Doc

One of the good things about Eastern Standard Time instead of Daylight Savings Time is that with the EST, I am home and hunkered down in time to catch the local news/weather so I can get wind directions and precipitation forecasts to plan my next day's hunt. With daylight savings time, I can still on stand or coming off the hill while the weather is on TV. Of course today with the internet full of far better weather pages than local TV will ever have, that feature is no longer relative.

If you have ever attended a DEC seminar or conversed with any of the DEC personnel, or read any of their publications, you will never hear them admit that anything is beyond their control. According to them and their apologists, the statistics that they use are as good as the word of God, and their abilities to react and respond to any natural forces within a year or two are legendary and flawless. And yes, wildlife population control is their responsibility. That is one of the major things that they are being paid for and the reason we pay truck-loads of tax money to that agency. There sure isn't anyone else that we pay to do the job. Now bear in mind that I don't buy into their claims, but if they are going to put all that crap out there for public consumption, then they have to live with the "put up or shut up" expectations from their employers .... us.

This where I always spend opening day of gun season. Gun rests all around! After that I always have my Primos bipod slung over my back. I certainly have lost all my steadiness with off-hand shooting. I could practice 24/7 and still never bring myself back to that rock steady ability of my youth. So, I have found work-a-rounds that make it possible to make some rather impressive shots with confidence. You do what you have to do.

Skipped the hunt today. First it was raining quite heavily and that changed to sunny and wild and crazy winds with the trees bending over. I have never had any luck seeing deer moving when the wind is like this.

Yeah, I believe it sat down on a park bench and began worrying about some possible internal injuries. Likely after pondering it's situation, it reasoned that it should immediately seek proper medical attention. And the hospital was right there ..... so, why not. What a surprise it must have had when instead of emergency hospital personnel rushing around and performing emergency medical measures, it found itself being pursued and forcibly ejected from the hospital. Sounds like a clear cut case of bias to me.

As an individual or unorganized group, I would be very surprised if you could get permission. But as a sizeable organization of mountain bikers, apparently the rules change. All I know is that somewhere I saw it written that such modifications on state land are illegal and leave you open for a nice fat ticket. And yet, here we have an obvious exception granted to an organization of mountain bikers. Draw your own conclusions. So now the "Joggers/hikers and spookers" occupy a special elite group that are able to have rules bent and broke for their benefit. I still get a kick out of that word, "spookers". It sounds like something that would occur as a Halloween activity .... lol.

I will say that when it comes to deer population management, the buck really does stop with the DEC. They are the ones with Cornell supposedly overlooking and helping with the marvelous statistical methods which they are constantly telling us are flawless and endorsed by great statistical institutions. They are the ones with their fingers on the antlerless permits allocations. They are the ones that have all this staff of highly trained biologists. They are the ones that in the end are charged with being sure that the proper outcomes are arrived at. The only thing that hunters are responsible for is the final pull of the trigger finger which is heavily controlled and regulated by the DEC. Unexpected natural causes such as weather can upset plans, but then it is up to the DEC to take remedial actions in the following year/s. If landowner access is a problem, then perhaps there is an area that they need to really work on. At any rate, that is not a problem that hunters can fix or it would have been by now. You have areas where deer are scarce, the DEC has the power to control that all the way to totally shutting down the season if need be. You have areas of too high a population, the DEC has the ability to control that all the way to totally opening up deer seasons to year around, or unlimited and unregulated and free of charge antlerless harvests. So unless we reach the point of not having any hunters at all, the DEC has total control of all the tools necessary to adjust deer numbers to whatever level their CTFs determine is to their liking (or financial benefit). If they can't meet their goals, that is an internal problem within their own walls that should get straightened up. So you all can beat on bowhunters and gun hunters all you want, but the final responsibility for wildlife management always comes back to those who are being paid for it.

It sounds like the anti-deer forces are thinking of going on the offensive. By the way, that group is the same selection of interests that they use for the CTFs that set the deer density targets for the DEC, except that this bunch don't seem interested in any hunters attending that I could see .... lol.

