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That is not a joke. That is a mandate for NYS survival!

I have participated in deer drives years ago, but have not been involved in drive in several decades. There were some episodes that kind of stretch the safety of the hunt. Also, since then, I started to feel that drives violated my limits regarding forcing deer to react contrary to their natural habits and inclinations. Of course in 90% of the gun hunting situations, deer sighting are a result of some other hunter pushing deer to my stand. That is something that can't be avoided. That is why I get so much more satisfaction out of my archery season than my gun season. With the bow it is more me against the deer without outside help or interference. Of course my archery experience started way back when seeing or even knowing another bowhunter was a rare event (even on state land. But that is a great question.

By the way, I remember that the drives were a lot of fun, but the challenge boiled down to simple target practice. The only ones who engaged in any challenge were the one's wo set up the drives. They had to know where the deer were likely to be and where their escape routes were and how to set up the standers so that they would be likely to get the shots without shooting each other. But we had fun doing it all.

This old Adirondack doe was the smartest deer that I’ve ever hunted. Certainly way ahead of most of the mature bucks that I’ve taken. I pursued her for several years. Im guessing that she was 4-1/2 years old, when I finally managed to bring her down. Our first encounter was during the late ML season, when she was probably 2-1/2 years old and had a single fawn. I should have had her that time, when she offered me a 40 yard broadside shot. A hidden branch deflected my ML bullet, and saved her. She had (2) fawns the next year, when she managed to thwart me on every attempt during the early ML week. She usually fed in the shooting range meadow, near my in-laws lake house, every evening. She seemed to recognize the danger and patterned me, getting the best of me 2 or 3 times that week. She did the same on our first encounter the following year. I had learned that she always went up to a ridge to feed on nuts, after she left the meadow. I got up there before her, about a full hour before sunrise, the last time. I had a favorable wind and I was able to get into position up there completely undetected. She usually always monitored the lake house door, just before sunrise. My extra early rise tricked her. As the sun started to light up the woods up on the ridge, I caught some flash of her white tail. She held her tail out, then moved about 50 yards, then repeated the process, getting closer and closer. I was downwind of the best mast trees up there. She eventually offered an easy, broadside 30 yard shot and I was able to connect with her shoulder blade. It was only after she was down, that I saw the two fawns which she had been signalling with her tail and masterfully leading up the ridge to the food. I may have started the whole process over again last year, on what was probably one of those fawns. I missed her with the same ML, in almost the same place where I missed her mother, due to the same cause -probable branch strike. This time, it was during the early ML week, and again the doe had just one fawn with her. It’s pretty cool how history repeats itself. Only one, of the dozen or so mature bucks that I’ve killed, has particularly impressed me with his smarts. Most of the rest were easily outwitted during the peak two weeks of the rut. That one smartie was hanging with a flock of turkeys, likely taking advantage of their superior vision, to help evade hunters. God Himself assisted me on that one causing me to drop the Bible I had been reading up on my stand. I climbed down from my tree stand (leaving my 16 ga slug gun loaded) to pick it up, with 5 minutes of legal light remaining. I was wearing my orange camo jacket which that flock of turkeys could have seen from a mile away had I still been exposed up in that stand. They didn’t do this cagey old 8-pointer any good, when they and he stepped into the little patch of brush under my tree.

Like I said, my comments are not meant as a criticism of anybody's methods. They are just personal limits that I have put on my own hunting. I just hit 81 a few days back, so I understand what you are saying. But I have not revised those limits, although maybe I should have......lol.

One for me that comes to mind is I could never be roaming around the house, spot a deer in the back yard grab the rifle and shoot it. To me personally that's not hunting that's grocery shopping at best and not "fair chase". I need to be in the woods actively hunting.