Elmo

I heard you can shoot a fluflu arrows out of a compound if you use drop away rests. Are fluflu arrow as accurate as arrows with regular fletchings?

I have absolutely zero muzzleloader experience but have been thinking about getting into it so I read up a little bit about them. I'm hesistant because I'm not sure if the danger of handling loose gun powder and the maintenance required to clean it out weights the benefit of having an extra week of deer season. #1. Can muzzleloaders be used in shotgun only areas during regular gun season? #2. Read that you shouldn't jam the bullet and powder into the rifle but rather apply a smooth consistent pressure. Does accidents happen? Will the round go off? What can go wrong if I jam the bullet down too violently? #3. Also read that after the first shot, the second shot won't be as accurate anymore due to residue until you clean it. How true is that and how much does it effect your shot? #4. If I shoot a muzzleloader but don't clean it till the next day or two days later, how bad would it be. #5. Are there any other dangers I should be aware of? Thanks in advance. PS: If I do decide to get a muzzleloader, it'll most likely be a CVA Wolf in .50 caliber and I plan on using pellets.

Sweet!

The permit application is only for the opening weekend of gun season. That place is a war zone during gun season. All other times, no permit required. When it's not deer season, there are two main parking lots. One in the north and one in the south. You just park there and walk in and hunt as you please. I stay off the trails though because the place it loaded with mountain bikers and hikers. Some welcome the hunters, other don't. I try to avoid confrontation. Don't want to be on the front pages of the morning news. When it's deer season, you have to drive into the park. The park is sectioned off into individual lots that are marked with a sign stating how many cars can be parked in that particular lot. Most of them only allow one car. When you park in a lot, you can only hunt in that lot. You cannot walk into someone elses lot. Because this area gets crowded, this is how they avoid hunters getting into each other or pheasant hunters shooting at a pheasant and not seeing the bowhunter in a tree stand near by. If it's not overly crowded, I would hunt a partcular lot and if I have no luck, get in a car and drive to the next lot, etc. This system is only in place when deer season is open.

martin - sounds like a good plan. crappyice - stewart state forest pgymy - those birds are so beautiful it's a shame that I don't have the space in my tiny NYC apartment to have one mounted. It's also a shame that they have to taste so freakin good. I find them to them to be much better than any store bought chicken I ever ate. I have a 28" field barrel but a couple of people told that the added advantage of a longer barrel is minimal other than for the follow through, I went out and bought a 20" field barrel instead. Much lighter and easier to carry through the bush. Now my 28" barrel sits in the closet.

Went squirrel hunting. Found these instead. Saw a ton of pheasant hunters with dogs. We talked to them and they said they didn't see anything all day. Go figure. Here they are with dogs and they couldn't find anything and I come walking along and I limit out by finding two on two different occasions. Lady luck smiled at me today but you can have all the luck in the world and you still won't catch anything from your couch. Gave the hen away and took the male (I will avoid the "c" word - my reputation here will taint it) to my dad. He whipped up some awesome teriyaki pheasant.

Put in a choke in your shotgun and use the appropriate shot. I bought a ton of #6 steel shots because they were on sale and use them for squirrels, crows, and pheasants.

$5 per skunk. That's not a whole lot of money.

Guess what I read was not accurate then.

I've read somewhere that if it isn't a complete instant death, the skunk will still spray with it's last dying breath. Sort of like sh*tting itself. This completely stinks up the fur and the cost to clean the fur was become more expensive than the fur itself.

I think there won't be much of a notable difference but it's the nature of hunters. Everyone wants to most oppurtunities possible.

In previous years, not all the tags that were handed out were filled during bow season. With an extra 2 weeks of bow, more tags will be filled. More tags filled means less deer. By the time gun season rolls around, there will be a little less deer in the woods. Whether there is enough of a drop in deer numbers to make a noticable difference is yet to be determined but you can't argue the fact that there is a better chance that more deer will be taken during archery season that previous archery seasons that were shorter.

I'm not really sure what the big deal is. I bow hunt and I hunt small game. If I'm driving to my spot while bowhunting and see a car already there then well it's my fault I didn't get there sooner. I don't own the woods. First come first serve. I move to my secondary spot. If I'm out small game hunting and I see someone already parked in my spot. No big deal. I move to another spot. But maybe it is my limited hunting experience but in the two full seasons of hunting where I pretty much go out ther every twice every three weeks at minimum, I've only had a parking spot taken from me while small game hunting 3 times. While bowhunting, I've never had a spot taken from me because I usually get there much earlier while bowhunting. And I hunt in areas that are supposively swarmed with the orange army. While out hunting, I've had my hunt interupted twice. Once while small game hunting I had a bunch of kids blow through the area in ATVs doing donuts. The other time I had two hikers hiking off trail during gun season without any orange no less.

"And knowing is half the battle." Come on...you know you grew up on that.

Less spending on social programs, less spending on military, more spending on hunting conservation and we'll all start to get along on this forum.

Payment plan...I'm down with that but that's not exactly free medical insurance.

I have spoken to a few Canadians where there is universal health coverage. Their biggest complaint is the fact that they bust their butts and go to work everyday even if they have a headache and is coughing but the person in the next cubicle takes the day off and goes to the doctor due to some minor issue and they'll split the cost via taxes. They feel that if the cost for such minor visits would be more prohibitive, the other person might be more inclined to "tough it out" and go to work.

I was there too when it happened. I also helped in the recovery. But I'm not comparing scars. I apologize for going somewhere I shouldn't.

Tell that to the families of those who passed during 9/11.

Which is why third world countries use them all the time.

I'm not exactly sure what a SLMBs are but if you're referring to guided missles, they're like a quarter million dollars a pop and yes, we have been using them liberally in Iraq and Afghanistan. If you're talking about nuclear warheads then you're are not thinking straight. Yeah, sure. Let's say we get into it with Russia. Take out it's central intelligence by dropping a nuke into Moscow. Kill 4 million innocent women and children at the same time. Wait until the jet stream carries the radioactive fallout across Siberia, into Alaska, and over to New York State. Watch you hunt whitetail deer that has 3 eyes for the next few decades. Watch your kids grow up with hair falling out of their scalps. News for you. All the world powers have already shook hands to absolutely never ever use nukes again unless it's the end of the world type of event.

Woah...weren't you complaining about military spending? You think robotic R&D is cheap?

The reason you bring a gun to a knife fight is so that there won't actually be a fight. You don't even have to actually use the gun. Just wave it around.

The constant development is required to stay ahead of the curve. The military was forced to develop the F22 because the Russians had the Mig 29 which was consided equal if not better than the F14 Tomcat and the F18 Hornets which the F22 Raptor replaced. As we speak now, the Russians are putting finishing touches to the Mig 35. Russia isn't much of a threat right now but it is making a comeback. China is the clear #2 in world power. Yes, in a no holds barred battle, USA will still prevail but USA would also be a shell of itself after a fight like that. Fortunately, China has thus far always kept a "we'll mind our own business, we just want to be left alone" attitude.

F117 is a strike bomber while the F22 is a fighter. F117 can't get into a dog fight. Our air and naval surperiority is the main reason why only so many of our troops have died in combat. It has gotten to the point that once the death toll had reached 5000 people were calling an outrage. Think back to WW2 and Vietnam. 5000 troops getting killed in combat would be considered a good month. If we didn't have such a clear advantage of the sea and sky, the death toll would be 10 times higher.