Coach

Awesome TJ. Makes me want to get out and do some fishing! Nothing like good fish fry.

I'm wondering the same thing. I'm thinking about getting one of the OTC archery tags that starts May 9. A little late in the season for sure, and the OTC youth hunt in Unit 1, 27 etc., had a very high success rate from what I've seen.

Progressive tells you everything about their politics in their name. Same with Geico. Geico is an acronym for Government Employees Insurance Company. Both VERY lib biased. I've had State Farm and Allstate. So far the best I've found is Esurance. Same backing without the agent. Our Allstate agents were deceptive and did more harm than good. Maybe there is such a thing as an insurance agent that will actually work for you. In 30+ years of dealing with State Farm and Allstate, our "agents" who we met, had over to dinner, knew our family - the people we trusted with important questions about when to file a claim and when not to, were NOT there when we needed them, and gave us bad advice when they were available. Example: Allstate, Bob Hubbard. My wife and I had home and auto through this guy. Years with no tickets, no claims whatsoever. Our Ford F-250 is stolen out of the parking lot at Sea World. We're stuck with no way to get home. We call Bob directly and explain our situation - his response was "You're going to have two deductibles - one for auto and one for your homeowners to cover the things inside the vehicle". No assistance getting us home or helping us in any way. We've had other incidents where we contact our "agent" and ask what is prudent with water damage from a leaking hose on our water heater, and with wind damage to our roof. We were told we should submit a claim in both cases, then Allstate dropped us for having too many claims. Anyway, my point is, an agent isn't there to help or educate you in any way, in my experience. Getting rid of the agent means cheaper insurance with the same coverage.

I'd say, all of them, but I didn't read all the pages before responding.

+1 on accubond. If you hand load, a 140 gr. accubond with h4831sc is awesome. I like to load them long enough to touch the lands.

Looks like Bowtech in the lead with Hoyt a close second. Seems about right. Had a Bowtech Allegiance and really liked it, my first "pricey" bow after a Mathews Conquest Light. I wanted to try out a Hoyt. On my Bowtech I had a good sight (7DP) but still had a whisker biscuit on it. Bought the Hoyt CRX 35, changed out my arrows to ACC hunters, went to a QAD fall-away, got rid of my "variety-pack" of broadheads and stuck with 3 heads that have always worked well, and a silly thing happened. I started killing more stuff with my bow. Probably not the bow at all, I just found something that felt comfortable --- like a lucky hat.

Awesome job, Ashlyn! Sounds like a great time with your dad you will not soon forget. Great job on your story - it's like we were right there with you guys. Huge congrats on your first turkey.

+1, big congrats to Hunter. And thanks to you getting him out there. If you get the chance, I'd love to hear the story of his hunt.

Wow...

A friend of mine hunted with his kids in Unit 1 over this last weekend and said he was totally amazed by the proliferation of wolves there - and the effect they were having on the Turkeys. Personally, I've only encountered a few wolves over the past 20+ years of hunting in unit 1, but this guy has been hunting there longer than I have and I don't doubt his observations.

Very cool - huge congrats to Matthew on a gorgeous bird.

I hope you youth turkey hunters had a great opening weekend. My boys worked really hard - I'm, talking 3:00 AM to dark every day for three days, but they hit it out of the park. Some "power naps" in the camper, the truck even the bottom of the ground blind when it was raining or snowing too hard to keep pushing. They worked their tails off, learned a lot about turkeys and their behavior, learned a lot from my mistakes and wrong assumptions, and one-by-one the missed chances turned into birds on the ground. Having some issues with the pictures formatting, but hopefully they'll be visible.

Man - you guys slayed 'em. Great job!!!

One day they are sitting in you lap, learning the basics. The next they're driving out with you, learning on their own and teaching you new things.

Used your calls this weekend, and they did a great job. We had a few FUBARs, but that's just hunting. The calls were great. Look for a PM from me. That diaphragm is, as Guy Fieri, would say, "out of bounds". Had more runners right in with that than anything, but switching between the diaphragm and the slate just seemed to keep them going all day. As another member pointed out, hunting turkeys is a lot of "coulda, shoulda, woulda..." Seems you pile mistakes on top of eachother, but learn from all of them.

