Back in the 1980’s and 90’s Cabala’s used to sell a tackle box called the Maxi-mate 180 and 240 . They held 240 crank baits and 240 crank-baits. For some reason they stopped making the boxes. I find them on eBay and have found a couple around the great lakes area. Something you might want to check out. tacklehaven.com sells them still.

temp was 36 degrees and warmingup fast. All females were full and so were males. Prespawn fever is on!!!

Well first day on the water this year turned out to be nothing short of impressive!! Went out Sunday morning on the Illinois side of the Rock and it was amazing the pigs stuck up in the timber. Fished most of Rockton Spillway south to Rockton Dam hiting slack water eddies. Managed to catch 2,27’s 4 24’s, ,3 19’s , and too numerous to count smaller fish. Today’s biat was Chartruese Nuckleball tipped with a chartruse /pepper ringworm, and a Bfishn Chartruese hair jig tipped with a orange chartruese twistertail. Spent most of the day pitchin and vertical jigging. Shallow water was the key in the morning and evening and just outside of the timber during the day. By far the best day I have had in a lot of years. Her is a couple pics of the ones I kept. the fillet board is 24 inches long for reference. All females were released.

Massive tumor, cyst. infection. I have seen this in a deer by me huge tumorous and fibrous growth, Shot the deer and donated it to the wildlife biologists. They reported back to me that it was a fibrous growth /tumor. Do the deer a fovor and put it out of its misery.

found him in the middle of our bare 110 acre field. it was a lung shot. Unfortunately the coyotes and the crows ate him for an early breakfast. I was hoping to get a test done to see if he was cwd deer or other disease.

When I opened this deer up I found some strange looking red nodules. They looked like red paint gun balls but a little smaller. They were all over the inside tenderloins. So I called a friend who is a local biologist. He had never seen this before. He too the samples and took some more test to send in. So right now He is quarter and put in the chest freezer till i hear the go ahead to eat him.

freakin crazy!!!!

using easton tracer nocs !!! SWEET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

neutered????

I plant Imperial Whitetail Wintergrens in the fall and i tell you it is amazing to see the results. Even when the beans are still in they go crazy for it.

Beetle,

Why the concern and disappointment? I am excited to see a a guy in his 60’s bowhunt for the first time. Its awesome.
I have shared the woods gun hunting with Terry for five years.

By the way he bought a .223 last night and calls me. He says lets go kill some yotes!!!!

lets just say excitng wasn’t the word for it. he kept calling my cellphone. And of course my phone was on vibrate so every few minutes i would notice he was calling.

So i finally answered and said not to use the cell unless it was an emergency. He said he was scared out of his mind.
Evidently an ambulance had wnt by out on the main road, and when the siren was going off the coyotes were howling and carrying on.Being that this was his first time out i couldn’t help but laugh.

He wanted me to drive down and pick him up. Being the nice guy that I am i said i would meet him half- way. I have never seen an old guy boogie down the trail so fast in my life. He got in the car and said phewwwww! I tell ya there are some coyotes in those woods. I replied yes there are.

I asked him how the rest of the afternoon hunt had went. He said it was amazing. The squirrels, the raccons, the turkeys, everything was going on around him. He was thrilled to be in the woods. But he kept getting back to the coyotes and how many he thought there were.

We drove down with my suburban to where he was hunting and we spotted two coyotes in the distance across the river. Looked like the were feeding on something small.

Well then we headed home and i asked him if he wanted to go this morning. he said kill those coyotes and I’ll go. So we will be out hear sometime soon killing coyotes.

By the way when we got back to my house he says do you happen to have a beer to settle my nerves. he was laughing by then.

WellI am of to a full day in the woods. Later.

I carry a North First Aid Kit actually two of them. They have just about everything needed in an emergency situation. tourniquet, burn ointment, rescue breather, bandages of all sizes, emergency blanket, flashlight, matches, flint, stitch kit,snake bite kit, bee sting kit etc, etc, etc.

My father was the president of North safety products for 28 years. It helped me learn what I need in the field.

I keep an emergency beeper on me now that is controlled by satellite. Especially since my treestand accident.

I will side with you too. We have a to buck rule here in Illinois and it stinks. When i go to the check staion and see what people shoot it is shocking. Qdma has been trying to educate hunters about quality deer management but our biggest enemy around Illinos is the Yuppie hunters who pay ridiculous amounts of money to lease farms near me and “kill brown and its down” mentality.
I vote against it. Let those little guys grow!!

