Doc

I know that investigations and trials and convictions should be begun, to display to the country the dangers of not maintaining a vigilance against these kind of people who have no respect for the laws of the land. That has to be balanced against her continuing to be a distraction in our path back to Democracy. Frankly, I am not sure that she and her sleazy spouse really deserve any more attention. Better minds than mine will make those choices.

Ah yes..... The sound of sour grapes. Those that fell in love with a nanny-style, commie type of government is just as broken up over the failure to keep it all going south as they were broken up when the Soviet Union failed. That's ok. I realize that there are people who were looking forward to the looting of America and the tax-payer's publicly paved road to socialism. I know where this pinko is coming from......we had a pile of them back in the 60's. Of course they all eventually grew up and became Trump supporters. Others are a bit slow and some never do get it and become modern versions of Communists feverishly feeding on the words of Marx. It simply means that it takes all kinds. Fortunately this kind finally suffered a defeat and now hopefully the country has a chance to restore itself to the style of government that made us great. It is with great satisfaction that I read this nonsensical sputtering and fuming of these kinds of people. It means that we voters did our part correctly.

And so Uptown Redneck now has to change his name to Uptown RedFace.....lol. It has to be extremely embarrassing to make an absolute jerk out of yourself so many times on a public forum and then be proven so embarrassingly wrong. Your credibility (which you never really had) has just taken a heck of a spanking!

How is this possible? The all-knowing members of the media have been telling us for months that he couldn't win. The pollsters and other members of the new religion of statistics showed that he would bury the Republican Party. And yet, behold the man did the impossible. He has been elected and will serve with Republican control of both houses.

Tremendous! I am on some batteries that were in use last year and for the past3 months have never faltered. Battery life is not really an issue. And the quality of the pics day or night is phenomenal.

While I agree with the spirit of what you are saying, there has to be a bit of slack cut to those of us who were told first that there was no chance Trump would ever be nominated and then having to listen to weeks of, " he cannot be elected". There needs to be allowed a period of vigorous celebration at having saved the country from a path of socialism. It is unfortunate for those who are fans of an all-powerful government which promised to provide cradle-to-grave support like that which eventually toppled the Soviet Union, but we won an election that they said couldn't be won. I am not a rabid Trump fan, but I did vote "against Hillary" as apparently many others did. But this whole campaign from beginning to end finally won my respect for a man that did the impossible. With a unified elitist media that was daily pounding out the Hillary left-wing line throughout the entire campaign, to the members of his own Republican party who ran for cover in abject cowardice, the man overcame staggering odds. It may turn out that he saved the U.S. from an irreversible move away from the Democracy that we have flourished under. I gave the man my vote and now it is time to give him the rest of my support. America won a great victory last night. So while I know that if the situation had been reversed, the Hillary folks would have had great fun rubbing our noses in it, and I will not apologize for raising great fanfare and celebration because she lost. And those who were wrong will just have to buck up and accept the defeat that has been too long coming.

My favorite trail-cam is a Cuddeback white flash that takes some real high quality color pictures. That really is all I am interested in getting with it. Well, I have learned a bit about deer behaviors with them, but I am real happy when I get a good color picture of a beaver, mink, muskrat, coyote or fox or whatever. I'm still hoping for a bear or bobcat picture. But the point is that for me it is a wildlife photography tool and not really a deer scouting implement.

I was always taught to "pick a spot" when aiming at a deer. Mother nature made that rule easy to follow with fawns.

As seems to be traditional in recent years, you are forced to choose the lesser of the two evils. But choose you must! There are differences between the two and some very, very big ones in my opinion.

If it will be used in gun season, I would suggest that you attach some blaze orange material onto the outside of it. Remember the whole idea of wearing blaze orange in any deer season that has guns, is to be seen by other hunters so they know not to send a slug (bullet) in your direction. If your blaze orange is covered up by the camo of the ground blind you really are no better than hunting in full camo.

Right now, with the leaves immediately covering up all ground sign, it is pretty tough to be looking for trails, tracks, droppings and such. Things occurring above ground are where your focus for scouting has to be right now. Even scrapes can cover up pretty fast with leaves. However, rubs, and browse activity, can tell you a bit of something. But really the main scouting should have already been done prior to leaf-drop. There is a lot to be said of prior hunting experience, but remember past performance is not an indicator of future results. Crops change, natural food sources change or may not even exist from one year to the next. Hunting pressure and other land-use activities can change patterns. Of course topographical maps can point out pinch points and other land features that promote deer travel. Satellite maps can show swamps and fields and thickets that may suggest likely travel and bedding routes and locations.

The particular camera location that made me take note of the patterns watches a very heavy trail (down to dirt) coming out of a very large swamp/thicket dense area into a grass-lot that I keep mowed. The unique thing about this trail is the high percentage of the pictures that are taken in early morning and late afternoon daylight. The whole area could be described as dense valley bottom that was last active farmland in the 1940s to 1960s. It is lined by two hills that are old-growth hardwoods. As far as human population, I would call it very rural. It is pretty typical of a lot of western NY. There is no current ag activity to form regular repetitive daily patterns. Actually, the cameras that I have had up on top of the hills show the deer movement to be even more random than the low-lands. It is no wonder that it is so difficult to catch up with these critters since there patterns seem to be no patterns at all.....lol.

