stubborn1VT

Thanks! I will give those a shot.

That's funny. I tried watching it, and I couldn't understand what they were saying, so I quit it.

I'm stumped what to watch on Netflix, and I'm looking for suggestions. I recently finished Longmire, Gotham, and Frontier. Some other things I have watched/liked are Stranger Things, Ozark, Jessica Jones, Vikings, the Blacklist, Quantico, Daredevil and Marco Polo. What are you guys/gals watching?

Cut into bite sized cubes and cooked hot and fast in a copper frying pan.

Wild turkey breast in a maple/soy marinade, stuffing, home grown delicata squash, washed down with Miller High Life. (Not a great pairing.)

Then why change? You aren't going to gain much from "upgrading". Then again, you could get an awful lot of used bow for a little money. Not knocking new equipment, but I don't replace gear that I'm perfectly comfortable with.

Oven "fried" wild turkey strips, sweet potato homefries and Ceasar salad washed down with Founders All Day IPA. The GF wasn't waiting around for me to take pictures.

Just messin'' with ya Biz. 30 sit is a pretty good pile of sits. I'm impressed you gave the vertical bow a shot. I absolutely love bow season, at least when it's not 70 degrees. By the way, do you use the Xbow or Weatherby on parrots?

Dear Moog, Here is a tip. Don't always take Biz seriously. Most of the time he is full of SH#T. Do you think he is actually baiting and hunting woodpeckers? C'mon. He barely even hunts deer!

I agree about poplar. I'm just using the tops for winter browse and leaving the stumps high. I don't have enough ironwood to worry about it. I will keep it for firewood. A forester once told me that patches of ironwood are a sign of heavy browsing by deer. I've been getting rid of the white birch wherever I cut. The windstorm we had this fall knocked a bunch down in a couple of my spots. I won't be hinge cutting much of anything at my house. I have more cover than anything else. It's a good thing during gun season because it's too thick to hunt. I'm trying to thin out a few areas so I can see a little bit. I need more food. I released and pruned the two wild apples at my house. I also planted 6 others, but one from Stark Brothers died, and they forgot to ship two others. I haven't been thrilled with them. I will plant another 4-6 in the spring. I will try to till up more of our back "pasture". We'll see how that goes. It's pretty wet. If I can get another strip of 30 year old sod tilled up, I will add more soybeans and turnips. I need to try to plant Egyptian wheat, a sorghum or field corn to screen the newer sections from the main road. The list goes on and on...

I would suggest finding somebody to show you the ropes, or at least go to a local bait/tackle shop for help getting set up. If that isn't a possibility, you can get everything you need online at Fish USA. My favorite jigging rod & reel is less than $20 all set up. I like Ice Blue rods because they're cheap and sensitive. Add a $1 jig and some kind of wax worm and you can catch almost anything. If you go the tipup route, I swear by Polar tipups because they're smooth and reliable. Be safe out there!

The right boots and clothes are a must. On a good year I go out on the ice 40 times. I wear Baffin boots, and have a bib/jacket combo that is insulated, wind proof and floats. Being comfortable makes the whole thing alot more enjoyable. Ice creepers can be a life saver. Yak trax, Ice Trekkers or some other means of traction can prevent a serious fall. Beyond that, it's a matter of what you're after, and what your goals are.

That sounds about right. A 100" deer in VT is a buck of a lifetime for most people. I've never killed one. I grew up on a 300+ acre dairy farm, and in all my years I've only seen two! One of my buddies shot a 119" buck on 100 acres of highly managed land this season. I don't expect to see one bigger than that in my neck of the woods. I wish I knew what the cause was. It's amazing how much difference there is between Vermont and New Hampshire, and the only thing separating the states is the CT river! Some of it is genetics, but beyond that, I have no clue.

Well, they do live here. They do alot of their tracking in Maine and New Hampshire.

