Gun show in AZ.
Some of the best laws in the country.

Rigged up three slinky pots for future fishing black cod this spring and summer. Melted lead and poured four 18# cannonballs. Worked on the boat a bit, mostly clean up.

just a mile hike with the doggie (as usual) 6 miles on the bike/4 sets of dips and a campfire this evening.

shot a round of trap Friday and coached the kids

taught muzzle loader all day Saturday

today my son shot a USPSA match , but the wife an I took the nieces to a show at the theater no hunting , fishing shooting or trapping today.

Sold fur today.

Set about 6 snares. Ran about 60 coyote traps. Drove 126 miles checked morw snares. Got 1 coyote in a snare

Checked the rat line and bought more traps.

Stuck indoors at the office today. I do have a long conference call scheduled later. I plan on vegging out and window shopping for guns online for at least 95% of it. More black guns are always a good idea.

I like to take the river road to see how many people are in the river. Usually the river is empty during the week.

Checked woodchuck traps. Got Nada temps in the 30's and 40's. Caught a few when it was in the 70's and 80's last week.
Changed the motor oil and lower unit gear oil in my 15 HP Mercury

Located a few snare locations before the wood trails grow lush, also re-subscribed to Trappers Post today for 2 yrs.

Talked to Penny Wilhite, a really nice person!

Got my crates of 1 stoploss ready to go to our son's place to repair, check over, set tensions, fix broken springs, put on the extenders and get them ready to dip later when it finally gets warm.
Got 300 plus bamboo stakes ready to reflag for this fall.

Bryce

Built cabinets all day so I can afford to trap this fall. Did daydream about catfishing.

Back at the reloading bench. I have a large volume of brass that needs to be loaded. This will be my report for the next month or so with some shooting, fishing and trap prep sprinkled in.

Went turkey hunting this morning. Quite cold for this late in April. Was snowing when I left.

Stood out on the deck listening to a couple of gobblers pre-dawn this morning.

Going to fish walleye out of Cleveland mid morning.

Had a rock from another pickup break the windshield on my jeep. I am hanging around here waiting on the installer to come replace it.

I had my 22 hornet out the other day. Was shooting a splash target with the little stickers to cover bullet holes. At a hundred yards i was hitting the top of the of the black stickers I put on the orange bullseye. (benchshooting) Took an offhand shot at a gong at 175 and rang it no problem.

My handi rifle is a shooter. 11.5 grains of IMR 4227. 45 grain hornady 22 hornet bullet. Have to seat them deep to get it to shoot good. 1.723 is the Max OACL according to my Lyman book and thats where I seat them. No cannelure ring on those bullets and the long neck on hornet brass gives plenty of tension so no crimp.

It's finally raining here so I may just go outside and dance in celebration.

Some of you may remember a few weeks ago I bought a used Ruger #1 in 25-06. First thing I did was replace the scope. Scope that was on it was not even mounted correctly. I took it apart and cleaned/oiled the action. Ran a patch down the bore. Loaded some 117 grain grain interlock hornady bullets with IMR 4831.

Thing would literally shoot a foot or more groups at a 100 yards. I was not happy. I had not cleaned the barrel good so thought i would try that before confronting the guy I bought it from. First stroke with a brush and I literally pushed out chunks of carbon. Couple hours later i had the carbon out. Next I began using Sweets copper solvent. Took two days of patchs and soaking for patchs to quit coming out green. Carefully cleaned and oiled it to prevent the hydroscopic nature of the ammonia in Sweets from drawing in moisture and causing rust.

First couple shots were within a couple inchs of each other at 100. I adjusted the scope and fired another. Landed about 2 inchs high at 100. Fired another and it landed about a half inch over the first one. Third one about an inch over the second. Everything i read said they are apt to shoot verticle groups. So I cleaned the carbon out. By then the rifle was cooled down and I fired a five shot group. Letting the barrel cool between shots. No more verticle stringing. Since follow up shots are not likely with a single shot and the second shot lands close to the first from a cold barrel I think it will be fine.

I have done some reading on solving the verticle string group thing but honestly, if I know where the first one will land, whats the point?