Leo

Gadwalls are fabulous eating. I honestly like them better than teal! You did good! One of my favorite ducks for sure.

Watch the box retail stores this time of year. Academy Sports had neoprene hodgeman's on clearance for $50 last week. As far as sweating too much in Neoprenes, that's true. Wearing just high quality long underwear, smartwool socks and a pair of shorts under the neoprenes keeps me pretty comfortable. Try expedition weight polypropolene, under armour cold gear or Drakes wader pants(thumbs up on those with stirrups!)

007hunter makes a good point. Price matters. If you only buy what you truly need, you can more afford to hunt where you want.

Here's the thing. The ONLY way you are going to know for sure is to shoot both deer and pull the jawbones. From 1 1/2 to 3 1/2 the jawbone method is quite accurate. The reason you really need to do this is that if that smaller buck turns out to be only 1 1/2 yrs old and the bigger is 3 1/2. Guess which one had better genetic potential? The safe bet if you are trying to grow big bucks is don't shoot the ones that obviously look like they are between 1 1/2 and 3 1/2 (which both those deer do)

It appears I was slow on the draw for this hunt. Congrats to all who are taking advantage of it. I would have really enjoyed meeting Buckee and everyone who will be at this hunt. Buckee, I am really happy for you. Wyoming is still on the someday "to do" list for me. It's gonna happen, eventually. Meanwhile, I'll just keep getting preference points. This spring I'm going for Texas again. So currently I'm saving for that. Good luck to you all. It's gonna be good!

When variable scopes first hit the market, parallax shift was a real serious problem. Nowadays on most mid grade variables it's not so bad. But if you have a variable that has more than 9x at the top end, usually an adjustable objective is prescribed. In addition to the ones you mentioned also check out the Meopta Meostars and Nikon Monarchs.

What kind of ducks are they? Seriously, non-mallards get real decoy shy of mallard dekes late in the season. If they can't see you, and you've tried low calling the dekes are the problem almost every time. So if you got other than mallard dekes, use only them and leave the mallards at home. Bluebills and Coots are great late season dekes. Sometimes ducks will drop right on "beeping" coots. Is also quite effective to only chuckle and use the teal/pintail whistle.

In two days we took 12 ducks. Not bad, it was a nice hunt. Here's a couple of the most special. Walt's drake Greenwing Teal. My Drake Shoveler. First full plumage mature shoveler I have ever got. Better look at the shoveler. They are really pretty.

If the "other" bullets are the same weight as the Barnes, he needs to step down one weight size on the Barnes he is shooting. The reason for this is the solid copper bullets are longer bullets than the same weight lead/copper bullets. Sounds like the barrel doesn't have the right twist for the longer Barnes.

I have a Tikka T3 in 30-06. The bolt is incredibly smooth. The rifle is also quite accurate.

Backboring does two things. Improve your downrange pattern consistancy. And reduce recoil some. Recoil on a 3 1/2" turkey load is pretty ferocious in a pump. Honestly, I wouldn't want to subject my thumb to that

No. Only at 10 power at 100yds the distance between Crosshair and the first Mil dot is 3.6 inches. At the same power setting of 10X at 300yards the distance represented from crosshair to first mil is 3x3.6 or 10.8inches. At 20x the distance between crosshair and mil dot will be 3.6inches at 200yds not 150.

I got a Stealth Wildview Extreme 2 for Christmas last year. The trigger on this camera is extremely slow. Don't think that's fixable. It will take decent pictures if something dances around in front of it for a LONG time. Other than that it takes a bunch of "scenery" pictures. My Moultrie works better so I just use it.

I applaud the effort to actually go out and see for yourself how it works. I respectfully need to point out that you are consistently referring to the "accuracy" of mil-dots at a given power. This honestly is quite confusing to me. In a traditionally manufactured US style Mil dot scope. The crosshairs are not magnified with the target. The magnification power affects what the mil dot spacing represents at a given distance but it does not effect the "accuracy" of the dots. If you understand how the change in magnification affects what the dots represent, the results are predictable and repeatable. So by my understanding they are indeed still "accurate". They just represent different spacings at different magnifications. Since you are going out to discover this for yourself, you may find these suggestions helpful. 1. Even though the scope is supposedly made to represent a true Mil at 12 power (ie. 1/1000th of a radian). You may find that the actual setting to achieve a true mil is slightly off the 12 power setting. Test that first and determine what settings will give you a full mil, 1/2 mil and 2 mils. 2. If you try to use the Mil dots as aiming points on a scope with an Adjustable Objective. It is absolutely crucial you have the Adjustable Objective set at the correct distance. Parallax error gets worse the further you try to aim off center. An AO helps control parallax error.

Thanks Bob, you got what I was driving at exactly right. HSUS is pretending to be someone they are not. I'm really not joking they are guilty of identity theft.

I say we turn HSUS in for identity theft!

