Doc

Eventually, hunters can start passing on 3.5 and 4.5, and 5.5 year olds. WTH, let's take it all the way and convert deer hunting into deer watching ..... lol.

What's the matter poopsie, your medication running a bit short. Feeling an overwhelming, uncontrollable need for random flaming? Do you feel better now? Are you starting to feel a bit more calmed now? I have no idea what your problem is other than a defective personality, but if these mindless unprovoked attacks soothe your internal rage in some way, I am glad to be of assistance.....lol. Hope you have a better day.

To me that paint job was worth every cent you paid for it. That is what really makes that old classic grab your eye. What a great job you have done on that, and you are to be congratulated for all the skills that you developed.

Spring is my busiest time of the year. We have yard and grounds maintenance, garden and landscape additions and maintenance. We also are surrounded by the woods, so leaf removal is a major activity and picking up the unending supply of limbs and twigs is a constant job. And if I happen to have a spare minute or two, I do like to head down to the river and have a go at the bullheads. Also, as already mentioned by FastEddie, the bug situation with an activity that requires silence and immobility, makes it very difficult for me to enjoy it. In the fall, I am completely immersed in bowhunting. Nothing interferes with that.

Most of the balloons that I keep hauling out of the woods are those Mylar party balloons. So it is great that they are focusing on the mass releases of balloons, but I think the release of all balloons should banned along with the sale of them. It is the dumbest activity I ever heard of. That crap is non-biodegradable, and I have no idea how long they last in the environment, but they don't seem to ever break down.

What kind of tree is that? It looks like it could be an apple tree. They are keeping it trimmed pretty good ..... lol.

What is the best way to remove an imbedded tick? I figured I better ask before I actually get one. The way everyone is talking it sounds like just a matter of time.

But all that stuff cost a lot of money, and is still serviceable. Well, maybe with a little fixing it would be serviceable. And maybe I'll use it again someday. I have gone through all the excuses for accumulation and storage. I have 5 string trimmers. 3 functioning riding lawn mowers. How many of those things can 1 person use. 3 chain saws. multiple rakes and hoes and axes and every lawn and garden tool that was ever invented. I seem to have bought 3 or 4 of everything. Can't find it ..... go buy another one. I have compound bows that are so old no one would want them. I too intend to burden my kids with the disposal of all my "things". At that time they will be old enough to need the exercise and activity.....lol.

I like all these kinds of programs and try to catch them all. Yes, I understand that there I a strong likelihood that there is some contrived drama provided for interest. For example, more than once the trail that they drive their snowmobiles way out in the deserted wilds of Alaska sometimes looks like a snowmobile race had just taken place. And then there is always the broken down snowmobile and the long 10 mile walk back to the cabin in the dangerous cold...... Why not catch a ride with the cameraman .... lol. But the fact remains that these people all have a desire to be self reliant to one extent or another. And I admire people who want to live like that and then actually go out and do it.

I remember once when I apparently had a single goldenrod stalk on a windy day that kept triggering the camera. I had a jillion pictures of nothing but that goldenrod. And that was just within a couple of days. I wonder how many pics I would have had if I hadn't checked the camera for 2 months......lol. Maybe that's where your 7000 pictures came from.

I agree with this statement, but how the heck that relates to a term like "self selecting group" still eludes me, but if that statement is somehow what you really meant to say when you started using the "self-selecting group" jargon, that's fine with me. I just needed some clarification as to what the hell you were talking about.

I'm sure there are all kinds of people that will make regulations as complex as possible and be real happy with that thinking they have set up the "perfect" set of rules. I personally tend to think the other way around. The K.I.S.S. principle is a good thing to aim for when constructing laws for environmental conservation law (or any other kind of law for that matter). It is interesting that co-ops and landowner biases can involve such unfriendly disagreements and harsh results, but I don't see any of that negativity being of value to the perpetuation and health of hunting. I suppose it is just two different ways of looking at how hunting should be for the participants. Some like to see it regulated right to death with no care as to how practical it is to abide by whatever law is set up. I prefer to keep it all simple and easy to accommodate without setting land-mines when it comes to practical legal application.

