I’m about to buy my tags for Idaho OTC. Just one last question I’m hoping to get answered. In Idaho, are the OTC tags good for any OTC unit? Or do you have to pick a Unit?

Thanks

I’ve heard a lot of the new gas systems are WAY better than the old ones. I’ve shot a couple of berettas and they’re pretty nice cycling guns from what I can tell. The older gas guns just left a really bad taste in my mouth, that I’ve had a hard time getting over. A lot of it is just personal preference of what types of guns you like in the collection. I know 870’s are great reliable guns too but I prefer and own 500’s and probably wont ever get an 870. I’m kind of the same way with Inertia actions over gas guns.

-mic golden
-busch diets
-coors or bud light in a pinch
-spotted cow when I wanna be fancy

Thanks everyone for the suggestions, I’ve been looking at pretty much every gun company and really cant find any 20 gauge autos with slug barrels (expect benelli but I’m not paying that much for a gun then spending $600 bucks on a barrel). I have an M2 and love it, most of my friends have stoegers, and for that price they’re pretty hard to argue with. I’m a big fan of the inertia actions and I’ll probably just have to get her a bird gun then a separete slug gun. Which I’ve ben looking for an excuse to buy a savage 220 anyways. And when I say tukey gun I think I have a different definition than some people. For me a turkey gun is anything I can put a full choke in lol. She shot her first one last spring with a basic wooden 500.

We’ve done all of our walleye fishing on a southern MN lake so far this year. Its part of a river system so it has a channel through the lake that ranges from 20 to 50 feet and this is where most people fish. We haven’t fished deeper than 8 feet yet this year and have been catching 2-4 keepers a night. We’ll stay in this 5-8 foot range until the ice thickens and forces the fish and us out to deeper stucture.

We didnt get out near as much as we should have (maybe 10 times), but with that said its been better and its been worse. We usually dont bother going until all of the crops are picked so we had a late start. Then we had deeper snow and not enough ice in western, MN which made it tough hunting. We saw a bunch of birds out west on the roads but had a hard time getting on them in public land. One good thing about the tough hunting is that it forced us to try some new spots that I’m pretty optimistic about for future seasons.

I’ve always been a fan of Mossberg, mostly because I think that the 500 is one of the best budget guns ever made. With that being said I’m usually skeptical when a company steps out of they’re comfort zone with different products until they’re consumer tested for a couple years, and I’m given a reason to jump on board.

I had a bad experience with a one of their semi-autos and found they’re customer service to be pretty much no help. With that being said some of my buddies own patriots and mvp’s and love them.

Just speculating, but in my experience with alot of things (guns or not) you can get decent quality stuff without spending ridiculous amounts of money, but what you later find is that extra money is usually buying good customer service and warranties.

We usually make a run every year down 61 to for a day to Winona then jump across and take 35 back up the next day. We like to stop in Nelson ,JJ’s BBQ and whatever their cheese store is there are great spots to stop.

Thanks for the info. Sounds like I need to make a trip to Wisconsin.

Bloodlines? Papers?

Now that I have it zeroed at 100 yards I’ll start stretching it out and develop a range card once I have the ammo figured out. So far I’ve only shot Hornady Am. Gunner 140gr BTHP out of it and so far it seems to like that stuff, but I want to try all of the loads that I can through it. I’m excited to see how the 143 ELD bullets do compared to the 140 at greater distances.

Last night I threw a Harris bipod on there (6-9 inch I believe). Also bought a lead sled today from a guy at work. By Sunday, I’m hoping to have another hundred rounds though it.

What works the best for us is to just hunt woodcock cover and theres usually grouse in there too. Young poplar patches especially when theres those weird fern looking plants on the ground. Added bonus of this is all of the woodcock that are flushed between each grouse to keep the tempo up.

I’ve always gone out of river bend, but when the guides that we liked left we kinda quit going up there.We used to stay in cabins and take the bombers out everyday, but its cheaper to just go to a sleeper and you get more time with a line in the water. It makes for an easy weekend though.

Part of the draw to LOTW for me, outside of the obvious amount and size potential of walleye, would be eel pout. Its been alot of years since I caught one but I really like catching and eating them.

