wtnhunt

Happy Easter.

Yeah don't get quite as much of the white stuff around here as you Don, but figure if a moron plugged the barrel by jamming the gun in the snow or mud and then fired it without clearing it then yeah it likely would be a bad situation. On the other hand if it was a case of a little snow like loose powder falling in the barrel while walking to the stand or whatever, probably not so likely it is gonna blow it up.

Congratulations on the opening day bird Al.

Congratulations Scott. Very cool you got to kill a bird there. Would like to get to Hawaii someday with my wife, dunno that will ever happen though.

Our kids have been out all this week for their spring break. Hoping my wife is able to slip away early from her work tomorrow, shame Good Friday is not given to the management at her work. We have an easter egg hunt at our preacher's place on Saturday, looking like it is gonna be pretty wet so dunno how that is gonna go. Church Sunday morning, nothing planned beyond that.

Snow, mud, dirt in the barrel all are things that have happened to someone out there. Honestly think the likelihood of snow "blowing up" a barrel would be unlikely unless it was packed and or thawed and frozen back into ice or unless it was a lot of heavy snow. That or if the shooter was using loads with marginal excess pressure. Have little doubt that ice plugging a barrel could cause serious damage. With regards to the second shot causing the problem, think it highly skeptical. Agree with the above, the damage would be done with the first round and highly doubt a bullet gets stuck in the barrel leading way to a second round blowing up.

Good to see you back around Mark. Hope all is going well for you and your family. Sounds like a win win situation with supporting the amendment. I support firing the deadbeats that are supposed to represent us from local office on up.

Good luck and safe travels with your upcoming hunt Tim. Season opens here this weekend, and sure there are some birds around, had a couple tom's with ground dragging beards on trail cams back before I pulled the cams. Likely if I happen to get out to hunt anything this spring will have a .223 in my hands with target being yotes, still have a few problems to take care of with beaver too.

Season opens here this Saturday. Cannot recall the last time I went turkey hunting, with the annual easter egg hunt at our preachers place won't be out for this opener either. I have heard a few birds gobbling a good ways off. Have a real nice rye and clover plot that I am sure would see some birds, just not something that gets me fired up.

Whatever you like I guess. Your favorite or best deer, best picture, best story.

Some great deer taken last year. Thanks to all the participants and to everyone who shared pics and stories with us. Also, posted a thread in the contest room for best of picks, be sure to post your favorites from this past season.

Vote for your picks for best field pic, best deer, best story posted from the 2017-18 season here.

We did look in his catalog Al. Picked the hooking aggressive form ha219 on this page https://www.mckenziesp.com/Catalog42/Page.aspx?page=99. I told him I wanted the ears just like the one in the pic above to the right. I need to check back with him on the teeth, but at this point if he did find them would a little skeptical as to whether or not he knew for certain they were from my deer. Maybe this upcoming year will bring some good bucks. I know there were 2 still alive in December that if they made it should be nice this year. Hope we have that busted up buck make his way back around this year. Hopeful that Catrina or our 12 year old daughter will be able to close the deal on a nice one, would be great problem to have to have to find a new taxidermist.

Yep, looks like team 1 won this year. Congratulations team 1.

Here...... lol. Once again supposed to be a wet weekend here. Lots of odds and ends stuff. Pretty sure the girls will head to the riding academy to work with special needs kids and a veteran on Saturday. Have about 4-5 hours worth of fencing repair work left to do in one section that separates pastures. Have a young momma cow that I need to move into a pasture with 4 momma cows I moved earlier this week, cutting the calves off them. Have one cranky 1100 lb momma cow we need to catch and give shots to for foot rot, and she is notorious for not liking being caught. Dunno how much I will fool with the animals if it is too sloppy. Risk for accidents greatly increases when it is muddy. Need to change the oil in our durango. Have plenty of stuff I can work on inside if it is too wet.

Thanks everyone, he was a pretty good one for a backyard buck. No doubt that buck will go down as one of the most memorable ever with all the history we had with him.

Yeah Frank, he did have a bit of a "Roman nose" and the mount definitely did not show that or other characteristics that the cape or live deer did. Taxidermist even commented on the roman nose and said this particular form would be great. He thought the deer would score in the mid 120's, thought that was about right but I have not tried putting a tape on him. I am happy with the form, but afraid this is the last time we use that taxi. He never found the teeth from this deer either. Kinda a shame really, he is a decent guy I can talk to for hours about hunting and stuff, I like him as a person and he has the ability to do good work but think he just has too much other stuff going on. I think last I remember we had guessed he was at least a 3.5 year old and possibly a 4.5.

Our 16 and 12 year old daughters have had some sort of respiratory crud, they are supposed to go to do some volunteer work with the wife at the horse riding academy tomorrow, but dunno if they will go. Our 12 year old has missed school the past 3 days so I know she won't be going. If it is not too wet and cold, I will take my son and try to do some work outside. Should have some cows ready to calve soon, so will be checking on them. Not too long back TN passed legislation to not comply with federal law with regards to black vultures, in other words it is legal to kill them in TN. They have been a big problem killing calves. Been a LOT of them hanging around the bottom here lately, last thing we need is the rotten buzzards killing newborn calves, so....... Need to ride around and do some walking this weekend to see if we have any new beaver sign, killed a couple and busted their dam a couple weeks ago and they had not been back as of yesterday.

Have had this one back for 4 or 5 months and finally gotten around to taking some pics to post here. Not sure why, but my cape is darker than the deer was and darker than any other deer I have mounted. Wanted the ears pinned back more like in the trail cam pic of the deer just minutes before I shot him, and not a huge fan of the eye shadow look(black around the eyes) either. Happy with the pose and the rest of the detail work though, deer was posturing and pushing off an 8 point when I shot him.

Interesting clip. Didn't look like the cat was hunting the shed hunter, but he sure was not scared of him either. We know there has been at least one make its way around in the bottoms right behind our house, hope to never cross paths with one.

Oldest daughter, Christina turns 22 tomorrow. She is going to be home this evening. Have a crockpot of veni chili on, her request. Probably go out to eat at our favorite mexican restaurant tomorrow for her birthday. Supposed to rain tonight and again tomorrow, dang'it just won't dry out here. Our 16 year old has her prom tomorrow, so will be taking some pics at some point. May do some shooting over the weekend.

Very disappointing results here this post season. The one 9 I passed on twice has not come back around our cams since just after the last time I saw him. I just went on and pulled the cams yesterday, figure most the decent bucks have dropped their antlers by now anyway.

Gotta pick some odds and ends up from lowes in the morning, then make two trips hauling hay. Hopefully will dry out a bit and make it a little easier to put it up in the barn. Probably try to do some spring cleaning, yard work over the weekend if things dry up enough. Nothing planned though.

LOL. Tick is a good nice name for her.

Lifetime sportsman hunting and fishing for under 3 year old was $200, bought my youngest son his, wish I had bought them for all the kids. He will never have to pay a thing to hunt in in this state other than for special hunts or waterfowl if he would chose to take that up. For me, so long as I hunt my own property it is nothing hunting with the landowner exemption, BUT I do pay my taxes on my property, so costs are really probably higher than what I would pay for a license to hunt elsewhere. We are looking at buying another farm in the future, if I hunt it I may have to pay. For TN resident last time I bought mine it was $28 for annual hunting fishing and then $28 additional for each weapon type license, so $56 for big game gun with hunting fishing, another $28 for muzzleloader, and another $28 for archery. Or you could buy your annual sportsman which includes all. Prices from what I understand have gone up quite a bit here