I'll tell you, it's sad, but some folks can't have a good day in the woods unless they kill something. I know folks like that. I don't hunt with them. That is just so much not me!

Same with trapping, fishing or hunting, it's one thing to go out and really hammer down trapping. But if you want to really enjoy it, you need to slow down. My opinion.

It's been a few years ago, I was out with one of my best friends, we were on the way home. I said: You know what? You'd have a helluva lot more fun and enjoyment, if you'd just relax.

For me, there isn't a single thing that's more relaxing than walking through the woods with my rifle. Swimming would be a close second. Either way, I'm under no pressure to prove anything. Just to let a feller's mind unwind and forget about everything.

And then at the end of the day, you realize, it's time to get back into the real world. That always sucks! But, I enjoy my free time.

Here in a bit, I'm going up to check the bait, I'd like to catch a fisher this season.

I hear what you are saying but I go in the bush any day I want. And I go a lot- year round. There are very few bad days unless the flies are really bad.

I prefer to not have empty traps or not have an opportunity to have a shot. I work hard to prevent that from occurring.

I do have fun regardless unless things mess up. A good example is snow laden trees blocking roads.

I understand exactly what you mean. Above where I said that we'd never fired a shot, Donnie and I both harvested deer this past season. Deer are one thing, but when you bump it up to a bear, your odds of seeing one or killing one, that percentage of success goes way down!

I live in Hardy Co., WV, here it's illegal to bait deer or bear. In some counties you can bait, in other counties you can't. Our game laws are complicated and honestly, very hard to keep track of what's legal and what's not!

I know what you mean about trees and rocks blocking the roads. I burnt a tank of gas in my saw that one day. I think it was December 15th, we had a really good (bad) ice storm, that brought down a lot of timber. Twigs the thickness of a pencil were iced up and the size of a broom handle. That ice hung in the timber for over a week, I think it was the 22nd when the next snow/ice/sleet/freezing rain storm hit. That's about the time that we had our coldest days of this winter.

Looking at the ice in the timber from here at the house, better than 2 miles away, when the sun would hit it, it looked like the top of the mountain was glass.

Big Donnie and I hunted December 21st. D. called me that morning and I told him to bundle up. We'd talked about it before, but I kind of had a plan. I dropped him off in the deep hollow south of Riley Ridge, it's steep, rocky and about halfway mean. Before he started up the hollow I made sure he had his gloves and all, told him to take his time. If a feller gets hot and sticky climbing up in there, you're not going to last long. This time of year, on the shortest day of the year, you'll never see sunshine. And those rocks will hold the cold.

The dog and I went on out the road, parked there at the wide spot, and hunted up to the spring. The 2 little puddles at the spring were iced over. I changed the SD card in that camera, I hadn't checked it for over a month, and started on around to where D. was watching.

There was just one big ridge between D. and I, really it's a double ridge. The way I like to hunt it, if you pretty much split the difference from the spring to the upper ledge, and head north. You'll come onto a nice bench, that's where the ridge forks. Just stay level on the mountain and you'll roll right around and come out about 100 yards above where Big D. was watching.

It was icy that day, and it really slowed me down. Some places, the timber came down like a row of dominos. It's a mess!

But I was almost out to the last point when Donnie called, and said he was coming down and heading out to the truck. He got cold up in that cove.

I gave D. about an hour to walk back to the truck, and warm up. Called him back and asked him to come pick me up, it was right at sunset when I got back to the road. The dog had ice on her whiskers and I did too.

Like I said above, we didn't amount squat, never fired a shot, but we had a good hunt.

I'll tell you, we had a so-so mast crop this past fall, and we had some cold weather in early November. I drained the water lines and winterized the old hunting camp, early. Not sure? But it's very possible that some of our bear holed-up before season?

Above I mentioned checking the trail cam at the spring on the 21st. That camera only had 6 or 8 deer pictures, 4 or 5 pics of me and the dog, and that's it. No bear at all, and it'd been a month since I last checked it. The last bear picture that I've had on that camera was dated either November 4th or the 7th. I forget.

It was a sow and 2 cubs. I would have loved to have kicked them out, and just see what this new dog would have done.

Talking about our trapping baits, I do finally have something working the one bait. I'm not impressed with the action, think I'll give them another week, and see what happens.

Before season ends, I'll tell you about another hunt and make m prediction.

I guess about everyone from the mid-west, up the east coast and on north had some dealings with the storm that passed here on December 22, 2022.

Here at the house, we had about an inch of light dry snow, before daylight. Then it kind of slacked off, guess we were between "bands" of the storm. At 8am we had little ice balls, and coming down hard. It was a wet, heavy slush, and there for a while it was piling up pretty good.

The DOH had pre-treated our main roads, with salt brine. But the ice/snow/sleet/freezing rain was piling up. The DOH trucks were up and down most of the day, chains on, and scraping the stuff off of the roads. Late that evening, we had some really hard, rain/sleet. Slush was flowing down the roads.

Anyway, I was here at work, called everyone and told them to stay home. I'm not going to ask anyone to come in if the roads are bad, take a chance of getting hurt or crash their car and all. Nothing goes on here that's that important!

