50'th Annual Outdoor Sports Show, Harrisburg Pa.

Now that Im back home, Im gonna run up to the Farm Show complex on Fri and practice my spin casting at the targets. This is one of the neatest shows around and the Farm Show complex is as big as Rhode Island

My schedule, feet, and lower back can take about four or five hours of walking around in that place, tops, and I get the impression I'm seeing about a third or a fourth of it. Are there actually exhibits in ALL of those buildings? I mean from end to end the thing appears to be about three quarters of a mile under one roof sort of like a military depot.

AND THAT WAS ONLY ONE OF THE BUILDINGS. It was great, I tried my hand at fly casting and I still suck at hitting the mark. Im real good at spin rod work but my fly casting skills are not acceptable for the types of streams we have around here.
They had all kinds of gear and stuff for guys. Even though Im not a hunter anymore, I was trying out the deer stand ascenders. They are so high tech now that its almost like an elevator.

During the farm show just a few weeks ago, we were in a parade of team horses and chuck wagons that were in the main show arena and there was still room for a couple of busses. I like the way the new buildings split the complex into many arenas . Theres a huge mural in the main lobby that has to be over 200 ft long and looks like one of those old mureals by Thomas Hart Benton.
Good times.
Theyre gonna have a yatch and RV show simultaneously in a month or so. The only problem is that youve gotta park in Linglestown and take a bus.

You were looking at what they call 'climbing tree stands', which are the only type I'd have any use for, other kinds being basically death traps. About the only thing that can go wrong with climbing tree stands is for the tree to fall down and somebody who can't judge trees better than that shouldn't be in the woods anyhow. Newer ones are made of aircraft aluminum instead of steel and weight 12 - 15 lbs.

I didnt ask what they cost so I was just thinking what else they could be used for. Im thinking I may retake up hunting for turkey , since I love their taste and we dont use high power rifles , so the chance of sustaining a long distance mortal wound is decreased. I hate .30 06 rifles in Lancaster County hunting, its too built up for such a cannon.

I dont know whether these tree stands would be good for turkey, I dont know whether turkeys "look up" . Since I do a lot of wildlife sketching, I can sit still for hours, but if I stand out then Ill just have to think about using an old felt pad that my wife made for me for ice fishing. Sitting on the ground in spring , for long periods , can be quite startling

I'm no expert on turkey hunting. I have friends who're into that but I'd have a hard time getting into hunting something which can be had for 48 cents a pound at SFW or Food Lion...

I'd GUESS that most wild turkey kills in America are with shotguns and some are taken with bows. How many are taken from tree stands I'd have no way of knowing but I'd guess not too many simply because turkeys are less creatures of habit than deer and less prone to move along set paths. The general idea is calls and extreme camoflague, far as I know.

You've got one more day at the cow palace up there in Harrisburg and there ARE guys there who are experts in turkey hunting and have all the calls and gadgetry and what not.

Far as I know, at least on public land, most if not all hunting with rifles in Pa is done with flintlock muzzleloaders.

The 06 isn't really a "cannon" by modern standards. It was America's basic military rifle cartridge through the end of WW-II after which it was replaced with the 308, which corresponded to an improvement in smokeless powder which came in around 44. The 308 has the same ballistics as the 06 did when loaded as per prior to WW-II and uses a smaller case and is more accurate.

All of the world's primary military cartridges starting from the inception of the smokeless powder age were designed to be as powerful as the "average man" could shoot without getting hurt, flinching, or basically just becoming afraid of the rifle and not wanting to deal with it. Since humans are much the same around the world, the various cartridges are also, including 30-06, Mauser 8mm, Swiss 7.5, Russian 7.62x54 etc.

One thing most folks don't understand is that there was generally no gain in lethality going from the American civil war to the smokeless powder age; the gain was in ballistics, velocity and the ability to make long shots, and the fact that smokeless firearms don't foul the way blackpowder arms do. Nine times out of ten the old flintlock will do more real damage to something it hits than the 06 will.

you can still hunt with hi power rifles in PA (Its a county option) Chester County and Delaware dont allow no long distance rifles because of the denser population.
I know some guys who hunt with muzzle loaders and , to me, thats like playing "Jeremiah Johnson" . Although Ive seen stuff bagged with a muzzle loader, most of the time the tales are of wet powder, mis strikes on the flash pans, dud caps on the
'cap locks" and Ive even had a friend who was watching a deer come in and , as he drew his gun up, he could hear the slug rolling out of the barrel because he forgot to wad it up.
I know a guy who hunts with an atlatl (its illegal but hes damn good and he knaps his own flints).

The highest powere Ive got is a "hornet shootin" varmint gun. Its got a huge Muzzle velocity and I can hit ground hogs way off in my fields.

Im only thinking of starting turkey hunting again, maybe I should sit down till it passes, cause usually when I get an idea that involves outdoors, great deals of money go from my account to some merchant. Like the time we all took up cross country skiing as a family. (We get maybe 1 good snow a year).

On the subject of climbing treestands, there is a little company in Middleburg Pa which makes a fairly good one which is not overly expensive:

Timbertall, 570 837-1775

www.timbertalloutdoors.com

HEY!

There are other S. Central PA people here on A2K!

Gunga:

Those stands are no fun to lift in thier boxes either.

Bass Pro Shops uses FedEx Ground as thier major shipper.

neo-Im down below Strasburg in the heart of the Dutch Alps.
I asked a friend today (I had a meeting in Harrisburg ) and he told me that Im a fool for thinking tree stand for turkeys cause they look up , down, sideways, and can turn their heads like in the Exhorcist. So, Im now thinking of one of these camo blinds. I can use it for turkey and for painting and photography.

Again, most guys who hunt turkeys go with calls and extreme camo, no blinds or stands.

Now, the really big skill involved in turkey hunting and 2/3 of the fun as I understand it, is using the mouth-diaphragm turkey calls. Those things are cheap, like four or five dollars at WalMart and, when somebody gets good with one of them, it's really unbelievable to listen to. Somebody who's good with one of those things can have turkeys coming in from all directions on a dead run.

You mean those little semi-circular things that you keep under your tongue?
We had a bunch going spring turkey hunting one yeAR AND we were all walking around the office with these turkey calls, just practising . There were about 6 of us and, since I was the director anyway, we didnt get any crap from other working "teams"
One of the guys got really good and you could hear this CHAWK CHAWK CHAWK throughout the stair well and down to the main lobby which was at least 3 floors below. The hell of it was, nobody got a turkey that year.
I got one the following year but it was just me and another fellow . Both of us could sit stock still for hours.
I have a gilly suit that smells like sweet grass. The more I think about it, the more Im gonna go for spring turkey . Theres a number of big flocks in Lancaster county and those farm birds are bigger than the ones in the laurel woods up state.