Doc

No, I didn't see one .... lol. But off in the future??? .... Who knows. According to the latest NYON issue, it appears that there is a group in our state called Protect the Adirondacks who were very disappointed that the DEC's draft wildlife action plan did not include a study of possible re-introduction of wolves and panthers. Now there is something that we need in the state ... wolves and cougars. Hopefully some of these groups like The Cougar Rewilding Foundation, never get any traction here in NYS, but with the current strange DEC notions on deer population management, who knows what kinds of weird things they might be starting to favor as deer herd population control.....lol.

You talk like there are options here ..... ha-ha. We don't even know if the DEC targets are achievable. They are not public. All I know is that bowhunters will never be able to manage deer populations on their own regardless of what the DEC threatens. And with built in failure as the only possible outcome, the DEC gets their early muzzleloader season that they tried so hard to insert a decade ago. Coincidence??? .... I think not. I know that such a devious plan gives them guys a whole lot more credit that they probably deserve, but it does make one wonder if there really is any way that we can stave off the arrival of firearms deer hunting in the bow season. I think not!

No it is not obvious as to what they feel. Their stated goal is to reduce the burdensome deer herd in that cluster of WMUs. That is all they have said, the rest is simply imaginings of what you wish they had said. Now if you wish to engage in dreamland imagining, how about we speculate that maybe they think it is a mistake to reserve so much season for a weapon that is not as efficient as guns? Maybe they would like bow season to go away so they could use guns to whack the herd as they see fit. Maybe they have discovered a way to do that and without any established goals stated, they can simply begin by moving muzzleloaders into the bow seasons. and perhaps take things from there. Maybe this is what they have planned and no matter what we do, it is just a calculated foregone conclusion as to how it will come out. See how easy it is to speculate? We can all do it. But until some actual proof or official public statements come out, the fact is that we have to take them at their word ..... which is that they have too many deer and this is their whacked-out way of handling it. Judge it for what it is, not what you imagine it to be.

Heck, if they are serious about whacking the hell out of the does, drop the DMP requirement completely. Open season on does for all seasons ..... period. How serious is this over population problem anyway? You want them wiped out, simply remove all impediments to doing so. And buy the way, eliminate the charge for tag applications in those WMUs also. We can knock down that herd real quick, and it doesn't require limiting anybody. There are so many ways to whack on the herd, that it is hard to believe that population management has to be put solely on the backs of the smallest group of hunters alone. Believe me, there is more to all of this nonsense than simply a need for population control.

I am taking them (DEC) at their word. They have said nothing about reforming bowhunters. In fact they have not even tried to explain why they feel that bowhunters should shoulder the management of doe populations by themselves. All they have officially and publicly talked about is a cluster of WMUs that are in extreme danger of environmental catastrophe because of the horrible numbers of deer. If they really mean this, then I am assuming that the season choice to apply these special programs would be those that have the highest possibility of success. To me that seems logical. Either they feel it is necessary to cut the herd or not. Never mind this imagined, unstated nonsense about getting bowhunters to harvest more of this or more of that. That is simply your speculation based on absolutely nothing they have said. It is only about reducing deer numbers (so they have said). Their public statements are all anyone has to go on, not some thoughts about what you wish they had said.

I reserve still hunting for gun season, but even so, I have found myself in shooting situations on my way to the stand more than just a few times. This often forces some strange requirements for shooting stances that you ought to be at least familiar with. Lowering my profile by kneeling is one of the techniques that I use when caught unprepared in one of those unplanned situations. So, that is one of my practice shots that I try to stir into my practice sessions. I also try to get behind something. That usually is a large tree or blowdown. That brings up another weird stance that needs to have some practice. The idea of standing behind a tree and leaning out for bow clearance. That really messes up all those hours of perfect shooting stance practice. So it doesn't hurt to mix in a few of those kinds of practice shots just to see what happens. And of course, when you are caught cold and a shooting opportunity comes that is not always ideal, you might find yourself having to crouch slightly to get under an obstruction. I try to throw some of those un-natural stances to know just what kinds of problems they involve.

