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686

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Everything posted by 686

  1. 686

    Shit My Kid Says

    Insight into kid brain priorities: Kindergartener: "There is a girl in my class that is in a wheel chair and she can't talk, so she has an ipad that she types into and it talks for her. It's so neat. I wish I was her!"
  2. Pulled some trail cam photos yesterday, the few showers that came though over the last week really helped. Loaded the feeders to get us down the road another couple months, watered the saplings. Also had some pigs on camera for the first time in 3 years, only came through one night though.
  3. We are entering/in a "golden age" for quality optics and low cost rifles that shoot well. Its really amazing.
  4. Username does not check out. I would think Robin Masters would be a London Best man. Probably Westley Richards.
  5. Can you put the plot against an existing fence to cut down the cost? Fall food plots west of I-35 aren't really "attraction" plots you will get a lot of use hunting over, they are more "nutrition" plots that get the deer through the winter.
  6. I don't mind at all, especially since I just called the shop and they sold it. Damnit! It was made by Flaig's; who was basically the Kleinguenther of western Pennsylvania. Here’s a pic
  7. 1. Cross fence or electric fence around the plot if possible. We have cross fencing to keep the cattle out. USDA will cost share with you on cross fencing for rotational grazing. What is perfect is to keep the cattle out until about April when the plot starts getting longer (when the deer stop using it) and then let the cattle in on it. I need to fence off my feeders so I can let the cattle onto the half of our place with the food plots. 2. Plant fewer, larger plots. Small plots tend to get overgrazed early and not recover 3. Plant a mix of seeds, not just one thing. Depending on conditions, one thing may do well while the other doesn't, i.e. this year the wheat and oats did really well and the year before it was the elbon rye and clover. Also, I believe research shows a mixed plot gets more use. Here's Turner Seed's Fall Deer Mix: Barley12% Oats12% Rye12% Triticale12% Wheat12% Austrian Winterpeas10% Crimson Clover4% Essex Rape4% Frosty Berseem Clover4% Purpletop Turnips4% Yellow Blossom Clover4% Yuchi Arrowleaf Clover4% Hairy Vetch3% Alfalfa2% Silver River Clover1% From February 24th this year:
  8. This is a ~50 year old custom gun built on a Mauser action, with a AA to AAA grade walnut stock. The kicker for me is that I have another custom rifle made by this same shop (that went out of business in the ~90's), so it would be a bit of a collectible for me. I found it for $900, so kind of a relative bargain for my tastes. It's a buyers market for me right now, because it seems old custom hunting rifles aren't really en vogue with most of the gun buyers, and production hunting rifles have gotten so good and so inexpensive that it has driven the market down across the board. New Weatherby Mark V's are ~$1600-$3000 and Vanguards are about $900. How do you like shooting yours? I was looking for a 300 win mag (which I can shoot comfortably in a ~9 lb rifle) when I saw this gun. Its only around 8 lbs, so I may need to install a mercury recoil reducer if its not comfortable to shoot.
  9. I’ll sell you mine, extra bolts, broadheads, and a nice case for $200. Ready to hunt. Bought it about a year ago, only shot about six times, haven’t had time to hunt with it between rifle hunting trips. I just stumbled across a custom .300 Weatherby that I can’t live without and need to raise some cash.
  10. Mine has been showing between 1-5 new messages this week (since the site maintenance?), but there are no new messages when I click the the envelope or check the website.
  11. Yeah, that line was just adorable. Here's ESPN's SOS rankings: RK TEAM W-L PROJ W-L WIN OUT% CONF WIN% REM SOS RK FPI 1 UCLA, Pac-12 0-0 5.5 - 6.5 0.0 1.4 1 6.8 2 FSU, ACC 0-0 7.3 - 4.8 0.0 3.7 2 13.4 3 LSU, SEC 0-0 6.1 - 5.9 0.0 0.3 3 10.4 4 Texas, Big 12 0-0 8.6 - 3.8 0.4 20.3 4 14.4 ... 29 Texas A&M, SEC 0-0 7.3 - 4.7 0.0 1.1 29 12.8 http://www.espn.com/college-football/statistics/teamratings/_/sort/sosRemainingRank/order/false I agree this is peak Looch.
  12. The LFDH with Diane Birch is pretty great. I don't know anything about the music business, but it seems like them not cutting an album was/is a missed opportunity. It looks like the show is resuming in the fall: https://www.livefromdarylshouse.com/articles.html?n_id=11414
  13. The four timed protein options I know of that people have had good success with are Lamco, All Seasons, Krivoman (uses the Hammer system), and the Hammer on a hopper from any other manufacturer: https://www.allseasonsfeeders.com/collections/protein-feeders/products/electric-2k-pro-evo http://www.krivomanoutdoors.com/feeders/ http://www.thehammerfeeder.com/products.html It's nice to have a big one so a fill will last through a month or more in the summertime, but they are pricey. The "good" news is that these feeders are so in-demand that you can sell them used a few years later for probably ~80% of what you bought them for if you change your mind. (I bought a $1000 Krivoman and sold it three years later for $800 after I built some bigger custom hoppers)
  14. 686

