Doc

When it comes to subdividing management zones, there is no money saved by making them larger than what will be effective. We have a WMU system in place that advertises itself as being designed to accommodate habitat and land use variations. That is in place, and staffed and costs whatever it costs. I get the feeling that they are trying to dazzle us with footwork, with no real positive change taking place. we can't manage things with all the WMUs, but somehow mysteriously we will do a better job by glopping all these divisions together into only 9 areas. It feels like someone is trying to slip something past us by pretending on one hand to be doing something wonderful and then implementing all that in a less effective zoning than what we currently have. Where is the logic? I do not argue the point that the DEC is structured completely wrong, but I truly hold out no hope at all that we will be seeing those kinds of changes. And maybe that is what should be talked about, but it is not what is being talked about. My comments are focused on the original theme of this thread. But since the subject of costs and effectiveness have been brought up, I have to note that if you think that it is expensive maintaining the WMUs that we currently have, brace yourself before you begin thinking about the expense of re-structuring the entire department. I have seen the restructuring cost of corporations. I would expect the restructuring of an entire state agency would be no less and likely much higher. If you want to worry about elevating taxes ..... now you are talking some real dollars. I'm simply concerned that we will be losing a more closely controlled existing zoning system (WMU system) for another band-aid that is by design worse and less finely married to habitat and local conditions than what we already have. How on earth does that make any sense at all? I'm not a big fan of smoke and mirrors, and that is why I have to ask how a huge expansion of management zones is either saving any money or doing the management job better by combining diverse habitats and varied land uses and population profiles. There's a dance going on that I really don't understand. By the way does it only bother me that the entire system is built on statistics, and every single year something basic and fundamental is being massively changed thereby destroying all the history that these statistics are built on (just a little side-thought)?

I truly believe that there is an attitude of anti bowhunting that is prevalent in the DEC. I'm sure that they feel that a very good productive hunting period and opportunity to whack deer populations is being squandered on this specialized and very ineffective (comparatively speaking) weapon. I fully expect to see more and more incursions of guns into bow season for as long as this paranoia about deer populations and the political pressure to soothe anti-deer interests continues. We all think that the archery lobby is a powerful force and that it takes great brass balls for the DEC to take on bowhunters. But the truth is that the organized bowhunters are effectively broken and don't really offer serious resistance anymore. There is some real crazy stuff going on in these plans that are clearly showing the attitude of the DEC toward bowhunting. Some of it is starting to get real obvious. There no longer are any safety concerns about mixing guns with bows in the DEC. They are feeling confident with previous experiences that have been forced into the season without incident. I don't think that safety is much of a concern with them anymore. Frankly what they are doing to bow seasons has got me thinking that maybe it is time to call it quits on an activity that has been a significantly major part of my life for many decades. Maybe it is time.

And less effectiveness and accuracy. Why bother with the activity at all if you're not concerned with it accomplishing exactly what you're trying to accomplish. The old adage still applies, "a job worth doing is worth doing right".

There is almost universal agreement that if anything, WMU size is too big to handle the diversity of deer numbers, and all the different habitat conditions, for proper management. So what does the DEC do? .... They establish a mere 7 management areas when it comes to buck management. Somebody want to explain to me the logic behind that? I don't get it.

Easton XX-75 aluminum.

So is there any game warden who will ever be able to tell the difference between a wound from one of these slugs and an arrow? heck even your average deer processor probably couldn't tell the difference. So for those interested in getting an early start on their gun season during bow season, these things will have some obvious benefits.....lol.

We all know that more gun laws will not impact the rate of gun violence. It hasn't happened yet and there is no reason to believe that it ever will. BUT Every one of these mass killings produces more and more people hardening their philosophy against gun owner freedoms. You are all aware that polls show the repeal efforts for the Safe Act do not really fare well with the general NYS population. I think there is becoming a panicky mentality that is struggling for a solution. I don't believe there is necessarily any logic involved in that frustration and panic but I do believe that we are going to see changes that we will be very uncomfortable with. I also believe it is only a matter of time before average hunting weapons and ammo are impacted, and I don't think there will be anything we can do about it as long as these senseless killings continue. It doesn't really matter what logic and numbers tells us. get enough regularly occurring mass murders, and public opinion will turn on us and run us over.

Oh damn ... there has to be a pill for that. Isn't there a pill for everything that ails us?

Truly a great thread! My thoughts? .... I doubt a deer would even know what that stink really is. It might move them along just because of the overwhelming nausea that they feel coming over them. But as far as identifying the source ...... I doubt it. Now the sound may be something different. Especially one of those long drawn out flutter-style farts that seem to go on forever. They get a bit of extra time to focus those ears to determine direction.

What a great Alfred Hitchcock style movie that would make. Instead of "The Birds", you could call it "the Beetles". Flesh eating beetles ..... it kind of gives me the creeps just thinking about it.

