goosifer

OK, if deer search can facilitate property access, I'm willing to give that a shot. Thank you for pointing that out.

You know, I think that was a mistake I made. In retrospect, along the blood trail there were several spots where the blood was heavy in like a 4" circle. That must of been where it was laying down and we pushed it. To make it worse, the light bulb didn't go off that it was a liver hit until we were well on the trail. Shameful. May others learn from my mistakes. I do think, though, that even if we hadn't pushed it, we may have ultimately ended up with a blood trail that ended with a deer, but the deer wouldn't have been intact.

And to top it off, it's going to rain in the morning. Regardless, I am not going to continue searching for it. I understand this (self-inflictedly) denigrates me on the board. I am sorry to disappoint you guys. One last question: if I were to find it tomorrow, and it's been eaten by coyotes, do I still have to tag it? If so, can I get a subsequent replacement tag?

Well, I can tell you the scope was zeroed in, and it has a dot for 50 yards. Given I had a straightforward, no rush shot, I thought it was a reasonable shot to take. Perhaps that's not true. The hit was a solid pass-through hit, with a decent blood trail. I think it was just a few inches too far back. The height, based upon blood trail on vegetation, looked fine.

The problem is the blood trail just stopped. We looked for over 30 minutes trying to find the next spot of blood. Nothing. And coincidentally, the trail ends right where my property abuts two neighbors (one's on top of the other, so the property lines look like a "T") for which I would need to ask permission. Lastly, I have a bit of a coyote issue on that part of the property, and I fully expect the carcass to be picked clean by morning. (That's what happened to my hunting buddy's deer last year.) So, for those reasons, I abandoned the search. Is that generally considered to be an unethical thing to do?

An eventful but ultimately disappointing first day out for the season. Went out today with a hunting buddy. Was a bit cold with the wind in the morning, and decided to break for lunch at 11:00. About 10:50, I take the bolt out of my crossbow and lower the crossbow down the rope. A minute later, as I am getting my backpack together, a small buck (#1) cruises by 40 yards to my left. I sit back down, he doesn't see me, he wanders away. Oh well, it looked like a 4-pointer, glad I wasn't in a position to be tempted. A few minutes later I am walking down the infamous ATV trail to exit my property . At the beginning of that trail I have a posted sign (the opposite end of the trail where I built the fence). There is a buck (#2) waiting for me next to the posted sign and watching me as I am walking out. I don't know what to do. For a few moments I freeze, he's still there, I start to walk back to go another way, he's still there. So then I rearm my crossbow and start to walk back towards the buck. Five steps in, a deer that is 20 yards off to my right (#3) "blows"? (it sounding like blowing air on top of a half-full soda bottle), turns around and bounds away. I thought, OK, the buck tried to circle around downwind to check me out. So then I continue walking to the end of the trail. Look up, #2 is still there watching me!? I take a few more steps, and finally he runs away. Weird that that deer was so curious. Maybe he was really watching #3, I just happened to walk in the middle of it? Anyway, later in the day, back in the tree stand, around 3:00, I spot a 6 pointer (#4) casually strolling perpendicular to me, 50 yards out. I have time to use the range finder, look at the rack, etc. and I decide to shoot it. I wait for it to get at my 12 o'clock. It politely pauses for me, even continues to wait as I forgot to turn off the safety, and I shoot it. Long story short, in retrospect, I think it was a liver shot (blood was not that dark, but no bubbles like a lung shot). Took a while to find the bolt and slowly tracked it in a 3/4 circle over 300 yards until the blood trail went cold in the thick stuff right at the edge of my property. I used like 3/4 of a roll of tracking tape, marking every 10 feet or so. By then, it was starting to get dark, so we decided to abandon the search. Note, I think at least one of the sightings was the same deer.) Now, its occurred to me that I may have made some mistakes/poor choices in terms of shot placement and tracking. If so, all I can do at this point is learn from the experience and do better next time.

The solar cellular trail cam is watching the fence I built at the back of the property. So far no signs of ATVers on either side of the fence (either trying to enter my property, or trying to leave my property). I have several regular trail cams on the property, and one of them picked up a pic of some kids in some sort of jeep/dune buggy vehicle driving by on the other side of the property. Whether they were attempting/intending to cut through where I put the fence, I don't know. So overall, so far so good. Once we get to snowmobile season, I am hopeful they will just reroute. The real test will be next Spring with the ATVers . . . . One bad thing is that the camera is now naked with the leaves off the trees. I need to discretely put a regular trail cam just to watch the cellular trail cam.

I'm going out on Sunday. Weather conditions look much more favorable than Saturday, and I need tomorrow to get my gear in order. Like a lot of folks this year, haven't been able to focus much on hunting, but will try to get into it now that the season is upon us.

I own Arctic Shield (a/k/a or f/k/a ArcticShield) jacket and bibs in two different camo patterns. I can vouch for their being warm and lightweight, as well. Do note they have different "cuts" to the jackets. My snow camo is more comfortable that the woods camo, but I still like it. ArticShield was, and maybe still is, made by Onyx. Maybe they decided to spin it off/market it as its own brand?

