Doc

I am a great one for procrastinating on such things, but for once I got scared enough to disregard hunting schedules and such and do what I'm supposed to do. The timing was unfortunate, but a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. Next year's another bow season. But then I run into one of those great days like yesterday, and I really miss it. I guess I'll be starting to scout for gun season pretty soon and get a jump on tuning that season up to the max.

This is something that works out to the mutual benefit of both parties. They may share your interest in firming up that boundary and may very well split the surveying cost. It's been done before. It also emphasizes the fact that you are not trying to pull a "gotcha" on them. Better neighbor relations.

It sure beats trying to shoot a bow all dressed up with bulky clothing looking like the Michelin Man.....lol.

There's a problem with relying on personal conversations with ECOs or telephone conversations. Neither provide you with a permanent written record as to what you were told. It is amazing how memories of conversations can change or fail when you need to explain where you got the idea that something was legal. It is also amazing how two people of authority can have contradictory answers on the same law. Heck, even judges and such can have varying opinions and interpretations of the same law. So, I am not sure how binding it would be or how much good it may actually do, but I would think if you had a printed response that showed that you did due diligence in trying to find an answer and tried to abide by official interpretations, it would have to go a long ways in helping your case. If you have a recollection of a conversation that cannot be backed up, there's no doubt you would be officially screwed at court.

The rut will happen regardless of weather.

Thanks for all the good thoughts. I was just thinking back, this is the first bowseason that I have missed a significant part of in 51 years, so I guess I have no real complaints....lol.

You know, 70 yards may sound awful close, but things like tree foliage and positioning of stands, and the screen of limbs, branches and trunks can make things even that close nearly invisible. Do you know for sure that he even knows that your stand is there? I remember a time when one of my friends from work had the same situation. Opening morning of gun season, there were two orange lumps sitting in trees that were unbelievably close. neither one knew the other was there until their location was highlighted with blaze orange. Then it all started with who was there first. That got to become a full blown neighbor feud. My advice: find another good spot and move your stand.

Ha-ha-ha, we kind of pick and chose which laws we want to criticize people for breaking or intending to break. I'm still trying to figure out who made us part of the judicial system. And I do love the creative quoting. That was cute.

I guess for me, I am out of the game for a while. I am looking a lot like a mummy with gauze, tape and a jillion stitches and orders not to be pulling back my bow. Timing for this surgery really sucks. There was some stuff that the doctor didn't want to see developing on my skin so they all decided to skin me like a muskrat ... well that's a pretty big exaggeration....lol. Hopefully by gun season I'll be able to shoot and drag deer. Well, that's the way it goes sometimes. I'm pretty lucky because after all these years, these are the first stiches I have ever had. So now, it's up to all you guys to control the deer herd this year without my help until gun season rolls around. So get out there and keep the DEC happy. I'll still be here bugging everyone ..... lol. Probably even worse now. So brace yourselves for an evil-tempered frustrated old geezer.

I think you want a surveyor to lay things out for you. That gives it all some credible authority. Walk along with him marking trees as you go. It sounds like you are only doing a partial, and hopefully the cost will reflect that. Once the line is established and marked, get some good quality aluminum signs each mounted on it's own board (pressure treated 1/4" plywood works well), and you will establish a permanent and clear marker on the land to eliminate any controversies. It will last a whole bunch of years with just a minimum of maintenance. I have a general rule that no matter where you are standing along the boundary, you can see at least 3 consecutive signs. That is way more restrictive than you legally have to do, but again, it is cheaper to overdo the job than to be worrying about and arguing with trespassers because you took the cheap way out. I know that anyone who trespasses on my property willfully did so.

If the wind is howling where you are the way it is here, you could walk through the woods breaking every branch in the woods, and dragging both feet through the leaves and never have deer hear you coming. so move around where ever you want. I usually use these kinds of days for scouting and getting updated on what's going on in different parts of the woods. perhaps while on the move you can catch a whitetail being blown by. A big fish net can be useful on these kinds of days with super-winds.

Aw geeze! Don't get me started. We're are all a bunch of law-breaking crooks just waiting for the right circumstances to get caught. But remember: "Ignorance of the law is no excuse".

There are people who would come up with some line of justification for mosquitos ..... lol. I believe those attitudes would change immediately if they ever found themselves out in the middle of the woods, suffering from a bite from a rattler, watching their arm or leg swell up to the size of a tree-trunk. The attitude changes a bit then.

I agree. If things get much more complicated, a whole new cottage industry of hunting lawyers will be springing up. Already there are so many new laws on the books that literally no one understands or knows them all. And that includes ECOs, judges, J.P.s, and most of all the ones who are supposed to be abiding by them .... the hunters. And then to make it all the more impossible to be a 24/7 law abiding citizen, there is the interpretation of the laws that no one seems to agree on. Some of the crimes you may commit may not even be interpreted until you have already broken them and you get your day in court. And these days, the answer to everything is to pass a new law. We all want EAB, AR, and all the other alphabet soup that makes up everyone's wish list to support their armchair deer management schemes. Just what we need ..... more laws!

