Whatcha Got Going On 2026

[aeronut]

#173039

Another year has gone by and 2026 is here so time to start another general thread.

The weather has been up and down here.  No rain or snow but temperatures have been from 7* to 75* this month.

I didn’t get a deer tag this year or last due to my Spondylosis.  I had a pretty bad time dragging her the 70 yds to my truck and couldn’t lift her into my truck.  I finally took the tailgate off and used it as a ramp and was barely able to get her in then.

Last July I took a fall in the Smoky Mtns and tore my left bicep tendon.  Had surgery to repair it and went through the therapy but the muscles still get achey.

Lately I’ve been doing some black powder shooting and making my own powder.  Tested a few loads yesterday in my .45 LC Uberti.  Pretty comparable to a .38 spl but a whole lot more cleaning.

Anyway, that’s pretty much what’s going on here in SE Ks.  Temps are going to be in the mid 50’s but we’ve got a cold front coming after the weekend.

Happy new year everyone.

 

Dennis….AKA aeronut

[aeronut]

#173072

Today’s project is going to be installing an electric fence barrier around the bird feeder.  The squirrels will get on it and sit for over an hour and eat all the bird seed.

[richard roop]

#173075

Last year I blew my left bow shoulder out shooting right handed. I was doing the ‘swing draw’ and somewhere along the way I started drawing the string as I was raising the bow from low ready. Very smooth, very fast and very stressful on the shoulder.  Dr. #1 said Bursitis and phys therapy,   Dr. #2 said Tendonitis. Dr. #3 with a really spooky MRI machine said Arthritis.  A couple of Cortisone shots haven’t done much more than the DMSO that I’ve been using.

Decided to get back into the gym and work out around the area and movement that causes the pain. So far, so good. I’m able to shoot again (correctly) and am building my shooting strength back up.

My goal is to book a feral pig hunt in Texas later this year.

 

[aeronut]

#173161

I think winter is finally setting in here in SE Ks.  22* right now with a stiff northerly wind.  I used to work for the big electric company here as a substation journeyman and was out in this stuff every day and a lot of stormy nights.  Before I retired I was used to the cold.  Now I’m glad I don’t have to be out in it.

[richard roop]

#173164

Low thirty’s over this way at night. We need rain.

I have observed that over the past couple of decades that; Hills are getting steeper, the ground is getting harder, everything is getting colder (especially water) and the air is getting thinner. Somebody needs to look into this and find out what’s going on.

[aeronut]

#174653

7* this morning with a -10* wind chill.  We got about 3″ of snow from Friday night until this morning.  Thankfully we were lucky and didn’t get any ice this time.

[Charles Ek]

#174832

The inexorable advance of climate change has been slowed this month in Minnesota’s Arrowhead region. We’re enjoying a good old fashioned winter here at the Head of the Lake, with a recent storm dropping a fresh mantle of snow over the decaying remnants from earlier this winter.

Went out yesterday to set a trail camera in hopes of getting another shot like this one from January. First one is au naturel; second is a composite with me added for scale.

[Charles Ek]

#174834

[aeronut]

#174838

I looked at the pictures and just thought you had a pet wolf at first.  I had about 4″ of snow about a month ago and that’s the most here all winter.

[Charles Ek]

#174839

We have a massive amount of depth hoar in the woods now (which would have scared the bejesus out of me when we lived in AK and WA). I was sinking up to my hips yesterday on my second-largest pair of snowshoes. That will be remedied for future excursions this winter.

 

https://www.mtavalanche.com/sites/default/files/MSA%20January%20Final_0.pdf#:~:text=Depth%20hoar%20forms%20when%20a%20shallow%20snowpack%2C,difficult%20for%20these%20grains%20to%20bond%20together.

[aeronut]

#174846

That sounds like a pretty dangerous situation.  The Hoar frost we have had around here is just the spiky looking frost on stuff.

[Charles Ek]

#174859

The hare season ends here tomorrow. Despite leaving some exceedingly fresh sign, this rascally bunny kept hisself safe this week by keeping his cool.

 

[richard roop]

#174869

Charles;  When you say ‘hare’  are you referring to cottontails, jacks, snowshoes, or all of the above ????  We had something called ‘Hemrogatic (sp?) Rabbit Fever come thru this down this way. It really knocked down the rabbit populations.  Now, lack of rabbits is affecting the coyote populations.  Long term drought isn’t helping any, either.

And;

How the heck do you find your arrows buried in all of that white stuff ?????

[Charles Ek]

#174874

These are snowshoe hare I’m hunting. We have both hares and cottontail rabbits in town, but it’s illegal to hunt anything in Duluth except deer (during a city-sanctioned bowhunt.) The rabbits are ill-equipped for deep snow and I rarely see their tracks outside the city.

