|
|
Post by Russ Koon on Feb 20, 2014 10:31:02 GMT -5
I remember back around '79 or so,taking the family out on Lake Monroe sometime in late winter ice fishing. I didn't have proper gear yet, but hacked a hole through 10" of clear hard ice up in the bay we were on. There was still some open water on the main part of the lake where the full wind hit, but all the bays had been well covered for quite a while.
Just as I broke through to water, a pressure crack boomed across the bay, starting out near the open water a hundred yards or more away and running right through that hole I had just chopped. Put my stomach up in my neck for a second. Had to do some fancy talking to convince the rest of the family it was still a good day for ice fishing.
Perfectly normal occurrence, and I'd experienced them on smaller waters, but the sound and feel of one on a lake the size of Monroe was something to get my attention, too 8^)
|
|
|
|
Post by Russ Koon on Feb 20, 2014 10:10:32 GMT -5
Yesterday was our 49th anniversary. Wife and I had been discussing how long this winter seemed to be hanging on a day or two before.
Yesterday she mentioned that we had the same temps and same weather on the day after our wedding 49 years ago. Sunny, stuff thawing out, mild. We took a pleasant walk that day in McCormick's Creek SP, where we had spent our one-night honeymoon. I only had my dress shoes with me, and stepped into a couple places where the wet snow was deeper than my shoes.
I reminisced with her about what a nice day that was for a minute, then reminded her that we were snowed in for several days the next week watching the snow drift up around the little rental house in the country where we began our married life. That was kinda nice, too, but we were both working and didn't have two nickels to rub together, so we really couldn't afford to extend the honeymoon any longer than necessary.
Nope, it ain't over. Wasn't 49 years ago, either.
|
|
|
|
Post by Russ Koon on Feb 19, 2014 10:15:41 GMT -5
Definitely my favorite, and the only one set to record.
I didn't see the above mentioned coyote eating show, but would like to. Haven't killed one yet, but I'd sure give it a try if I get one and it appears healthy. That's been a favorite subject of mine for a few years and some threads have said that the hams are about the only parts worth messing with, but that they can be pretty good.
I've recommended his show on a few threads about hunting shows over on Bowsite.
Agree completely with the reviews above, especially the one by featherduster...covered about all the points I would have mentioned.
|
|
|
|
Post by Russ Koon on Feb 18, 2014 12:34:44 GMT -5
Definitely not a bad option.
I had two Scouts, one with manual LO's and the other with Warn Auto LO's. The autos kinda spoiled me by letting me delay the use of the 4WD until actually needed. After getting used to that feature and then getting a later truck with manuals again, I did find myself way into some gooey stuff a few times before getting into the habit of stopping and locking in earlier. But I re-learned the former ways pretty quickly after a couple of times stepping into knee deep goo 8^)
|
|
|
|
Post by Russ Koon on Feb 17, 2014 15:42:22 GMT -5
Things may be different now, but when a niece of my wife's was born with crossed eyes, the preferred treatment was to wait until she was old enough to wear corrective glasses in a few years, before school age, to straighten them out. There may have been more immediate possibilities even then, but that was the preferred method unless something dictated otherwise.
The method involved a number of changes of lenses to gradually guide the eye into alignment with the other, sorta like straightening teeth.
As I recall, that process took a few years but straightened things out w/o surgery and she's nearly finished HS now.
|
|
|
|
Post by Russ Koon on Feb 17, 2014 15:40:46 GMT -5
Things may be different now, but when a niece of my wife's was born with crossed eyes, the preferred treatment was to wait until she was old enough to wear corrective glasses in a few years, before school age, to straighten them out. There may have been more immediate possibilities even then, but that was the preferred method unless something dictated otherwise.
The method involved a number of changes of lenses to gradually guide the eye into alignment with the other, sorta like straightening teeth.
As I recall, that process took a few years but straightened things out w/o surgery and she's nearly finished HS now.
|
|
|
|
Post by Russ Koon on Feb 17, 2014 14:58:38 GMT -5
Had automatic hubs on one of my Scouts, and they worked fine in reverse, only time I needed to lock them manually was to get compression braking on all four wheels. That was only needed once, when I was coming down the western side of Black Bear Pass in CO after three days of rain. Had no idea that fine black gravel could be so slick with no ice. Managed to stop at the fist hairpin and lock in the hubs, making the rest of the trip down just interesting...and very slow....rather than the faster one we thought we were in for just over the top.
