Handsome Rob

Hunt as far downhill from your truck as humanly possible. The farther & steeper, the better. If rappelling gear is needed, awesome. I guarantee you'll kill a 300 pounder & have to drag the heavy sumbitch all the way back out. Somebody once told me a story of an old guy who supposedly shot a 200lb deer at the top of a hill, allowing him to drag it dowhill all the way to his truck, but I call BS on that.

For a plain gray color (like shown above) go to your local hardware store a buy a bottle of Naval Jelly. It'll have it looking like that in 10 minutes.

Easiest way (I've done this on a lot of knife blades & muzzleloaders) is plain Clorox bleach. Strip off the paint & spray on a good coat of Clorox. Run your shower until the room is humid & steamy & then leave your hammer in there for 10-15 minutes. It'll be very rusty & it'll be starting to get pitted. 'Card' off the rust with a rough cloth & see where it's at. Be careful, because this works VERY quickly. You can rinse & repeat as much as you like to get it as rough-looking as you need. Once it's where you want it to be, patina-wise, wash very thoroughly with a baking soda

Please don't take any offence at this, I mean none by it, but those of us with private land to hunt have had to do all the leg-work involved in getting it, up to & including paying out craploads of money each year. It is hard come by & hard won & expecting someone to ask a complete stranger to come in & join the fun is unreasonable. There are millions of acres of public land in the State, but again, those who hunt it successfully have spent many hours, days & weeks walking it, learning it & scouting it. Those of us with pre-scouted public land or private land or leases are very defensive & secretive about it. If there's a chance that I may see one nice deer on a piece of TVA/TWRA land that I've scouted, you couldn't torture it out of me! You need to get onto the TWRA website & find out what public land is available in your area. Once you've found it, get on Google Earth & do some virtual scouting. When you have an area picked out, get your boots on & go walk the land. Look for sign. Try & jump deer out of their beds & remember where their bedding areas are. Find their food sources & try to establish trails & travel corridors between the food & the bedroom. If you get setup on these trails with the wind in your favor, you'll find deer. You really need to be staring your scouting the day after deer season closes & then continue it until the opening day the next year. This is what the rest of us have to do, year in & year out to be able to fill our freezers. It's a lot more work than the TV would have you believe, IF you want to be successful. Again, please take this as advise, not criticism, but you'll be hard pressed to find someone who's prepared to do all of this work & then just hand it over to someone else.

In my .54 Plains Rifle, 90gn of FFG Goex Black powder, a .530 round ball with a .018 pillow ticking patch. I use CCI #11 caps My .50 likes 70gn of FFFG Goex, a .490 ball & .018 patch. In the .54 flinter, 80gn FFFG Goex, a .530 round ball with a .020 canvas patch, prime is 3gn of hand-ground Null B Both loads will hold a 3" group at 100yds, benched. My little .32 Sqwerl gun gets 12gn of FFFG, a .311 ball & .015 patch. CCI #11 caps. It'll shoot a 1 hole group at 40yds.

Hunt where the deer are. Sounds obvious, but many folks just throw up a stand & expect the deer to just walk by. Year round scouting, as in boots on the ground, not just trail cameras, will go a very long way to getting you on deer.

Cool beans Adam! Sent from my treestand, using tapatalk.

Any recommendations on a vest guys? I keep looking at the Gorilla vests in Wally's but I'd like a proper opinion before I commit to one. I'm currently using the one that came with my Summit climber & I find it really easy to use, just not very comfortable although I do like the idea of not having the vest while it's still warm....

Here's one from a good buddy of mine down in Georgia (He's a little......primitive. Bless his heart.) "Thag kill deer with arrow. Thag cut leg off deer with knife. Thag dip leg in batter. Thag throw leg in hot grease. Eat leg."