I have no idea what may have changed or not, but I can tell you that this is an 847 acre wildlife management area that has been turned into a maze of mountain bike trails. Much of it is on the face of a very steep hill where it was necessary to literally hack the trails into the dirt (pick & shovel work), and clear (with chainsaws) each trail up the hill. The chainsawed logs are still there along side the trail. trees are painted with various colors to denote the different trail systems. It is not some covert activity that some one snuck in there and did. On top, the same kind of painted up, muddy, cleared trails blanket the whole area in a maze of trails that are so dense that most of them pass within site of one another, and there is no place that is out of earshot of bikers and hikers going by. So you are definitely wrong. The rules/laws are not the same for everyone. As a hunter, do not get caught cutting even the scraggliest of saplings or branches. But apparently as long as you are not a hunter, you can get special dispensation from the state to mangle, dig, hack, paint, cut, and disrupt any state land that you want to use in the name of organized recreation. Does that represent a change? ..... I have no idea. This area has been screwed up this way for quite a few years now (6, 7, years or more), and I'll bet it's not the only one that is being butchered in this way. And anyone who thinks that this kind of circus atmosphere can be installed on formerly undisturbed forested land without changing the hunting there is also mistaken. I have seen the change.

I'm not really sure .... I haven't done an inventory count in a while. But I can say that I have 11 bows hanging on the wall and they mostly all had different spined arrows. So over the jillion years that I have been in the sport with the hunting and tournament activities, I have accumulated a few. I also have a bunch that have been robin hooded, and broken and bent and used on deer and destroyed in all kinds of ways.

So what do you think these people's attitudes are toward hunting? ... lol

But as long as they are using the walk trails, they are very easy to pattern. It does get a bit more challenging when they are jogging or running on the "walk" trails.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/pELwCqz2JfE?rel=0&autoplay=true Ok, I had this mailed to me and while I cannot verify the facts and figures spouted in this video, I would like to know where some of you might think this guys statistics and logic and conclusions may be going astray. It all sounds like he has come up with a unique way of looking at all of the anti-gun figures that we have been bombarded with over the past several decades. I'm just curious as to what comments and thoughts you all may have floating around in your heads as you view this video.

I will grant permission to enter my land for retrieval purposes, but I do want to see the actual blood evidence for myself, so I generally will join in on the search. It is not completely unheard of that some guys will claim to be on the trail of wounded deer just to gain access into the property.

Well, what are you going to do? the woods are getting filled with all kinds of activity these day, and all these people have a perfectly legal right to be there. There definitely are days when the only thing that makes sense is to just write off the day and go home. Wait until a group 20 or 30 hikers walk through laughing and shouting back an forth. Or an equally huge gang of mountain bikers go by making as much noise as humanly possible. And then you may get to pat somebody's turkey dog on the head when he runs up to you .... lol. And then there are the squirrel hunters that decide to plop down at the base of a tree 50 yards from your stand and blast off a shot or two every 15 minutes. Yup, these people love their thing as much as we bowhunters love ours, and have a perfect right to enjoy their activities. What are you going to do. I can only satisfy myself knowing that most of my hunting life was spent in a time of less crowded land. Things certainly have changed. And those of us who count on a relatively undisturbed deer herd going through their daily patterns, are very frequently screwed up by all the other users of the land. That's just the way things are today. You can adapt or get out. That's the only two options.

Well, we all cheered when the government used the tax levying as a weapon against smokers and the legal tobacco industry. Why are we now surprised that the same tactics would be used to attack another industry that the government has decided was evil. See, the ends justifies the means as long as it's not our ox that is getting gored. The government can indeed direct public behavior control through taxation. And now that it has been proven, don't expect it to stop with just cigarettes. Oh, and I wouldn't expect the taxation to stop at guns. They have ammo and components to work on too. It will all be justified under the code words, "Sin Tax". And the beauty is that it technically is not contrary to the 2nd Amendment. All these things will still be able to be bought .... if you have enough money.

I have had it happen. I was shooting a bow that I had taken on a moose hunt that was set just below 80 pounds. I had shot it for about a year through all kinds of NFAA tournaments, and heavy long practice sessions, and never really ever struggled at all. However there came a day on the hill when the temperatures were down in the lower 20's, and there was even a slight breeze. I stood for hours with my hands jammed in my pockets, and my shoulders all crunched up and shivering. Every shooting muscle was stressed, tight and constricted against the cold breeze. A doe came right along the trail just as it was supposed to, and I grabbed my bow and began to draw just like I had done all year long, and I could not get it back. I struggled three times and finally broke the damn thing over and of course by that time, I had nothing left to settle down the sight pin so I just let it back down and watched the deer move on down the trail. If anyone had ever told me that that could happen, I never would have believed it. But there are conditions that will make it happen. That night, I dropped 10 pounds off the bow, and have never had it up to 80 pounds again.