Nice! Which bergara did you end up picking?

sweet! Thanks for the suggestions.

Thanks, I figured it was something like that. The particular stuff that I was looking at looks accessible, because there is a public road going into some BLM land that these state owned parcels are located in.

I had a shotgun stolen out of my truck a few years back. Reported it stolen and did all the paperwork. About a week later it was recovered by shefiffs dept., state troopers, and cannon falls police in a drug bust along with a few other stolen guns. I was so happy that they found it, but was pretty annoyed that it took over a year to get back.

Here’s a question, not important, but I’m curious. When I’m looking at OnX on the big swaths of BLM land theres these little squares of state land evenly dispersed in a grid like pattern. Does any one know what they are or why they’re there?

I,, have to do that a little later today thanks!

Thanks, Ive been looking though that stuff and trying to make some sense of all of it, but as im sure you know its kind of confusing if you’ve never had to look at this stuff before. I’ll look into WY as well.

I made an account on the ID GFP page last night and on new years day the four of us are going to get together and get something figured out. I’ll try to figure out some of those WY units with high draw probability today.

Thanks for the info. If we had two tags for four guys there would only be two guys with guns others would run a pair of binoculars and hopefully a knife. We would just split the meat once were home.

Doesn’t Idaho have OTC tags?

I haven’t shot rifle near as much as most the other guys on this thread (shot all of my deer within 50 yards with a 12 gauge bird barrel and a front bead sight), but one thing I gather and considered heavily into the decision of the rifle I recently bought is to shoot A LOT. So one thing I tried to keep in mind is ammo costs and recoil. There are plenty of rounds that fall into that category (.308,.270,6.5, and others). They don’t have as much snort as the magnums, but thats for you to figure out if you need that or not.

Having gone through a decent amount of resorts in Northern MN, I think a lot of this in my opinion isn’t really out of any legal obligation or anything, but a lot of these resort owners/staff just being good guys. Don’t get me wrong there are defiantly some bad eggs, but for the most part almost every resort on the big lakes that I’ve been to or heard of have been great and doing all sorts of things to go above and beyond.

I’ve thought about getting into reloading and when I look into it, it doesn’t seem that bad to get started. Thanks for the suggestions!

Another vote for a 10/22. I get the single shot/ bolt action idea of making every shot count, but to me a 10/22 will get more use throughout his whole life. In my opinion it doesn’t take a whole lot of shooting, even with a semi-auto, to understand the value of making a good first shoot. Also if your introducing a kid to shooting I think a 10/22 is impossible to beat on the fun scale, which for a kid to stay engaged and retain anything, is important. Regardless of your decision, thanks for introducing another person to shooting.

Just bought a Bergara b-14 Ridge in 6.5 CM and could not be more happy with it so far. After of years of research and going back and forth on bolt guns I finally settled on this and so far I’m really enjoying it. As far as hunting rifles go it leans toward the heavier side (I’m a big guy so I don’t mind) which when paired with the 6.5 CM seems like it kicks less than my AR. Haven’t had a chance to stretch it out yet, but shooting at 100yds, after the barrel break in, it was doing 4 shot groups that I could cover with a quarter. She only has 47 rounds through her so far. I picked it up at Scheels in Rochester and after that experience I will probably buy the rest of my future guns there. The customer service is outstanding they did a great job going over optics, mounting options, bore sighting, and fitting everything to me. Hopefully this helps you with your decision.

Sweet! I’ll probably look into that.

Thanks!

Me and my buddies have been using the first strike rod mounted tip ups for two winters now. We love them with a bait feeder reel. Whats so nice is you can just decide to take it off or put it on. You dont need a trigger thing in the line and can keep the whole system in your pocket and just clip it on your rod. We can set them super light for panfish or heavy when you have suckers on for bait. The only reason I still have tip ups is because I only have two bait feeder reels and when we tip up fish we usually get quite a few people out.

If anyone ever figures out the secret mixture at L&M bar in Dundas, MN I will pay big money for that recipe. It’s hands down the best bloody I’ve had and they’re pretty tight lipped about it.