Doc

So many great points! Although the demise of small family farms was mentioned, I think the difficulties that this poses for hunting has to be emphasized. Down here in valley country I have noted that back in the 50's and 60's, before I was old enough to hunt, I used to hike along the ridges of the valley and would go more than 5 miles through the woods without ever seeing a posted sign. These lands were owned by farmers who didn't have the time to be running through the woods tacking up posted signs. Besides, they didn't really care who was hunting up there as long as they stayed away from the buildings and their critters. Then farmers got old. Their kids went off to more lucrative work, and the little 100 and 200 acre farms came on the market as the farmers retired and got busted up into 5 acre lots as the city people began to invade the rural countryside. every little parcel became ringed with posted signs and all the land that used to be great hunting areas became inaccessible. I have watched so many great stand areas that I have lost to development of little farmettes and just plain residences. I have seen houses constructed on top of some of my old favorite stand-sites. Today people have to beg to hunt the few stretches of woods that exist. In many cases, crowded state land is all that is available. Some of the last hunting land can be hunted if you have the money to lease the land at ever growing prices. All this stuff works against hunting and now hunting land scarcity is a factor also.

Now that's getting too damned brazen. He's probably looking for somebody's pet to eat. I've got a 1000' driveway, and the other day I saw one of these guys walking casually up the driveway toward the house, without a care in the world........In broad daylight. He never got as close to the house as this one, but I thought that was kind of ballsy for a wild animal. It brings to the forefront that without hunting and adequate trapping, these critters are at the top of the food chain and are starting to lose their fear of humans. They are not harmless little doggies, and need to have that fear restored.

I will say that the constant and incessant bragging and putting down those that hunt differently than you do, gets pretty damned disgusting in a real short time. But you know that and still keep on doing it anyway. I don't think that anyone is telling you that your attitudes toward hunting are wrong, so who here needs to hear you constantly blathering about how great you are and how all others are all doing it all wrong. I don't know how this can be news to you, but that is not for you to say. That all fits in with my earlier comments about how these kinds of comments are part of what is driving our numbers down. Nobody needs to hear that kind of crap all the time from anybody. It seems weird that anybody has to point that out to you. I think you have to be intelligent enough to understand how those kinds of comments can get pretty incendiary in a hurry. I have to wonder what kind of a personality has to keep trying so hard to impress people. You hunt the way you want, and nobody really cares. It's just common decency to spare us all the bragging comments and put-downs for those that have different hunting goals than you have.

It's just another reminder of the other ways that animal numbers are controlled by Mother Nature. This is just one of the alternatives to hunting. The populations of critters will be controlled, either by a bullet or a trap, or by the suffering of disease, starvation, and predation that over-population results in. It's just the way that nature works. The animals do not peacefully die in their sleep of old age. People have to be kept reminded of that.

Our culture is changing, and not necessarily in a good way. Hunting is just another part of our heritage that is being stripped away.

Well, there is no longer any doubt that hunter numbers are crashing, and I have a feeling that most of those left are much less motivated as they used to be. So, the question is, what are your theories as to why we are losing hunters hunter activity?

This just is not his year. Watch for him in the future. If he can get his campaign structure right in the future and he is not running against such a strong candidate as Trump, He will be a force in the future. Maybe in 2028. I liked the class with which he withdrew and threw his support to Trump.

It is like I always say.....It is not the Politicians that are responsible for our sad broken state. It is the goof-ball voters that vote them in and those that do not vote them out.

He became a deer hunter (Gun and bow) long after I was already established as a hunter. My Grandfather was a "city guy" who never did hunt. I guess I was the initial hunter in our family.

