Timestepper

Well, I loaded the canoe on top of the pickup this morning and put 4 bottles of beer in my tackle box and in about 30 minutes my buddy Pat and I are going to hit the Clinch to practice our trout acquisition and stress reducing skills. Does that count?

Dave gave you pretty much the best answer: Start with a charge roughly equivalent to the caliber and work up or down from there to establish the best accuracy. If, after going up and down in a 20 grain span (from 30 to 50 grains for a .40 cal.) accuracy hasn't changed significantly, then start experimenting with patch thickness. .010 is a good place to start, then .015 - .018 and/or down to 5/1000ths. It's worth noting that my own rifle displays a contrary streak and will shoot the nuts off a gnat with 50 grains of FFg Goex and a .010 patch up home in Kansas, but takes 60 grains and a .005 patch to do the same thing in the high humidity of East Tennessee. Luck to you!

On another note, I've seen several mentions of canoe/kayak trips. I think maybe Spots and I are going to try to do a two day float on the Nolichucky sometime in the not-too-distant future with a primitive campout in between, if anyone is interested?

Love 'em all you want, I prefer my relationships with bears to remain platonic. I remember the following "Bear Warning" that I first saw many years ago out West - doesn't necessarily apply to our area, but it's a good read nonetheless.

Yeah, ask any native Kansan - and remember, we got the crap kicked out of us by both sides - how great Lincoln was. We'll truthfully respond, "Not very!" And even Lincoln himself later admitted that his line, during the Gettysburg Address, about all men being created equal did not - in his mind - include blacks or <American> Indians. Great quote wrongly attributed to a not-so-great president.

You, Sir, are so freakin' right. Glad you and your family got the opportunity to enjoy our slice of Heaven, if only for a little while. Be sure to come back when you can!

Your design looks great. One small caveat - with that length, you might want to consider an outrigger (easily designed and attached) for stability, even though you're going to keep it on flat water. The best canoe I ever owned was 19' and exceedingly stable even though relatively narrow, the worst - until I added a small outrigger - was 9' and half again as wide as the 19 footer. Again, looks good so far! :up:

Cool. Actually, I don't really think of what I do as ''primitive'' so much as just ''exceedingly basic.'' Got no problems with modern stuff - even own a real live back pack - but I've done the ''exceedingly basic'' stuff for so long that carrying a bunch of extra stuff that I'll use once a trip or not at all makes my feets hurt just to think about it. Oh, and while I've hunted 'em, argued with 'em, chased 'em away and even discreetly avoided them a few times, I've never actually slept among the bears... but I'll happily pick a spot a few yards away and let you sleep with 'em all you want.

I'd be up for it sometime, but I doubt that my old fashioned new-fangled stuff would fit in very well.

Okay, bacon is cool. Wish I could find a place down here to get good slab bacon - I used to buy a 5 pound slab twice a year from a good butcher up home and there ain't much better than carving off a couple of hunks for breakfast, then saving two more hunks to flavor some hardtack for nooning. And squirrel bacon would be great if you can find someone squirrely enough to make us some.

Congrats! Back in 2002, I lost 180 pounds in less than six months... (all it took was a divorce!)

How are we supposed to feel? I mean, back when I hunted with a bow I used a recurve and shot instinctively. I've also used a longbow, but somehow never got the hang of shooting a compound - does that somehow make me a hypocrite?

Yep, tall tree, short rope (although admittedly I'd hate to waste a good rope on garbage like this).

Actually... well yeah, technically, I guess. Mostly I use either another piece of rock as a "hammer stone" like I was knapping flint or just use the either the back of my polled 'hawk or even the flat edge of my striker to knock chips off and get a sharp edge that way.

Hey Mark, quartz works just as good as flint does and it's considerably more common in East Tennessee.

It'd be roughly about 3 hours from Nashville, depending upon how many times you stop for gas and whizzing.

Looking good! Just a tip: If you want your fringes to be smaller (narrower) and still be good and straight, lay it out flat on a good plank and use the edge of a hacksaw blade as a straight edge with a good sharp knife to cut the fringe - the teeth of the hacksaw will hold the hide tight in place and give you amazing results. Also, for fastening you might think about just taking a buckskin "whang" and putting a small slit in the flap. It's easy to push the whang through the slit and wrap it around itself with one hand. Or just do like I do and run the the entire bag through your belt and let gravity and friction keep it sealed. (Just a thought.)

Always liked eating at Denny's when I was schlocked at 2:00 A.M. because they've got pictures on the menus to point at when you're too drunk to pronounce the words! (Great commercial, too!)

For some reason I keep thinking about the proctologist who asked his nurse for a light. She handed him a beer and he said, No, nurse - a butt light!"

Man, I envy you! I was off four weeks when I had my gallbladder yanked and it was done laparoscopically - thing is, my tarps weigh 125 pounds each and I can pretty much count on tarping at least one load a week and sometimes as many as five or six. Good luck!

I had one once. Sent it back to the factory because of defective workmanship. Come to think of it, I saw an ad on TV a month or so ago that said if I'd send them 50 bucks, they'd send me something to consolidate my bills. So I wrote a check for $50.00 and sent it to 'em - two weeks later I got a big rubber band in the mail... Sincerely hope everyone's bumps, bulges and ruptures heal nicely and leave a scar to be proud of!

You know, I read somewhere that one in five people in the world is Chinese. Well, it got me to thinking - there's five people in my family, so one of us must be Chinese. Now, I'm not sure, but I think it's probably my brother, Dean. Of course I guess it could be my brother Wong Fang, but I really think it's Dean...

Off topic and I don't mean to make light of the OP, but it always seemed kinda' backwards to me to call 'em hernias and hysterectomies - seems like it oughtta' be hisnias and hersterectomies.

Think that pretty much says it all.

I've always maintained that I'd love to go fishing (or hunting) with both President Bush's - and even though they've both got more money than I'll ever have, I'd happily buy the beer afterwards if they'd do me the honor of drinking one with me. I sincerely believe that they are both good men and great Americans.