Would anyone care to actually define what is meant by "self selecting group". I am completely confused about what could possibly be meant by that term. It doesn't even make any sense to me.

Yes, there is a lot of combat that goes on here on occasion. Some of it has to do with the passion invested in matters that have to do with hunting and fishing and other outdoor pursuits. I have been a member of a lot of different forums, and find this one no better or worse than the others. I personally refuse to let others ruin a great tool of communication for me, and you shouldn't either. I have no idea what incident or incidents that make you feel that you have to leave, but just remember that for every bad apple that you run across, there are so many more members who are decent and interested in your views and conversation. It seldom makes any sense to be throwing out the baby with the bath water and quitting a great assembly of good fellow hunters and fishermen just because one of the bad ones occasionally shows up. Another thing that has to be recognized is that the internet can be a tough medium for accuracy of expression. Sometimes without the means of expressing tone and intent, things get mixed up and misrepresented, and sound offensive when there is no such intent. At any rate, we all have to make membership decisions on our own, and if it is no longer fun to be here, then we all have to do what we all have to do. I think you will be missed by a whole lot more people than the one or two people that you are having trouble with, and you will leave behind many great potential friends in your absence.

I can see some of the more exotic methods of AR being used on co-ops or as arbitrary rules on private hunting lands. No one is risking fines or public embarrassment when mistakes are made. That's not quite the same as putting such stuff in the state law books. Another thing that I don't like about spread-type AR is the requirement that you must get a look at the deer in a face on situation in order to even see the distance between antlers. My set-ups, or what I generally try to have for a set-up is a stand that is perpendicular to deer trails or the path that I am guessing the deer will take. That gets me the high-percentage broadside shot that I prefer (especially for bow hunting). I have no interest in drawing the deer's attention to myself by using noises or whatever to get him to turn his head toward me so I can determine if it is legal. Another problem is the assumptions borne of frustration at not seeing the deer's spread that some hunters will make that a tall rack is always a wide rack. The internal conversation goes kind of like this: "With tines that big, he has to be a legal spread". Well unfortunately there is no such correlation, and once again there is another opportunity for an unintended violation. And finally, no law should be written hoping that ECOs will "use discretion".

I still have a problem imagining hunters running through the woods with their tape measures trying to catch up with a buck to measure its antlers.....lol. Seriously, the more complex you make the legal harvest system, the more dead and rotting deer there will be left in the woods when hunters find out that antlers suffer that "ground-shrink" because they are not as good at "estimating" antler numbers on the hoof as they thought they were. We already have problems with hunters seeing 3" antlers where there are none.

That is true. Things would be much easier to keep track of with a lot better transparency.

I did, although it is not the first time that I had thought about mistaken perceptions in the woods. That is one of the reasons why I do not support extending shooting hours beyond the current limits. I have seen cloudy, foggy, drizzly days in a dark woods with a dense over-story that had me guessing at a few things that I thought I was seeing. This photo and some others that I have seen over the years of trail-cams point out how things can look like several different things to several different people. It has been a great Rorschach type test that shows that there are occasions and conditions where what we think we see is absolutely wrong.

See, there is specifically the point I was making. The NRA is (and has been for years) the primary reason that we still have gun rights today that are more liberal than some of the European and even Canadian versions of gun control. No other organization has worked so tirelessly and so effectively for gun owner's rights. But because we can nit-pick and pull out one issue or another that we don't agree with we are in a hurry to throw out the baby with the bathwater. We know from this forum that sportsmen and women find very little that they can universally agree on. And there are no advocacy groups that can exist that do not have to occasionally take some controversial positions. That kind of comes along with the territory of being an outspoken, effective organization. But what really irritates me is when people will seize one or two items and use them as a reason for not supporting good organizations that work for our rights and keep the antis from over-running our rights. The old saying of "cutting off your nose to spite your face" comes to mind. Unfortunately sportsmen seem to always be looking for reasons or excuses not to join. And yes, if you take any organization and demand that they align exactly in lockstep with all of your views, you will have all the excuses you need to never join or to ignore and even to badmouth them and do the anti's work for them. It never seems to occur to people to try to change policies from within an organization. How much easier it is to stand outside and take potshots. The antis love it!

