Doc

I wonder if it has occurred to any of these geniuses that by restricting harvests to "doe only" that likely the overall hunting pressure in those select high population areas likely will go down as hunters opt to hunt other areas where they don't have to watch the buck of a lifetime walk by. Exactly the opposite of what they are trying to do. (Cross-posted from the other thread)

I would suggest that you more thoroughly examine the details of the DEC web page on CTFs so that you ask the right questions and understand if someone is trying to tell you something other than what they have indicated on their own page. Because I have to say that what they have described there on that page looks to me like they are trying to hand off deer management decisions that should be made in their own shop.

I'm not saying that the DEC is exercising an agenda of their own, but simply creating proposals, regulations, and rules based not on their biological data, but instead on the recommendations of laymen who are selected from a group of people predominantly with an anti-deer agenda. So while we are imagining that the DEC is applying all these biological principles, studies and research in establishing seasons, regulations and deer density, it appears that those decisions are really being controlled by all kinds of people with all kinds of non-biological agendas that may not necessarily be of benefit to the deer herd. So while we are envisioning a trained, educated, and expert staff of DEC personnel applying their expertise to manage the size of the herd, it appears that they have abrogated those responsibilities to a small group of people that consist mostly of those with vested interests in keeping herd sizes as low as the public will tolerate. At least that is the way it appears if you read the webpage that I linked. The problem with letting those people dictate deer density goals, is that you begin to get ridiculous proposals like have been mentioned just so that the CTF goals can be met. If you are saying that the DEC is incapable of managing the herd, I don't believe the answer is to turn management over to a handful of untrained people that would just as soon that there be no such thing as a deer. Do you think that is a great idea? .... I don't

I am still confused as to why if the DEC is so panicked to knock down deer numbers in certain WMUs, why did they implement the fee for applying for antlerless permits. In fact, why are these permits not given out free and easily available as a printed out internet page. How seriously can one take all this panic attack that the DEC is going through over high populations when the best they can come up is to penalize bow hunters (only). You have to wonder why their actions do not involve gun hunters at all, even though that is where they would get their biggest bang for the buck. And then there is the thought that if you really want to cut deer populations down in certain select areas, why would you place doe only restrictions on those areas and likely convince hunters to vacate the problem areas and hunt other areas? Does that make sense? Not to me.

I wonder if it has occurred to any of these geniuses that by restricting harvests to "doe only" that likely the overall hunting pressure in those select high population areas likely will go down as hunters opt to hunt other areas where they don't have to watch the buck of a lifetime walk by. Exactly the opposite of what they are trying to do.

OK, now go back and actually read the DEC page on CTFs that I linked and you will see that this is the way that deer harvest goals (targets) are established. The proposals are all aimed at supporting those CTF-established goals. And that, as I pointed out, is the connection between CTFs and the actions that the DEC is now taking (Proposals). As far as who is chosen for the CTFs, let me lift a quote directly from that page that I linked to: "Stakeholders are people affected by deer who have a particular concern or interest in the overall population of deer in a WMU. Farmers, hunters, foresters, conservationists, motorists, the tourism industry, landowners, small business, etc, are all considered as potentially distinct stakeholder groups." Take out the hunters, and all of the rest of them are what I would call anti-deer interests, or at least have some potential negative interface with their local herds. The low targets established by these CTFs are what is driving these knee-jerk proposals.

Don't like snakes, for the most part. I do have one exception, and that is the black snake. They seem to have an almost friendly kind of personality, and they are great mouse and rat eaters. Also, I have heard stories that if you have black snakes, you won't have any rattlesnakes. I don't know whether that is simply a myth, or truth, but just on the outside chance that there might be some truth to it, every black snake I ever encounter are pretty safe from me.

Actually, it is a stakeholder's driven regulation ( http://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/7207.html ). Looking through the listing of potential stakeholder members of the Citizen Task Force that Cornell/DEC have come up with, if you divide these stakeholder candidates into pro-deer and anti-deer interests, you will see it heavily weighted toward those that would just as soon that deer didn't even exist. Yes, they try to put a face on it all that makes believe that it is being driven by biological factors in order to hold down the public outrage. But in reality it is biological decisions being made by business interests. At least that is how it all appears to me.

