Bolt action

Was that 1,800/ac for $125,000 total? Or more likely 18,000/ac for $1,250,000 total?

I had a Bradley Original electric smoker. Won it in a raffle a few years back. It was the style that used the wood pucks that would feed in to create the smoke. It worked great sometimes. But if the outside temp dropped below 75ish, it had a hard time maintaining a proper cooking temp. I've since moved on to a Pitboss vertical smoker. The control panel is electric, but it feeds pellets in for heat and smoke. I love it. I've had no trouble getting to temp and holding it even in poor weather.

I'm on the other side of the state or I'd be happy to help. A few things to keep in mind as you start: It's going to take some time, especially the first few. After you've done a few and are more comfortable with it, it'll go quicker. Skin them while they're still warm. Trust me, it's sooo much easier than fighting with the hide after it freezes to the carcass. The actual butchering, the separating of the muscle groups, is also much easier if the deer is not frozen. Seems obvious, but I learned my lesson with this one early on. When they're still warm, you almost don't even need a knife to separate the muscles. Try to keep the meat clean as you go. Remove things like hair, damaged meat, silver skin, fat, etc where you can. It just makes for cleaner meat when it's packaged for later.

I've heard it plenty, although it's not something you do in most situations. I think it's limited to shots where the arrow does not blow through, and the broadhead is thought to still be in the vitals. Pushing a deer causes the broadhead to keep doing more damage, potentially shortening the amount of time needed to kill the deer. Not sure if that would help in this case though because I don't know where the entry point was or if the BH was sticking out the other side.

Shortly after 8 I briefly saw a doe moving from woods to corn about 75yds out. That was in front and to my left. 5 minutes later a neighbor in that direction started WWIII on some birds. Pushed the door and another one back into the woods. Watched for a bit hoping they'd come my way. No such luck. May still be in the area though. Otherwise I've seen gray, black and fox squirrels running around.

Up and at em... Forecast is calling for mild temps with a south wind. I'm headed to a blind i haven't sat yet this year. I'm strangely excited for this mornings hunt.

I was wondering about that myself. Like so many other cool things, that appears not to be NY legal. Awesome if hunting on another state though...

Someone needs to take that spike out of the gene pool. Let me know if you need a volunteer!

It's funny you mention that @Robhuntandfish. I was actually thinking the same thing. Going forward, I think I'll hunt that early antlerless season, take most of October off, then pick up around halloween. That'll give me time for other things during the fall that are probably time better spent than sitting in a tree counting squirrels.

Mountain Lion..

I saw 2 piles about that size 20yds apart. I thought maybe something happened where they were unfit for consumption.

Farmer friends, help me out. I was walking the property line from stand A to stand B. The neighbor has an orchard. Why would they take their crop, literally tons of apples, and pile them up on the ground? Not coincidentally they moved a ladder stand into the hedgerow overlooking the piles..

8A 31deg, very slight N wind. Been in stand since 6. Really exciting morning to be in the woods. Had a doe walk behind at 40yds on neighbors property at 7:15. At 7:30 i heard thrashing and the loud clack clack as two solid bucks went at it. That was 200ish yds away near another stand. They were loud and big enough that I could see them pushing corn around even from that far away. Then around 7:45 three doe moved from woods to corn about 60 yds to my right, feeding away. Shortly after that I heard the bucks square off again from the same spot. I made the decision to move stands to get a little closer to the action. Didn't bump anything on the way over. Now I'm in that other stand. Cool morning so far.

No deer seen. I'll be back at my normal property in the morning.

Up and in for the afternoon. New spot on the new property. I see plenty of trails thru thick stuff, but not much poo and no scrapes or rubs to speak of.