Well, all I can do is to relate 50 years of hunting the same state land parcel which spanned before and after the advent of the carnival atmosphere of bikers and hikers and invasion of clusters of laughing, shouting people engaged in all kinds of recreational activity in a rather constant fashion, and I can tell you through that personal experience that the critters do not carry on with normal daylight patterns that they used to before the invasion. Yes, they have adapted, and those adaptations do not favor hunting. Yes there are certain activities that the deer have been trained to relate to food such as logging activities. And yes, with people showing up in unusual places at unusual times, there may be an occasional deer that gets pushed out of its bed and happens to run by a hunter. But that reduces your hunting to hoping for coincidence rather than using patterns, strategy and skill. So if jackULL is disgusted with the "Spookers" (I really do like that term ... lol) in his hunting area, I certainly am not going to suggest that it is all in his imagination or that he doesn't really know what he is talking about. I know exactly what he is talking about.

Now think back to all the previous years. Don't you remember that October is traditionally one of the windiest months? I can't remember an October when I wasn't all ticked off at the near constant howling winds. About the only time it stops is when it is a drippy, drizzly, damp, ugly, gray, day. Yes, some of the prettiest and pleasant days happen in October, but more often than not the weather just plain sucks!

I have seen the difference before and after the maze of mountain bike trails were hacked into the state land that I hunt. There has been a definite change in deer behavior and these formerly productive areas are now quite ruined for hunting. Yes, you may see deer hold tight while the "spookers" (I love that word....lol) go by. And yes they will continue to hold tight in their beds until after it gets dark. That's the other thing they have become accustomed to. They know that after dark these invaders are no longer there and the movement can commence. If you are a hunter, that's not exactly a useful pattern for them to develop unless you are a jack-lighter...lol. What can you do about it? .... Nothing. The state land is for the use of all citizens, and they are now deciding to push their right to use it and in the process pushing us out. And the state is encouraging it by allowing mountain bikers to hack trails into the hills and splatter paint all over the trees, and saw and remove trees that get in their way ..... All things that hunters would get severely fined for. One good thing is that as soon as gun season rolls around and the shots start going off, the terrified hikers and bikers and bird watchers run out of the woods in terror.

Ha-ha-ha ..... I guess as long as you are not the one paying the lawyer bills and the settlement, that advice is pretty easy to give. It is amazing how the attitude changes when you find out you are being sued.

GOL 9-103 does not totally exclude the liability of landowners toward recreationists. Assuming no fee is charged, the statute states that the landowner owes no duty to keep the premises safe for entry or use by recreationists pursuing the listed activities, or to give warning of any hazardous condition, use of property, structure, or activity on the property to persons entering for recreation. It also states that farm owners or lessees have no duty to keep their farms safe for use by recreationists or to give warning of hazardous conditions or uses of the property. However, landowners are not protected if they intentionally harm a recreationist, or if they "willfully" or "maliciously" fail to guard against, or warn recreationists of, a danger on the property. http://www2.dnr.cornell.edu/ext/info/pubs/LegalFinancial/liability_boundary_posting.htm

Does NYS have a law against the waste of game animals? I know some states do, but I have never seen such a law here in NYS. If we don't have it, perhaps we need to have one.

Likely, the first challenge to such a law would result in the law immediately being struck down by the first court in which it were tested. There is a requirement in the system that makes criminal punishments fit the level of the crime. It is likely that there would be unanimous court agreement that treating trespass as a felony does not meet that standard.

Right. I was talking about an average law enforcement situation where there are no special and rare circumstances (and can be cleared up by showing proper paperwork). If any hunter was to be caught with a bullet hole in their archery deer, the enforcement of the law would be a piece of cake. Either you show paperwork that proves a legal right or get ready for a hefty ticket. That is a law enforcement tool that I would not want to see go away.