Doc

So are you guys started with the practice sessions and getting ready for the season? It's not so easy this year with all the stinking bugs banging into my face and whining in my ears, but I have started. I know there are some that never really stop shooting even all summer with the 3-D competitions and such. But I have had a very busy summer season around the property. But August is usually when I get started with my shooting regardless of what is going on.

Would you expect Comrade Cuomo to say any different?

All this talk about timing of the best turkey hunting has gotten me wondering exactly what drive the breeding activity of turkeys. I don't turkey hunt and know very little about them, so please excuse me if this question sounds stupid....lol. Is it the prevailing nuances of the current weather that turns them on, or is there something like photo-periodism at work that drives the timing as in deer? I think I am hearing that the activities seem to be repetitive from year to year regardless of what the weather is doing for each year. Anybody got some info on that?

I also think that the widespread use of scopes has made today's hunter much more deadly than back in the days when I was a kid. My first deer gun was an old bent-barreled 20 ga. with just a ball bead at the front. Great squirrel gun, but getting a deer with it wasn't really too likely.

I'm still a bit puzzled at how the deer take stays so high when the numbers of gun shots heard are so low compared to past years. It must be that hunters today are becoming very good shots. Seriously, observations of traditional parking lots and other places that used spill out on the highways with parked cars of hunters look nearly empty by comparison to years ago. And the shooting seems to die off after the opening morning. At least that's been my observations. And yet the deer take seems to be better or at least the same as past years of much greater participation. The remaining hunters must really be good.

The most prized rack on my wall is that of a 7" spike buck. It draws a lot of comments ..... ha-ha-ha. It was my first bow killed deer. For me it is always about the story behind the mount, and that often has nothing at all to do with antler size. Back then, any deer taken with a bow was a trophy and that one is still a trophy to me.

Ha-ha-ha...... you're right. I could care less what they shoot their deer with. I would shake hands and congratulate anyone who successfully takes a deer of any size, regardless of what implement they do it with as long as it is all legal and in season. Of course what is legal and what season certain implements are legal for use, is still being determined isn't it?

This guy is right on the money. People get some real peculiar ideas about what they are doing out there. Some picture themselves as the harvest police who have been appointed the duties of keeping hunters to some kind of mandatory standard of kill-size. Probably a lot of you are not old enough to remember the prejudice against shooting does. Most hunters considered that to be an ethical failure for hunters to shoot does. And yet, decades later we found that shooting does is a necessary management activity but still even today you will find some that consider taking a doe to be something akin to a sin. But today the big sin is taking a small buck. The word is that anyone who does so should be banned from the woods. All I can say is try hard not to be telling others what deer they can shoot and which ones they cannot. Accept that it's not your place to dictate what others choose to take. It is a very personal decision unique to each individual hunter and is really nobody else's business. Seriously.....It's nobody else's business. It is no one's duty to apply mocking ridicule or anger to someone else's kill when it doesn't measure up to your arbitrary standard. Save your indignation for those who engage in illegal hunting activities and offer a hand of congratulations to the hunter who is happy with what he legally got. I think we will keep a lot more hunters in our ranks if we stop mocking those that are not so hung up on scores, and antler points, and some mythical standard of deer size.

One year we had an opportunistic hawk that was getting fat on the birds that were lured into the feeder. I guess when you concentrate a food source, some of the predators figure it out ..... lol. It's just Mother Nature doing what Mother Nature does.

We made it!!! Every March, we have a traditional huge dump of heavy, sloppy-gloppy, snow during March. I remember one of those March storms that forced me to get a payloader in to break a trail up to the house. Three feet of snow with the consistency of ice cream. Well, this year we did it. We survived a March without that kind of storm. Of course I wouldn't want to make any predictions for April.....lol.

Our local Walmart has a huge cardboard box right out by the entrance. I take a couple of bags of the plastic bags in every few months or so and throw them in the box, and I assume that from there they are recycled. Just mandate that if a store uses plastic bags, they keep a recycling box in plain sight and obvious at the store to send them to recycling. It's really no big deal. How many canvas bags would you have to carry around to take care of a full shopping cart of groceries? I mean when we go shopping, in order to save gas (24 mile round trip), we only go a couple times a month. We're not talking about a couple canvas bags here. I suppose we could use canvas bags and drive the 24 miles more often. Pick your pollution. I have no problem with recycling. Just make it convenient and keep the recycling collection easy to find and use.

Well it's been an interesting discussion, but I think it all is useless when trying to talk to someone who has opinions but the opinions come with no real convictions.

Ha-ha-ha...... It went right over your head didn't it? My reference to NYB inviting the gunners into bow season was intended to show you that the intention of that statement was not intended to be taken as literal as you insist on doing. With your strict interpretation, you would have to actually believe that even an invite to gunners would be allowed. And of course any thinking person knows that that is not what was intended. So you really do know that there have to be limits on that statement even though you conveniently pretend not to see that. Also, let me just confess that I am always sold on my opinions and yes it does take a powerful lot of work to dissuade me of the notions that I truly believe in. I don't see that as something that needs apology. However, if in my zeal to convince, I inadvertently offend, I do truly apologize for that.

Apparently this guy is functioning as a collection of new crossbow concepts. He is not coming up these ideas, but has caught the attention of a whole bunch of very intelligent and creative engineers who are very busy with all aspects of crossbow technology. These guys are not a bunch of dummies. I still thing the most impressive design was that original wooden full-auto proto type. Each one of these inventions shows the level of interest and the effort that is being put into the next-generations of crossbows. It is fun to watch the progress that these wizards bring to us.

So you honestly believe that because you scoured the entire site and found one sentence that could have been written more clearly, you are justified in condemning the whole organization. You apparently believe that by writing this sentence in that way, NYB will soon be inviting gunners into the bow season because it will "develop greater outdoor opportunity for all, as essential to character building and physical well-being". Do you really believe that? How about this: perhaps if you were a member, you could address this sentence that is so bothersome to you. You might even find the author and get him or somebody to re-write it.....lol. Or you can do as you are and sit on the outside whining and complaining about sentence structure. I would suggest that you are feverishly searching for straws to grasp. I detect a bias that runs so deep that no amount of logic will ever change your mind and I am truly wasting my time indulging in this minutia that you have dredged up. I have had similar conversations with anti-hunters that are so deeply invested in their positions that they cannot be reasoned with. Basically you have decided that bowhunters do not deserve or need representation. You are determined not to engage and resolve whatever issues you have with them and continue on with this kind of silly argument that has devolved into a ridiculous disagreement with a sentence. If the discussion takes a more reasonable and logical turn I may try to re-engage, but it has deteriorated to the point where I can no longer justify the time spent trying to convince someone who is biased beyond reason.