Doc

Call the DEC. Something is wrong.

It does seem a shame that there is now a demand for making something that used to be free into a question of affordability. It's just another factor involved in the demise of hunting. As soon as hunting land costs get put on a priority list of affordability, the results for hunting are quite predictable, aren't they? But I am a believer in the sanctity of "landowner's rights" so I can whine all I want about it, but thankfully, there is no way to force any of that to change. It's just the natural evolution of things.

So, just out of curiosity, what do you consider the usual prevailing wind direction on your hunting property. Of course we get the hodge-podge of wind directions, but here in the Bristol Hills area, the wind predominantly is coming from the west to east. I have always wondered if the usual prevailing wind direction is the same all over the state.

We all have a right to hunt for our own unique reasons. What we don't have a right to do is to dictate to others what their reasons for hunting has to be.

I really have never had any interest in a deer's age. I generally go by, "Is he big enough or not?" Once he is in packages, I could care less about how old he is ....... lol. One thing that I will say with certainty is that that deer is old enough for me to shoot.

I use a rangefinder for certain trees around my stands. Unless there are some strange features of the trees I will use blaze marks on the trees along my shooting lanes to identify them. I go out to 25 or 30 yards (my maximum hunting shot distance). I have a lot of confidence in my sight-pins, and adding the confidence of a rangefinder takes a lot of guess-work out of the success or failure of the shot.

Good point! I had a deer hanging in my basement where the ticks were bailing out. At least 8 that I saw. ....... Yick! I was doing a lot of tick-stomping. Sure, if you put that deer in the car, they're going to be coming for you ..... lol.

Well plink, you have a real mystery there. Anything done by officials would not be left discarded in the woods. Check with the DEC. Since no one has a reasonable guess, maybe you have stumbled into some weird illegal activity of some kind. I really have no explanation of any sort that makes any sense. Let us know what you find out.

Hunt the high country or side hill areas so you are always dragging down hill. That is, assuming you are in hill and valley country. Do not ever reverse that!!! Another option is to pick up a younger hunting partner or two and some electronic communication. There might be a third option. If you can legally run an ATV on your hunting area, perhaps this is the time to consider getting one. There are two things we know for absolutely certain. One: the price of these machines will not be going down as time goes on. Two: you will never be younger than you are right now. Time marches on. Don't be stubborn, or someday there will be people trying to figure out the best way to drag you out.

Every time I even think about going to the state fair the temperature flashes up into the 90's and I start remembering that there is absolutely no shade there. It's like heading to the Sahara to have a good time. Not likely to happen.

I always thought a gift certificate was the perfect gift, but when it comes to things that are worth up to $50, I've already got everything. If I want it, I've already bought it. I checked with the wife last night and she is telling me the same as a lot of the replies on here, "get something else". I'm not a big fan of jerky, and the thing would probably find its way down into the basement where we keep all the other cooking implements that we never use. I guess the search goes on. These days $50 doesn't go very far. You should have seen me trying to spend a $25 card at Walmarts. I finally went over to the grocery side of the store and bought a pile of junk-food ..... Just what I needed.....lol.

All of my stands are at whatever height the ground is at .... lol. I don't do heights anymore. I have not figured out how to shoot a bow with both arms wrapped in a death-grip around the tree trunk. Back in the olden days before I finally evolved into a ground dweller, My stands were probably averaging between 15 and 20 feet high.

I stepped into one of those ground-nesting yellow jackets once. I knocked a couple of them to the ground with a swat, and I be darned if they didn't get back up and come right back on me, just humping away for all they're worth trying to get that stinger through my pants. That's when I decided the mean little guys really meant business and it was tie to leave ....... quickly. Normally I don't do "run" (haven't actually "ran" since junior high school), but I made an exception that day. By the way, thank heaven for engineer boots with the pant-legs over top.

I have a gift certificate for Bass-pro shops for $50 and wound up today snooping around for something at BPS to spend it on. I ran across a basic food dehydrator for approximately $50 and kind of thought that might be an interesting preservation method for fruit and vegies and such. Then I started wondering what you do with all thee little strips of dried up fruits and veggies. How do you cook with the stuff? Is it any good? is there any flavor left in these little dried up hunks of sh.. stuff. Anybody know anything about cooking using dried food? Do you have to re-hydrate it? What happens to the texture? What happens to the flavor? Any tricks or required tricks? Maybe a food dehydrator will be a waste of the gift certificate and I should be looking at bullets or something instead.

This is the answer! Eve some of the professional, well established, commercial orchardists have been warning that prices this year will be higher and yields will be impacted because of that flukey blossom forcing followed by hard frosts .... repeatedly this year. If you live in a valley bottom, be prepared to have this become a regular occurrence even when winter/spring is normal. That's not to say that you cannot grow fruit in valleys, but be ready for mire than your share of harvests being ruined frosts at bloom time. As Growalot said frosts settle into valleys.