Loved it! Need more.

That same exact argument would be just as valid if you were talking full inclusion of rifles in bowseason, wouldn't it? A lot of the pro-crossbow arguments hold true for inclusion of firearms.

Yeah, maybe I am trying to make too much out of the randomness of trail use. But one thing has occurred to me. You can be sitting along a trail that is pounded down to mud, but the cameras don't lie. They will show you all the days you could have been religiously sitting there all day long and still never have even seen a deer if you were there at the wrong time. So simply finding a well used trail is only part of the story. You have to know when they are using that trail. And then you have to spend an adequate number of consecutive stands to finally make the connection. That explains a lot of deerless days on what looks like nearly guaranteed trails. I'm just not there enough to compensate for the randomness of deer movement. Interesting stuff. These cameras can be a heck of a learning tool. Like I said....they don't lie.

Sure, I agree that we have gone way overboard in having technology replace skill and technique when it comes to hunting equipment. But hunters have been using the latest materials and designs in clothing to keep them warm forever. Yes, we have come a long ways since the buckskins and loin-cloth, but I fail to see any mis-use in heated jackets or socks or gloves or whatever keeps you out in the woods longer.

I am thinking about all the memories you are preserving by documenting your hunts in this way. To me it doesn't sound like the camera is impacting your decisions not to shoot. It sounds more like you are waiting for a buck. Perhaps that is what you need to work on, but don't give up the filming. I wish I had a library of videos of some of my hunts. That would be great. Just don't forget that it would be nice to record a kill once in the while ...... lol.

Yeah ........ I'll bet that was it.....lol

So what do you think we did before all these electronic gadgets came along.....lol. I simply let my mind wander and think about all the things I really should be doing instead of staring at an empty woods. And then there are times when the woods offers up some interesting or entertaining shows to help pass the time, like the squirrels and chipmunks forcing you to crane your neck around to see what's making all that noise. And then there is the occasional hawk or fox or family of raccoons wandering by. I keep my camera nearby for such occurrences. But most of the time, I am concentrating on how cold I am, and what time it is, or just about anything that is not hunting related. As far as gadgets are concerned, I spend a lot of time rangefinding and re-rangefinding various trees. Anything is fair game as long as it doesn't make noise, or interfere with my hearing. Can't have that!

The other night, I was looking at the pictures that I have taken on my trail camera. I noticed the randomness of deer visits along what has always been a very active trail. Even with the drought, this trail is tramped down to dirt and so I know it is one of the more well used trails. But then I started looking at the dates on the pictures and found that several days and sometimes even a week would go by with no deer pictures and then all of sudden there is a bunch of deer using the trail. I started thinking back about all the hours that I spend hunting along this trail and others like it and how quickly I become discouraged when I sit there for a couple of days in a row and see nothing. But now it is clear that that is not the way the deer use these trails. A week or more can go by before a deer uses even the well-worn trails, even though there has been no changes in food resources. To me this is saying that a good stand should be used for a week or more before giving up and moving to another location. I have always tried not to burn out a stand by over pressuring an area. But perhaps that is wrong thinking. Maybe the randomness that deer use even the well-used trails means that you have to put in an adequate number of consecutive days on a stand to give the deer a chance to show up. I always thought that a heavily used trail gets daily use. My camera pictures are showing that that is not true. So what do you all think? First of all have any of you seen the same randomness in the deer appearances along trails that I have with your trail-camera pictures. And second do you think there ever is danger of burning out a stand with too many days in a row of sitting there.

I bought a heated jacket for bow season. It gives plenty of heat without the clothing interferences with the bow string. Works well on cold mornings. I have tried the layers, and by the time I have adequate clothing on, my form goes to hell and I have all kinds of interferences from the bulk. Not anymore.

Yesterday, I found two half-hearted scrapes. Looked like they were just starting to get the idea, but hadn't figured out why yet.

The DEC has made their feelings on firearms coincident with the bow season pretty plain haven't they? And I'll bet there is no one in NYS muzzleloading organizations that think it would be a bad idea. I would imagine that if the pistol hunters were numerous enough and organized, they could jump into the middle of this free-for-all season-grab too. The only good news to all this is that now with the crossbow advocates shoe-horning their way into the season, we'll have more selfish and elitist hunters trying to exclude other weapons from the bowseason crossbow season. Or will the new arrivals join in expanding the clutter of other weapons in bowseason? H-m-m-m-m ....... yeah, logically that is actually likely.

I'm not in love with posting "lost deer" threads. I don't believe there is a much to be learned from them that will prevent them from happening in the future. Also publicizing wounding or loss of shot deer really seems unnecessary to me when we don't really know who is monitoring these sites and making use of such examples for anti-hunting purposes. I just don't see the purpose of such stories. Yes, it does happen, but I can't see anything beneficial about advertising those unhappy results to the entire world.