Hello all, I am a student in in wilderness survival/bushcraft/primitive skills class. It it held two Saturdays a month year-round, with new students admitted at the beginning of the year. The instructor is currently holding free lectures as an introduction to the class to get students to sign up for January. Below is the advertising information the instructor is disseminating on Craigslist, et al. If this is of any interest to you, I would encourage you to check it out.

As far as features, depending on the size of the house you are heating and cooling, I believe you can choose single speed, two-speed, or variable speed on the fan blowers. The more control you have on the fan blower, the less hard the a/c compressor or furnace has to work to maintain temps, iirc. (HVAC guys, call me on this if I'm wrong.) I also am a big fan of a whole house humidifier as an add-on option. They are a PITA to keep clean, but really need it for the winter. Last upgrade, get a programmable thermostat that you can control via wifi.

There are only a handful of big name furnace brands out there, and even fewer manufacturers. At the same price point, I don't think they are materially different. It's arguably more important to select an installation company that is going to do the system sizing and install right, and then back up their work with a warranty and future service on the unit. I'm loyal to Capital Heating and Cooling (capitalheat.com). They are probably not the cheapest option. They have an annual service plan that costs about $350ish a year, and that includes an two checkups per year, free labor and discounted parts and filters. I do it for the peace of mind. First year is free on a new install. Large crew of techs, so if you do need them to come over, they send someone quickly.

Yes, I did. I forgot to write that in my post. Given the circumstances, nothing they can do, but at least I have it on record in case things escalate, and or I do get pics of someone doing more damage.

UPDATE Someone left me present sometime this past week. Someone took one of my 22" treestands, cut the ratchet straps, removed the stabilizer bar, and bent/wrapped the bottom of the ladder around the tree. Funny thing is, this is not the treestand nearest the ATV cut-through. Last week when I was out working on getting the treestands ready I took the orange snow fence and a large tree branch and put them back across the cut-through. Could this have precipitated the vandalism to my treestand? Doesn't make any sense to me. Today I put up fence posts in concrete. Next week I will screw in 2"x4"x16' pieces of wood across the opening. Then I will put up the cellular trail cam. I wanted to put it up today, but I left the lumber on the ground, and was worried someone could just take a piece of lumber and hit the trailcam up in the tree.

I agree. I am building a section of fence across the opening to persuade them to take a different route. It is possible, and likely, unfortunately, they they will cut through somewhere else, but property rights need to be defended.

I swear I've seriously considered this.

I think I have a bunch of ash trees that have ash borer. So those would be ideal to cut and lay alongside the property line. I need to ID them. I will mount the camera high, and I bought one with a solar panel built in.

It was the fish special at Russell's this past Friday.

Sounds fishy to me.

Done. Is goal $1,000 or $10,000?

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking, too. I had some crappy trail cams that I threw away a year or two ago that would have been perfect. So I need to figure out which one I have becomes the sacrificial lamb. Never have a broken trail cam when you need one . . . .

As I mentioned in a recent thread, tresspassers (likey ATVers) cut open the security box of my cellular trail cam and stole it. I want to put a new one up, but I am thinking of putting it high up in a tree so it can't be easily reached. As it will be high, I will need to tilt it back towards the ground, using something like this tree mount , but if I use that, I won't be able to use a security box. Which do you think is better, at eye level inside of a security box, or high up in a tree without one? To be fair, it was my fault for not replacing the batteries, so no pics of the perps were taken. On the other hand, if someone intended to steal or damage the camera, I would think they would be smart enough to approach it from behind and put tape over the lens. Lastly, I will put a regular trail cam that will be aimed towards the cellular trail cam, with the idea that if someone did want to mess with the cellular trail cam, I could get pics of them on the regular trail cam. In a perfect world, I would have two cellular trail cams pointing at each other, but not sure if its worth the cost. But back to the main question, better off high in a tree without a security box, or eye level in a security box. Thanks.

I had cellular trail cam on the cut through in the tree row along the back of my property. All winter, the orange fencing I had put across the opening was undisturbed. This Spring, the batteries died and I never went out to change them. Well, was out today working on tree stands. The camera is gone, ripped out of the security cage. The fencing is all down, and the path is so well worn it looks like it was mowed. My own fault for not changing the batteries in the camera. So now I am back to square one on how to keep the ATVers, and snowmobilers, from cutting through my land. New posted signs and cellular cameras will be put up, but now sure what to do about blocking the opening. Even if I am successful in blocking it off, they will likely just cut through the tree row somewhere else. I've considered cutting a few trees down in front of the opening, laying concrete block traffic barriers and guardrail curbing. Not sure what to do. Tire spikes [just kidding] would be nice, but then I run the risk of my treestands being vandalized, or worse. Open to ideas if anyone has any.

Belated happy birthday, Tacks