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Post by TolusD on Jan 24, 2017 20:18:02 GMT -5
LOL... I honestly used to hunt trees for profit in North Carolina. Every fall we'd walk the woods and shoot down mistletoe from the trees with .22s. We'd look for ginseng while we were at it. There was a guy down the road from us at the closest general store to our house that would buy all the mistletoe we could get. We would sell the ginseng and huge sheets of star moss that we would roll up to this Japanese guy who would come around and meet us at that same store. He said the moss was for bonsai trees. Apparently star moss from America is the premium stuff in Japan. He said you could dry it and ship it over there and when you wet it again it would keep growing just fine. What part of North Carolina are you from? My family is from there. Mom's family in North Wilkesboro, Dad's family in Salisbury. I've got more family scattered throughout the state. I'm actually from Tennessee, Knoxville to be exact. When I was 15 we moved across the border to a tiny tiny blip on the map called Tapoco. I went to high school in the next town over called Robbinsville. I moved to Indiana a year after I graduated. I miss the terrain there. Deep Appalachia isn't like anywhere else I've ever been. Amazing fishing, amazing hunting, almost completely unspoiled in a lot of places. I don't miss driving an hour one way to the only grocery store in a hundred miles. That was always a pain.
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Post by TolusD on Jan 24, 2017 20:06:46 GMT -5
What do you want to hunt,how far from home will you travel,is there any other game that can be pursued on that property,HOW MUCH DO YOU WANT TO SPEND. Find an area that has what you would want to have as a dream lease and start talking to land owners. A good plat book is a must. I want to hunt as close to everything as I can. If I have a lease and I can come and go as I please then it can really be anywhere in the state. As far as what I can spend, I think my budget would be in the neighborhood of $500 to $750. That's why I was hoping you guys on here were doing group buys or had some kind of sharing system worked out.
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Post by TolusD on Jan 24, 2017 19:59:14 GMT -5
Nice looking rifle. Unless you need the extra height to see through the scope I would get a set of rings that drop it down as low as I was comfortable with. Witn no iron sites no need for see through bases. Generally I also prefer to get a better cheek weld and keep a lower profile. I got 2 sets of these rings out of a clearance bin for a buck a piece. I needed one set to raise the scope on my HK .22 but the other I got just because it was $1. When I was younger, we were stalking through the woods looking for deer in North Carolina. We wanted to get up to this ridge above us and shoot down into it as the deer walked the valley floor along the stream that ran through. There was a big pool they all drank from and it was a productive spot. The biggest buck I ever saw in the woods was while we were climbing the hill up to that ridge. It was early in the morning and everything was wet and very quiet to walk on. We walked right up on a buck that looked like something out of a comic book. Tall and muscled with a giant rack. I had my rifle at low ready and brought it up for a shot but we were probably 20 yards from this thing. My entire field of view was brown fur. I had no shot at all and he bolted too fast to do anything but watch him run off. After that happened, I put a set of these same rings on my rifle. I never got to use them and I might never get to use these, but so far it shoots fine with them and I shoot it fine with them so until I get a better scope I'll probably keep them. When the time comes though, is there a brand of rings you'd recommend?
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Post by TolusD on Jan 24, 2017 19:43:49 GMT -5
Ruger American? What cartridge? Looks slick. Thanks, it's a .308. I got it for a song and it shoots really nice. It's extremely light though and the recoil got to me sighting it in. A couple of shots at deer isn't an issue at all but 20 rounds in a row got to be a little painful.
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Post by TolusD on Jan 24, 2017 17:22:49 GMT -5
I was a member of a small group of duck hunters (8) that rented a farm for nearly 30 years. We purchased and installed pumps that were used to flood this farm,we had permanent blinds and a very nice mobile home that we stayed at for days on end. We purchased items such as decoys and ammo as a group and got discount rates. We payed equal amounts,had club rules and we along with our sons and even grandsons got along well the only reason we dropped the lease was because the source of ducks dried up. You don't need a company to find you a lease you need to get out there and start doing your homework. PS: don't let everybody and there brother know what you are up to because just as sure as I am typing this someone will try to cut you out of your lease. ADVISE:take real good care of the property,and the property owners as well. That's definitely golden advice. I really appreciate it. Can you elaborate on the homework part? I honestly don't know where to start. We never had leases or anything like that as a kid. We always knew a guy who knew a guy who knew where to go.
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Post by TolusD on Jan 24, 2017 16:29:15 GMT -5
Take a tube of Sour Cream and Onion Pringles and put them into your blender or food processor with 1/2 a cup of corn meal, 1/2 a cup of flour, and 1/2 a cup of rice flour. Mix in a teaspoon each of salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and paprika and then blend until it's a fine powder.
