JoePa

Wow - that''s sure a big rack - https://www.foxnews.com/great-outdoors/illinois-hunter-bags-51-point-buck-possibly-one-of-the-largest-bucks-ever-shot-in-america

Gee - am somewhat disappointed - always thought you guys up north weren't bothered by the cold weather - thought you loved it - like they show on those Alaskan TV shows - oh well - learn something every day - keep warm - Joe

Thanks for sharing - really enjoy being there with you although I'm so far away - we hardly get any good ice down there anymore like it was years ago - stay safe and healthy - Joe

https://www.foxnews.com/great-outdoors/dramatic-video-shows-hunters-rescuing-buck-deer-from-frozen-lake

If CWD was found in a deer close to the area where you hunt would you continue to hunt - this is a question that will some day surely come up around where I live - https://www.foxnews.com/health/chronic-wasting-disease-spreads-in-wisconsin-should-humans-be-concerned - The problem is that a deer could be infected and not show any signs of it for a couple months - just another thing to worry about

https://www.foxnews.com/world/mom-baby-killed-by-grizzly-bear-at-remote-cabin-in-canada-officials-say

Boy this would be something if you got the whole deer mounted - https://www.foxnews.com/great-outdoors/tennessee-hunter-spots-12-point-albino-buck-in-rare-sighting-it-was-like-seeing-a-ghost

I turned 85 this past Saturday - Buck season started today - this is the first time in approximately 60 some years that I didn't get out of bed to go hunting - for some reason I just didn't have the urge as I always had when it came to deer hunting - I'm trying to figure why this happened - the one thing contributing to this lack of urge is maybe the fact that I have a sore shoulder and can't really pick up any heavy thing with my left arm right now - or is it this thing that happens to everyone eventually when they get old - I don't really know - I'm in very good shape for my age - I always butchered my deer and maybe the thought of all that work kinda turned me off this time - maybe it was the rain that was falling this morning when I got up to take a leak - all my buddies that I used to go hunting with quite years ago and I was the only one still hunting - I guess I will find out this coming Saturday when we can shoot buck and doe and I got a doe license - I will see what happens - hope it isn't a permanent thing that got a hold of me

Well let me tell you something - you ain't seen nothing yet - wait until the full force of Artificial Intelligence and more robotics take over - all these manufacturing type jobs and manual jobs will be toast - so what do you do about it? - get some kind of skill that is not easily duplicated

I mentioned it in another post where I was down the back in the woods getting firewood when my 1991 Ford 150 got stuck in the mud - at first I tried and tired driving it out but just couldn't - so the next day i went down there with a bottle jack and some wide wooden boards - jacked up the rear wheels and put the boards under them - by the way this truck is a 4X4 but only forward gear works and I needed to back out because there was no room to go forward - with the boards under the back wheels I was able to move the truck a little but then the wheels came off the boards and I was stuck again - by this time my shoulder is real sore from a previous injury - my son said that he could help me on Friday so in the meantime I bought a come along, some chain and a recovery strap - figure that we could try and use the come along to get the truck out of the mud - well the temperatures got down to single digits this pass Tues, Wed, and Thurs - when we went down there on Friday the mud was frozen - I started up the truck and let it warm up a little - put in reverse and drove right out of the mud - so here are the lessons learned - don't drive into the woods when it is real muddy and if you get stuck pray for real cold weather to freeze the mud

Yes the weather has been a real bummer down here in Pa.too - for the past months you couldn't see the sun for two days in a row - rained all the time - now we have real cold weather - tonight it is suppose to go down to 17 degrees F - went down the back to get some firewood with my old 1991 F 150 - it was so muddy got stuck in the mud - now I got a job to do trying to get the truck out of the mud - son is coming over on friday to help me try and get it out - got a come along - some chains and recovery straps - hope we get it out and back on the road - started the wood stove up today for the first time - once I start it will run it until March sometime - nothing like a nice wood fire to warm your bones - and the house

While we're talking about wedding rings - years ago I worked at Bell Telephone Laboratories in a group developing underwater submarine cable systems - one day I had a brazing torch in my hand and an old engineer came over and asked me to put some heat on his wedding ring - somehow he had gotten some mercury on this gold wedding ring and what happens is the mercury enters the gold and makes it brittle - so he lays the ring on the table and asks me to put the flame on the ring and vaporize the mercury out of the ring - so I put the flame on the ring and we're both watching it - all of a sudden the gold ring got real bright and it melts into a flat blob - we both looked at each other - he picks the flat blob of gold up and says - my wife is going to kill me

https://www.foxnews.com/health/man-dies-from-extremely-rare-disease-after-eating-squirrel-brains - boy between chronic waste disease in deer and this case you wonder about eating wild animals anymore - we have CWD down here in certain counties in Pa. - if any deer showed up with this disease where I hunt I would propabably stop hunting deer