Yup. All 3 of them! Seriously, the hunting isn't great. The Green Mountain National forest is big and public, but it has low deer density like the 'Dacks. Other state land is small and crowded. I can't really speak for the whole state, but I can say that the big bucks shot in Vermont are midgets compared to those taken in NY. I am seeing bigger bucks than I did 10 years ago. Some of that is because we can't shoot spikehorns. Some of that is from more and more posted land, mild winters, fewer hunters. We also get fewer tags, have shorter seasons, and can't shoot spikes. Other than that it's paradise!

"Blackhorn 209 is virtually non-hygroscopic. Changes in temperature or humidity do not affect performance. Blackhorn 209 will not setup or degrade like some other propellants. Shelf life is essentially unlimited." I just cut & pasted this from their website, but I'm sure you're correct. Good to know. It makes sense, cuz that's the way ML hunting goes!

But we were all thinking them.!

Blackhorn's site claims that 209 doesn't react to humidity anyway. I don't know if it's totally true, but that's supposed to be one of the benefits of the product.

I had trouble one season. I decided it was from taking the ML in and out of the warm truck. I've had better luck keeping it in a hard case and only getting the cab warm enough to clear the windshield. Who knows if it makes the difference. My ML did fire all 3X I checked it this season. A few year's back I tracked a buck for half a day in the snow. Caught him as he moseyed up to a group of does. I leaned off a pole maple at 35 yards and the cap popped. They scattered. I put a second cap on and blasted a stump, the walked back down the mountain and called it a day. I've been there...

I think they have more value for game animals than you think. I have watched partridge eat the seeds out of the tree tops, and turkeys eat them off the ground. The county forester told me they are like beech nuts as far as nutritional value. High grading is a problem. Glad you have seen results. I wish I could do some actual logging at the family farm. There's no way my father, brother and I could agree on the particulars. They would want me to do the work, and they would get all the wood! So I will have to settle for working on our 12 acres.

I can't really tell. Can you lay him down in the snow so we can get a better look?

I wish I had more hop hornbeam. Not junk in my book. It's one of the best burning woods we have, and birds love the "hops". Logging really helps. Everyone's land was a sheep farm in the 1900s! Twenty years of work! That's awesome. It must feel good to see the fruits of your labor.

I learned that warm weather during bow season is a drag. I wish I had bounced around to different properties, since deer movement was lousy anyway. Later on I learned that an area of our farm that I treat as a sanctuary has changed. 3 years ago it was all berry bushes, and you could barely walk through it. Now it has grown up and I can see a long ways between blowdowns. I may use it as a late season spot next year if I don't have enough tags filled, and I'm definitely putting a camera in there! Best: I filled my buck tag, despite an excavation crew mucking up my rifle season. I saw 13 does on the farm during muzzleloader season (10 while hunting). Watching a 20lb tom for a couple minutes before dropping him flat to fill my second tag. Worst: The warm bow season and general lack of deer sightings, eating my bow tags, not making the time to fill my ML tag. I also found this site about a year ago. I was looking for info on hunting NY, and was surprised how entertained I've been. I love the stories of pursuit, successful and otherwise. A middling sort of season. Last year I shot my biggest buck with the bow, and a decent 6 point with my rifle. This year doesn't compare, but I'm happy with my effort for the most part. Onward to habitat improvement, new stand locations, and more shooting with the muzzleloader!

Good info. That's my plan for the poplar. I don't have enough red maple right now, so I'm leaving the ones I have. I know they love to eat the shoots though. There is bedding in 3 directions. A combination of white pine, hemlock and brush. 200 yards from my plot it is so thick that I almost have to crawl to follow the deer trails. I like the idea of using brush to steer them. I have to really think about where they are coming from, and where I want them to come out. The resident doe group is really wary, and they seem to always circle downwind before coming out. Either that or they just wait for dark. It seems almost impossible to bow hunt, but I can back off with a rifle and not spook them. You can't see the plot from anywhere because there is honesuckle and buckthorn growing so thickly between the trees. This area was pasture 30 years ago. I can see 60-70 yards in a few spots. Thanks for the input, and good luck with your project. 20 acres is a chunk!

Thanks all. I will try to check some of these out the next time I'm stuck indoors. Maybe tomorrow if it rains. If it doesn't I will be splitting next year's wood.