Posted this in the campfire because the other related forums don't get a lot of traffic. Here's the scoop. I have a Cabela's right hand Hawken flint-lock. A couple years back I was shooting it with a friend and we determined a shot had not fired. After multiple attempts to clear the barrel with C02, and other means to clear the charge, I drilled out the "frizzen hole" because it couldn't be removed any other way, only to find out there was no charge in the barrel. So I've got this barrel, in great shape but a bored out frizzen and no matching parts. Are there any good gunsmiths out there who work on black powder rifles and can fix this? The alternative is to replace the entire barrel. I've seen a couple on Ebay around $200 with shipping. This flint-lock has some history to it, and I'd like to get it back to shooting shape. Any ideas and suggestions are much appreciated.

Nicely done, sir.

Really loved this film. If you haven't watched it, you really should. I'd love to see this pinned in the Turkey forum.

Bought 3 Jr. tags today at lunch. We'll be out early Friday in spots I saw gobblers in unit 1 a couple days ago. Then pulling the trailer up to higher country to see if we can fill some tags. Good luck to all the youth hunters headed out this weekend.

Happy Birthday Lance, I hope you get to do something fun!

Happy Birthday!

Wowser - HUGE congrats on a awesome addition to you family. She's already stunningly beautiful.

As far as "target score", I don't have an answer for you. I know he would really like to make the best of it, and while there will be some hard choices, I trust that he will make the decision of what is right for him. Honestly, some of my best elk hunting experiences result in a 'non-trophy' bull at close range. What I want for him, being his first elk-in-the-rut hunt, is to embrace the parts of hunting he loves, try to avoid the pressure of inches of horn growth, kill-or-no-kill, take his time to learn and observe the world away from what we are all used to. If we somehow get a big bull to make a mistake, I'm good with that. If we can only manage to spend hours on hours together with a common goal, and nothing is killed, I'm good with that.

Honestly, coming from ranching families on both sides, I didn't have much empathy for the Bundy family in this case. They chose to stop paying for grazing rights. They broke the law, they lost in court multiple times yet they are still defiant. In come the feds. They are using military tactics and assets to show "who is in charge around here". My grandfathers ran cattle and did it on their own land. I respect that. They never got big enough to expect the public to subsidize their expansion. Here's where the rub comes in. The rancher in question did what he was allowed to do for a very long time. Times change, the rules change, we've all been there in some capacity. He didn't comply. In comes the Feds. What could they possibly care about some rancher in the middle of nowhere. Turns out, there's a lot more to it than cows and tortoises. Google "Harry Reid Land Grab" and you'll see why this has even come to our attention. Now, those who side with the rancher are being called Militias. The family operates out of their home on a daily basis with sniper rifles trained on them. So who really is in charge? The Bundy family has made it clear that they are standing their ground. The united states government has placed military marksmen and teams of soldiers in place to be sure nobody steps out of line while Bundy's cattle are legally seized. Here's the question I have to ask - forget about what the fight is between the Bundy ranch and the gov't for just a minute. At what point is your government acting within your interest when they assign military troops to hold you under surveillance, assign elite fighting men to intimidate you and your family, or use threats of death to you and your family? IMO, the feds are just drooling over the prospect of another Waco or Ruby Ridge. Just more evidence that the old hold-outs are dangerous, and must be "put down" to keep others in their place. My prediction, the feds will incite a violent reaction, and will respond accordingly. It will be meant as a lesson to anyone who challenges the powers of our constitution. Lower case intentional.

BTW, we'll be there with you. My oldest son drew this tag. He's young but very enthusiastic. I know he will prep for this hunt. He's only hunted Javi's with his bow, and has done, well realistically, only OK. He's great at calling, finding and stalking, but when it comes to making the shot, his nerves sometimes override his practice. That's what we'll be working on this summer. Hope to see you out there.