College Orientation News

[fitch270]

Yesterday I finally got to check out the college the Kid will be attending in just three short weeks. I wasn’t really sure what to expect but left with a good feeling about his future.

Helped that he’s going to be able to keep his bow in his dorm room. We got ahead of the curve by stopping into Public Safety to get the required paperwork taken care of. No one was there but on drop off day I expect the place will be packed so one less thing to stand in line for. Deal is it has to be in a locked case in the dorm and arrows kept separately in a vehicle or at the range. They have an archery team that competes nationally but you don’t have to be on the team to join the club. They have an indoor range in addition to 50 meter outdoor shoots and 3D shoots. I’ve encouraged him to participate in the 3D shoots, the first one is the weekend before classes start. He’s never actually shot one but I’m sure he’d enjoy it and could definitely use the practice this year.

Gets better, the school has a 700 acre farm that they allow a limited number of students to hunt. First come first serve on the permits so he’ll need to get after it once they become available. There’s also a pile of state land in the area that apparently doesn’t get much pressure. Looks like my climbing stand is going bye bye.

He’s already connected with two other kids in his major that are outdoor enthusiasts, including his room mate. I’m thinking I’ll be hearing a few stories not long into the semester.

[Amflyer]

Nice. Glad there are still such places.

We couldn't have guns in the dorm rooms. But if we could have, the city kids all would have wanted to come to my room to gear what a $150 Mossberg pump sounded like, as they never had seen one. I worked all summer to get that. When I got it home, noted the vent rib was crooked as all get-out and it shot about a foot to one side. Took it back and got a Winchester 1300.

[fitch270]

Never had a dorm room per say but did spend a fall semester in a campus apartment. Shotgun only in the nearby management unit for deer so I did have my H&R Topper with me a couple weekends. Don’t think it was an issue, several of us went out together.

[FirstBubba]

How far from home?
What does he do with a deer if he gets one?
Do the have a "butcher 101" class?

[fitch270]

Just over three hours FB, close enough for an occasional trip home but far enough to keep him there taking care of business.


I asked the archery coach about deer processing, he said it shouldn’t be a problem. His Grandfather already offered to drive out to get it if needed. Of course that area has some decent bucks and there is a lot of public land……

[Amflyer]

P'raps a story about the differences between NY State and the Cornhusker state: Late one night, it was decided with a couple of dorm-mates of mine that we should take off for where I grew up and camp and hunt for the weekend. It was a Friday night, and we too were about 3.5 hrs from home.

No problem, I thought. I have a '72 LeMans with a V-8.

We didn't really have any gear, it was November and already dark, but we tore-ass up there. I'm sure the trip has got shorter in my mind as the years go by, but remember it as about 2.5 hrs. That car tended to hold it's speed fairly well. Might have dropped a wheel off the pavement a time or two around some of the corners, but we didn't see a constable of the law the whole way. In my mind, even upstate New York is a little more populated? Maybe not though.

Woke up with snow falling on my face and shivering (no tent), tried halfheartedly to make a fire, and finally gave up and packed up and went back to our house at first light. My parents looked at me like I was a ghost, wondering what the heck I was doing there. (My first year grades reflected as much)

What an idiot. 19-20 years old.

Wish I still had the coupe though.

[fitch270]

The fall after I finished college I was still living with my parents, had a job working 12-9pm. House was in the middle of town on Main Street with a student rental next door about 30’ away. Five or six guys living there at the time. A couple hunted.

Back then the gun opener was on a Monday and my cousin would come down for the week. Sunday we scouted out a farm we used to hunt and caught up with a few other guys that hunted there. We saw a six point on one side of the saddle and told a sixteen year old kid with the others to get up in there the next morning.

I could hunt the morning, just before leaving I caught up with the kid who told me someone had a shot at the buck but they didn’t look for it. I tipped him off him to another bench for that afternoon then found my cousin and told him to go over there and check it out, sure enough after lunch he found the buck dead about 100 yards from where it had been shot.


He gets back for dinner and gets chatting with the guys next door. It was below freezing all day, they decide they want the deer and ask him if he’d take them to get it just as a snowstorm hits. My cousin loads the guys up in his ‘67 Impala 4 door he’d nicknamed “The Bomber”, stops at my work to give me the heads up and takes off for the 10 miles or so to the farm where he has to drive up the tractor path about another mile to the buck. One of the guys had shot a spike during bow season and changes the tag from “left side points 1 and right side points 1” to “3 and 3” and attaches it to the deer. When they get back to the house after I’d finished work there’s about 6” of snow on the roads. The guys are laughing their butts off and my cousin is just shaking his head. He’s not sure who’s crazier, them or him. Might have been a bit of partying going on during the whole ordeal.

That buck hung off the side of their garage getting whittled on for maybe two weeks before it was finished off. Waste not, want not.

Also turned out the young kid shot a four point on the bench I’d sent him to, his first deer.