Axle should turn the wheels either direction, but the wheels should not turn the axles unless locked in manually. When they don't do things correctly it could be simple as needing to be cleaned and greased, or may need an internal part or two.
Pretty sure the Ford version was supposed to work the same as the Warns on my Scout, but my only Ford 4X4 had the manuals. Suspect that yours may only need rebuilding, but also that either rebuilding or replacement wouldn't be extremely expensive, or beyond the capabilities of a handy DIY effort if you are careful about following the instructions. I rebuilt the Ford manual ones and didn't have problems, and that was my only experience with them. Been too long to recall any details and they may have changed considerably by the time yours were made, so take the above with whatever amount of salt you think appropriate.
|
|
|
|
Post by Russ Koon on Feb 16, 2014 14:55:04 GMT -5
I know the Ninth has a rep with the right-wing talking heads, but I think their decisions have been much more consistent when viewed purely on the basis of "pro-" or "anti-" personal liberty (whether we happen to personally be in favor of that particular liberty for all or not).
Often that puts them at odds with many on the far right, less often with Libertarian secularists like me.
|
|
|
|
Post by Russ Koon on Feb 16, 2014 14:41:49 GMT -5
I see what you mean, firstwd, but....if the regulation proposed regulation pertains ONLY to firearms, and not other commonly stolen items that are frequently fenced, then isn't it by definition another "gun law" and thus in violation of the state laws have higher jurisdiction?
Maybe it would be legal if it did include any "re-sellers" handling of all commonly stolen items, such as x-boxes and flat-screens and cameras, but the next question would be whether there is any history of such registration being successful in preventing or solving crime. The odds against stolen stuff turning up in any such database would seem pretty scant to me. The computers have the ability to check millions of numbers per second, but they still depend on the numbers of such stolen stuff to be recorded accurately, and there would need to be a trail of evidence that supported the assumption that the person who hocked the item was the thief, and not just someone who bought the item at a yard sale or off CL.
Sounds like another scheme that sounds better than it would likely work, and that would considerably increase the workload on those re-sellers, and thus their overhead, with little or no benefit to anyone.
I think we'd all be better off if the same requirements of "safety AND EFFICACY" were applied to new legislation that the government insists on for new drugs. There are already too many laws that were passed with good intentions but little grasp on reality. Those are usually ignored by most folks, including the outlaws they were intended to deter or catch, while remaining on the books to hinder the honest folks who try hard to stay legal.
Of course most proposed laws fall into that category as far as I'm concerned.
I thought at one point that I might just be getting old and grumpy, but somewhere I read a quote that stated that "all the good and necessary laws were passed long ago, so most new ones proposed are bad and/or unneeded". Made me feel better about being so critical 8^)
|
|
|
|
Post by Russ Koon on Feb 12, 2014 15:55:36 GMT -5
Another thought just occurred to me (slow day here, waiting for spring).
One of the user groups mentioned as customers of the GIS services are emergency personnel. I can see that, as in finding the Wilson place when dispatching fire trucks to put out the fire in Wilson's barn.
However, I hope if I'm ever laying on a creekbank in a deep holler with a freshly broken leg,and I manage to get reception to call for help, that the EMS operator doesn't need me to give my location using the meters of Easting and Northing on whatever zone I'm in, and whether it's in the Eastern Indiana or Western Indiana zone. Or wait while they look up the appropriate zone and the conversion equation to convert from my DMS location according to my GPS.
|
|
|
|
Post by Russ Koon on Feb 12, 2014 14:59:27 GMT -5
I found the DMS display to be perfectly useful and as accurate as it needed to be to get me back to the treestand or the truck quite reliably using my GPS, without requiring me to also carry a laptop to interpret the locations.
I have done some further research and have found the conversion info on free sites where I can use the computer at home to convert the waypoints to state plane info in order to find them on the GIS site, and conversely convert the GIS info to point that I can then input into the GPS to find in the field.
I suspect that the whole process could be done in an eyeblink or less if the GIS info just had the DMS or DD locations displayed as an option, and I suspect that option would be welcomed by a great number of users, both recreational and professional.
|
|
|
|
Post by Russ Koon on Feb 9, 2014 0:11:17 GMT -5
Dehumidifier?
|
|
|
|
Post by Russ Koon on Feb 8, 2014 17:04:02 GMT -5
Yeah, I don't mind a bit advertising for someone who [provides a useful service....especially at my favorite price 8^).
