Rattler

Hey, if you take care of the normal maintenance and minor repairs as they come up, you may get 300K out of it. That's what I'd be shooting for.

Looks like my tree, but since I'm a minimalist, no lights on the tree or near it. It comes out of the box with all the decorations on it. It stands 10" tall in all of it's festive glory. LOL! I like to decorate my place by hanging all the Christmas cards I get all over the place.

Is the trans going? Have you gotten an estimate on fixing it? When a vehicle's mileage gets up that high, many things are going to need repair. If you can put up with a lot of unreliability for awhile and can budget the repair costs over that period of time, you can make it last a few more years, but after that, it goes downhill faster than you can fix it. At that point if you want to keep it, you need to take it off the road and do a complete frame off restoration. That takes time and a lot of money, but in the end you wind up with a classic that will go up in value if not used too much.

When my kids were young, long before the Elf thing, if they were misbehaving I would pick up the phone and tell them I was calling Santa. That always got things under control pronto. LOL!

I hunt the morning of Thanksgiving every year. Food and family follows.

Congratulations on a nice deer. You can ask the taxidermist to add that brow tine back on if you want. They can do that and it would look real. I call him an 8 point anyway.

Loading a deer into an SUV like hers, the owner takes on chance on loading the SUV with ticks on the drive home. The deer gets cold and the car gets warm, so the ticks infest the car. Use the roof rack if you can.

What do you consider "fresh venison"? If a deer is butchered the same day it's killed, it hasn't had time to let the rigor dissipate. The toughest deer I ever ate was a yearling button buck that was cooked the day it was killed. We had to chew that meat a long time to swallow it. Some amount of aging is absolutely necessary to make venison palatable.

Very nice group. Were you shooting it in the cradle or off the bench? Are most of your shots at whitetail long range?

Why won't they engage in a debate?

First rule of shooting game is "correctly identify your target". If he was part of a drive and they had doe permits, he should have been wearing orange as some hunters may shoot at anything moving hoping to bag a deer. Regardless of his actions, IMHO whoever shot him should be charged with negligent manslaughter and sent to prison. If that was the penalty for killing another hunter, that would make people identify their target before they pull that trigger.

I tend to let the bigger/older bucks hang longer. I hung one in ideal conditions for 2 weeks once. It was very tender and flavorful when consumed.

Shot a nice 8 point on Sunday morning, the 2nd day of rifle season. The weather has been good for letting it hang inside the game house and it looks to be good until the day prior to Thanksgiving. That's 11 days of aging in temps between 33 and 45 in my out building. It's been a long time since I've been able to age my deer for that long. I really find it enhances the quality of the taste and tenderness of the venison. Anyone else still hang their deer prior to butchering? Seems to be a lost art anymore.

Any details on what happened yet? Can never understand how these things happen.

Upstate NY electric rates are 40% higher than Pennsylvania's. https://patriotpost.us/articles/66921-new-yorks-burgeoning-electricity-crisis-2019-11-21?mailing_id=4678&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4678&utm_campaign=digest&utm_content=body

I do not wear white in a tree stand. I only wear it when hunting in snow on the ground.

I hunt in snow with white coveralls. I find I can blend in better in open areas if the suit isn't camo. I also think it blends in better in any snow condition, because when you look at it from a distance, it's invisible, whereas if it has a camo pattern that has too much camo in it, it is noticeable. I have also found I can stalk very close to deer in the open wearing an all white coverall. They look right at me and then go back to browsing, so it must blend in well in their eyes too. BTW, the suit I wear was purchased from an emergency services uniform company and was meant to be used by ambulance personnel. I think it was $35 about 20 years ago. It's rugged service wear apparel, so it lasts. It is not insulated, so I wear it over another insulated coverall. But since I can take it off easily, it's much easier to wash to get back to it's total white condition. I wear a white hoodie underneath, white gloves and a white watch cap to complete the suit.