Everyone, at some point or other, asks me what I miss about England. Honestly, there ain't much. One thing that often creeps, unbidden, into the forefront of my mind though, is our pies. A lunchtime Cornish Pastie (pronounced pass-tee), Cheese & Onion Flat or Pork Pie (Growler), a Lamb & Rosemary Pastie, Steak & Kidney or the humble Meat & 'tatie Pie. You can buy good quality, easy to eat, pre-wrapped pies & pasties at every gas station, corner shop & convenience store in the country. It's the 'driving food' of choice. Eaten hot or cold, they're all good. Even the crap pies are good! I miss pies...... So, I figured I'd make some. This is my, gamey, take on a Cornish Flat. What I used; 1 Pack of frozen, pre-rolled flakey pastry sheets, 1lb finely hand-ground Vanison (Any ground meat will work), 1 large potato 2 large carrots 1 small turnip (rutabaker?) 1 medium onion, finely diced salt & pepper (LOTS of corse ground, black pepper) Basil Thyme Cayenne pepper flour for dusting egg wash (equal parts egg & milk) Here's what I did; Pre-heat the oven to 400º Brown the ground meat in a large skillet & season well with plenty of salt & pepper. Dice the potato, carrots & turnip into ¼" cubes & boil unil done. Cook the carrots & turnip for 5 minutes before adding the potato to the pot, so they're all done together. You want your veg well done, not crunchy. Mix the onion, Basil & Thyme & fry in a small amount of oil until the onion is clear. Drain the meat & vegetables until dry & mix them all together in a bowl. Add the cayenne pepper to taste (or omit) & a good tablespoon of gound black pepper. The pie is supposed to be peppery. Allow the mixture to cool & thaw out the pastry sheets for 40-45 minutes. Once the pastry is thawed & the meat/veg mixture is cool, you'll need to lightly flour a flat work surface. Lay out the pastry sheets & cut into 5"x5" squares (quarter sheets, roughly) Pile the mixture onto half of the pastry squares (a good handfull) leaving an even ½" clear around the edges. Brush the edges with egg wash & cover the whole thing a square of empty pastry. Make sure to seal all the way around the edges. (pressing with a fork has always worked for me) Cut a 1" slit in the top of each pie to allow steam & juice to escape & to stop the seams splitting. Transfer all your Flats onto a greased baking sheet & brush them all over with egg-wash. Put them in the middle of your pre-heated oven at 400º for 30-40 minutes. Once done, transfer from the oven to a cooling rack & allow to cool for at least 15 minutes. They're now ready to eat! Enjoy them hot or cold, with or without sauce/ketchup/gravy (HP sauce, if you can find this English wonder-condiment is perfect!). As your Sommellier, I must insist, however, that they be accompanied by a good, cold, Dark Ale (or 6) :clapper:

Been using this home-spun recipe for a while & I've never managed to have any leftovers yet! Prep time/Cooking time --- 10 minutes/5 minutes per patty Feeds 4 to 6 (Depending how big you like your burgers) Ingredients; 1lb game meat (works VERY well with antelope or elk) ground as finely as possible 1 small onion, finely diced 2 jalapenos, de-seeded & finely chopped 3 cloves of garlic, freshly crushed & chopped 2 dill pickle spears, finely diced 6 drops of liquid smoke salt & black pepper 1 large egg 1 tbsp BBQ sauce 1 tbsp plain flour Throw everything BUT THE FLOUR in a big bowl & mix well. Make sure all the small ingredients are blended right through the meat. If you find the mixture is very wet & sticky (It sometimes gets a little too wet to hold together, but not always) add enough plain flour to bind it together) If you have the willpower, or forethought, this is much tastier if left in the fridge for 24 hours before cooking) Form into burger sized patties & fry over a medium heat in a skillet. Best served in a good Kaiser Roll, with Ketchup & a cold beer or six. Don't try these on the grill, they'll fall apart, but fried....DAMN they good!

Awesome, simple recepie to keep you warm around the campfire on those cold, long winter hunts.... Prep time/cooking time --- 5 minutes/20 minutes Serves 2 (Or just me, cos I'm a greedy plumper) Ingredients: Bush's Baked Beans, 1 can, any variety 1 small onion, roughly chopped 1 or 2 fresh Jalapeno peppers, sliced or chopped as fine as you like 3 rashers of good thick bacon, cut into 1" sections ½lb game meat, any kind cubed into 1" cubes salt & pepper to taste Your choice of BBQ sauce. My preference is Kraft Original 1 BIG handfull of Strong cheddar, grated. Okay, all you do is fry up the meat & bacon in a large saucepan, until browned & done. Add your onion & jalapeno & fry for a further 2 or 3 minutes (You don't want to over cook them, you want a bit of 'crunch' left) Throw in the can of beans & a good dollop of BBQ sauce & boil the snot out of 'em. Cook the whole shebang for a good 15 minutes. Season to taste (Don't be scared of the salt pot, it will end up pretty sweet if you don't season well) Stir in the cheese until melted & the whole 'stew' becomes all sticky & gooey. Best served in huge quantities with a big hunk of crusty bread & a glass of Whiskey (It doesn't matter which, I've never come accross a bad one yet. Believe me, I've done the research!

A really good stool. I'm going to be hunting on the ground quite a bit this year & a comfy, quiet seat would make it a LOT easier. I keep looking at the Huntmore 360 stool, but I'm damned if I'm paying that for a bum rest.

Hmmm. A Winchester Wildcat will hold it's own all day long with a CZ452, for about ½ the price. Never shot the Savage, but I hear nothing but good things. My personal preferenec is the Winchester bull-barrel model. It's actually boring to shoot, it's that accurate. 1" 100yd groups are a regular occurrance on a windless day. You've actually got to try to shoot it badly.

M77 Mk1 It's a really nice rifle, but I think I just need to do a little work to get it shooting how I'd like. It looks like it's had a fun life, someone, or several someones have really enjoyed i over the years.....