I have one big buck hanging on the wall that I had spotted and patterned and killed (Costs have limited me from mounting more). Hanging right next to it is a little antler mount of a 5" spike which was the first archery deer that I ever got. The fact is that it is that spike that brings back the most satisfying memories. That happened 47 years ago and still I can tell you everything about that hunt and the huge sense of satisfaction that I felt. For me that was the "greatest hunt" ever. Of all the deer that I have ever taken that was the one where I can remember every detail, and emotion. That was the most prized animal that I have ever gotten. The good news is that way back then there was nobody harping about scores and how I should have passed that one waiting for a bigger one. I have taken much bigger deer since then, and they all fade into faint memories when compared with that spike. Great hunts for me are more about the surrounding circumstances than any measured-up antler lengths and spreads. I can even tell you of hunts where does have had my hands shaking. I appreciate antlers, but they are not the end-all and be-all of hunting for me.

I can't really think of how I became started on this lifelong need to hunt. Yes my Dad took me squirrel hunting once when I was little, but I don't remember that as being a very pleasant experience. It was cold, and his version of squirrel hunting was to sit still and wait for the squirrels to become active again. Then several years later, I found an old draw-knife up in the shop and fashioned a pretty decent longbow out of hickory. And with some willow arrows, I went up in the hay loft of the barn and started hunting pigeons. I got two and had my mother cook them up. That hooked me on hunting. And then there was the trapline that I ran. While that is not actually hunting, it does kind of result in the same kind of thing. Then too, I enjoyed reading books about the old pioneers and their ways of subsisting, and that put a bit of adventure and even historical culture into the notion of hunting. All these things fashioned an appreciation of the outdoors, that has lasted through the years and among so many other outdoor activities came the need to hunt. So as it turns out, there really was no one who introduced me to hunting. My rural life and so many other outdoor activities promoted my interest in hunting. In fact it was me that introduced my Dad to archery and bowhunting.....ha-ha-ha. But that is a whole other topic.

I believe that there is something in our DNA that reminds us that our basic humanity is rooted in a predatory background. Yes, most humans tend to try to fight that basic built in factor of human existence, and some of us are a bit more honest about our need for the chase and the kill. We have always been meat eaters, and there is the need for the kill if you are going to eat meat. That is the result of a predatory existence. The need to hold a death-match with some other critters is written into our human genetics. We have a basic need to hunt that is much older than ourselves. There is a competitive aspect to hunting too as we set our efforts against prey animals. It is us versus the natural abilities that nature has given our prey. It's another thing that is written into our genetics. Yes, I know that it makes some people uncomfortable to face human nature in this way, but I believe that this is the basic thing that motivates us even when we don't care to think about it in these terms.

How did you get hooked on hunting. Was there some individual who talked you into trying hunting?

This is a question we hunters get asked quite often. So what is your answer? what makes a person spend jillions of dollars and all kinds of hours out in the freezing cold with rain dripping of the end of your nose, or wallowing around in snow with half-numbed toes? Are you really that hungry?.......lol. No there is something more basic and deep in your make-up that drives you. What is it?

I do not agree.

I understand.

Yes, a great hunt is measured differently by all of us. Hunting is an individual activity, and we all do it for our own reasons. I understand those that measure the greatness of their hunt by the numerical score of a deer's rack. I happen to come from a time when nobody knew what the heck you were talking about if you started talking about score. We measured the size of a buck simply by the number of points. First of all it was something if you simply got a buck......any buck. Then it was the number of points that counted. It could be a scraggly little, tiny rack, but if it had enough points, it was worth bragging about. Now we have people dragging out their tape measures and following carefully dictated procedures to prove to the world what kind of buck they got. Yeah, we are all different. A great hunt can be all kinds of different things to each of us. Heck, it can even be a squirrel or rabbit hunt that turns out to be a "great hunt". We simply have to appreciate the entire experience and the fact that we can even get out to hunt at all. But above all, we have to resist the thought that we all have to be out there for a single reason, a single goal, and MUST take only a specific gender size and aged animal. We do not. We simply must hunt and enjoy it for whatever internal reasons that we each have.

