With a rifle it matters much less than a bow. I drink coffee and eat smoked deer sticks, use deodorant, store my coat indoors etc. I know a guy who smokes stogies in the stand, one who smokes an occasional cigarette and several who run gas heaters. We all shoot deer. IMO keeping still and on high alert is more important.

I would not buy a 3/4 or 1 ton truck unless you need the tow or payload capacity. If not for my 5th wheel RV towing 7 months of the year I’d be back in a 1/2 ton getting 15-18 mpg. For the entire ice fishing season I’ll be getting 10-12 mph in my F-250 when the F-150 would serve my needs entirely.

On a recent trip to Cabela’s to use a $20 off a $100 purchase it hit me how unbelievably large the tackle selection was. I was at about $60 with the reload components I came for and needed to add another $40 to the cart so I could use the coupon. I gave up looking for the Gulp Ice Fishing Maggots I wanted to try out and had to ask my friendly sales associate. He in turn could not find it and had to go consult with another sales person, the two of them finally found it. $4.00 for 15 fake 3/8″ worms? Are they trying to kid me? There are more baits there I have never used than what I have used in my 65 years. I am not a godless commie and am a big believer in free markets, no one is forcing me to buy. It is just one more example of a world that is passing me by.

There are some for sale on Craigslist. Look in Sporting Goods.

X2 on the sleeping bag up to your armpits. The older I get the more I lose my tolerance for the cold. Perhaps it is the blood pressure meds. And once I get a chill it takes a lot of time indoors to shake it off.

I love the classic rifles. I will always have a Win. M-70, a Rem. 700 or a Ruger M-77 in walnut with blued steel. I will not accept any substitutes. But it is sure nice not to have to put out $1000 to get a youngster started in the sport with those low cost entry level rifles mentioned. One of my most liked features of my 6 acre homestead is having my own shooting range.

I just reloaded a batch of 7mm mag for a friend. I set up the sizer die the same way for belted as non-belted and had good results. I had Reloader 22 and IMR 7828 powders, large rifle magnum primers and two Hornady bullets, 139 and 120g available. Good results with sub 1″ groups. Two layers of carpet padding under my shirt helped when testing the loads. This chambering comes back hard when fired.

I am on our 15th trouble free year with a low cost unit I bought at Menards. Electric free is no big deal, the electric controllers do not use enough electricity to matter. If I have to buy another new one soon I’ll still be money ahead of some of the other options. My well water has 16 grains of hardness and 3 ppm of iron.

I would stay with any of the major brands listed above as long as it has a rope start backup. The batteries on ATV’s do not perform very well in my experience. I use a Honda Foreman with a 450 and I would not want to rope start anything much larger. I’d recommend trying to rope start anything larger before buying to be sure you can physically do it. We have 2 or 3 guys taking turns pulling a starter rope on a unit that wont start on a -20 deg. mornings. 6 or 7 hard pulls, then step aside for the next guy to try.

IMO the entire short magnum craze and all newer cartridges are solutions to non-existent problems. We actually need about 5 or 6 chambering’s to suit all North American situations. The risk of a new cartridge is that it does not catch on and you are left with a rifle you cannot find ammo for. Or if you do find it, it is $80/box of 20 like those Weatherby cartridges I see at Cabela’s. But what would the shooting sports writers talk about W/O minutia, lists and new gadgets? Is the .270 adequate for elk? Should I use 7 1/2’s or 8’s for trap? 10 best rangefinders for under $300. Is the 9mm enough gun for self defense? etc..

Both Craig’s List and E-bay prohibit advertising empty brass. I see it on Craig’s occasionally but if anyone flags it the ad is gone. The place to go is gunbrokers.com. Very similar to E-bay in structure but gun friendly. Excellent sorting feature allows exact displays of what you are looking for. I did a search for 7mm-08 brass & see there are currently over 30 ads. New, used, same head stamp, mixed head stamp. There is a registration procedure you must do in order to sell or bid. Another choice are the gun shows but that can be hit or miss.

If you drive by the Ice Castle lot at Mille Lacs Unclaimed on 169 you can see that as many have AC units on top as do not. They are not just for winter ice fishing anymore.

On Pelican Lake there is a large bowl of 30-35fow near the center of the lake. There are islands around this area. I was there late August a few years ago and caught all the crappies I wanted just off the bottom. Was told that this bite happens every year and goes on until late Sept.

Thanks for the help. I did not want to spend $80 (?) for the transducer unless there was hope it would correct the problem.