Now wait a minute. We just got done tar and feathering a new hunter with 5 or so pages of telling him what a scumbag he is for not abiding by the legal hunting hours that I assume had slipped by him. You know the old rule: "ignorance of the law is no excuse". So, everyone should have a copy of those volumes of Environmental Conservation Laws purchased and committed to memory as well as constantly checking and memorizing all new laws that are passed every year...... right? A bit of sarcasm here, but I think you all know what I am getting at.

Well, this thread should put to bed any more of that goofy argument that legal hunting hours should be changed to 1/2 hour before sunrise to 1/2 hour after sunset. It appears that the opinion is close to unanimous that when this guy shot exactly 1/2 hour after sunset, it was obviously the reason for the gut-shot deer. I'm glad that one is finally settled.

So, you care so little for the deer that you head out into the woods with such poor shooting skills that you are wounding "Many" deer (your words). Perhaps you should have your own 4 or 5 page volume of comments about how disrespectful it is to use a weapon that you apparently have very little proficiency at or any interest in improving your shooting skills. Look, that holier-than-thou attitude works only if you really are holier-than-thou. Otherwise, it simply shows up as just plain old hypocrisy.

Well, I guess the proof is in the pudding. The fact that none of our resident libs have stepped up to the plate to attempt to refute the facts and figures of this video clip kind of shows that in the face of facts their emotional arguments simply cannot stand. They are staying away from this one like the plague ....... lol.

Actually, we have had no reports of rattlesnakes in the area in many decades, and yet the rodents are kept under control by many different predators and predatory birds, and even the harmless black snakes and other harmless varieties have taken up the slack. It does not require venomous snakes to keep the rodent population under control. As I said, we do not have an identified population of rattlers, and I can still make my way through the rodents quite easily. And speaking of rodents and other such critters, I am sure they all have some use in this world, but we still treat them like vermin to be exterminated, and the world is not harmed one bit. The planet survives the removal of those species without harm or notice. It's kind of like how beneficial spiders are for controlling some bugs, but we still would squash any brown recluses that we find ..... lol. I don't hear anybody saying how we should be protecting black widows because they control bug populations.

One of the many things that grind my gears are those people that I have given hunting permission to, who begin dragging along, cousins, nephews, buddies from work, and all kinds of other people without ever asking permission from me about it. My Dad had that happen years ago. After inviting a couple of friends from work to hunt our property. Next thing we knew, the driveway started looking like a parking lot. And then after a few years, the original invitees no longer were showing up, but this army of unknown people filled the property. That ended opening up our farm to those that would take advantage of it. I had a nearly identical scenario, and up went the signs, each visitor was told not to come back, and no one ever got an invite to hunt there other than relatives with the express instructions that they were not to invite anyone to come with them. I wonder how much access is denied because of that very same situation..

And speaking of irony ....... This is one I came across one day when I was exploring an old abandoned cemetery in South Bristol. Kind of creepy.

I wonder how many times the same comment has to be repeated over and over before the point has been made that shooting-hour restrictions should be obeyed. We're into 4 pages of telling this guy what a scumbag he is for shooting after hours. Is that enough, or should we do an additional 4 pages. What does it take to make him leave and never post here again .... I assume that is the goal of all this piling on. Hey, maybe if we make him feel bad enough he will quit hunting altogether. Maybe then we can all feel great about our little contribution to law and order.

It is weird to watch the little feeding frenzies that occur periodically on here. There must be some little surge of personal worth or superiority that people get when they get a chance to lay on the grief to those that have had a lapse of judgment or a stroke of bad luck. I wish I could say that it is all comical, but I see it more as a detriment to the forum.

Fortunately, the rattlesnakes in my area have always been a target of extermination over the centuries, and so I will not likely ever be bitten by them here. I see that as a fortunate thing. In fact, I don't even want a "risk" of being bitten, or even that concern, and frankly I am not disappointed that that risk has been eliminated. And amazingly enough, the world has carried on quite nicely without them. I hope it stays that way. As far as the coyotes are concerned I have no serious issues with them ...... yet.

It's true, allowing neighbors to hunt your land can also serve as a watchdog service keeping the hoards of trespassers off your property when you are not there. It probably is a good idea to keep on the friendly side with the locals when it is property that you are a non-resident landowner. However, I have to admit that this guy's first act of hunting doesn't exactly make him out to be of the best of character or someone that you should be making any kinds of deals with .... lol. Perhaps you had a moment of intuition that led you in the right direction.