chowder

Love the Islander!!

The Okuma high speeds are very nice, if you have the original conventional gear ratio models you can get a conversion kit for the Convectors from Tuna Tom if he isn't sold out.

Spent a nice, brisk morning w/ Coup, 1fish 2 fish & my youngest son Elliot perchin it (tried to get Hank to go w/ us but he had to go work on a submarine ). Bite was tentative but everybody got enough for a fish fry or 2. Nice to be out of the woods & back on the water! Thanks again for taking us out in your nice perch rig Coup.

Gotta get done w/ the long tail rabbits first but I pulled my copy of Andrew Lewands "Eastern Coyote Challenge" down off the shelf for my coffee read this morning and I'm really hoping Santa will put a Fox Pro GX-7 Fury under the tree (I can dream can't I?)

Pete, it sounds like we're gonna have to put together a yote program starting down in Greene and work our way up here. I'll take the short shots out to 400 yds and you & Gray can have all the long range action

Anybody who knows me will attest to the fact that I'm hardly a 'bleeding heart' but I will bet you that some how the buck in the picture was incapacitated and the yotes finished him off. That's life without health insurance guys! -Andy

I went w/ the Maxima. Thanks for the posts!-Andy

Busiest single day of doe management for me was Sun Nov. 27th, 60 degrees w/ a S. wind blowing 10-15. Shot 3 does out of 8 mature/immature combined & saw 3 young bucks all from 1 ground blind from 3-5pm. All deer were foraging. Still seeing fresh scrapes & rubs this past weekend (12/3-12/4) as well as one mating pair. -Andy

We've had this discussion b4 but we can have it again. Here in high altitude 7M we have lots of yotes and lots and lots of deer too, been this way for many,many years.We typically get 1 or 2 dogs/farm using a good electronic caller and managing our scent carefully, then we need to work another piece of ground (yotes are pretty shrewd) -Andy

Well, I can tell you that you can't put the QRBP in the original Accura, only the newer V2. I am pretty sure though that the problem is due to accumulated funk behind the primer seat compounded by what might not be the best seal between hammer frame and primer breech seat. I didn't have this problem w/ my Accura the first 2 years I owned it which, again, leads me to believe that the combination of wear and accumulated deposits have rendered it unreliable. I'm gonna use the #32 bit to remove any hardened deposits in the fire channel then soak the BP in Hoppes and brush & use both the bit & wire on it again. I'll keep you posted.Thanks to all for the suggestions so far! -Andy

Pretty much done w/ the dreaded doe management program on the 3 farms I've some how become responsible for so I've turned my attention to the front stuffers. Once again I'm still having hang fire issues w/ my CVA Accura, while my cheap Traditions Pursuit LT seems to fire perfectly. Last year our friend Ray K. was nice enough to give me some wire to run through the breech plugs which really seemed to straighten out some no fire and hang fire problems I was having at the time, though in fairness I think I only hunted with the Traditions rifle cuz it only has open sights which seems more in keeping w/ the basics of the black powder thing. I went to the range Sunday w/ both rifles and shot each 2 times at the 50yds and 3 times at 100yds. The Traditions fired fine on all but the Accura had a hangfire on shot no. 1 and shot no. 4. After removing the breech plugs from both guns and inspecting the fire hole there appears to be no difference between them. I will say that the Accura's breech plug seems noticeably more difficult to clean and so I'm considering soaking it in some Hoppes solution over night to soften up any deposits that I might not be able to see in the space behind the primer seat and then work the wire thru it. Any thoughts/suggestions?

I've used P-line on my centre pin float rig and on my multispecies Exceler & Bionix spinning combos for years and it's great stuff! I guess I have more to think about...

Been using the Ande Pink 30# on rigger reels. Time to re spool & I'm wondering about Maxima Ultragreen instead of the Ande. I re spooled my planer reels w/ 8lb Maxi 2 years ago & I really like the stuff, so I'm considering putting the 30# version on my rigger reels. Any thoughts? Thanks! -Andy

Heck yes! Got a good one there & looks like he's been working on adding to his gene pool too!

Wow, Ray- you get a little sharper every day Tom, thanks again for your literary joust! Nice piece of work. -Andy

Good going Shawn! Nice buck you got there, congrats! -Andy

Outstanding! Congrats!

White tail bucks are physiologically 'ready to breed does when their antlers are hard and become less reproductively aggressive when they begin to lose their antlers. Consequently they are as a group willing and able to breed over a relatively long period of time.Whitetail does have a relatively short true standing heat of about 24 hours but will attract the interest for 2 1/2 days on either side of her true heat. If a doe does not get pregnant she will cycle again in 28 days. White tail does tend to cycle fairly tight inside specific geographical areas because they have been selected by nature to do so. White tail does w/ good nutrition have a very high conception rate of somewhere around 85%. This means that relatively few bucks can maintain a population of whitetails within a certain area. Consequently we can see that 'the rut' is actually a spectrum of breeding events that could be described quantitatively as the classic bell shaped curve. The beginning of the rut is the first part of the curve where a relatively few does are in heat, the fat part of the curve is where most of the does are in heat and the end of the curve is where the last few does are bred. As an avid hunter and somebody who has been in 'deer country' farming for quite a while I would say that my experiences mirror the physical reproductive facts I have described above. Bucks are ready to breed does before there are many does in heat , they are then as a group ready to breed as many does as possible in the 'tight' part of the breeding season, they then become gradually less focused on breeding does till the shortest days of the year which does not really present a problem because there are so few does coming back into heat because their conception rate is so high. Everything I have come to see and know about White tails suggests strongly to me that although there may be a small population of does that may roughly cycle a 2cd time as a group, I believe it is more more important to understand that the average buck is still looking for open and cycling does before and after the fat part of the breeding curve. This what makes him reckless and vulnerable. Just remember guys that reckless and vulnerable also means unpredictable which is why patterning works best both early and late in the season and focusing on high buck traffic or seeking corridors works best during the peak of the rut.

FL-18 w/ zoom has worked well for me from 100'-8' FOW. I also have a Vex alumaducer mounted in the hull of my 16' which lets me use my vex easily for open water jigging.

Hard to beat Tom's setups, check em out http://www.atommiktrollingflies.com/misc.htm

Ray, thanks for your insightful post & hope you LOUALL have a good Thanksgiving whenever you get to celebrate it! -Andy

Not to take anything away from the bugs cuz they do a heck of a job for sure but we've been doing euros for years w/ a turkey cooker outside, works great if you don't mind some funky, dirty work & pretty quick too! My buddy makes some pretty nice wood mounting plaques w/ scroll work ,etc. that are very reasonable if anybody is interested in going the low budget route. -Andy (the thread robber)

From one Andy to another I hope you have a great B-Day!

It would help if you guys used this thing called a 'MAP' P.S. Ray, are you going to come back out too and teach me some more about deer hunting?

Wild horses couldn't keep me away. I'll have to see if I can find ya again. Ok Bob, we'll leave the light on for ya- just say the word!