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All day sits will begin Fri sat sun

4:30 yesterday a “doe” comes trotting down a trail right below me and stops, talk about luck. I look thru the peep site at full draw and quickly notice 1 little spike antler. Surprisingly big body for a little spike. I let down, he caught the movement above him, went Oh Crap and bolted away.

Yeah, I came down out of the trees quite a few years ago. Yes, I recognize that I have handicapped myself by doing that, but a severe case of "fear of heights" left me with no choice. But in the process, I found an added level of excitement through dealing with deer on their own level.....Eyeball to eyeball. I know that there is no room for error. There is an extreme nervous and exciting feeling of vulnerability on my part because I am left at the mercy of all the deer's superior senses. yes, i no longer expect to get my archery deer every year. I have put myself at an extreme disadvantage. But I have to say when that deer (any deer) approaches me, I immediately go into a fit of trembling, the likes of which I never experienced while I was up in the trees. I know that I cannot get away with anything......Absolutely nothing! I have not mastered the art of still-hunting with a bow yet. I do construct ground stands. So, I still have a long way to go to hone that ultimate way of ground hunting. However, still hunting with a gun is my "go-to" method of gun-hunting.

The narrative is to be rid of high fence. Yes it would be nice not to have the prions on the landscape. But tell me. They stop live deer movement into states but do not try and stop every other vector that can carry Cwd prions. Stop corn and hay sales from positive states and such. Won’t happen because that’s not part of the narrative. They will take the risk on every other vector but not a multi billion dollar whitetail industry. And that’s your DEC at work. We have the better product and thousands use it rather then hunt smaller animals. Yes Dr Seabury is a pretty smart cookie when it comes to this stuff. Myself I have been breading with resistant genes for 3 years now. Live tests are used and allowed in Texas but not accepted in Ny. Now our Tb test program is only 85% effective which is the same as the live test for cwd and the Tb is ok to use but the cwd live test not???? Hmmm. Makes ya wonder huh? That’s because back then it was 100% depopulation and DEC could use that tool to rid the landscape of a positive farm. But the federal govt finally quit giving out indemnity payouts to farms to depopulate. At the average price per head as it stands today if I got CWD and they wanted to depopulate me they would pay me right around 900 grand. And they paid that kind of money for years to 1000’s of farms across the country. Just for them to buy another piece of ground and start back up again. They finally saw that CWD is all but harmless after 60 plus years. My world will not change at all from this positive. It’s over 90 miles from me. Hence don’t listen to all you read. They did stop deer movement permits yesterday until they get this investigation over but I moved all of my bucks out last month. They will open up the movement permits again in a couple weeks I’m sure. The sad thing is in the area outside the fence the DEC is going to kill a pile of healthy deer looking for it and make hunters turn their heads in. You would think if the state just did more testing in all the areas of the state they could get a better handle on things. One thing I can all but promise you is that there is CWD in Ny state wild deer. They just don’t test for it. Down near the Pa border without a doubt.

Known about it for a couple days now. Amazing how shit spreads. Like it’s even an issue anymore in many places. Wisconsin does not even test for the harmless crap anymore. When the federal monies run out…It disappears.

Had a shooter come out of the woods following a doe last evening. Stayed on the outside of the brush about 15 seconds. Quartering away. Decided, not a good shot and let down. We know the deer well, 6 1/2 year old.

The guys are still here. Few chases no really big bucks showing up. Friend shot this half rack yesterday. Xbow 20 yards heart shot.

Sooo looking forward to my first sit this weekend Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

To each their own. Sitting in a tree stand is about the most boring thing I can think of. I do not use any kind of blind for the most part, I am a ground dweller and will break up my silhouette using camo and natural surroundings. I like the ability to reposition and move. I do not sit for long, once I glass an area I will move on quietly to the next spot. When I was young I did a lot of tracking and killed quite a few that way. In my mind it is my idea of what hunting is. Al

Be a cold day in hell, I'd pay $78 for 3 nocs. The million dollar question is, do they work better than a good hit, sharp tracking job?

I do believe politics has entered the picture. With New York, you know how that plays out.

I shoot lighted Knocks on both my bow and crossbow. I never have paid more than 25 dollars for 6 on Amazon and they have little switches to turn them off.

The diff will be negligible

At 5:30 I hear crunch crunch crunch and I stand up. I get my bow ready and here comes a healthy spike of about 12” each side, with the right side a small extra point, making him a 3 pointer. He took his time coming up my footsteps all the way to my stand, and then passed me about 10yards. First quartering towards , then broad side, and then quartering away as he passed me. Easy shot, but I chose to pass. With it supposed to get to 70 degrees again this week, it was gonna either have to be a big buck or I was not shooting. Then I head more crunching and see a buck about same size as the first but with only one 4-5 inch spike on the right side. He stayed behind me about 40 yards and stood there for a long time watching the first spike. The first day spike went past, the second spike stayed there staring, and then down in the gully behind the single spike I see another buck. This one was a bit bigger a deer and turned out to be a narrow 6 pointer. They both got antsy with the wind swirling and finally trooped off up the hill. So even though I did not shoot, it was still a lot of fun. It has been a long time since I saw three bucks together. It looks like this may be a fun season.

So.....it's ok for deer farms to ship out deer that may, or may not have CWD, to areas where it has not been established?