Weather cooling down nicely for northern tier ml opener

[Daveboone]

I couldnt be too much happier with the forecast for next week end...temperatures dropping nicely, some rain....I still look forward to deer season opener like a kid waiting for Christmas! 
I hope to take a deer with one of my flintlocks this year, but if the days are too drizzly, will likely stay with my tried and tested Lyman Great Plains Rifle percussion....but it almost feels like cheating! Half the fun in the anticipation is planning my menu. I get to eat a lot of foods the wife doesnt care for at home. Curried lamb chops, home made chicken soup, mmmmm.

 

[wolc123]

I’m looking forward to getting up there next week big time.  Early ML week is my favorite time up there.  I always use 5-1/2 vacation days, heading up around noon the Friday before (4 hour drive from home in WNY).  
 

It would be nice to see some snow once during that week, but it hasnt happened yet, when I’ve been up there then.  I have seen plenty of days that the temperature got close to 80 though.  
 

On warm days, I usually hunt the first couple and the last couple of hours of daylight and fish in between.  That is about the easiest time of year to catch my favorite fish, the smallmouth bass, up there.  
 

They stack up along the shoreline, and readily take 1/8 oz bucktail jigs.  They are much harder to catch in the summer, when they suspend randomly, out over deep water.  
 

I always stay until about noon on Sunday, the second day of gun season.  Last year, I passed up a little spike buck on that last day with my 30/30.  Had he been a fork, I’d have let him have it because any buck I’d worth at least double to be up there, compared to one at home, because of the beautiful scenery and the lack of other hunters.

I also look forward to the food. My mother in law is a phenomenal cook.  I have  managed to fill my antlerless deer tag about every other year up there, so I’m due for one this year.  
 

Even though they are worth double to me up there, it would probably take a 6 pointer to trip my trigger on a buck tag this year, because I have a couple of dandies at home, that I’d like a shot at.  
 

Thanks to a couple of punched tags during our early antlerless gun season, our freezer is also in very good shape now.  The spot I go up there needs the does thinned out a bit though, so I won’t hold off of any mature doe, that I can get a shot at.  
 

 

[Daveboone]

I put two in the freezer last year, and am happy that I am getting down there...mainly just smoked sausage, similar, but some steaks left for the camp. I look forward to getting a good meat deer in the freezer, so I can relax for the rest of the season. My best seasons I fill my tag on the last evening, so I am able to get out as much as I can all fall.