Porcupines are somewhat of a rarity around here. In all my years, I have only seen two and they had been killed along the road. However, I have heard all kinds of stories about the environmental damage, and the damage to boat paddle handles, and camp outhouses. I have heard that they regularly girdle trees. I also heard that they taste rather good too. So it seems that there are a couple of good reasons to shoot the little suckers. I have also heard that they make good wilderness survival food for those that are forced to spend some unwanted time in the woods because of emergency situations. Now that is a whole lot of things that I have heard, but nothing that I know for fact first hand.

I keep hearing about how reviled Trump is and how he is hated by everyone, and totally unelectable. And yet the last of the opposition has already dropped out due to the overwhelming popularity of this guy. His wins have not been razor thin. For a guy who everyone supposedly hates, he sure is doing rather well isn't he? However, over on the socialist side of the race, we have little Bernie giving Queen Hillary all she can handle in their little battle of the socialists ..... and has not yet been successful at dispatching him yet. This fabricated picture of harmony and unity that is painted by the champions of cradle-to-grave politics is a marvelous exercise in fantasy and wishful thinking. Apparently there is some sort of comfort that these socialists obtain from the production of self-delusion. But I can only go by results. Trump is not necessarily the kind of candidate that I would have chosen to run, I have to admit that I am getting increasingly impressed as each day goes on. Besides, look at what the disgusting alternatives are.

I often thought that NYS should have a dedicated department that puts all of its resources toward fish and wildlife management. But then, I wonder if that kind of division wouldn't still result in parceling out inadequate resources. There is nothing that guarantees additional wildlife resources just because a new Fish and Game department is constructed. The fact is that the DEC has dedicated those kinds of sub-divisions already. Unfortunately the man at the top is a political appointee whose loyalties are not toward the department, but rather to the governor that appointed them. And there will always be a "man at the top" whose interests may or may not be dedicated to fish and wildlife activities instead of the political interests of his benefactor.

And yet, we have advocacy groups that work for the rights of activities that we all claim to be passionately involved in but refuse to join because of nit-picking of certain policies or positions. Rather than joining and working to change those policies, most simply sit on the sidelines and actually lend assistance to our enemies simply because of these petty disagreements and our choice to turn our backs on organizations that have chosen an issue or two that we don't agree with. The only ones who really benefit from those kinds of attitudes are those that would eliminate the activities that we claim to be involved with. No, I am not talking about just a few people here and there, but the vast majority of outdoor enthusiasts. The fact is that only a tiny few actually put their money and effort into joining advocacy organizations that have shown historically to be of benefit to the rights and opportunities of whatever activity they are advocating for. The rest do indeed find excuses not to join and simply sit along the sidelines throwing stones at those people who do care enough to organize.

I absolutely agree with the mandatory reporting of each tag issued (successful or not), but I think one thing that the DEC is a bit goosey about making the next years tags dependent on complying with the reporting law is that they do not want to be denying antlerless permits because they apparently are already suffering for lack of doe harvest participation. The fine should be a financial one that is designed to sting a little bit. The thing that would make them obey this law is the knowledge that the computer would catch you and there is no way to escape that. A simple sort on tags issued, vs. tags reported would instantly pop out a list of violators. In fact if you wanted to get fancy, you could have the computer issue warning notices after the close of the season, followed up by an actual fine notice if there was not immediate compliance within a two week window.

Joining advocacy organizations is always a good idea if your the type that does not demand 100% agreement with every policy position that they take. If that is what you insist on, save your money and sit on the sidelines, because they do not make an organization that is all things to all people.