Tip of the cap to any hobbyist who can do a good job on a whole pig. Not too hard to have the extremities burned crisp while the interior is still blood rare. Or have 40 people waiting for the hog to get done at a reasonable time. Last two I attended were done by professional hog roast caterers. No wonder with all the time, equipment and know-how required.

Sounds like a great idea for some rainy day entertainment.

We took a drive around the lake last evening and I saw the same thing. Even though it was a work night there should have been some boats at the landings. Sad days for the resort industry here.

I had a new Strikemaster 4-5 years ago with the same problem. Took it to Strikemaster. Carburetor to manifold gasket installed backwards. Before you put undue wear on your new recoil remember Einstein’s axiom about doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

Center fire ammo is too expensive to shoot in volume if not reloading. At $25 per box of 50 for factory handgun ammo I would not shoot nearly as much. Casting my own projectiles has really lowered the cost for me. I am doing .45 ACP for under a dime a round. Of course once my current supplies run out my cost is certain to rise. For whatever reason shot shell reloading does not have the same savings. And where I and others enjoy our time at the bench others are too bored to continue.

I did a spring fly in fishing trip with Ogoki Outfitters. They treated us very well. I did speak to the guides about moose hunting. They told me they like to call them, get them near the water so they can pack them out easier. They had some clear cut areas they also hunted.

35 years ago when I decided to burn wood, both an uncle and a father-in-law commented. The gist of it was “Have you got rocks in your head? Why would you burn wood? We did it because we had to. You have a gas furnace”. They were right.

So it was on the northbound lane. North of Onamia and South of Reed’s outpost? I will drive that stretch today and keep my good eye out looking for it.

Cabela’s had a pile of sub-sonic .22 cal Saturday in their Rogers, MN store. Nothing else in .22. Looked like a complete selection of the center fire handgun calibers. At $25 per box of 50 I sure am glad I reload and have a fair supply of components. No handgun or shot shell powder either, just a few jugs for the magnum rifle loads. Bird shot $54 for a 25 lb bag. OMG!

I just called to reserve a spot. Ballards told me you need double occupancy to register. So if any other person wants to team up I am ready to commit. I am a 65 year old non-smoker who seldom uses coarse language. Plan to take my own portable and ATV as long as the snow is not too deep. I live in the Onamia area, have a pick up truck and a 2 place ATV trailer. Could travel together or separate, then meet at the resort. Don 320-733-0879

I live 700′ from the lake and have not drilled a hole in it in 3 years. I ice fished there for 30 years. I do not deny that some who are connected and/or operate at a higher skill level will catch fish. But for an average guy like me Lake of the Woods seldom disappoints. The 240 mile drive is well worth it.

The small difference between the speed of the Lazer blade and the chipper blade is not worth the hassle of maintaining the Lazer. I can easily resharpen my chipper blade on a 4″ belt sander. For me any of the gas powered blades are very fast compared to the hundreds of holes I opened with either a chisel or a hand auger.

A group of us were buying bison on the hoof and splitting it up. We found there was variability. The ground meat was always good, but the cuts sometimes were terrific and sometimes tough. The farmer we bought from sold us animals no older than 24 months. He said those 2000 pounders you see roaming the prairie while visiting the national parks are too tough to eat the cut meat.

“On the other side of the coin, many of us want not just access, but some measure of control over the place where we hunt.” Amen to that, most miserable opener ever had to give up my spot with no plan B. IMO 70% of Minn. deer hunting success is getting a good spot on private land. You can make a lot of mistakes if you have a spot where you get 4 or 5 chances opening weekend.

I know it is kind of an apples to oranges comparison but I recently bought out a friends center fire ammo reloading operation. But spearing decoys and reloading gear do not appeal to the vast majority of shoppers. I agree with the comments from Grouse, hard if not impossible to find someone who wants it all. I kept most of the supplies and some of the equipment but wound up with a bunch to sell. I believe E-bay will get the most money back for most goods. I advertised many items on shooting websites with no sale, then got more than I had asked when I went to E-bay. But E-bay is a lot of putsing around, photos, listing, packaging, answering e-mails, trips to the PO etc. I see there are more than 250 items on E-bay now when I searched “spearing decoys”. If there are collector associations that might be a good place to look.

2 stroke or 4 stroke? I have a 2000 Evinrude 4 stroke 3 cylinder. As I understand it OMC (Johnson & Evinrude) did not make 4 strokes, they put their labels on Suzuki outboards. My Evinrude is a very good motor. Quiet, smooth, easy starting and easy on the gas.