whiskey

Good Stuff! I am heading to the mountains later this week for a couple nights in the wildness.

Legalities aside, it can be a challenge to carry a gun in a typical hip holster while wearing a backpack with a hip belt. If you are just day hiking and carry a small pack without a hip belt, it's probably not an issue, but I would recommend an OWB holster over an IWB. Too much rubbing with the IWB. A fanny pack, worn in the front (although a little dorky) is a workable solution if wearing a pack with a hip belt. Thigh holsters also work.

I don't adjust my draw weight, I just start where I'd like to hunt. If you start shooting now with a weight that you can comfortably draw and accurately fire 12 times, then keep shooting all summer, then you should be able to work up to shooting 50-60 times per target session without reaching fatigue. Of course, we are all different and age has is a big factor too. 35 pounds is sufficient to kill deer with a modern compound bow and the right broadhead, but most adult men can work up to 60 pounds with just a little conditioning. I killed lots of deer at 50 pounds when I was young. I never felt disadvantaged. More weight is more advantage with a faster, flatter arrow, but if you keep your shots to 25 yards or less, then there is little difference. BTW, I can't wait for deer season. I just hope this year is a little cooler than the last couple...

I'm a Teva sandals user. Years of whitewater rafting, kayaking, canoeing has convinced me that sandals are better than shoes for creek/river wading. The advantage of the sandal is the ability to let the small rocks flow on through, where shoes trap them against your feet. My daughter has some of the glove looking shoes with a "finger" for each toe. She wore them canoeing twice this year and is very happy with them. She reports zero rocks in her shoes. She did manage to hang a brier vine between her toes last weekend. Keen makes some really nice sandals that protect your toes and heals well. They are expensive, but well made and comfortable. BTW, my rubber boots are not "overboots", they are LaCrosse Alpha Burly's that are rubber covered neoprene, like Muck brand, and are comfortable enough to hike in all day.

Catching wild rabbits alive in a SHTF situation is a good idea, but your gonna have to learn to build a really big rabbit cage too. In my experience, a wild rabbit won't eat or drink anything when caged. It will go without til it dies. Maybe if you could build a cage big enough that it though it wasn't in a cage, it might work.

If you guys get a date picked, shoot me a PM and I'll try to join in.

When I was a kid, in Alabama, my grandfather and I would set rabbit boxes in his garden every year. They were built out of 2x6's or 2x8's with a drop door in the front. a notched stick was the trigger about midway down the box. We caught a few rabbits, a few cats, a couple possums and 1 skunk. A slingshot is another effect rabbit weapon. My grandfather told stories of being too poor for shotgun shells, so him and his brother hunted with slingshots. He always seemed disappointed when I pointed out that we were not too poor to buy shotgun shells anymore. I have used archery equipment in the past also. If trapping were legal, a box is an easy system. Easy to build, easy to monitor from a distance. Ours were similar to these:

...I got a catfish pole too.... just sayin....

Heavy weights and cut shad or skipjacks. Personally, I don't like fishing there much, I'd rather find a quite spot away from other fishermen, but there is some good fishing to be had there. Ask the locals, they are helpful. Stop in at the Busy Bee in Cumberland City and find out what has been working the past couple days.

Floated and fished the Hiwassee River in Reliance, TN this past weekend. Fishing was a little slow, but the weather was beautiful and we had a blast.

Good choice. IMHO, just because we can step in, doesn't mean we should. My favorite story of the will to live in nature is a squirrel that lived in our front yard a few years back. In the city we were living in, there were several, all black squirrels. One lived in the oak in our front yard. When it was young, some stray cat caught it by the tail. The squirrel got away, but it's tail was broken and later that year, the broken part fell off. So now I had a black, half tail squirrel living in my front yard. The next year it got caught by another cat and lost a front leg in the process. I noticed it "three-legging" it across the power lines one day, half tail wagging to try and balance. A few months later I came home from work and noticed two cats at the bottom of my power poll in the front yard. I got out and walked down to the pole. The cats ran off and I noticed the three legged, half tailed, black squirrel about 4 feet up the pole, panting for air, bleeding from a couple deep cuts and too tired to flee from me. I turned and went back to the house to get a .22 and put it down. On the way out to shoot it, I changed my mind. This sucker had survived so much, that I wasn't going to kill it. I sat in the yard and kept the cats run off till the squirrel regained it's breath and limped back to the oak tree. I figured it would crawl in it's den and die. Well, a few days later I see it hoping around the bird feeder. We moved shortly after that and the squirrel and I feel out of touch....

I open carried a .44mag Super Blackhawk when salmon fishing in Alaska, but that was for different reasons. I prefer to have mine concealed, but that's just personal preference and I don't see a problem with a person exercising their open carry right, whatever the reason.

Naw man, you don't need that. You don't really care if you catch fish, you got a cold drink and a nice sunset.

Nice! My girl has been shooting her bow, hopefully she will be ready to hunt with it by fall. I set up a spot for her last year, but she wasn't comfortable enough to give it a go. I love shooting with her, I hope she continues to enjoy it, even if she decides to not bow hunt.

Looks like a great trip.

Please report back after the weekend and let us know how you like it.

I wish I had the money to spend on a nice pump like that. Since I do some backpacking I spent a lot of time researching lightweight filters. For anyone that doesn't have the cash to spend on a nice setup like this, check out the Sawyer 3-way filter. It's not a pump, but it does filter down to a very small micron. The Katadyn has carbon filters too, so it makes the water taste better.

I give you credit for hunting with a traditional smokepole. I did when I was a kid and I had more trouble than success. When I was able to afford an inline, I got one and haven't looked back. When I went through Hunter's Safety course way back when, we had to load traditional muzzleloaders as part of the class. They barely discussed them when my daughter went through a few years back.

Very true. I won't let one walk during bow season, I just don't make an effort to target them. There's just something special about a gobbler hammering on the limb in the spring.

I did. Can't wait for next spring...

I fished from a kayak a good bit in Florida on the flats. I used a sit on top and didn't have much trouble at all. The sit in kayaks are a little more stable and keep you dryer. The one you are looking at looks nice. Sit in it and make sure you have good back support for a long day of fishing. In Tennessee, I float a lot of rivers, but mostly canoe. I like to get out of the boat and fish. If you are planning to fish mostly on the larger reservoirs, I'd take a look at a canoe just for the additional space, capacity and comfort. You can always rent a kayak before you buy to make sure it's what you want.

WD won't tell it, but he became famous in certain circles for the life like taxidermy he does with sheep. Sorry, you know me, I couldn't resist. You do nice work. Maybe I will kill something worth mounting one day.

Congrats to both of you. Nice birds and what a great first bird for your buddy.

I have been in the woods turkey hunting every single weekend since the youth hunt in March. 1 dead tick on my daughter's sock is all I have seen. Every trip to the woods has been while wearing the clothes I dipped in permethrin. This makes the second year of turkey season being tick free. I can't tell you how many previous year I have spent scratching my ankles raw from seed tick bites. I am a believer in permethrin, more than ever, now. For me, it's worth the effort. I don't want lymes disease. I don't want another staph infection from a tick bite.

Every couple of years the wife and I go look at boats. That is usually all it takes to remind me that we don't need one.