Double or triple this recipe and you can make a year's supply at a time and keep it in your freezer in a ziploc bag like you've been doing. You can adjust the salt if you like it more or less also. I've never found a better fry mix I could by.
I made up this recipe years ago when I had a mess of catfish to fry but not enough flour left to make a proper fry mix. I tried it once with corn flakes instead of pringles and it was still amazing.
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Post by TolusD on Jan 24, 2017 16:11:35 GMT -5
The insane prices were a big reason why I got out of compound bows. The last one I bought was a factory reconditioned Martin that I got at half price and I had gift cards. That cheap bow killed a lot of deer over the years. That's the exact reason I got into traditional archery. I can buy 2 or 3 handmade Hungarian Horsebows, imported from Hungary, for the cost of one cheap compound bow. And I get to have it custom made to my specs from draw weight to color scheme to materials used. For me, if compounds were $100 tomorrow, I'd still keep my horsebow. I don't think I'll ever go back.
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Post by TolusD on Jan 24, 2017 16:06:15 GMT -5
indiana is pretty safe for rifle shots in general as long as you aren't shooting tree deer LOL... I honestly used to hunt trees for profit in North Carolina. Every fall we'd walk the woods and shoot down mistletoe from the trees with .22s. We'd look for ginseng while we were at it. There was a guy down the road from us at the closest general store to our house that would buy all the mistletoe we could get. We would sell the ginseng and huge sheets of star moss that we would roll up to this Japanese guy who would come around and meet us at that same store. He said the moss was for bonsai trees. Apparently star moss from America is the premium stuff in Japan. He said you could dry it and ship it over there and when you wet it again it would keep growing just fine.
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Post by TolusD on Jan 24, 2017 15:24:08 GMT -5
Where are you looking to hunt at.... In what part of state or county are you interested in? I'm honestly open but something closer to Indianapolis rather than farther would be preferable. And of course somewhere that has the right terrain for a rifle shot that's reasonably safe and sporting. I don't mind driving a few hours to get to a good spot.
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Post by TolusD on Jan 24, 2017 14:57:22 GMT -5
Hello everyone, I'm just getting back into hunting after a long dry spell. I don't have any connections or hunting buddies to help me find a good private hunting ground either. That's one of the reasons I signed up here : ) In searching for places to hunt, I came across a few Web sites selling land leases to hunters. None of them looked particularly cheap and the different leases were for a lot of different types of country all over the state. I was wondering a couple of things: - Does anyone here use these to get access to land?
- Have any of you ever done a kind of group-buy thing where several of us pitch in to buy into something like this?
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Post by TolusD on Jan 24, 2017 14:42:21 GMT -5
I picked this up for next season. I'm not 100% sure where I'll be going to try and use it, but now that I have it I'm doubling down on my efforts to find some good ground for rifle hunting. I've actually been shopping for a land lease. Anyone got any experience with those?
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Post by TolusD on Jan 10, 2017 17:15:03 GMT -5
I foresee a furious argument with the wife over this. I'm under the national average by a few guns and I have my eye on just enough to make up the difference. This'll either push me over the edge and fill my safe, or onto the couch. Likely it'll be the couch.
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Post by TolusD on Jan 10, 2017 15:50:30 GMT -5
When I lived on the border of TN and NC when I was in high school, the locals used to talk about "painters" (likely redneck for panther given their color) all the time and this is exactly the animal they described. A wild black cat that would steal house pets and chickens and turkeys and the occasional kid (that's a goat people), but was also known to attack lone hunters or fishermen at dusk. It also gave out a trademark howl during its mating season that I heard more than once in the field out there. I figured it was just the local sasquatch story and what I was hearing was just some other animal I didn't know that well, but a lot of those locals had fur and pictures of tracks and a handful of pics from trail cams. The couple of guys who claimed to have harvested one were usually the friend of a friend who when you asked that friend said it was a friend of his friend. But now, there it is, in the flesh. A painter. I never thought I'd see a real one because I didn't think they were real.
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Post by TolusD on Jan 10, 2017 10:52:46 GMT -5
Half a case? My Walmart has a 3 box limit on 22s. Otherwise one guy buys it all up..... Usually the local gun dealers I should have said half a brick or 5 boxes. The guy at this particular WalMart said the limit was 5 and I had already helped him get his DNR terminal back online so he could sell a license to the guy in front of me so he may also have made an exception. I buy my ammo almost exclusively online specifically because of the shortages in the box stores and the price gouging. I only saw the Stingers because he had them in the front of the display case mixed in with the .22 Magnums. I just randomly glanced over as I was passing by and happened to see them. I was back there looking at fishing gear actually. WalMart only has their fishing gear stocked and merchandised where you can shop for it during the off season. When it's fishing weather it's hard to find anything you actually want.
