jperch

There is more involved than ice thickness when it comes to ice integrity. New, black ice is a lot stronger than end of the season gray, candled ice. I have seen a foot of old ice that was not safe at all and that disappeared in a day. If new to the sport I suggest finding a local who can give advice, have basic safety gear (picks and a throw rope at minimum), a change of dry clothes back in the truck (driving home in your undergarments is embarassing) and use a spud. There are lots of videos online about how to correctly use a spud to check ice conditions. There is always some element of danger of course but it can be minimized.

Those black phase squirrels seem to be much more common than 20 years ago. I see them pretty often here in Northern Oswego and Cayuga counties.

That is a very cool looking deer!

I never much liked hunting in the rain. I wear glasses, that is one issue. Bowhunting in a moderate to heavy rain makes tracking problematic. I would do it on opening day of gun season. These days I can pick my days as I can hunt near home after work. I do believe bucks are more likely to be on the move on dark, gray days before a storm.

I was a grad student at Penn State and was allowed to hunt on one of their large farms. At the time they were conducting research on cost effective ways to keep deer out of large ag fields. The basic scenario was that the ag fields were in the valley and there was large, quite hilly forested land bordering the fields. Deer generally moves down to the fields in the evening and spent the daytime on the hills. The hills were quite steep and rocky. I talked with one of the researchers and I knew one of the farmers. As I recall very high fences were only somewhat effective. Some deer jumped, some got under in low spots, it appeared they did some digging! I do remember them saying that deer were unlikely to jump a fence if they could not see what was on the other side. There were tons of deer, this was before Gary Alt's deer management program was initiated. (At the time Mr Alt was in charge of the states' black bear management program, I went to a couple talks he gave.) They also had noise cannons, various scents, etc. The problem is nothing worked for very long, deer are very adaptable and it's hard to keep them out of corn and beans. On our small farm we had a horse pasture with electric tape. Sometimes the deer would get excited and run right through it. They could, and often did, just jump over it. It contained the horses fairly well.

The apple trees in norther Cayuga County are really loaded. Much better than last year.

It is not meant to be sprayed directly on human skin, so I doubt it should be sprayed on your dog. Also, permethrin is highly toxic to cats.

I recall that there was a study done in Pennsylvania, I think by the PGC, that said that black bears there take as many fawns as coyotes. I don't think we have anywhere near the bear numbers that Pennsylvania does but they are clearly expanding their range. I often hear and read that killing coyotes on the farm will have no impact on coyote numbers and could even somehow increase their numbers. My reply is that all I can say for sure is THAT coyote I shot won't be eating any more fawns or turkeys. Also, I can say that it is possible to change coyote behavior. Decades ago "the boss" (my GF) told me not to shoot the coyotes as they were beautiful. I agree they are and have their place. But then a coyote took her favorite cat. After that the rules changed. Coyotes no longer come close to the house during daytime and don't walk out in the open like they used to. There is still a lot of coyotes, they are just more cautious.

Aside from her obvious archery skills she must have great vision and coordination, just amazing.

We used to take two big bolts with a large nut, carefully wad a bunch of caps into the nut and gently screw the bolts in. Then we'd drop it on a hard surface, and step back. Definitely not a safe thing to do, like a lot of stupid things we did as kids.

I believe there are states where suppressors are legal for hunting. Does it require some special federal permit? Anyway, I doubt it would have an impact on turkey poachers. The stories I heard years ago about turkey poaching did not involve firearms. Geez, poaching turkeys, who would do that anyways?

This strikes me as extremely weird! Why would anyone do this and why different rules for state lands???

Wow, very sorry to hear, sounds like a very fluke situation. Glad your house was saved, sounds like it was close. And most importantly nobody was hurt.

Like they say, "Play stupid games,...".

In my area there has always been a lot of coyotes. The agricultural situation and woods have not changed much. There is a new predator in my area, fischers. Turkey numbers are WAY down in my area (Northern Oswego and Cayuga Counties) compared to 30 years ago and yes, they sure don't like to talk as much.