So, is that a hunting cabin, or your main residence, or both? To me it makes a difference. If it is a camp, I am a big fan of wood interiors. If it is a general residence in a residential setting, I don't have a huge bias. But, as has been stated, it is all up to your personal taste, and it sounds like you have made up your mind, and you know what you like.

What a nice place you have there. I understand the need to brighten things up a bit. But you are right. Once the paint goes on there's no going back.

I understand the goal for some to only shoot trophy animals......I really do. But I also understand the need for hunters to harvest deer occasionally if they intend to stay in the sport. I also understand that not everybody has the option of letting deer after deer go by and finishing season after season without a score of any sort because they don't happen to have the kind of land where big deer reside. Many hunters are reliant on public land for their hunting. Others hunt big wood-land where maybe the deer are pretty scarce. Today, there are a lot of hunters who are pressed for time in this damned busy world and don't have the time to devote to targeting specific deer. There are all kinds of hunting situations and conditions where hunters may not even have the option of collecting only trophies. Imagine the level of frustration that they may feel if they think that the only allowable deer that they are expected to take are trophy class animals and anything less is failure. Those are the guys who will be short-timers in the sport if they are made to feel bad about what they have chosen to harvest. I'm afraid that all this emphasis on trophy-ism may be one of the contributors to the declining hunter populations. I think it is possible that many are being driven out through frustration because the current messages from all sides of deer hunting demand that hunters take only trophy sized deer. That is not really good for the political realities of what it takes to retain our rights as hunters.

This picture is of my current shooting range. There's a shooting bench under the blue tarp. You can picture what it is like when the temperature gets cold and the snow is flying, and the wind is adding to the wind-chill. I need to either come up with an enclosure (preferably with some heat) that keeps the snow off me and my stuff or give up shooting for the whole winter. But I like to shoot year around. I think $550 plus a bit for modifications using the Tractor Supply blind is a reasonable price for extending my shooting through the winter months. I could shoot out of the kitchen window, but that might cause some problems with wife.....lol.

I kind of like the idea of "shoot what makes you happy as long as it keeps you hunting". We keep on telling people that if they don't shoot the biggest buck in the woods, they just aren't really hunters. That message is pushed on to us by the hunting media from every direction. And every year we see our numbers declining. I understand that declining hunter numbers have many different reasons, but I have to believe that this constant drumbeat of "If you don't place all kinds of limits on your goals, you aren't doing it right" is also losing us numbers of hunters. I do not tell people what to shoot. I will be the first to shake the hand of a guy who just got a spike if he is proud of it, and I will congratulate him on his accomplishment. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate a big buck like this one as much as anyone, but I refuse to tell other people what they should be shooting. It just isn't any of my business. Hunting is an individual activity, and I am not one to push my standards onto others. That is one quick way to turn a hunter into an ex-hunter.

You know, that plastic thing could work. I'll have to check that out. I don't think I could stick-build that for that price. A few modifications here and there, and I think it would work if the dimensions are right (and I'll bet they are). Thanks for the tip. looks pretty promising.

I checked out Google, and they had a jillion pictures, but they all are open air summer designs with open sides. Basically just a roof. And most are huge commercial range kinds of things. I am thinking more of something about 6' x 6' with a bench inside and just a front window to shoot out of. I would like to put some kind of space heater in there so ventilation is a consideration. Perhaps removable sides for summer shooting. I am starting to work on the design. I thought of buying some kind of storage shed and then modify as needed, but the prices on those are a bit more than I want to put into it. Plus, the idea of removable sides is kind of a must. I don't want to shoot when the sweat is dripping off my nose in the summer. Another major concern is the noise level inside an enclosed small shelter. Of course I would have ear protection, but I'm not sure what that would sound like with some of my deer rifles even with the ear protection on. I will probably design it with the tip of the barrel outside the shelter. That may help. So anyway, I am in the very beginning stages of planning this thing out. I have the rest of the winter to figure it all out. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

That poor hickory must have been bent over by another fallen tree or something. Maybe it was a bowhunter that was trying to clear a shooting lane.