Now if you could just talk your step-dad into adding a toggle feature to show the locations in the DMS that everybody else and all our GPS's use, it would be even better. I'd pay twice as much for that.
|
|
|
|
Post by Russ Koon on Feb 7, 2014 14:44:52 GMT -5
I see your location is listed as Mooresville. 39 Degrees North covers seventeen counties now, including Morgan and several others nearby. It's free, has plat info, aerials, and topo overlays. Just type in "39 degrees north" and their website will come up and guide you the rest of the way.
|
|
|
|
Post by Russ Koon on Feb 3, 2014 0:15:44 GMT -5
Anyone else here use the GIS info from 39 degrees north? They have coverage for several counties in IN. Topo lines can be toggled on or off over their aerial views, too, and it's free viewing and downloading to your printer.
Only complaint I have with their site is their choice of coordinate measurement. It's in something called "state plane" and although it's displayed onscreen, there's apparently no way to convert it directly to measurements the rest of are familiar with, like DMS or decimal degrees.
Great to able to see contours, ownership, and aerials on one site, and print it if desired, though. Wish it covered all the state, but most of the territory I hunt is included.
|
|
|
|
Post by Russ Koon on Feb 1, 2014 10:17:41 GMT -5
Interesting. If it turns a .380 into an adequate personal defense round, I'd be in the market. My current .357 w/
2" bbl. and 5 shot capacity could be replaced by something even lighter and more comfortable to carry, with seven shots.
I'll definitely wait to see further reviews before going shopping.
I wouldn't be deterred by kinda pricey ammo for that purpose. Don't plan to hunt or plink with that round.
|
|
|
|
Post by Russ Koon on Jan 29, 2014 14:13:31 GMT -5
Isn't that a standard practice in establishing a separate feeding area a distance away from the blinds, though? I haven't hunted ducks in about a generation, but it seems to me that I'd seen the seasonally flooded fields used to hold ducks in the area in Arkansas and the blinds were located a short way off at the edge of some normally flooded timber. I took it to be a standard practice and OK if the distance was enough so that the shooting wasn't deemed to be "over" the bait. As I recall, flooded rice fields were also used that way.
Would be about the equivalent of hunting the staging area between the bedding area and a food plot or bait station for deer.
My duck hunting was all either sneaking a creekbank for woodies or floating the river for whatever flew past, so I never got much into the reg's for baiting waterfowl, except in idle curiosity.
Anyway, good points on all sides of the issue, I'd say.
IMO, the best arguments against baiting have been the spread of disease and the "making it too easy". I don't recall the studies to quote them, but I remember reading some pretty convincing ones a couple years ago in a similar debate conducted in a major magazine that refuted the disease argument in most cases.
I don't think baiting would turn deer hunting into a slam dunk, and IIRC that was also explored in that debate and it turned out baiting was pretty effective on getting does and fawns into bow range regularly, but minimally effective on older bucks, which tended to hang up in cover until dark before exposing themselves at the site.
|
|
|
|
Post by Russ Koon on Jan 28, 2014 16:24:47 GMT -5
I agree that both sides have their credibility issues.
I selected NBC evening news as being the least slanted of the three majors long ago, but haven't really compared them to verify that status in many years now. That distinction is still like being chosen the Most Beautiful Warthog.
I pointed out to the wife last night another of the little ways they slant the news, that most people will never notice. Brian Williams reported on the senator who is charged with cocaine use, starting with the words "The Republican Senator from...". The next news item to come up was the report on the former mayor of New Orleans' trial for corruption starting. Nowhere in the news item was it mentioned that Mayor Nagin was indeed a Democrat.
Maybe NBC news couldn't find that information.
I Googled seven different news items on the trial and his party affiliation wasn't mentioned in any of hem, either. Had to look up the Wikipedia site for "New Orleans mayors" to verify what I was pretty sure of. Of course most of the stories on the matter were from major news sources.
It's insidious, and it's real, and it's slick enough to influence you without you feeling like you've just been influenced.
At least over on Fox, the slant is open enough to be obvious, and is therefore more honest, IMO..
|
|
|
|
Post by Russ Koon on Jan 26, 2014 16:54:19 GMT -5
Yeah, don't know what the answer would be for public.