I only target the very old bucks. You know, the toothless ones with the sway back, and bowed legs, where you can count every rib. A bit of blindness and deafness helps too. No buck is harvested before its time. If I can chew the meat, it was probably too young. Yeah .... right .... You believe all that, I've got this bridge that I will sell you. Actually, any deer that comes along, without any spots, is the one that I will try to take.....lol.

Hi-Tor is such a huge and diversified area that there is nothing definite that can be said about the massive swamp at the south end of Canandaigua Lake all the way up the steep hills, to the flat mixtures of abandoned ancient farmlands and large and small blocks of hardwoods and brushlots. And yes in years past, I have seen state parking lots that were over-run with cars and trucks. But I have also seen cars pulled over along the edge of some of the roads tat looked like they has a whole lot of elbow room. I often thought it would be a good idea to take two cars (one parked at the bottom on 245 and the other parked somewhere up on top), and still hunt super-slowly down the hill. I suspect that you might encounter very few other hunters, and anything you get would be a downhill drag. Of course there is the West River Swamp which I think holds tons of great deer, but are more of a challenge to hunt than most people are willing to undertake. I have seen the massive trails going into the swamp, but it isn't too far before you get to boot-sucking mud and pockets of deep water.

It's been about 13 years since I retired, and a big part of the decision to bail was that same kind of feeling. I was being choked with less and less self-directed time. As the cutbacks and downsizing increased, so did the unpaid mandatory overtime to make up for the missing bodies. And then they tried to make me carry a company phone so that essentially I was on limitless call around the clock. And as a reward for all this abuse, there became the repeated statement that I was topped out in my profession unless I went back to college for even more education, which was not going to happen at that stage of my life. so the compensation stagnated. That did it, I was out the door. But I remember thinking, where is all this going to end? What is in store for future generations? Well maybe this and other similar threads are now providing the answer. Yes I see that you have an even more time-consuming burden than I ever had with your Mother-in-law, but you did mention work demands as well. It seems to me that there has to be some way of living besides becoming a corporate slave. Somewhere through the years, we replaced working to live with living to work. Damn, you only get one crack at this thing called life. It seems that we owe it to ourselves to do it right. I was fortunate because all this stuff was beginning as I came into retirement age. So I knew exactly what to do. But I still wonder where it will all end with each successive generation.

As far as I'm concerned, it is all about challenge. Otherwise, I simply head for the supermarket to get some nice prime black angus. It just depends on how great a challenge one I looking for in their hunting. Those that handicap themselves the most get the most respect from me when they are successful. That was the lure of bow season for me and why I got involved. it all involved the choice of weapon that demands the challenge of understanding nature and the understanding of animal patterns and habits and strengths. All these things come into play, as you head back farther into primitive weapons. The more primitive the weapon, the more hunting and shooting skill that is required and hence the more challenge, and the more satisfaction and sense of accomplishment when it comes up to be a successful result. I had to get within 20 yards with the old recurve that I started out with. That guy with the spear had to get even closer. It would have been better if he could have done it without the bait, but of course perhaps it just flat would have been impossible. Other than using a rock or a knife, the spear takes challenge about as far as you can go. And success there is something that a hunter can take huge pride in. Each step back in primitive weaponry makes the activity closer to one human vs. one animal, one on one. It's not a team event joined into with a group of engineers and factory workers. It was his sole accomplishment, and I don't blame him for doing a little celebrating.

A spear ........... Your equipment can't get anymore primitive than that. Talk about challenge, and hunter-handicapping .... that IS the ultimate. A truly great accomplishment. However, when considering whether it is a smart thing to try, I have to say that it takes more guts than brains. I know I would never do such a thing, and that decision has nothing to do with political correctness or some concern over the brutality of the act. It simply seems to be the wrong thing to do with something that can eat you.

Dumb Question: Anybody know why they call that bird a Green Heron when there isn't a spec of green on it? I have one that hangs around my small pond in the woods behind the barn. For a long time I called these birds a Bittern, but eventually decided that it was indeed a green heron.

Ruger American in .270 caliber. Seems to do the job nicely.

I would like to express my sincere condolences to you and your family.

Yes, back in the days before I evolved and came down out of the trees, Baker was the only game in town. I added all kinds of chains and other attachment features but never felt safe in it. So I began building welded up treestands with 36" x 36" platforms that were chain-on with jack screws. When installed they were a piece of the tree, not going anywhere. Then I still got to the point where I would have had to shoot my bow one-handed because I became afflicted with fear-of-heights .... I couldn't let go of the tree. Finally had to give up the monkey impression, and get down on the ground where I belong..... lol. It's been a much more pleasurable, relaxed and calm hunt from that day forward.

One thing no one has offered up is any documentation or public statements from the DEC or any other credible source that shows that bowhunters are anymore prone to passing does than gun hunters are. As far as I know, they have not ever justified their decision to make bowhunters shoulder the population control experiments. My suspicion is that the DEC wants bowhunters replaced by or supplemented by the more efficient firearms hunters in that segment of the season in order to increase the general deer take.