It's nothing too serious, but there's quite a bit of bolt-slop in the receiver & I'm not sure about how good the rifling is. I'll admit, I haven't tried a whole lot of different ammunition & it could be that I'm crap, but I just don't get the accurracy I'd expect from a good hunting rifle. It's mounted with an older Weaver K6 scope & I'm struggling to hold better than a 3" group at 100yds Converesly, since I had the barrel piked down to 19¾" on the Enfield, I can manage 1½" groups at 100yds, with a cheap Barksa scope & Prvi Partisan 150gn ammunition. I don't do any reloading yet, but I'm thinking I ought to send the Ruger to someone who does & let them try a few different loads, see if that makes any difference.

The reason I ask, is that at the moment I have 2 rifles (a old Ruger .243 & an older Enfield .303) that I'm considering trying to trade for just one, but I'm wanting something I can use for just about everything. I dunno..... The .243 is geat for 99% of things I'd ever hunt & it's fairly cheap to shoot, the .303 is good for the other 1% and luckily, the cheapest ammo available also shoots the best & at $13.00 a box it takes some beating. I was really thinking about a .25-06 or a .270 Maybe even a newer, not as worn out .243..... What would you do?

It crossed my mind, but I figured it would contain waaaay too many possible choices! I am very surprised that no-one has chimed in with any wildcat or improved calibers (thankfully!)

What's your opinion? If you discount the largest of big game animals (Moose & Grizz) what would you consider to be the best all-round caliber? I know that everything is a compromise, but I'm trying to figure out a caliber that is enough for Elk, but won't tear up a coyote with lighter bullets. I don't buy into the whole 'magnum' thing that seems to prevail at present (".223 for Whitetail??? You need a 7mm Ultramag at least!) & I'm aware that whilst not optimal, smaller calibers are more than adequate for larger game, as long as shot selection is paramount. Yes, a .30-06 will do everything, but so can a .600 Nitro. What I'm looking fo is something that comes in a good range of bullet weight that can be loaded down for small game & loaded hot for big game. At the moment, my thinking is that a .25-06 is about the most versatile caliber around, closely follwed by .243 Back in England, the .243 is the most prevalent caliber for deer hunting. From tiny little Roe deer (Think Florida Whitetail size) right through to Red deer (Elk sized) What say you?

Not a PC/HC club, but there's Elk River Longrifles down here in Tullahoma, though I suspect it may be as bad a drive for you as Lawrenceburg. We shoot the second Saturday of the month on a private field just off AEDC. Just a friendly bunch of folks who enjoy getting together & shooting our sidelocks. Monthly matches are all for fun/bragging rights (with, possibly, a little side betting ) This coming Saturday (weather permitting) is out annual Fun-Shoot. Card cutting, bullet chasing, ball splitting, string cutting, long range balloon shoot etc.... Prizes are up for grabs, but only whatever anyone is willing to donate

Yup, I have one. Very nice gun for the money, but don't expect CZ quality. The fit & finish isn't perfect & the wood feels & looks like brown plastic. The bluing isn't as deep or lustrous, but I've put well over 1000 shells through mine with no wear or thinning. One small issue, if you go for an ejector model, you may need to do a little 'fettling' to get the selector to work correctly. My top barrel constantly ejected wiithout being fired, but 30 seconds with a file cured that. I get great patterns from my gun with all loads on all chokes, but they seem to be one grade tighter than you'd expect. At 30yds, my Modified choke throws a 16" spread with 7/8oz of 7½ shot in a 2¾" shell. I generally choke mine as Cylinder on the bottom, Imp Cyl on the top. I would definately recommend a Huglu from my experiences. Yes, there are better guns, but not many at this price point. The only other gun I would look at in this range are the Tri-Stars (Made by Kral in Turkey) I was 50/50 between the 2, but the Huglu just fit me a little better. Fit & finish is about the same, Tri-Star is about $40-$60 cheaper.

WD, I'll be back for me Great Grandaddy's plate & mug, y' thieving Colonial!

Hmmmmm..... Wooden bow; check. Arrows, 4. 2 blade broadhead for the use of; check. Pocket knife; check. I'm good to go!

Hey WD, if you're not busy next Saturday morning, how'd you like to come to our Fun Shoot at Elk River Longrifles? It's a small, traditional, BP club just outside of Tullahoma. We shoot the second Saturday of every month & it's a great bunch of guys & gals, that I think you'd get on with very well! Some exceptionally talented gun builders in the bunch too. The fun shoot is just what you'd expect..... Ball splitting, cutting cards, string cutting, 300yd offhand balloon shoot etc.... If you're interested, PM me & I'll give you my number. By the way, this is an open invitation to anyone who shoots sidelocked frontstuffers!

I was supposed to b going to Wyoming again for speedgoats, but didn't get drawn this year. No leftovers for my units either My Florida 'gator hunt got 86'd because my guide/license providor was a naughty boy & won't be around for the next 1-3 seasons The Maine black Bear hunt I was planning has been called off because of an impending birth (nothing at all to do with me!) However.... I will be zipping back off to Texas in February for hogs, javies & possibly Fallow deer I'm hoping to spend a long weekend up in Kentucky during bowseason too, but it's work-dependant.