    Killer pig

    Chinese hogs are no joke:
  15. Ask away, by all means. By “standard feeders” I assume you mean corn spinners. What I like to do is put a corn spinner and a timed protein feeder at my main setups (two main setups on our 180 ac, one additional corn spinner at a third setup). This benefits both me and the deer in my experience through the following: 1. Showing up to hunt and finding your feeder battery is dead or the feeder has been empty for awhile is aggravating as hell. Having two feeders doubles the chances one is operational when you roll up on a Friday afternoon or whatever and are looking forward to having some nice stand time and seeing some wildlife. 2. I only throw corn for 1-2 seconds from my spinners, and I only open the protein feeders for a couple minutes morning and evening. I maintain good range conditions, plant food plots, and try to maintain appropriate stocking numbers. I don’t want the deer to rely on the corn and protein; more that it’s an extra snack that they like and which gives me an opportunity to watch them for awhile. Co-locating a corn spinner and a protein feeder (mine are about 25 yards apart) will in general, increase the time the deer spend at the setup. They will usually try to get a little of both, and if the protein feeder is crowded, hunting down some corn gives them something to do while they wait for the crowd to die down. I used to feed protein free choice, but in my experience feeding free choice the deer stay more nocturnal, and I have a good amount of loss to coons (and loss to hogs on previous places I hunted). With timed protein, I have almost no nighttime trail cam pics, vs probably 50% nighttime pics feeding free choice, and no coon loss. (hell yeah!!!!) Also, feeding free choice, the consumption can get absurd, and the deer will just be lazy and eat protein instead of getting out in the pasture and hustling a little. We average 50 lb/day of protein consumption total between the two feeders open only that couple of minutes morning and evening. In Kimble county, you might be able to do late fall plots (like I do), if you have some soil, spring plots are probably out unless you have irrigation.
  16. Yep. I’ve been in Central Texas my whole life and I would say buck quality and quantity may better now that it has been in over 100 years in a lot of areas. I grew up shooting exclusively does for about a decade, because bucks were so rare and I wasn’t interested in shooting a really young buck. A neighbor in Lampasas told me the general area around our place was “shot out” between the 60s and 90s, just like you describe. Also there was a ton of just absolute bullshit junk science that people would circulate in the 80s-90s in Central Texas (“you can’t clear the cedar, that’s good deer habitat; you shouldn’t shoot does, that will really reduce the herd numbers, it’s like taking two deer”, etc.); and before the internet, it was hard to go get real information on management. The internet, trail cams, and antler restrictions have been a huge help.
  17. Mother Nature likes to make things challenging. I disked and planted about 5 acres of spring dove mix on April 1, 2017, and we got great rain the next several days (not too heavy, just right). I was stoked and thought I was going to have some bad ass dove hunting fields last year, but then it didn't rain for about two months after that and I lost the plots. (April Fools!) The rain was so minimal this spring I didn't even attempt spring plots; until this weekend, we had only had 12" in 2018. Got about 1.3" this weekend, desperately needed.
  18. Thanks. This place is 180 acres, low fence, and we’ve probably cleared about 30 acres of solid cedar that was non-habitat. We spend about $2k a year on feed and food plot seed and fertilizer. I plant about 5-10 acres of fall plots every October, which makes a huge difference; the deer are in the plots from around December-May, and prefer the Turner Seed Fall Deer mix to protein pellets. Dr. Deer says plots have 10x the value to pellets, and I agree. Here’s what the plots look like in February, there will be ~20 deer in this plot at dawn/dusk: I have pics of this deer going back 3 years, he’s at least 6, maybe 7. He was an 8pt until this year, and he added inches everywhere this year, including the neat little G1 split on his left side. I’m looking forward to seeing him live, maybe a good target candidate. We don’t do formal surveys, but try to manage numbers by shooting about 3 does and a few spikes if we see them in addition to about 2 old bucks every year, seems to be working ok. Neighbors on two sides hunt, so I’m sure they benefit by my effort and investment. Using the timed protein feeder is a huge help for low fence operations, as the bucks can’t pig out on protein all night at my place and then chase does on my neighbor’s place and get shot in the morning. If they want their morning/evening snack, they have to be on my place during shooting hours. Also it helps ration out the protein so I can stay close to my budget.
  19. That feeder has a timer and is only open a few minutes morning and evening, and the mature bucks will generally push does out of the way until they have their fill.
  20. Put a camera out yesterday and pulled some pics today. This ranch is close to Lampasas and had no ten pointers on it in 2015 when my folks bought it and we started improving the range conditions and feeding some. We had one 10pt on camera in 2016, had seven on camera in 2017, and we may have that many just from this morning at this feeder. I recognize a lot of these bucks, so it’s great to see them adding inches.
  21. Here's a little Mozambique cargo run; all the lions are sedated for relocation. Note the lack of anything separating the cargo from the cockpit. This guy brought a big video camera, just in case:
  22. Additional fish pic Additional bolt-on pic
  23. The slight expression of panic on her face to start, followed by the "I got this" eyebrow raise at about :05 just really takes the beer, big fish, and boobs ensemble and elevates it.
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