Besides fixing a broken strap on my wifes handbag. I set a new personal record eating New Years Day collards and black eyed peas. I'm now peeing green and my turds look like potatoes!

I've been trying to get this dude for two years. He's somehow been protected by bizzare circumstances. Yesterday was the last day of the season, so he apparently will get another year to grow (if he doesn't die of old age ) Last year, a garbage truck making an unscheduled pick up spooked him. This years opportunity was spoiled by paint ballers! For crying out loud! No, they won't be back. Not a monster but a darn nice deer around here.

The flight control wad in this ammo has FORWARD facing fins. I am certain any wad stripping choke like the Patternmaster is a BAD idea. Likewise ANY ported choke may be a problem with this wad. The pictures on the link Dogdoc posted look to me like one of two things was a problem. The choke was not screwed all the way in. The lead in from bore to choke was stepped and allowed the forward fins to catch in it.

Chrud has a good point about riser length. The more weight there is away from the shooters hand the more resistant the bow will be to tipping forward or back when the arrow is released. With an overdraw and open handed grip this was a big issue. Nowadays, overdraws aren't all that common and drop away rests do help (though the do not eliminate this issue). The finger pinch issue isn't there if you shoot with a string loop and release. Without a loop a short ATA can still be a problem. If you try to shoot a short ATA bow without a loop and simply hook the release below the nock. The nock tends to climb off the string because of the angle of the bowstring. Bottom line, you can get most any bow to balance correctly in your hand by adjusting the distance the stabilizer sticks out in front. Go to the hardware store get some different length spacer nuts and some different length set screws that fit the stabilizer hole. Experiment with different spacings until that bow sits vertically in your open hand.

Sounds like there is some dirt inside the bolt itself interfering with the firing pin spring. Have a gunsmith take the bolt apart clean it and relube it (careful if you decide to do this yourself the wrong lube can make it even worse.)

IMHO, the biggest advantage the S3 has over the SX100 is in the accessory arena. You can get the adapter that allows you to utilize useful filters (ie. polarizing and UV). You can also attach a teleconverter to this adapter that greatly expands the cameras optical zoom range. (Note: DO NOT get any of the Non-Canon telephoto adapters. The cameras firmware has no provision for the non-canon stuff and you will not be happy with the results.) The S3 also has Macro and Super Macro modes the SX100 does not. If you ever find yourself wanting to take a close up of a turkeys spur or a broad head that you just succeeded with, you will miss Macro Mode. Don't discount the usefulness of the better flash. Typically even daytime photos in what looks like good light turn out much better if you force a fill flash.

I am gonna try to clear up the magnification issue for you. Hope this helps. If the variable power scope has a Mil Dot reticle that supposedly only "works" for 10x. Then at 5x magnification each Mil Dot counts as two Mils. At 20x magnification each Mil Dot counts as one half Mil. Those are the mil counts you plug into your ranging formula. Now for the issue of using Mil Dots to aim. You must shoot your rifle/load combination at the range to determine where in relation to the dots your bullet impacts. This information is ONLY good for ONE magnification setting. If you have an adjustable objective, you better have it set for the distance you are shooting at. Parallax is a much bigger issue with "holdover" type aiming than it is for rezeroing with target turrets.

I didn't mean to imply you had a Norton problem. I only meant to mention Norton as a example of one of the softwares that really embeds in the system. Any of the anti-virus softwares out there right now with "active" protection do that to some degree. Norton is just most known for it. But since you do mention Norton was pre-installed on your computer, I urge you to download the Windows Installer cleanup utility from Microsoft. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301 Use this to remove all the remaining "Symantec" exe's. Prepare to be surprised, there actually may still be some in there. This program will find it if there are. Why doesn't Microsoft just make Windows do that to begin with? I don't know. They know how to, obviously, they wrote the utility. Just one of the many mysteries of the Microsoft universe.

When uninstalling a anti-virus program. Windows Add/Remove programs utility is quite often NOT enough. Norton is particularly persistent. You really should download their removal tool and use it before installing another anti-virus program. You actually should do this if you are upgrading Norton as well. If there is no Unistall package on the products website use their unistall program provided with the software. Should be accessible through your start menu. Still I've experienced having to use other uninstall/clean up utilities to completely remove an anti-virus program. A partial uninstall can be as messy as trying to run two anti-virus programs. It's even more frustrating because the average user thinks that program is "gone". The other thing it could be besides a conflict is a regenerative virus. These things latch into your system restore and reinfect every time you reboot the computer. If the anti-virus software finds these type programs, it does delete them. But it does not remove it from system restore. So magically you get reinfected by the same virus over and over. You MUST do this. When the program finds a virus. Turn OFF system restore, power down (don't just restart), reboot and then scan again. If it scans clean, then you can turn restore back on. Some viruses can not be permanently removed with any anti-virus program or protocall. You have to download a specific removal tool to clean the infection. Don't just assume your program caught it and got rid of it. If a specific virus shows up regularly in your scans, you need to research it's removal recommendations.