A Maryland Dept. of Natural Resources team caught a 56.5 lb flat head catfish in a survey net in the Susquehanna River just south of the Pa. border - the fish regurgitated a 19 inch walleye after it was caught - talk about having a big mouth -

I would take the wind - we are having so much rain that mold is forming on my enclosed patio and in my truck camper - it rains just about everyday - haven't seen the sun in weeks - can't get out to cut the grass too wet - just hope we get some of the dry Canadian cold air to put a stop to this nonsense - maybe I shouldn't complain when I see what happened down in North and South Carolina - there was a video on Fox showing the fire department hoses off an interstate highway because there were thousands of dead fish on the road - when it flooded the fish ended up coming to places where they got stranded after the water when down again -

Most of us don't realize how much money we have tied up in our fishing tackle - we keep buying a little over the years and it adds up - if someone were to steal our stuff and we had to replace it we would surprised at what it would cost to do that - then there is the boat and everything else we have - makes me think back to the 50s when I started fishing with a cork, a hook and some live bait and a steel telescoping rod

Don't understand - why is winterizing a 4 stroke harder than a 2 stroke - am I missing something -

The one thing about an old boat is if it is pretty old and made before 4 stroke engines were common the plate on the boat lists the maximum HP that can be used but this figure was based on a lighter 2 stroke engine - I am not sure if the weight of the engine dictates the maximum motor size or is it strictly the HP of the motor that limits the motor size for the boat - so if you put a 4 stroke on the boat do you need to lower the HP of the motor because of the heavier weight -

Thanks guys it is a good discussion - from the comments I think I will stick with the foam filled bulky life jacket - having an inflatable one that doesn't open is bad news - I do need to buy new foam jackets - the mice got at the ones I have - the one thing I think of a lot when I'm bass fishing in a lake that is filled with lilly pads and weeds is if I ever fell in and couldn't hang onto the boat there is no way I could swim because my legs would get all tangled up with the weeds

Up until now I haven't bought one of those inflatable life jackets - when I did wear one it was one of those old fashion ones that are real bulky - I think it is time to break down and get an inflatable one - the questions that come to mind is whether I get one that inflates by itself or one I have to activate - and do I buy extra cylinders for the jackets in case I can't get them in the future - and what brands are considered the best to buy - the self inflatable ones - how wet does the jacket have to get before it activates - would a heavy rain cause that to happen - would appreciate any thoughts on this subject - thanks - Joe P.S. reading what happened to Kevin made me think about this

Yes this is a sad thing what happened - we must always respect the water - here in Pa. thus far 14 people have died from boating accidents and the one common factor between them was the victims did not wear their life jackets - I noticed in some of Kevin's videos he was not always wearing one - a tragedy like this makes me think again about wearing a jacket - something I must confess I don't always do - if the motor is running and you fall out of the boat without a jacket and your way out from shore your a goner

If your worried about a slippery deck there is a produce that would take care of that - it is called Tuff Coat - non skid coating - it is rubberized deck coating polyurethane safety coating - it can be obtained at Wholesale Marine in the net

We have a lot pickerel down here - when I was a kid I would catch a lot of them using life minnows - the one thing about them is the meat is real light and very good eating ounce you get rid of the bones - they definitely taste better that a northern but because they don't get as big the bones are a pain

Trufuel at $9.00 a liter - holy mackeral - I can buy ethanol free 95 octane gas at $3.45 a gallon - add a half ounce of stabilizer and some 50 to 1 oil and I have the same thing at approx. $ 1.00 a liter - sounds like a ripe off - I cut about 5 cords of wood each year at that rate I'd go broke - if you use a lot of gas in you chainsaw you would be better to find some ethanol free gas and mix it with a stabilizer and oil yourself - just saying

No - the part that I had done earlier isn't slippery - I used a flat water based paint - I generally have sneakers on or other rubber bottom shoes when in the boat - I don't know how it would be if the floor was wet and I had other type shoes on