Doc

Aren't they remarkable animals? I have seen a couple of deer that have had legs shot off and still able to keep up with other deer that are running away. I shot one that was missing a front leg and it had skin grown over the wound and was one of the fattest deer I have ever shot. Just amazing. I am wondering if these kinds of long slices are from buck fights.

I didn't see that as a reason-for-hunting in the other topic on why we hunt. Is that what it is all about?......recognition? Do we need recognition for our hunting achievements? Maybe so. If that's the case nothing we can do in hunting will ever satisfy new hunters because the general public really doesn't give a damn how big the deer are that we get. Quite the opposite. You are more likely to get spit on for killing Bambi.....lol.

I'm afraid that deer hunting has taken a turn toward measuring success by the numbers. This has been sold so hard that I doubt that we will ever get back to a simpler measure of satisfaction. It is too bad, because I suspect that our losses due to elitism may be higher than we imagine.

I do have to say that some of the trail camera photos hear show that the cameras are not really a secret. The pictures of deer noses kind of show that. Also, I have seen some pictures that show the deer running away. In fact, those are the picture that prompted me to ask the question. I know that too much human pressure will change deer patterns. The question is, are these cameras just another form of "pressure"? In addition to the cameras, there are also the visits to monitor the cameras by the hunter. Especially when the cameras are inside of bedding areas. Too many visits to bedding areas, and pretty soon they no longer are bedding areas. I don't know the answer, but it seems to be a reasonable question.

One thing we need is for DEC personnel to interface more with schools and have a more visible public presence. Also, we need the DEC to understand that we have a problem and they are part of it. What I am talking about id the closing of the DEC national hunting and fishing day in region 8. That was the most popular interface with potential hunters that we ever had going and then they shut it off. I don't know what their problem was, but it certainly is something that should have been solved rather than just shutting it down. I place a lot of emphasis on the DEC becoming part of the solution because they are the ones that will someday be faced with the problem of no way of controlling future game populations as the hunters continue to phase out of the sport. Also, every fish and game club, archery club, and such need to take a more active part in recruitment and in the politics of hunting, fishing and trapping. I know that most of them do have some kind of recruitment activities, but they have to step up the efforts even more. They all have to push membership drives that focus on youth participation. Annual youth hunts (plural) must become part of their itinerary. These are the organizations that can have some impact on hunter recruitment. There needs to be more emphasis put on opening up private lands to hunting. That sounds good, and I have to admit that I haven't a clue how to attack that one. Perhaps habitat improvement on state lands. I often thought that it might be useful to renting out open fields to local farmers either for free or for a very small rent, so some of the land can be returned to agricultural uses (one of the best animal attractants going). Encourage selective logging on state lands to open up maturing state forests for better forage and undergrowth. Maybe offering tax breaks to those farmers who allow open public hunting might also provide some additional hunting areas. I don't know whether some of these ideas might be impossible to implement, but these ideas or some version of them could help acquaint the public with what hunting is and how it benefits wild critters and the environment in general. Hunting population importance has to become a prime focus of the DEC and outdoor activities clubs and organizations and the dangers of losing hunting as a resource has to be made clear to the public. Just a few thoughts on the subject.

How about it. Have any of you seen any evidence that the game cameras spook the very deer you're trying to hunt? Do they change the patterns of the more cautious deer?

Well, we have discussed why we think hunting is losing popularity. So I guess the next logical question has to be, "How do we reverse hunting's demise?"

No problem. That was an interesting direction for the thread to go.

What a fantastic mount.

I also agree with Grouse regarding the effects of the anti-hunting organizations. While we were laughing at their idiotic antics and ravings and never took them seriously. Their outlandish claims and tugging at people's heart-strings and their well-funded organizations were converting more and more people. Some of the converts were even hunters. I hate to admit it, but they are winning. We are getting beaten by a bunch of crazy wackos. It's probably way past time to admit that, but it is looking like fact. That along with so many cultural impacts is threatening the entire activity of hunting nation-wide.

I'll tell you another influence that kept my mind in these kinds of outdoor activities was other kids in school. It's hard to believe but back then there were a lot of kids that ran traplines and hunted and fished and all of that stuff. Is that how it is today? When I went to school, opening day of deer season was an unquestioned excused absence. Imagine that! Also another hard-to-believe fact is that I took my hunter safety course in the bus garage at school. Yes, we even had real guns there and did some shooting. Imagine that today.....A school resourced hunter safety class....lol......With guns! Yes, times were a whole lot different back then. they were a lot more hunter-friendly and made it a lot easier for a kid to become self-motivated to get into hunting.

By the way, who is the insurer so we don't do business with them?

Hang in there and good luck with your case, and the new bill. It sounds like you are doing all that you can.

I'm not much of a fan of civil wars. The outcomes are never guaranteed and the style of govt that results is always in question. We lucked out on our one and only civil war in terms of how the system of government basically was preserved. And that was because the feds won. Who knows what kind of government we would have wound up with if the south had won? Regarding the 10% of population being enough to win a civil war, I have to point out that warfare is a whole different animal since the revolutionary war. We are not dealing with muskets anymore. Can 10% of the population stand up against missiles and such? I don't think our deer rifles would get us through the first day of an uprising.....lol. Seriously though, there may come a time when there is no other choice, but let's not be in too much of a hurry to rush to that end. Sometimes such ambitions can wind up throwing out the baby with the bath-water.

Happy Birthday.

So much of this thing that we all do has to do with heritage and things that pop up in our own history. We all have hunting in our blood if we look back far enough...........All of us.

Is our society still capable of drawing lines and paying the ultimate price for their convictions? Hell, do we even have convictions anymore? Does anyone see people leaving their jobs and their livelihoods and their comfortable suburban homes to march off to war?

This sounds like one of the few bona fide reasons to contact a good lawyer. I assume that you have done that.

Those that want to test themselves a bit might consider building your own long bow, and arrows and knapped broadheads and then getting a deer with that kind of equipment. It is something I always wanted to do, but never got around to it. It is an interesting thought to do it the Indian way.

I agree with airedale, these kinds of argumentative threads should be taken off into private messaging, just to maintain a little peace in the forum. Let's not get sucked into another one of those thread-fights. The two of you can battle it out privately.

This is only one example of the cruelty of disease in the wild. I have seen rabid animals and those with distemper and others that I simply didn't have a clue as to what their problem was. It is not a very kind ending that all the critters face. I've witnessed the massive deer yards over in Honeoye where you could see deer that were just waiting to die from starvation, and the deer that were too weak to clear fences that were just hanging there until they died. It's pretty brutal stuff to see.

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.