[Don Thomas]

in reply to: Lost Season, Maybe Worse #59248

Troy–I’m really glad to hear about your recovery from elbow surgery. Every such tale is a victory for the good guys! Don

[Don Thomas]

in reply to: Paper Tuning Results – 10/4/14 #58225

Bruce–I hate to sound like a heretic, but I’ve never paper tuned an arrow in my life and doubt I ever will. It’s kind of like patterning a shotgun (I know you are another wing-shooter), another thing you’re supposed to do but I don’t, with over 60 years of experience. Your arrows either fly right or they don’t, and you either hit the bird or you don’t. Just my take. Don

[Don Thomas]

in reply to: When it rains it pours… #58219

For better or worse, I am a real doctor. I am sorry to hear of your problems. Advice over the Internet is worth what you pay for it. Unfortunately, controlled studies conducted by impartial observers have shown that at three months the results from kyphoplasty are no better than doing nothing. If your pain is due to an uncomplicated compression fracture, it will almost certainly go away on its own. I know nothing about your age or general health. While acute compression fractures can be quite painful, they usually don’t cause all the symptoms you describe. I would get a second opinion to be sure that something else isn’t going on. Don

[Don Thomas]

in reply to: Lost Season, Maybe Worse #54889

The Four Aces??!! My God, Olin. I’ve seen truckloads of visiting hunters puking in that parking lot. I thought you knew better. If you can survive that, you can survive Rosy’s cooking in bear camp. Cheers, Don

[Don Thomas]

in reply to: Lost Season, Maybe Worse #53743

First, I would like to thank you all for your encouragement and support, which means a lot to me. I’m no Byron Ferguson, but I did teach myself to shoot anchoring from my hip after my neck surgery a few years back. I think any pure instinctive shooter can do that pretty easily. I’m a long way from drawing a bow now, but I did take my wirehair down behind the house today and shot a ruffed grouse she pointed one-handed, left-handed with Lori’s 20-gauge. May not sound like much, but it was like killing a 40-inch ram to me! Best and thanks, Don

[Don Thomas]

in reply to: Turn for the better #51391

Alex–Been there, done that. As Yogi Berra once said about baseball, “It’s 90% mental. The other half is physical.” Bad math aside, sometimes you just need to take a break and get your head straight. Glad it worked out. Don

[Don Thomas]

in reply to: Not sure what to call this thread #50472

Preston–Remember: Don is always right. No matter what Lori says.

[Don Thomas]

in reply to: Bowhunting Alaska #46149

Jays’ books are excellent, but there are complex issues involving copyright law that make reissuing them difficult. Smarter people them me are working on it and hopefully we’ll have something soon. Don

[Don Thomas]

in reply to: Not sure what to call this thread #43561

Two thumbs up for a thorough recovery effort. My money says that deer is alive and well, and given his readily identifying feature I bet you’ll see him acting normally soon. Don

[Don Thomas]

in reply to: Scary Close #43557

It’s interesting that in terms of getting shot by other hunters, turkey hunting is by far the most dangerous of all. Don

[Don Thomas]

in reply to: Garbaging for Bears #43123

Again, I have no desire to kick the hornet nest but I will share a few thoughts. The first rule in discussions of this sort is to keep the tone civil. You’ve done that, and I hope we can keep it that way. Perhaps we should be asking WHY HSUS became involved in the Maine issue. The answer is that these groups are smart and know that their efforts are most successful when they attack hunting at its weakest point, i.e. on issues that are the hardest for hunters to defend to the non-hunting public. That’s why their biggest successes have almost all involved hunting large predators with specific means that they could portray as unethical, cruel, or whatever. Those successes breed more success. And while I certainly recognize that bear habitat and hunting conditions vary wildly around the continent, the notion that you can’t hunt bears without bait becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you start with the assumption that it can’t be done, you’ll never learn how to do it. Bears are opportunistic omnivores, and the woods are one vast natural bait station to them. At any given time in any given place, they will be concentrated on specific food sources–spring forbs, winter-killed carcasses, salmon or suckers in streams, marine debris along the tide line, thorn apple, Oregon grape, whatever. Find the food source and you will find bears. But you gotta look. Don

[Don Thomas]

in reply to: Neat Dialogue #43110

Grumpy–In principle I’m with you. When the kids were growing up. we did not allow TV or electronic games in the house at all. Most TV is garbage, but there are exceptions to every rule and this is one of them. Don

[Don Thomas]

in reply to: Not sure what to call this thread #43106

Years ago, I killed a large nyala bull while hunting with Paul Brunner in South Africa. I noticed something odd as we were dressing it out, and dissection of the spine right in the area you describe revealed a broadhead imbedded in a vertebra. It was a vented traditional head, and it had been there so long that the bone had remodeled and grown right through the vents. Then Paul remembered a friend hitting a nyala in the back three years earlier while hunting in the same area. The animal was totally healthy with no evidence of injury when I shot him. Had a similar scenario play out on a Montana whitetail too. That’s the thing about spine hits–the animal either drops in its tracks or goes away healthy. In the nyala’s case, the old broadhead was just a few millimeters from the spinal cord. Bowhunting, like baseball, can be a game of inches. Good luck today, and thanks for being so honest. Do

[Don Thomas]

in reply to: Scary Close #43100

Steve–There was no established doctor-patient relationship. That’s why I didn’t feel badly about kicking the side of his new pickup in. Don

[Don Thomas]

in reply to: Scary Close #42474

I went through one like that a few years back. I was sitting in a river bottom hunting whitetails during firearms season when a truck pulled over the rim above me. One of the geniuses inside got out and started firing blindly into the trees where I was sitting (and where he did not have permission to hunt)in an attempt to flush a deer out so he could shoot it as it ran across the field. I had bullets whizzing right around my head. I got down, sprinted up the side of the coulee and ran them down. I won’t tell you what happened next, but it’s lucky I didn’t wind up in jail. Is it any wonder the non-hunting public is slipping away from us? Don

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