So, on the 23rd, our main roads were decent. Nothing to brag about, but decent. And that's when it started to get cold and windy!

Wasn't sure if I could get up on the mountain or not? But you know, my truck was just breaking through the crust, maybe an 1/8th of an inch, just enough to have good traction. I never spun a wheel. I paid $750 for the Posi-track rearend in that little truck, it makes a big difference.

Anyway, I parked above the gate, got the dog wired up, fooled around getting my rain gear on, that's a pain with your boots on! Hunted out around those first 2 or 3 points, up high on the mountain, that north-west wind was nippy.

Hunted across the ridge above my "lured rock camera" crossed the hollow, up to the backbone of Riley Ridge and back off to the road. I didn't track squat. And really, that late in the season, most of our bear are just not moving.

I really don't know, we shall see later. But as a rule here in Hardy County, we'll harvest over 100 bear per season. I think it'll be down some this past year.

I checked the camera watching Wardney's salt lick yesterday, not a single deer, no deer for the last 6 or 8 weeks.

But tomorrow is the last day of the Mountain Heritage, deer, bear and turkey seasons. A four day season of hunting with black powder guns and old time bows. We shall see.

Posi-track are really good.

Breeding season has started here. I have fox hitting the carcasses I put out to help them through the winter.

Did you get true posi-traction or "limited slip"? I was under the impression that they didn't make true posi-traction rearends any longer. All I'm able to order is limited slip.

"Limited slip differential" is todays correct term for posi traction. It actuates instantly between the two drive wheels so they are both driving together.

Frank.

Well, I'm no mechanic, but I'll tell you what I've been told. I think that there are more than one way to lock the back axles of your vehicle together.

I'll start from the start. The day I picked out this little truck, and took it for a test drive and all. I bought it used and I've known the man that owns the shop for years. He handed me the keys and I told him where I was going to take it, even asked him if he'd like to ride along. He said: No, you take it anyplace you want to go.

So, I took off, even took my rifle with me. I took it up the mountain, ran it through every gear that it's got. Keeping an eye on the gauges and all. Halfway up the mountain, I put it down in low-four, in 1st or 2nd gear, revved it up to 3,000 RPM's and just held it there to the end of the road. Dirt road, only a mile or so? I took it up a side road, steep as hell, forward and reverse.

Everything looked good, coming off I stopped and checked the oil and all, everything checked out. So I took it back to the shop, told him that I'd take it and paid him $1,000 down payment. It's a Chevy S-10, and had running boards on it. Why, I don't know. I told him to take that junk off, you can have them, sell them for $50 or whatever, I didn't want them.

I asked him that day, how much it would cost for the positrack rearend, I think the first price was $550, but ended up paying $750. That's been 6 years ago, I think that's right.

But the way it's set up now, you don't notice the rearend out on the main road, just driving and you won't notice it on a dirt road. Just say you come to an intersection here in town, on a paved and dry road, and make a 90* turn from a dead stop, you'll feel that inside back tire scuffing around. That inside tire is trying to rotate as much as the outside back tire. They are locked together, full time.

My little truck was due for it's annual state inspection, the first of the year. I had that done last Monday, while it was in the shop, I had the oil changed, tune-up and had Gary put on four new tires too. Gary does a good job and treats me right, $620 total. The tires were $140 each. So, she's good to go for another year!

Here's a link that shows one way to lock the back axles together.

https://www.motortrend.com/how-to/131-0901-welding-spider-gears-locking-differential-4wd/

I'll tell you the one mechanic that works at the shop where I bought the truck, he's the owners son, but he's really into race cars. Muscle cars and all. So he's up-to-date on all of that stuff.

Above we were talking about hunting and such, I want to tell you this. The first day of buck season, I bumped into 2 deer. One was a big bodied, dark looking deer, I scoped it over, up on 9X, I couldn't see horns. The other deer was about 75 yards in front of the dark looking deer, it was a 3-point, it came up the ridge within 50 yards of me, I was taking pictures of him. Nice looking young buck.

I did get some nice pics, I posted one on my Facebook thing.

I have relatives that live about 100 miles west of here, our families stay in touch, just to say hi and check on everyone. My cousin Evelyn (her granddad was my uncle) and I were chatting one evening. She asked me how deer hunting was going, I told her that I wasn't seeing many deer. Evelyn said that she counted about 60 deer on the way home, in about 3 miles of road. Also told me that the deer had almost destroyed her garden last summer. She had crop damage permits for her garden, they killed 8 deer, and she said that didn't seem to slow them down much.

During the Mountain Heritage hunt, just 2 weeks ago or so? Moe, Jim and a few other guys loaded up, took off at 5am and hunted in an area somewhat near to where Evelyn lives. I told Moe and Jim to try to keep track of howmany deer they each got to see. Jim counted 30 deer, and Moe counted 10 or 12.

All together there are 14 guys in the picture, with 6 deer. Four doe and 2 fawns. They were driving deer, all hunting with their black powder cap&ball guns or flintlocks, open sights.

On my best day this past season, I did jump 5 deer in a bunch. All doe and or fawns? Lots of days I didn't see a single deer.

I'll add more later.