OpticNerd

118 7/8

Ipods, Blackberry's, etc have voice recorders. That they do. All I was saying is this guy had it turned on before the cops even started talking to him. Seems to me this guy was planning on trying to piss the cops off and get them to say something negative which is a lot like entrapment if you ask me. Who knows maybe the cops in this neighborhood are known for harassing people for no reason and this guy was just trying to get proof of this. Not saying what the cops did was right but I don't know the whole story I only listen to the first 30 second or so of the incident but it seems there is a lot of hatred towards cops these days. Cops have got to have one of the toughest jobs out there. What if this guy with the gun is the next Jared L and he was planning on going on a shooting rampage and these two cops saw that he was packing but just let him go about his day? People would then blame the cops for not asking the guys a few question just before he shot up a parking lot. None of this would have probably happened if this guy would have cooperate with the officers. The guy was acting like he had something to hide which he did the audio recorder and the cops probable could sense this so they went on the defensive. Unfortunately cops have to act this way now days especially in a place like Phily if they are going to make it to retirement. If your a law a biding citizen then act like one and you'll more then likely have no problems with the law.

Who walk around with an audio recorder on? Kind of a weird thing to do unless your planning on intentionally rerecording something.

Good video! For awhile there I thought the older one was going to get skunked by his younger bro. Love the part where the younger one tells the older one to "lip him" just after losing a fish at the boat because the older one didn't lip him. Then the older bro immediately says "I will lip him shut up". The look on the younger bros face after his bro losses his fish at the boat is classic! Thanks!

I'm an optic nut! From binos to telescopes I love them all. I'm constantly searching for the perfect all around hunting optical system. Over the years I've realized that the perfect optic can be quite different depending on the hunter. Some like 15s while others prefer 10s or even 20s. The one thing has puzzled me in my quest happened when I bought my first pair of ELs about 8 years ago. Before then I was using 3 pairs of binos 8x32 Steiners, 10x50 Pentax and 9x42 Steiners. I still remember the first time I looked through the ELs. The view through the ELs was crystal clear and I couldn't wait to take them out looking for deer. I was even more excited to see how much more deer I would be able to find with them. I thought for sure I would notice an increase in the number of animals I would glass up. After my first outing using the ELs I was very impressed with the optical quality of these bins but the thing that really shocked me was I didn't find very much game with them. I was very disappointed in my results and just chalked it up to having a bad day. The next time I go out I'll surely do better I told myself trying to re-build my confidence. After my 2nd outing with my new ELs I did a bit better but not as good as I thought I should. Well fast forward two years later. I came to the conclusion that the ELs were not producing more animals when compared to my old less expensive glass. Although the view was very sharp and clear I was disappoint in the number of animals I was finding. In the end this bothered me so much that I ended up selling them. I just couldn't justify keeping them for how much money I spent on them and not seeing an increase in number of animals I was finding. After selling the ELs I bought a $300 pair of Nikons. Even though the Nikons aren't as clear as the ELs I still find just as many deer with these Nikons as I did with the ELs. I remember back before I bought the ELs whenever I had a bad day glassing I would tell myself if I only had a pair of Swaros I would have done better. Now when I have a bad day I tell myself I suck and I just couldn't find anything. This isn't a high end optics bashing thread because I thought the ELs quality was excellent. I'm Just curious as to what others have experienced when switching over to top of the line optics and not just Swaros but all others as well. Were you able to notice an increase in the number of animals found or were you like me and didn't notice a difference when it came down to the number of game found?

How about just posting the score only for us impatient folks and post the results later when you get them all put together.

I'm going to guess Ropers. Good looking fish. You fished Cluffs at all lately?

Thanks CouesKiller.300 and desertdog sounds like both of you have seen a good number of these. Just curious as to what elevation and terrain you guys see majority of them? All three that I've seen were fairly low under 3000 ft in creosote country.

Those are some GREAT pics Coosefan! Looks like it had some pretty good size to it.

Bow fishing is a blast! I haven't been able to go for quite awhile and I like seeing post like this to feed the need. When I first started bow fishing it took me forever to get it down. One way that helped me a ton is to tied a milk jug to a brick and toss it into the lake at various depths. I went through a ton of jugs but it helped my underwater accuracy quite a bit. I tried balloons but it was a pain cleaning up the balloon pieces and I couldn't tell where I was hitting. With the jugs you can tell where you hit. Be sure to have a retriever line tied to it to get the gear back.

Sorry for the misplace post Amanda thanks for clarification. Thanks for all the comments and thanks for those who shared their Gila Monster encounters with us. It looks like they aren't seen too much in the wild. The encounter WadeNAZ had would have freak me out big time!

HOLY CRAP!!!

Good point! This was one of the reasons I started shooting expandables because you can get some that have a huge cutting diameter. My thinking was the larger the cutting diameter the greater chance I have of doing some mortal damage on a bad placed shot. This was over 10 years ago so things might be different now days but at the time I switched I went from a 1.25 inch cutting diameter with the fixed blade to a 2.5 inch cutting diameter with the expandables. I remember a crazy broad head that had both fixed and expandable blades. I don't know how good they worked or even if they're are still around all I know is that I wouldn't want to be shot by one. If I recall they had something crazy like a 5 inch cutting diameter.