Maybe just let the hunter bait at his own peril regarding unwanted guests. Some baits are less obvious than others. Probably a feeder on public would be a poor idea, but liquid attractants, peanut butter smears on trees, etc., could be used and wouldn't be obvious to any others who didn't know where to look.
That type baiting would probably still not be practical unless done well into the area, off the more obvious trails, in order to avoid detection by other hunters, and then wouldn't be practical from the standpoint of it being too difficult to maintain.
It would work best for the hunter on smaller private parcels, but might be useful on some public, if they aren't too heavily hunted. It would also be most beneficial in those circumstances, I suspect. Might not even be worth doing on public or larger tracts of woods.
The problem of keeping the bait for the benefit of the baiter might just be the only thing needed to keep the baits from becoming too big or too obvious.
There will always be some areas of conflict. I know one area in a state forest where a local hunter hangs a half dozen stands in easy to spot locations although he only plans to use one or possibly two. The others are to convince strangers that there are already plenty of people hunting that spot.
Some things can be regulated away, and some just would be better left alone. We already have guys who think they own the woods if they hang a stand or place a blind in it, but the conflicts usually don't come to blows, and only very rarely result in shots fired. Uenforcable regulations in such matters would not be likely to help the situation.
|
|
|
|
Post by Russ Koon on Jan 26, 2014 15:23:16 GMT -5
That question is among those that changed my outlook on baiting in recent years.
I think that in the reality of today's huntable habitat being so broken up into so many small areas, with many of them surrounded by areas where permission cannot be obtained , the food plots and even actual baiting by the state's definition has become a much more viable option.
Regulations can be helpful in maintaining good practices, but they are worse than useless when they are unenforced.
Under the current baiting regulations, a hunter on a smaller parcel can be convicted of hunting over bait if someone throws some corn over the fence from a neighboring property and then notifies the DNR anonymously. The hunter in question would not even necessarily be aware of the presence of the bait.
That, plus the extreme difficulty involved in any sort of meaningful enforcement, has left us with the situation where every farm store, Walmart, sporting goods store, and even many hardware stores and an occasional convenience mart have edible deer attractant/food products displayed in the fall, and carried out the door by thousands of customers who, we are assured by the law, will be using them for "observation purposes only".
Meanwhile, the legal hunter on the small property he owns or has permission on, even if he doesn't get sabotaged by someone implicating him in poaching by tossing corn over the fence, can well sit on his limited parcel the entire season without seeing a deer, despite the tracks and sign crossing the property from the deer on the adjacent property behind the "No Hunting" signs where the deer spend their daylight hours.
I think it's high time the legal hunter was accorded the same options that the poachers enjoy in that regard...the ability to use baiting as another legal option.
It would reduce the wandering about that causes tension among hunters, as well, since the tendency would be for the hunter who placed the bait to hunt there and not traipse around through everyone else's hotspots.
The lack of access to huntable property is the biggest hindrance in recruitment and retention of hunters. We can't make more dirt, the state is already supplying all the property they can afford to, and the leasing industry is restricting more of the remainder every year. The situation has changed over the past generation almost everywhere.
I think the time has come for baiting to be made legal. The studies I've seen showed little if any increased disease transmission in areas where baiting was allowed. Some problems arose in some areas where massive baitpiles were the common practice by some hunt clubs and facilities, but limiting the baitpile size to something reasonable for an individual to maintain seems to have solved those problems.
If we could draw some of those deer from the properties where we can't get permission, and we buy corn/beans/whatever from Indiana farmers to use as bait, then we sit there in our blind/stand overlooking our baitpile instead of tromping around on public land with thousands of others, busting their opportunities, doesn't everyone win?
I'm sure the younger and more athletic hunters will still be charged with the adrenalin of youth and will still wear out several pairs of hunting boots out-walking their competition to reach that magical places in the deep woods that we did when we were that age, and more power to them.
The exercise is great.
But for some of us who can't remember how long it's been since our whiskers turned white, walking a couple hundred yards into a small property we can park on, and sitting in a comfy blind or stand overlooking a food plot or a baitpile/feeder is adventurous enough, and the exercise is still better for us than sitting in the recliner watching football.
I suppose there's another option...the killing pens.....but I think I'll just take the recliner and my memories before doing that.
|
|