Put yourself in the seat of a DEC decision-maker. You have decided that a dire situation is developing in certain WMUs. The herd is crazy out-of-control. It needs some emergency action to get it all back under control. You know the only way to do that is to take a significant number of does out of the herd. Now if you really believe all that, what season would you use to do that kind of drastic doe reduction? My thought is that if you were truthfully convinced that dire actions need to be used, I would be applying doe only days during some of the days of the most effective season that is likely to have the most significant effect. I have a regular gun season available for use that has more participants involved.Those more participants have demonstrated that they are much more efficient at getting the job done and likely are the only ones who really can. Seems pretty obvious where I would be putting the "doe only" days. Of course I would only do that if I happened to honestly believe the seriousness of the situation that I was portraying and that my only agenda was to bring down the herd size. Can anyone explain why would I be wrong with that decision?

Just let us know who the members are that are forcing you to poke that link to this thread and maybe we can convince them to stop doing that. I hate to see anybody forced to access a topic that they really don't want to see.

That poison ivy can be some pretty devious stuff. For years, I had no reaction to it. As a kid I used to walk barefoot through it and had great fun showing off that fact to anyone that was interested, that I was completely immune. Then about a decade ago, I was hacking on the stuff clearing it out of a tree, and I came up with a couple of little blistered that itched like crazy. Not nice, but no big deal. Last year I got nailed pretty darn good to the point where I went to the dermatologist. Now I pay attention when I see it .... lol. So immunity apparently is not necessarily for always.

In most cases (not all), the word "hate" might be a bit strong. But anyone who has not spotted the bias and language of animosity here and there, either hasn't been following the thread or simply doesn't want to see it, or is part of it.

I practice sitting and standing and kneeling. However, I seem to get better consistency and back tension when standing. So when in my ground blinds, if I believe I can get into a standing position without a whole lot of movement and commotion, I will try to stand. As has already been mentioned, it is impossible for me to shoot to my right when sitting, so that will force me to stand or kneel. But if I have a good shot at 20 yards, and I can get into the traditional standing shooting stance, I'm a real happy hunter. It is my most confident shooting stance.

Actually, anybody who has been following this thread and doesn't see the gun hunter vs. bowhunter animosity showing through, can't be really paying attention. It has nothing to do with complexes, but a simple honest reaction to some of the comments on this thread. Apparently I am not the only one picking up on that. The idea of everyone going out hunting and having a good time is an honorable thought, but bowhunters are not the only ones who should be thinking that way.

A lot of vines are destructive, but I have seen wild grape actually bend mature trees over and kill them. They can get huge.

One thing that this thread has really brought to light is just how much animosity there really is from gun hunters toward bow hunters. I always suspected that it was a much bigger problem than is generally acknowledged, but the comments on this thread plus a lot of other sources, is showing an increasing divide in the hunting community based on the use of a bow.

Yeah, wild mushrooms scare me to death. I don't know one from the other, and having read about an entire family that thought they knew edible mushrooms from poisonous ones (but didn't), I am not ready to let some picture in a book make the decision for me either. Too many look-alikes out there. I love mushrooms on my steaks, but I want those mushrooms to come from some bonafide supplier that will guarantee that he's not feeding me poison.....lol.

OK, if we are all done bashing hunters and engaging in all the self-flagellation, let me be the first to tell you that attitudes have not gotten worse. In fact not that many decades ago, you would never have heard any hunters even having these kinds of conversations. For some reason, we seem to think that the attitudes of hunters have suddenly shifted from the great selfless benefactors of wildlife who hunted only to make the world of nature a lovely balanced place of harmony, to some kind of menace of the planet bent on the wanton eradication of all of wildlife. Well, that's a nice rose-colored vision of the hunters of the past, but no, there has not been some strain of evil that has infected all of the modern hunters. Regardless of the perverse pleasures we seem to get out of running down the hunting mentality of today, we need to occasionally stop beating ourselves to recognize that the widespread concern for ethics and fair chase, and the concepts of individual herd enhancement and management are relatively recent mind-sets that the hunters of the past never really bothered to engage in. So, let's stop explaining to the antis or any non-hunter how we understand and appreciate their efforts to impugn hunting and its participants and now want to help that effort along. Lets take a little credit where credit is due and appreciate our contributions to conservation and even the fact that we are discussing what is good for ecology and wildlife management. The very fact that we are discussing an over-abundance of deer kind of shows that we are not the scourge of wildlife that we seem to now enjoy portraying ourselves as.