Four years in a ground blind makes me pretty limited. I was SO EXCITED THIS MORNING TO HAVE A GROUP OF TEN OR SO DEER RIGHT IN MY HEADLIGHTS WHEN i OPENED THE GATE THIS MORNING. couple DANDY TEN POINTERS. i TOLD MY WIFE I WOULD BRING HOME SOME FRESH VENISON.So at first light I noticed so movement right below my double ladder stand.Man that thing is compfy!! So after about ten minutes of watching a couples of does I decided to put the smack down on a doe. Boy DID IT FEEL GOOD TO HEAR THAT THWACCCK!!!! i DIDN’T EVEN HAVE TO DO ANY TRACKING SHE JUST COLLAPSED RIGHT THERE. SMOKED HER!!! HAD ALOT OF DEER ALL OVER THE 180 ACRES. sURPRISINGLY ENOUGH THE MAJORITY OF THE DEER WERE LESS THAN 200 YARDS FROM THE MAIN HIGHWAY FEEDING ON ACORNS. gUESS WHERE i WILL BE TONIGHT. RIGHT IN BETWEEN THE ACORNS AND THEIR BEDDING AREA. hOPEFULLY CAN SMACK THAT MONSTER DOUBLE DROP TINE ELEVEN POINTER I SAW TWO WEEKS AGO. wILL POST PICS LATER WHEN I CAN GET TO MY HOME COMPUTER. i THOUGHT I WOULD SEND THIS VIA THE LAPTOP IN THE TRUCK. i’LL SHOUT AT YA’LL LATER.

5 more days here in Illinois. Have a great trip!! been good talking safety with ya this past week.

Congrats on a mighty fine buck!!

I am so glad my story affected you . Especially to be more aware of your hunting experiences. I would do anything to save a life, or to save them from the pain and suffering I have went through. Wow 28 portables!!! Thats crazy maintenance. Most treestand manufacturer sell a strap replacement kit , come with bolts and everything. Big thing to look for is rust forming around your cables on hang-on stands. It is sign of tannic Acid from the tree corroding the cables. Sunlight also a deteriorates the straps on a treestand.

Another thing that is hard on stands is the cinch straps get jammed into the tree bark and it is really hard to get them off, I have had stands that in just three months I have had to bring my ratchet set to the tree and undo the bolts because I can’t get the cinch strap loose.

Just got an email from a fellow gun club member who said his son fell out of a ladder stand while putting it up (BY HIMSELF) He is in ICU and may not live. Hit his head on some rocks. His Dad told him to take some friends to help and to take an extension ladder to fasten the ladder stand to the tree.

Be careful out there!!

I have a mile walk to my stand across a open field to one of my stands. I have ended up only hunting that stand in the afternoon. Or i get to the stand an hour or better before daylight.I use a red lens on my flashlight and it really helps. I have had deer actually be curious and follow right behind me as a just get up my ladder stand. It is sometimes really freaky. Also another idea I was taught by my Dad and uncle was to walk slow and stop frequently just like deer. Try not to just barrel through the woods.

LIL Ripper

your welcome!! It was amazing to learn from the manufacturer of the treestands that the bolts could withstand 5500 lbs of sheer pressure before popping. So within a year that oak tree grew a tremendous amount and placed some serious pressure on that strap. The strap held up and didn’t tear or snap. the bolts failed.

I have a friend who just this summer was checking his stand and one of his brand new screw in treesteps failed. He was gored on the steps below and hung in the air till we heard him screaming. Lucky we were around to take him off and were able to call 911.He suffered major internal injury and will not be hunting out of anything besides the telephone pole shack we built for him.

I also encourage anyone who has lag bolted wooden steps or nailed in wooden steps to get rid of them. Or anystand built out of wood inside a tree. The pressure of tree growth and wind stresses can destroy a wooden platform in a short time.

Spend the money on quality treestands you only have one life to live.

This topic brings up a lot of tears for me personally.
It is a miracle I didn’t end up the same way as Mr. Mcacabe.

In the fall of 2004 day after opening day bow season I proceeded to climb up in a friend’s stand that he had hunted in the day before and shot a big 10 pointer. I assumed it was fine. I climbed up onto the platform , hoisted all my equipment up into the stand. I then tried to latch my Hunter safety system safety harness to the tree strap on the tree. Before I could hook it on my worst nightmare happened. The tree stand broke out from underneath me.

I awoke later that day in the ICU at St. Anthony Hospital in Rockford, Illinois. My wife, my children, and my hunting buddy whose stand broke from underneath me.Were in the room praying for me.

They said that I fractured my t-3, T-1, and c-3, and c-4 vertebrae, and also had a basal skull fracture. I lacerated my left shoulder almost to the bone from the string on my bow breaking as I tried to grab it to break my fall it had snapped.

