IA Born

Doe anyone have a Triclawps they are selling or will let me borrow for my daughter's upcoming elk hunt?

I just looked and its not showing up on my account. And, of course, I can't check my son's account because he's 10. That's a sore point I've started bringing up to the Dept as a HE instructor!

Thanks everyone! Missedagain, I will pm you my phone number and we can coordinate me picking this up from you at your convenience. Make sure to include what you drink so I can return the triclawps properly!

$130 for the scope, including the scope caps and rings. Rings are Leupold DD matte 1" high rings. If you don't want the rings, we'll work out a better, fair, price. $130 for the rangefinder shipped.

New Price: $70 for the pack.

I have a family friend in Iowa how would love this. He's named after John Wayne, so he collects JW stuff. I'll email him a link and see if he's interested, if your friend is willing to ship.

I was driving across town yesterday to get my son from school, when I received a call from AGFD. I saw the AGFD number on my caller ID and figured it was a trusted colleague down there who has permission to call me on my personal cell anytime there is an issue to deal with. Low and behold, it as the Draw Department letting me know that they had a 7W cow elk tag (Dec 7-13) surrendered and my daughter was next in line. It didn't take long to make a couple of phone calls to my daughter and wife and confirm what I thought would be the case. I called back, confirmed the interest, and paid for her tag. We get to go elk hunting, after all! I called a buddy who knows 7W way better than I do, and he has the bull tag right before Syd's. He's going to help us get it narrowed down since I won't have much time to scout anything. Lots of excitement in the house this weekend!

That's awesome and thanks! I told him about this on our way to TKD. We're thinking elk hair caddis, parachute adams, griffiths gnat (#10 and #22), and some pheasant tail nymphs. Will that work? I'll pm you.

That's awesome, Dana. He will be excited when I tell him when I pick him up from school. Which fly did you lose? We'll replace it! And thanks for the plug, support, and encouragement. A friend in Texas just ordered $50 worth of wooly buggers for bass! We're thinking he's going to learn to make poppers now!

Congratulations, buddy! That is awesome!

I can't help if you're down in the valley, but I can definitely help if you're up in Northern AZ.

I was taught in the chainsaw class for wildland firefighters to never run it dry. Storing it dry can dry out and crack some of the seals. Its better to use Stabil in the mix to keep the fuel mix from gumming into terpentine. That and starting it for the sake of starting it to keep the fuel moving through the system, which also keeps it from gumming up in the carb.

Finally got mine out real quick yesterday after work. Its a Stihl MS391, bought back in 2010. I don't think its one of the Chinese made ones. It started and ran great in less than 10 pulls last night after sitting in the garage for a few months (6+?) without being started and ran. Absolutely love it.

I thought I replied to this. Congrats to your grandson and you, Tom!

My absolute favorite warm weather boots are my Whites Smokejumpers from my widlfire days. They need resoled, but $150 to resole a $400+ pair of boots is worth every penny. You take something like 10 measurements of both feet before you order them. They can be a pain in the a$$ to break in, though. Mine put me in the hospital in Yreka, CA for four days, hoping to not lose my foot, which was scary. After they got broken in, though, UH-MAZING!!! The only negative I have with my Whites Nicks are a less expensive pair of Whites, but the same, custom-crafted boot. I've also always had good luck with most Danners. The only ones I won't get (anymore) are the Pronghorns because they aren't recraftable. I (now) always get the Danners with recraftable lasts. At the same time, I've heard nothing but good things about Kenetrek and Crispi boots. If I wasn't getting my Whites resoled, I'd try hard to convince my wife to let me spend the money on Crispis. I've also heard great things about Scarpa and Lowa. I had a pair of expensive Zamberlan hiking boots many years ago and they didn't stand up to what they should have hiking in SE Arizona for what I paid for them. It sounds like their quality has changed in the last 15 years. In the end, its like others have said. You'll get 100 different opinions from 75 different people on what constitutes a good boot. I also use Smartwool midweight hiking socks and the smartwool liner socks for all of my hiking, hunting, etc. My bottom line is don't skimp!

I have to go see which model my Stihl is, but its one of the pro series. After all my time on wildfires, I only want a Stihl. I had my grandpa's Husky and it was great, but I didn't need two chainsaws, so Edge bought my Husky a few yeas ago. My grandpa's Husky sat forever without being run. I pulled everything apart, cleaned the carb, ran good gas with the mix and I never had any problems with it. I haven't received any nasty messages from Edge, so I'm assuming it still works for him. My Stihl sits for months without being run and usually fires right up after a few pulls and the choke on. I've also learned to to use Sta-bil in the mix to winterize it and keep the fuel mix from gumming up. That's just as important. In fact, I need to go start it up today!

Thanks. If you have a solid offer for it in the meantime, please don't hold up on my account. A friend was actually asking me about your powder and my comment today. I told him to go for it!

I need to get involved in that group, but every time I started down that road, I'm reminded how many irons I already have in the fire. I need to get involved, tough!

That's awesome, Coach! Thanks! One of my good friend's dad is involved in that club. He has to complete 16 hours of community service, and he's been approved to help me sell raffle tickets for our NWTF chapter here, since its a fundraiser. After tomorrow, he'll have 9 of his 16 hours. Then he plans to help me with an upcoming Hunter Ed class and work his butt off at our NTWF banquet in early March. He also has to develop an improvement for the studio, which I forgot to mention earlier. That would be awesome if they could chip in. Jacob has completed 2/3 of Stoney4325's order and is working on getting Non-Typical Solutions' woolly worm just right. Almost there on that one! What I like most, besides the obvious part of his thinking this up, getting super excited, and carrying it out, is that when he messes up, I get another fly in my box!

No Venmo account. I've heard others talk about it, but I don't trust that stuff. I'll see what my wife says, since she's the tech guru. I still hate that I have to use a GPS up here in these flat forests. I miss using my map/compass to navigate and triangulate down in SE AZ! I have to call him "Sir" in class since he outranks me, but I made it clear that its only in class! I got to spar him last night and he had to dumb down his kicks to be at my level. He got some good shots on me, but told me I punched him too hard a couple of times! Oops...

Definitely no judgement here. Jacob is in great physical shape, but is that skinny turd that has to run around the shower to get wet. I've gotten teared up on plenty of his belts. When he was 8, he did 71 perfect pushups without stopping, and now he's one of my instructors. I got teared up when I got my white w/yellow stripe belt because of how much work he put into teaching me what I needed to know.

Cool thing isn't it? Jacob started at 7 and has had plenty of success mixed with failure. I'll never forget the first time he wasn't given his belt because he messed up. It hurt me so bad, but he knew he didn't earn it and, as bad as it hurt him, he came back the next month and rocked that promotion. I won't tell you no, but you have to promise to hit me up when your son needs something!

First off, I'm in no position to judge non-fly fishers. I grew up catching catfish with stink bait on the Des Moines River in central Iowa. That was some of my favorite fishing! I've seen many spinfishers use those clear plastic casting bubbles with flies. I've seen folks use woolly huggers, nymphs, and dries with those bubbles.

If I get my current H1000 to work with my newly rebarreled 6.5WSM, I'll take those two pounds off you. The tricky part is that I haven't gotten my rifle back from my gunsmith yet. It should be soon, and as soon as I get it back, I'm going to start putting loads together.

Got your PM and will follow up there, too. I'm thinking we'll get the gold banding and he'll tie one up for a demo to see if its what you like. If its what you want, he'll get a dozen done for you. If its not what you want, we'll take suggestions on how to make it what you want to the best of his ability and go from there!