Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2018 9:09:26 GMT -5
Your post made me think a bit. I have my father-in-law's model 1899 Savage lever action in .303 Sav. I think I will take that out during the early doe season and see if I can kill one with it. I still have some factory loads for it, but also have some handloads using a 190 grain round nose, similar to the factory loads. For an open sight rifle it is pretty accurate. I've been threatening to do this for some time. I think this will be the year.
|
|
|
Post by CoureurDeBois on Oct 2, 2018 9:46:18 GMT -5
Your post made me think a bit. I have my father-in-law's model 1899 Savage lever action in .303 Sav. I think I will take that out during the early doe season and see if I can kill one with it. I still have some factory loads for it, but also have some handloads using a 190 grain round nose, similar to the factory loads. For an open sight rifle it is pretty accurate. I've been threatening to do this for some time. I think this will be the year. My one Uncle had one of those. By the time I came around it was well worn, the bluing was mostly gone and very little finish remained on the stock. He said it wouldn't hid the broad side of the barn door when he got it, and couldn't get it to shoot with a darn. Finally gave it to a couple of state police troopers he knew to see if they could fix it. He mentioned that they darn near bankrupted him buying ammo. When they gave it back the front sight was bent a fair amount to the left, but it shot center. It stayed that way the rest of his life, and when it went off you could be 99% sure there was venison on the ground. He would wipe it down with an oily rag at the end of each season , and that was the only cleaning it ever got , that I know of. He said " I've never clean the barrel, afraid if I do it won't shoot straight anymore." He was also the only man I ever new who could shoot just as well left handed as he could right, especially with open sights. Ammo getting hard to find, and I don't know if it's still being used any.
|
|
|
Post by davet on Oct 2, 2018 14:48:31 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by dennyf on Oct 2, 2018 15:51:56 GMT -5
During the recent span of four years when I didn't kill a deer (leading up to last year's opening morning buck), watched dozens and dozens of deer walk, trot or run past. Mostly doe, a few small but legal bucks. No regrets, just didn't feel like killing an of them at the time. Far cry from my youth, when deer were scarce around the area where camp is and bucks were even scarcer. In 1967 I (finally) got to spend the entire first week of buck up there. Stayed at my uncle's farm, hunted with him and my cousin every day. Twice that week someone had kicked up a buck and I think just about everyone in the neighborhood that was out hunting, got to shoot at one or the other of 'em. Including me. One was across the other side of the valley someplace, finally came out at the end of a drive. Guys were standing around yakking, when the buck came out of the brush. All the drivers/watchers opened fire. Cousin and I were down along the road, we let fly a few after the deer had cleared all the others up there. Only really remember the second one, which was over the ridge behind camp. Farmer neighbor had emptied his rifle at it, as it ran across a hillside in the snow. He yelled at me to shoot (dammit), so I popped off a few rounds from my old M94. Buck was probably out 300 yards by then, but I shot anyway, just to make Bob happy. How it was around there back then. Someone kicked up a buck, anyone that could see it, sent a few rounds its way. My all time favorite, early 70s: Bunch of neighbors were down along the road after a drive and one spotted a deer way up on a hillside. One guy with binocs, mentioned it "acted like a buck" and a volley commenced at that point. Deer made it over the hill.
|
|
|
Post by CoureurDeBois on Oct 2, 2018 16:35:44 GMT -5
Love the stories of yore. If I change the location, people involved and time frame by a few years, I was there denny. Good times, good memories. Thanks for awaking my memories.
|
|
|
Post by dennyf on Oct 2, 2018 18:01:40 GMT -5
Been blessed to have spent time since my youth, with an assortment of Potter/Tioga characters, often during deer seasons. Some relatives and a heck of a mess of local folks, mostly dairy farmers. My favorite ones are all gone now, but I'm never gonna forget them. All of them got pretty worked up when deer season rolled around, to one degree or another. Some got so excited, never knew what they were gonna do if they got sight of a buck, back in the 60s and 70s when bucks were rare. To their credit, no one ever got shot, nor did any vehicles, buildings or domestic animals suffer any mishaps. One farmer emptied his M94 at a deer when in his early teens and never fired a shot. Levered the entire stash of ammo until the ground, while swinging on the running buck pushed past him on a drive. Another one never shouldered his rifle in a similar scenario, but fired several shots from the hip, all into the ground. Then there was a doe season not long before concurrent seasons started, when a huge buck ran past a watcher on their farm, along with several doe. He was probably in his late teens then? He was so mesmerized by the buck, never shot any of the doe within 20 yards of him. He's in his late 40s now, still hears about that from time to time. Usually from me. He asked me once if I'd ever done anything stupid. Said yep, but you weren't there to see it, so it doesn't count.
|
|
|
Post by 3212 on Oct 2, 2018 21:20:17 GMT -5
In the 60's I thought Potter county was overrun with deer.The notion was reinforced that evening in '61 when there were so many on rte 6 between Potato City and Galeton.
|
|
|
Post by dennyf on Oct 2, 2018 22:01:47 GMT -5
The aunt's farm I spent many summers on from the early 50s until 1960, was in the NE corner of Potter. About five miles east of Ulysses and not far from North Bingham. Deer may have been numerous down below Galeton where the deer camps were, but it was a treat to see a few around that farm in the late 50s.
Not much different back then, over on my uncle's farm in NW Tioga, which is where our camp is now. See some deer now and then, nothing like it is now and in the mid to late 90s, when populations were/are pretty close to 20 to 30 DPSM. There are some areas close to camp that are even higher than that.
I hunted deer for the first time in 1960, from that uncle's farm. We didn't hunt much in the area, went miles down the valley to hunt. I think we saw a half dozen or fewer deer that season up there, hunting Friday and Saturday. As I've noted before, deer didn't begin to become more numerous where camp is, until the late 60s. I killed my first deer there, a spike, in 1972.
Dad and I spent the first week of buck up there that year. He also killed a buck on opening day. Doubt we saw more than a few dozen deer around there that week?
On a side note, the farm boy cousin that's lived his entire life there, started hunting in 1959 when he was 12. I think he killed a doe his first year? But he could cover ground like the deer themselves when he was younger and still did, until he had a hip replaced about 20 years ago. I could never keep up with him when we were still in our teens and early 20s.
Uncle used to joke years ago, that if there was a deer around my cousin would find it, kill it and eventually fetch it back. Didn't matter how far he had to walk to get it done.
|
|