Damn! What a bad guy I am .... lol. I don't count deer. I don't consider myself any sort of game biologist. I don't make up any rules for how many deer I will shoot or what I believe others should or should not shoot. I couldn't score a deer rack if next years tags depended on it. I don't believe that I have the knowledge or ability to attempt to balance the gender ratio. I don't do any culling or any of those grand and wonderful deer management things that it sounds like most do. I just take whatever tags are handed to me by the DEC, and go deer hunting. No fences, no plots, no secret scents and manufactured scrapes. No special scent-lok suits. I guess some of us are just bad hunters .... ha-ha. But I always have good legal venison in the freezer and a whole pile of hunting stories to tell anyone that wants to listen at family gatherings and visits with hunting buddies.... ha-ha. I'll probably finish out my years exactly the same way, hunting the deer as I find them and not trying to manipulate the herd in any way. I just want to enjoy my hunting, not make a life career out of it. I guess we are all different in what we want to get out of our hunting. I'm pretty easy to please .... lol.

Oh, I must have missed it.

A word about getting legal info: Do not use the telephone. You have no legal record of what was told to you. Inquire using e-mail or written letters so that the replies form a written document that you can keep.

Anybody hear anymore details about the Avon Region 8 National Hunting & Fishing Day. Is it off the calendar completely, re-located, or going on at the region 8 headquarters as usual?

Yup.....That was my guess. I was surprised because I have seen stray cats going in and out, but never saw a litter of young ones. I have seen a coyote heading in there a year or two ago. It might have been something that he dragged in there.

I would say that any DEC employee that is calling himself a game biologist and is drawing a paycheck for that position, who does not understand at least the fundamentals of deer aging reflects poorly on those above him that hired him and even worse on those that are handling their annual appraisals. But I suppose that in any field you will find people that don't know or do their job with bosses that can't seem to recognize deficiencies. Good management should weed those out over time.

Found in the back of my barn. I think I know what it is, but I'm not sure.

It is nice to believe that all these surveys are done to preserve hunter numbers, but I believe the reality of it is that DEC surveys are popular ways of conducting game management only as it allows them to disperse blame when things go bad. Yes, it is a lot easier to let the public make the hard decisions for you and then have a scapegoat when things go bad. It is getting to be the politic way of doing business these days. Even our legislators have caught on to this. But what is getting increasingly difficult is to get people to actually apply the expertise that they are being paid for, and take full responsibility for the results. Yes, I believe that wild game management by popular opinion is basically shirking responsibility and depriving us of getting the services we are paying for. But in the end, they can always say, "Well, we gave you what you asked for".

Be sure to use those two days of hunter safety education classes as a networking opportunity. There will be a lot of people there that already have hunting grounds, or ideas of where they will be going and they are all local. Make use of that fact. Also, "where to hunt" would make a good classroom question because I am sure you won't be the only one there that has the same question.

As I sat in the living room looking out at the wind-whipped, drifting snow and trying to figure out the best time to go out and plow, I vowed that when summer finally got here, I would get out and do more fishing, camping, hiking, picnicking, and just a whole lot of summery things. Well, I got tangled up in barn repairs that have monopolized the whole summer. Now, as Larry noted, July is whipping by, and I haven't really had a chance to do all those "summery" things that I promised to do. And of course the weather has not exactly helped things either. This summer just isn't going the way I planned it. We've tried to have some meals over in the picnic area, but the bugs have been so bad this year that I figured that an hour over there would require a transfusion. But, as they say as long as I wake up on the right side of the grass, I am having a great day.....lol. The barn is almost done, so I will be working at salvaging the rest of this summer soon.

Aw .... cute little poo-bear came up to say "Hi". So there you are virtually trapped on a little platform in a tree. What the heck are you supposed to do? What if he had started gnawing on the guy's foot? "Yeah, looks like a human foot ....... Hmmm smells like a human foot .... sure tastes like a human foot! .... Let's pull that sucker out of this tree." What on earth possessed that bear to pick that particular tree to climb?

Back in the days when there were neighborhood hay lots and cow pastures, we had a lot of good woodchuck hunting. But I haven't seen a woodchuck locally for quite a few years. We have brush-lots and woods in the places where I last shot one of those critters.

Are we a complacent society? Maybe. But the world has changed over the course of history and has become a very complex place with a bombardment of complicated problems that defy solution. Simply managing our own lives is a full-time job. The newspapers, radio, TV, and internet flood us with a deluge of horrible and mind-exploding evil and unhappiness, and if we were to react to every scrap of this, we would eventually become completely mad. And so we perform a kind of triage and process only those things that we can influence and still keep our own affairs under control at the same time. Do not expect the world to get simpler and more manageable or to become kinder and gentler. It is not going to happen. And don't assign complacency to our efforts to simply conduct and concern ourselves with our own personal lives. That task alone has become a full time effort and gets more complex with each generation.

Quote; "Deer flies have sharp mouthparts that easily cut into skin and can cause pain. The flies than suck up the blood that flows from the wound." I have some bad news for these poor deer flies. No blood to suck up for them. They may get to bite, but I get the last word. I am quite deadly at swatting the little stinkers. I don't miss very often. So all I can say to them is enjoy the bite because it is going to be your last and no blood sucking for you!

I'm thinking that even the trees are suffering from excessive wet. Just like you can over-water plants, I'll bet trees can suffer from the same thing.