of the line expensive rifles that shot 3" center to centers at 100 yards which had the screws holding the actions over tightened , putting stress on the action and barrels. And some other better rifles with composite stocks that just need a good glass bedding of the action and bbl , done by a pro.

I would never have the property logged again, the last company that did it hired some fellow that just cut the tree top off of what they could sell ,left the tops where they fell and totaly blocked off every trail I had before they came,I cannot even ride my atv or sled to get around the property any more, it would cost me more to have the mess cleaned up then what I got for the lumber.

The deer have been brousing non stop since sunrise , Looks like were going to get hit good here in the Catskills.

Lockable 2 draw metal file cabinet, been using one for 50 years

I have had just about every brand rifle scope in the last 50 + years , Bushnell were a good choice years ago. But now I favor the Leupold brand I have 3 different models and like them all .

Three young does have been feeding in the back yard for the last 20 minutes, there mothers were out early this morning. 29 degrees and a 7 mph wind .

Did they weigh the deer before it was cut up ?.