MCSCOTT

I've absolutely enjoyed our trail cameras this year and look forward to checking them just about as much as hunting. We've had video of one walking around with a small tree stuck in his antlers, and from this past week we had what was a small six point get some help with shedding the rest of his rack by a slightly larger three point, and even though it's not that big we have the shed from that. The little guy was right back on the next video trying to get his antlers to hook up with the other one, not realizing that he didn't have anything left.

All of the best advice has already been said, so the only thing I would add is to have a lot of patience, especially on public land. There are times on public land where it seems like I'm much better at calling in other turkey hunters than I am at actually calling in turkeys. My best education came from a few years of watching the birds and how they reacted to my calling before I actually learned how to really work one in close enough for a shot. Almost all of the fun of it for me now is in the calling, even if it's for someone else to take the shot.

Good to hear that I'm not the only one driving down the road practicing with my calls.   Four good places to hunt this season when I've always been confined to one or two in the past, so I've been looking forward to spring turkey hunting since a couple weeks into deer season. The only bad thing is that I've promised to call one in for two other people before I go after one myself, but calling them is the part that I enjoy the most.

Another vote for the Wild Game Innovations from what I've seen so far from the one I have. The night time distance isn't as good as some of my other cameras, but the quality of the pictures and videos is just as good if not better at a fraction of the price. Plus after having one of the more expensive cameras stolen a while back I decided I would only buy fairly cheap cameras from here on out. I'm working on trying several different ones, and so far this one is the best. Definitely not a big fan of the cheaper Moultrie cameras.

I miss my XD45. My dad has it now so at least I get to visit it on occasion. There were plans for another one in the near future but then I was given a large amount of .357 sig ammo. Since I don't have a .357 sig this gives me a perfect excuse for my next handgun purchase, so the XD ended up being moved back to the back of the line.

Took me three years to get my g/f to shoot one of my .22's, so I doubt I could ever talk her into shooting a .44 mag. At least she does have a .380 picked out that she will get sometime soon. That's a start....

X2 I love my G22, but there are several others that feel better to me. Trigger pull is also something I'm not too fond of, but at least there's the option of upgraded triggers. Also if you can, pull the slide off and make sure everything is in good working order internally. Other than that, I personally would definately make the trade, but then again I've never cared much for Barettas.

Ooops. Yeah I threw too many 9's in there. The TS stock is the one that I'm going to put on mine when I get back around to that project.

For a cheap gun these are hard to beat. Mine still has the ugly stock because I haven't gotten back around to that project yet, but it's still loads of fun to shoot. I was looking into getting the ATI stock that you used until they came out with the 995ts model. Personally I like the looks of it more, and it's fairly inexpensive to just buy the stock. As far as I know the only issues I've heard about them are with the magazines, but after a couple thousand rounds I haven't noticed these issues with mine. Accuracy on mine has been excellent out to 50 yards, but that's really about the extent of my shooting with it. That does remind me that I need to take it along on my next trip to shoot my .22's since we've started pushing them out to the 100 yard mark. For a cheap carbine to mess around with they're hard to beat.

Moisture would definately be my biggest concern like the others have mentioned. I would have to be absolutely 120% positive that no moisture would EVER be in that cellar, because it doesn't take much to ruin guns over a period of time. Most likely I would try to find a professional who can really check this out for me and let me know what needs to be done. With it being detached from the house, I would also have to be 120% sure that no one could break into it, and even better would be keeping anyone from finding out that it's even there..........which I suppose has failed now because all of us know about it. Other than that I like that idea, but you would have to keep in mind that you may have to fight your way to it should you need more firepower than the few guns you end up keeping in the house.

There's actually alot of truth to that with different forms of government jobs. No offense intended for anyone in any job, but from my past experiences I've seen it alot in this area. I've known several people that failed as a police officer and ended up a fire fighter. Also, when I was in h/s I was in the explorer program here with the city police, thinking about going into law enforcement when I was old enough. There were several other reasons I quit that program, but one of the biggest reasons was that they started using the program as a form of rehab for underage criminals. Don't get me wrong though, this did seem to work because several of the bad trouble makers that I knew back then are now LEO's. It turned them into really good guys, but back then I didn't want to be in a group that everyone looked at as criminals.

I hear ya on the larger calibers, but here lately my father and I have really gotten into the rimfire shooting. Personally I find it alot more challenging, because we push the limits of .22's more than what would really be considered "plinking". We run through several rounds throughout the year in the larger calibers, but considering we shoot at least a couple hundred rounds almost every weekend the costs of only using larger calibers is more than what I'm willing to pay. Actually it's not even so much the cost, as it is the fact that I have a bad addiction to ammo and start to get nervous if my supply numbers start getting low.

Man that was a great letter, and signed I'm going to have to remember that way of wording things.

I agree. That would make a great welcome to the newcomers.

A temporary fix keeps the OP from having a dead battery until he can get the real issue fixed, but on each of my suggestions I did mention that these were only temporary and the problem shouldn't just be left alone. I was under the impression that the OP didn't have time to start tracking down all of the wires, because in a police cruiser that could take a full weekend or longer dedicated to nothing but tracking each wire. At least with a temporary fix in place, he can do away with the dead battery issue and track different wires in his spare time until he finds the culprit.