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Post by TolusD on Jan 9, 2017 11:17:46 GMT -5
You can get steel #6 at Walmart for about $5 a box. Don't know if you can reload much cheaper than that I'm actually doing the research to do a big online ammo order. I need to get a few things that Wal Mart doesn't carry so if I'm paying shipping I'm filling the order out as much as I can. I lucked into half a case of CCI Stingers at Walmart the other day though so my WalMart luck is blown for a while. The 2 we usually go to are an absolute random mess pretty much all the time so finding anything there, especially ammo, is just a gamble.
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Garmin
Jan 4, 2017 15:22:22 GMT -5
Post by TolusD on Jan 4, 2017 15:22:22 GMT -5
I don't know about a tracking system, but I saw this recently from Garmin and it made me drool. buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/560327/pn/010-01733-00I hate pulling my phone out to take a gps fix. Having it on my wrist would be straight out of Star Trek and James Bond for me.
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Post by TolusD on Jan 4, 2017 14:31:19 GMT -5
If I load steel, I can go after doves if I flush them while I'm stomping after rabbits. That was my thought anyway. Although now that you mention it, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to have non toxic requirements for a given piece of land that only apply to one type of game.
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Post by TolusD on Jan 4, 2017 10:47:11 GMT -5
I had a Glock 22 with a ZevTech trigger kit I put in myself and it was the only Glock I ever liked. I have always hated the triggers on Glocks but I've never been able to ignore their inherent accuracy or reliability.
Although, I grew up old school in a house full of guns and I learned basic gun safety, trigger finger, and barrel discipline as a small child. Even when I could get past the problem I had with the stock Glock trigger, I just couldn't get on board with a gun that didn't have a manual safety. I no longer have any guns without a manual safety in my house.
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Post by TolusD on Jan 4, 2017 10:20:57 GMT -5
That's very good to know. I grew up hunting in Tennessee and North Carolina and when you get really deep into Appalachia, the "rules" everyone follows are not always in line with the actual law. I'm an adult in a different state now so as I said, I wanted to double check. I appreciate you finding the answer for me. I'm about to make a big ammo order so I'll be sure to pick up some steel for rabbits and doves. Do you guys ever do group buys on here for ammo? It gets really cheap when everyone chips in on a big order.
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Post by TolusD on Dec 29, 2016 17:41:21 GMT -5
Well, I didn't get any rabbits but I did have a great day getting to know the terrain. I flushed a couple in the middle of thickets I was wading through but I only saw little blurs of fur. I'm too used to idiot urban rabbits that just freeze and stand up like meerkats when they spot you. These rabbits are like ninjas compared to those. When I realized I was too loud and out of practice and unfamiliar with the area to realistically do any good, I decided to just walk the entire place, work on my stalking footwork and gear load out, and map out the place on my phone for later trips. I found a lot of tracks in the patches of snow that were left over and there were several distinct areas that were basically rabbit latrines that were full of piles of pellets. I marked the gps locations of all of those rabbit highways and latrines on my phone. I then scouted out places that I could hide in that overlook those areas and also offer an approach I could make through heavy cover so I could work my way up to the shooting positions with less chance of being seen or heard. I'm hoping that next time I go out I'll be able to set up a shooting position that works out. Either way, I still had a great day out in the field. I flushed about a dozen sets of doves walking around the lake. I wished I had taken my shotgun and some bird shot but then I remembered how much I hate plucking doves. Have to use steel shot out there for doves. Yeah I saw that. I have some nickel plated #6 but I think its nickel plated lead so I'll need to pick up some steel. Honestly though, I walked up on at least 4 pairs that I could have taken with my .22. We used to hunt them that way when I was a kid. You have to catch them unawares but even when you flush them a lot of times one will break and start circling and the other will just fly in a straight line about 20-30 yards and perch in a tree. If you practice with a .22 that's an easy head shot with a decent scope. Is that a legal technique here? I couldn't find any regulations about doves other than the stamp, the restrictions on shotgun magazine capacity, and the shot type rules. Also, if it is legal to harvest doves with a .22, can I do that while also going after rabbits or do I have to declare for one animal type only per hunt and stick with that? Sorry for the new guy questions but I want to keep legal.
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