Thanks I'm glad some of you liked it. The video camera I used was a Canon XL2. I love the quality this camera processes but it's just way too big for a hunting camera.

Thanks for sharing your opinion. I'm not looking for any one particular answer just wanted to see what others experienced when switching over to the top of the line optics. I wouldn't say I was overspending with my optics because the cost was well within my budget. I just didn't think the extra money is worth it since I didn't think I was finding more animals. While clarity and sharpness are definitely important to me I'd say the most important thing to me is a big FOV. When comparing my Nikons to the ELs I could barely tell a difference in clarity with the ELs being a tad sharper but there was nothing I could see with the ELs that I couldn't with the Nikons. The biggest difference was in the FOV between the 2. The Nikons have an extra 40 ft at 1000yrds over the ELs. I'll take a bigger FOV with just a tiny bit less clarity. This feature seems to find me more game then any other. My Favorite is the Nikon spotter I get a bigger FOV when compared to Swaro 15s and it's just as clear to my eyes. Like I said earlier while one thing might work best for one guy it might not work best for another. Thanks again for all the input guys keep them coming. So far it looks like I'm the only one who haven't noticed and increase of game found when switching over to the good stuff.

Thanks and your welcome Lee! I'm glad you like it as much as I did putting it together. I don't know how frequently Gila Monster are seen out in the wild but it was definitely something I don't see too often. This was actually the first one I was able to get close to. The other two I've seen was while I was driving and by the time I got turned around I could find them anymore.

Wow this proves that while one thing may work for one guy it might not work for the next. I'm the exact opposite the more FOV the better for me. This is the one feature I can say has helped me find more game. For me the more area I can see in the binos at one time the better chance I have to catch movement. I remember when I first switched over to a wide field eye piece to use with my spotting scope. I couldn't believe how much nicer it was then the narrow FOV of the zoom and I seem to be finding more game with the wider FOV. Thanks for the replies. The one thing that has came up a couple times is distance. This is probably one of the main reasons I didn't see an increase of animals found when I switched to top of the line glass because I rarely used the binos for anything past 1200 yards. It seems that most guys say this is where they see a huge improvement when using top of the line optics. I will say I've done a side by side comparison between my $500 Nikon spotter with a 16x eye piece, the Swaro 15s and the Kiabab 15s. No matter what the distance I preferred the view through the Nikon spotter over both the Swaro and Kiabab 15s. I get a wider FOV with the Nikon spotter and just a tiny bit more magnification to boot. So far this $500 Nikon spotting scope has helped me find more game then any other piece of optical equipment I've ever used. Thanks again for the replies!

Thanks for the responses! I think I figuared out why I wasn't seeing an increase in the number of deer when I switch over to the ELs. It's because I'm such a good glasser it doesn't matter which bino I use I'm going to find every findable deer in the area. It's the only thing that makes sense

Thanks for the replies. So far all the positive things people have posted about high end glass is exactly why I thought the ELs should have helped me find more game. The only thing I could come up with is that maybe when I use the lower end glass I tend to glass slower because I spend more time looking at things that could be a piece of a deer. I find majority of animals by catching movement and to my eyes I can see an animals movement just as easy through lower end glass then I can with top of the line glass. It might have to do with my technique more then the quality of the glass but I pretty thorough when it comes to glassing. Maybe I wasn't glassing far enough with the ELs to see an improvement because when I'd glass anything further then 1200 yards I'd use a Zeiss spotting scope instead of my binos. Eventually I sold the Zeiss for the same reasons I sold my ELs and ended up getting a $500 nikon spotter which I love and use all the time with a fixed 16x eye piece. I feel I find more animals with this scope then I did with the Zeiss spotter. There's no doubt in my mind that the ELs and Zeiss scope are optically better then my Nikon glass I use now. I must not be good enough to take advantage of the optical quality of the top of the line glass.

130 2/8. Even though he looks like a 140 class buck in some of those pics.

Very nice indeed! Loved it! Thanks for taking the time to put it together and sharing it with us.

I just saw a similar topic on that mule deer site under the elk section. Anyone thinking about using Rage or any mechanical heads should go read this thread.

Like WHALE said it's all about shot placement. There are plenty of great heads out there now days that will work awesome if your shot placement is good. If I were you I'd advise against using mechanical heads because there is always a risk of something going wrong with them. There are plenty of fixed blades out there that shoot like field point so why risk it by using an expandable. I used expandable heads for about 10 years but after having them open up during flight 3 different times I switched back over to fixed blades. Trust me you don't want to know what it feels like to miss an animal because your broad head opened up on you. With that being said I really like Slick Tricks and Mangus Stingers. Good luck!

Really???? Weapons drawn?? Wow! They take what the want too??? Come on man your kidding right? Correct me if I'm wrong but the rule is if the skull doesn't have hair on it then it's OK to pick up right?

The mass on the left side of that skull is just SICK! Great finds!