And of course there are always those that get absolutely giddy about somebody else being screwed. Oh and by the way, I am looking at those special cross-hatched areas and the way I see it bowhunters and muzzleloaders are the only ones affected. I don't see any changes to the gun season where some real impact to the problem could be seen. So I haven't a clue what you are talking about as far as it being "effective across all seasons in the southern zone".

There I just finished reading their statement. I can only say that the lying sacks of crap have outdone themselves in terms of destroying their credibility. I have just one very simple question that if properly answered would totally change my mind about this new rule. If they are not flat-out lying about the severity of the population situation and their super-concern about the excessive deer population, why did they chose to make their remedial actions apply only in the most inefficient season that they could find? Yeah, how seriously can you take their whining when they passed over actions during gun seasons and put the entire corrective management of deer populations on the backs of bowhunters, the least capable to have the needed impacts that they claim they need. It's a simple question that no one seems to want to answer.

Ha-ha-ha .... why don't we just see exactly how screwed up we can make things. The ideas keep getting screwier and screwier. However, I will say that such a thought could easily be something hatched by the DEC. That is kind of the way they are thinking these days. I know the gun hunters would be all for it. It seems that lately that season time slot is the envy of everybody in hunting these days and there is no shortage of people looking to push bowhunters out of it or glom onto it for themselves .... lol. And that thought always seems to come with the blessing of the DEC these days.

Never timed it, but I do know that no matter how much let-off your bow has, there still is a finite window of time before you begin to lose accuracy. Yes there is an optimum time to draw, and we don't always get it right. It can be an amazing amount of time between when the deer is first seen, and when it reaches the perfect location for a good shot within your distance capabilities. I have seen deer stop for no apparent reason and just stare for several minutes. I have been at full draw during a few of those staring sessions waiting for that critter to move into position. I have also been forced to let down because I could feel that time window closing. No matter what your decision is as to when to draw, there will come a time when that decision is wrong. That's one of the things that adds the challenge to bow hunting.

I dispute your claim that most were saying anything about how they could care less about antlers. The fact is that most were saying that antlers is not the only reason that they hunt deer and that there is a lot more to deer hunting than simply high scoring antlers. I don't think that anyone said that they had a problem with shooting a buck. Even the pure meat hunters cannot be in favor of having a large percentage of the potential deer take being made unavailable to them whether they be buck or doe.

That is exactly the kind of hunter the DEC believes we all are. They continue the war on bowhunters and we have all been conditioned to obediently fall into lockstep and wait for the other shoe to drop. Yes they have reason to assume that everyone will simply take it. That is our history and they know it. But, maybe not all of us.

Ha-ha-ha .... just another page lifted out of the Cuomo Book of Dirty Tricks. Page 846: " Don't give them a chance to respond". That goes along with the other page in that same chapter of the Cuomo Book of Dirty Tricks that says, "Never mind all the fuss and furor, they all have a short attention span and will forget about it very quickly". They've learned well from their political leader. And why not, he appoints their Commissioner.

Yeah, I think it has always been obvious what was meant regarding the difference between appreciation of a good rack vs. using it as the only measure of success and satisfaction. And of course the current uproar is obviously about the point that deer hunting is a 2-gender hunt, and odds of a kill have just been depleted arbitrarily by the DEC in their little campaign against bowhunters. Don't be confusing that with an idea that all bowhunters are suddenly, or ever were, trophy hunters.

You know as well as I do that the deer population cannot be managed by bowhunters. It also may occur to you that the situation will not change because this war on bowhunters can never achieve what they are claiming it will. And so this fiasco will become an engrained regulation that bowhunters in these areas will be saddled with for the foreseeable future. Add to that all the little brain-farts that keep popping up in the minds of DEC management, and the bowhunters in the affected areas had better get used to chronic and ever-increasing DEC harassment.