In truth, a "brush gun" is, by definition, a gun used in thick cover where shots are at close range. It is NOT the mythical gun that can be expected to shoot bullets through "brush" and still hit the target. If there is such a gun, it's a short barreled repeating shotgun using buckshot with lots of pellets in the round. A gun used in thick cover is best when it handles quickly ( because deer often jump up fast), can provide fast follow up shots (because deer run as soon as they jump up) and has enough power to kill the animal being hunted. If chambered for a "rifle" round, it must be a heavier gun. That means slower handling. Rifle rounds produce more recoil. More recoil means slower follow up shots. Rifle rounds have more than enough power. That means most of the power is unnecessary. Preferring to carry a bigger rifle chambered for a longer range cartridge will give the hunter a chance at deer farther away, but it compromises the hunter's chances at close range deer in thick cover. Considering the fact an M1 Carbine makes a good "brush" gun for deer when shots are all going to be under 50 yards, and a lever gun in .357 magnum has proven to be quite adequate for short range deer hunting, it is only logical a repeating, carbine length .44 magnum would be a good choice for hunting deer in thick cover where shots will be at close range. It handles quickly, provides fast follow up shots and has enough power to kill deer, especially when it shoots a 240 grain or larger bullet that has a large frontal area and high sectional density. (Sectional density (a bullet's weight in pounds divided by its diameter squared) describes a bullet's length for its diameter: The higher the number, the longer the bullet. Generally speaking, the larger a bullet's sectional density, the deeper it will penetrate.) Therefore, IMHO, a "brush gun" in .44 magnum would be at the top of the scale specified by the OP.

Weather says 3 to 5 inches coming Monday night through Tuesday morning, then cloudy and below freezing until Friday the 15th when it will be 40 degrees. Temps below 20 every night. Sounds like the snow will be noisy. Saturday's opener looks to be sunny with a high of 35 degrees and 7 mph wind. Looks like it will be a good day to take a stand all day.

Thursday night gave my area of the Catskills about an inch of snow. It's been below freezing and cloudy since then, so as of this morning (Saturday) it is still there. Unlikely it will last until opening day. Not sure if more is expected for the opener.

A life of service is a life well lived.

The .44 round is more than adequate for ranges under 100 yards. The firearm it's fired from varies, but most are well designed for thick cover work. Short barreled, lightweight and quick on target. I've used a Marlin lever in .44 mag as well as the old original Ruger semi auto in .44 mag. Never felt handicapped in the woods with either of them and both did a fine job of dropping deer with authority. I preferred the Marlin lever because it's trimmer, lighter and holds more ammo. These days I use a Rossi .357 mag lever gun for woods work under 50 yards. I find that to be more than enough to kill a deer at close range. On a 1 to 10 scale, a good .44 mag woods rifle is a 10 when used the way it was designed to be used.

Welcome to the site. Thank you for your service. I hope you can hunt NY again often. I'm turning 64 next month and I can tell you the state is the same today geographically, but to hunters and gun owners, it has become downright hostile. Still, one can enjoy some very fine hunting here in spite of the political environment and high taxes. Like the old saying goes, it's a great place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there. I'll miss it when I retire and move to a free state. Enjoy the forums. I hope they make you feel like you're here to hunt.

And never make eye contact. That sends deer running. For some reason they really notice eyes looking at their eyes.

I'd prefer the .308 because it offers more bullet weights and less expensive ammo options, especially for target shooting. Unless you anticipate shots farther than 500 yards, a 6.5 Creedmoor offers no real advantage. Also, a .308 shooting 180 grain bullets will almost equal the 6.5 Creedmoor's SD and long range capabilities. Besides, if you really want a long range shooting rifle, the 6.5 PRC is already proving to be a far better round than the 6.5 Creedmoor. Here's a good article comparing the .308 to the Creedmoor. https://www.huntinggearguy.com/general/6-5-creedmoor-vs-308-winchester/