Finding arrows is hit or miss sometimes and their (temporary, mostly) loss is part of the game.

[richard roop]

#174870

Did a bit of checking;

Rabbit Hemorrhagic Disease……….. 90% mortality.

[richard roop]

#174881

I’m curious how snowshoe hares taste compared to cottontails.  We have Blacktail Jackrabbits (Hares) down here that are edible but take a bit more effort in the kitchen than cottontails do.

I seem to remember back in Michigan guys losing an arrow (aluminum or glass) in the winter woods and flagging the general area with tape, to return in the spring for a arrow / shed / morel mushroom hunt.

[Charles Ek]

#174882

Nobody ever raised snowshoe hare for a restaurant menu, which I have seen done in Anchorage with rabbits. Here’s a good hare recipe:

https://honest-food.net/tuscan-hare-sauce-and-pappardelle/

On two separate occasions, I have found two arrows nestled one over the other behind a target on my home range after the snow melted. I usually have good luck finding arrows in the field in the spring, partly because I recall where I shot them and the frozen ground is harder to penetrate.

[richard roop]

#174883

I will try that with the next Jack that I slay. …….. Thanx !!!!  I’ve never used Buttermilk for the soak; always used salt & baking soda overnight,  to ‘draw the blood out’  as the old timers used to say.  Good to try new ways once in a while.

Weather forecast for today is in the high 80s. ……….. Send rain !!!!!

[richard roop]

#174914

Not sure how to post over in the ‘Tips’ section so I’ll toss it in here for guys or gals that shoot gloves. Some time back I got a wax ring for a toilette seal to be used for mixing up string wax. Sticky stuff.  Thought that I’d try heating some up and applying it to the inside of my glove finger stalls with a Q-Tip.  Feels kinda strange at first but the glove literally now ‘fits like a glove’.  No movement on the fingers at all.  Seems to help my release a bit.  More Mojo ………. and Mojo is real !!!!

[richard roop]

#174948

…………………………. And if you can stand one more; I’ve been replacing the worn center servings on a couple of bow strings  As usual the serving spool changes tension as the serving material unspools from one end to the other.  Very annoying.  Sooooooo ………. I finally got the bright idea to pull out about 4 yards of serving and wind it back onto the center of the spool.  Problem solved !!! Spool tension remains the same all the way thru doing the serving.

Root beers all around !!!!

[Charles Ek]

#175065

”In Spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of (gobblers).”

 

Eight days and counting, but the tracking snow will probably not survive the weekend. Sigh.

 

 

 

 

[aeronut]

#175067

It looks like it might rain on ya.

Years ago a friend of mine helped with restoring the turkeys here in SE KS.  They took hold and we had LOTS of turkeys but since the fur prices fell there aren’t many active trappers around.  The turkey and quail population has dropped off dramatically around here.

• This reply was modified 1 week, 3 days ago by aeronut.

[Charles Ek]

#175069

The population trend is the opposite here in MN. There’s even talk of increasing the bag limit in at least part of the state to two. The birds are now resident in all 87 counties.

[aeronut]

#175117

It’s been a wild springtime here weather wise.  Yesterday was a pretty nice day but Wednesday I was out spotting for the area sky warn system.  We just had periods of heavy rain and wind but the folks to the north of here in the Olathe area had tornadoes.  Today it’s more bad weather and we are under a flood watch until tomorrow with more rain and wind coming today.

[richard roop]

#175118

Aeronut;

Have you ever run into a guy by the name of Lance H…  ???  He’s one of those guys that chase tornados to track them rather than driving away in the other direction. Good guy. If you happen to run into him, tell him I said ‘Hi’.

Dry, windy & still plagued with grasshoppers over this way.

[aeronut]

#175122

The weather radar app I use shows the storm chasers but I don’t recall seeing a Lance.  I’ll look for him on there next time.

The initial batch of storms went by to my NW so I just stayed home during that bunch.  We had a strong storm with some pretty good winds and a lot of lightning come through just after dark so I went out to watch.  I have a spot about one mile north of my house where I have a great 270* view from the south all around to the east.  When I got there it started dumping rain and I had maybe 1/4 mile visibility during the flashes.  The road I was on doesn’t have ditches so water collects on the road intersection and in about ten minutes I was sitting in shallow water.  I also have a small home weather station and I kept checking the wind velocity on it and at one point it quit showing any wind so I thought maybe it had broken down.  When I got home there was no wind.  It had gone from upper 20mph to zero mph is seconds.  This morning I am showing 1-1/4″ in my gauge and the majority of that fell in just a few minutes.

Nothing but rain, lightning , and wind here but the folks in the northern states caught hell again.  The ham radio sky warn chatter was still going on over in Missouri when I finally went to bed.  Last I heard there was over 144 tornado warnings yesterday.

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