Yesterday marked the 12-week mark in the countdown to the Rifle Opener in November. It found me staying home from camp to escape the all-day rains that never quite materialized. So what needs to be done? Odds and Ends By this time of the year, I have all my clothes …Continue reading →
Last night #3 son, Angus, was asking me about camo. He’d seen some Youtubes with this guy touting the ultimate new super-duper stuff. He wanted to buy a set. I explained to him that I’d been where he is starting off about 30 years ago. I had not only 1st …Continue reading →
For my recent birthday, KYHillChick bought me a Teslong borescope. $50 from Amazon. What’s not to like? It comes with the flexible 3-foot borescope, a nice long USB cable and a decent set of instructions. First off, it did not fit my older Samsung smartphone. It’s got various adapters USB …Continue reading →
The last bit of rain hit about 0300. By 0700, I was loading up the washing machine with hunting clothes. By evening, they’ll be dry and packed in sodium bicarb, waiting for the November Opener I’m following the same Baking Soda regimen that I’ve been doing for years: See: Shamanic …Continue reading →
The last piece of the Perfect Deer Rifle Puzzle is Ammunition. There are guys out there that will tell you Barnes TSX is all you need to know. I have a friend that hunts with it exclusively. Let me just say up front, if you’re hooked on premium ammo, there …Continue reading →
In the previous missive, I examined what makes an ideal deer rifle from the perspective of chambering. The answer was “Yes, one of those will do nicely.” Now, I’m going to start getting into the real meat of it. What action? What length? The answer is still the same: “Whatever …Continue reading →
What DOES make the perfect deer rifle? I’ve tried to answer this several times over the past couple of decades. Most of those thoughts ended up on this weblog. The question continues to haunt me. Part of that is that I spent so many years trying to come up with …Continue reading →
When I upgraded the website over the winter, I was toying with the idea of going with a newspaper-type format, but I could not find the right options. I was digging for other things over the weekend and found just the right settings to make what I had envisioned. I’m …Continue reading →
So Shaman, exactly how many deer rifles do you need? If I said just one, this would be a really short post. In a way you do only need one. As I’ve written many times before, just about anything can kill a whitetail– certainly any modern centerfire rifle. Okay, maybe …Continue reading →
Over the winter, I purchased a Boyd’s AT-One stock to go on my Ruger American Predator in 223 Rem. The whole idea of this was to start a dedicated platform for improving my accuracy. This is the first rifle I’ve actually purpose-built for the job. Normally, I’m a hunter that …Continue reading →
It was a good thing I was paying attention yesterday. I was out mowing around the yard at the farm. It’s been almost a month– too wet for most of it. This was job #1. I was out by the mailbox, and nearly missed seeing this little critter. He’d have …Continue reading →
I was eating my lunch and looked out the window. Look at it for a while. Let me know when you see it. PS: Don’t tell KYHillChick or she won’t go in the back yard for a month. What is it? It’s a Black Rat Snake. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantherophis_obsoletus That’s …Continue reading →
 Being trapped at home in Covid-19 purgatory gets a mind to thinking. I’ve had a real dearth of reloading projects. I have two major windows for reloading each year; they are between my two main hunting seasons. By 1 March, I have a backlog of projects that are done and …Continue reading →