It was all a haze to me. I was just trying to figure out how I got to the hospital. They said that I crawled on my belly almost a quarter mile to the road where a lady saw me. She called 911. The paramedic actually followed the blood trail in the snow and found my broken glasses, broken bow , and my backpack with my cellphone in it(still in the tree.)

My hunting buddy went to recover the stand that morning and found that the bolts that had held the strap had actually sheered off due to the stand being in the tree for so longand the tree swelling so much. he had hung the stand a year prior.

I spent six months trying to recover. It was a miracle that I can still walk. I live with back pain everyday. And the hope that no one ever has to go through what I did. I now teach hunters safety in Wisconsin and Illinois. Every opportunity I get to share my story I try hoping it will save a life.
-Always wear a harness(I prefer Hunters Safety System harnesses) Easy to use plus they include an easy to use relief strap to take pressure off your legs.
-Check your stands every season
-Take them down at the end of every season.
-Screw in tree steps that are screwed in certain tree only last a few months due to the acidity in the trees sap.Try to avoid them.
-Loosen your hang on stands if your not going to be hunting for an extended time. You can always re tighten it when you come back.

Hope this encourage some of your to wear a harness and take care of your treestands.

God Bless,
Troy Vinson

Finally ot home from a busy summer of work.Figures Octber 1st opening day bow season here in Illinois only a week and a half away. I put out the camera last wednesday got 41 pics of turkey, coyotes, coons and opossum, But got 15 pics of deer which four turned out decent. This camera was at my 3 acre Imperial Whitetail alfa rack plus and Imperial whitetail clover food plot. Notice how mowed down it is. I haven’t physical mowed this plot once. Deer keep it trimmed. I have a double ladder stand so my two boys can finally join me this year. I took a nice 10 point non-typical double drop tine out of this stand last year. Seeing the young bucks and small fawns this year is a blessing. Sharpshooters from Illinois Dnr slaughtered 1200 plus deer over the Kishwaukee river bottoms conservation property next where I hunt this winter. Sad thing is I found three carcasses with bullet holes in them this winter right after they did this. Ethical program for eliminating CWD. Yeah right. i will post more pics as i get them. I am definitely gonna get a cuddeback or Moultrie cam!!

I have a high speed summit plot mule disc plow i pull behind my Arctic Cat 650 vtwin. It is the best I could find. Thing is they don’t sell them anymore. What size quad do yo have? Tufline makes an awesome affordable disc plow that uses the weight of the quad. I am looking at getting one just to be able to cross the small river on my farm. momroe tufline makes an awesome affordable disc plow that uses the weight of the quad. ground hog by Tufline These are great discs made by the same company. Any other questions feel free to send me a message. i plant fourteen acres of food plots on our farm here in Illinois.

Good to hear it turned out for you guys. Try using three ways with a floating rapala orange or gold black work the best. For a dropper i use a paddle tail or ring worm with a 1/4 or 3/16 oz jig. I got to say it is deadly. there is an inlet on the east side just north of the bridge. Try pitchin paddletails or ringworms there. Or the old trusty slip bobber set up. I do best in the dark up there. Seems water is so clear in the winter that the fish get really active after dark. then after about 11 p.m. they shut off. I will be up there this week.

Your in wolf country. Are you finding alot of carcasses? I have property in Winter Wisconsin not far from you. We had wolves constantly running through on our trail cameras. Just a thought.

i used cedar chips when my pup was little in the kitchen. Then I had cedar chips outside too. Finally i removed the cedar chips from the kitchen and only had them outside. She pees and poops in one spot all the time. She is 4 months old. I like no burnt grass.

i used cedar chips when my pup was little in the kitchen. Then I had cedar chips outside too. Finally i removed the cedar chips from the kitchen and only had them outside. She pees and poops in one spot all the time. She is 4 months old. I like no burnt grass.

Just got back again from early morning run up the rock river in Rockton with a good buddy Terry young. Got right back in to the crappies and white bass using split shot and minnow or crappies jigs with a twister tail. Also the walleye I was using b fish n tackles chartreuse buck tail jig tipped with a minnow or a half a chartreuse ringworm. Bucktails were the favorite today. Nuckle balls tipped with a minnow in chartreuse ,chartreuse green, or chartreuse orange jigs or with twister tails, paddletails, or half a ringworm. We managed to land a dozen walleye, six keepers. Catch n release today. Also had a huge pike bite off right at the boat when I was trying to land him.

Thats a great wallhanger! I like the name Caiden.What an Irish name!! I’ll have to make a crown and coke just to celebrate. Good meeting a couple weekends ago at Evert’s.

I do a lot of metal fabrication. Aluminum is easily shaped with a mallet or dead blow hammer. To get rid of the myth of (weakening the aluminum) You only weaken aluminum by using heat or excessive force. A rubber mallet will shape the metal back to its original form.