I too raised two boys, and even though my hunting days are probably numbered, I still have a vested interest in not only preserving hunting for those two sons, but also in maintaining a quality of hunt that will maybe keep them enjoying hunting as I have for all these years. Yes, I want the enjoyment of the hunt to last into many generations beyond me, and while that thinking into a future beyond myself may be being replaced by the "me first" thinking, and the thought that all you have to do is to have hunting last through your own lifetime. I try to take a longer view of things. That may be to you a doom and gloom attitude, but to me it is pulling one's head out of the sand and actually facing problems before they become problems, if possible and not trying to see how many hunters we can regulate out of the sport. I understand that not everyone wants to hear that sort of thing, and that it is a lot easier to simply look out for yourself and the hell with the generations of the future. I can't adopt that kind of an attitude and it is specifically because my sons and their offspring have to live in the hunting world that I hand them. Doom and gloom, or just a realistic view and concern for those that come after me. Well, you have your view and I have mine, but I am thinking that perhaps it is time to listen to your dad. You might just find out that he really does know what he is talking about, and perhaps he also is taking a longer, more experienced view than you are.

Wow!.... Abortion ..... really? How do you morph a fracking topic into abortion?.....lol.

If the problem is strictly lack of access, then there is no rule or regulation that can be placed on the backs of bowmen that solves that problem. You cannot shoot does only in places that you can't even access. That shows even further how poorly thought out this proposal really is.

Actually, this is the DEC's version of an "Earn-a-Buck". You just have to spend two weeks of doe-only to earn your buck .....lol. Oh, but this applies to the nasty "buck slaying" bow hunters only. Actually, if the DEC is so concerned about bowhunters wasting that part of the season, why stop with just expanding crossbow usage. If you really want to knock the population down, let's be more straight-up about it and stuff muzzle loaders in there too. Wait a minute .... why stop there? just extend gun season forward and give the gunners that part of the season too. That'll knock the herd down even better. Does that all sound a bit facetious? Well it is on my part. As far as the DEC is concerned .... they probably would think that was a real good idea.

All right. That's great news. End of problem....right? Go ahead, you can put your head back in the sand now (or whatever place you've been keeping it stuck in).

And once again we are attacking a management problem through a campaign of harassing the very people we are expecting to do the population cuts with new additional rules and regulations. We just love heaping more and more limitations and then sit around wondering why the size of that army of population controllers dwindles every year. Never mind educational efforts or trying to get hunters on the right page of what the DEC is trying to do. No, instead let's just throw more limitations on hunting and then whine about hunters disappearing. We do love our regs, don't we? EAB, ARs, and all kinds of initial programs each designed to take more and more opportunities away, using the blunt force of the regulation stick. I think a little more persuasion, education, and trying to get hunters on the side of cooperation rather than trying to force hunters into buy-in by just throwing new restrictions and limits and harassments at them every year. I'm afraid that all these fancy fad regs is simply going to regulate hunters right out of existence, and the very thing we are trying to do will be driving out exactly the resources that we need to do it.

I don't think I have ever heard anyone say they enjoy the soothing roar of motorized vehicles echoing off the hills of an otherwise serene wooded valley .... lol. Heck, I don't enjoy the sound of chainsaws and skidders and somebody riding a motorcycle down the road. The drone of a tractor off in the distance or a plane flying overhead can be pretty annoying when you are straining to hear if there is a follow-up noise to that twig that you thought you heard snap. But, people do have the right to use all these things. Weed-eaters, leaf blowers and lawn mowers and other similar noisemakers are simply things that we have to accept. And the sound of ATV's have to get added to that list. Usually, when I hear an ATV somewhere off in the woods, I have no idea whether they are engaged in some arbitrary list of acceptable uses that I have developed. And in reality, it doesn't matter. If they believe that they have a want or need to drive that ATV on their property, it probably is no more my business than if they decide that it is time to mow the lawn or run their roto-tiller or whatever kind of noise-maker that they happen to be wanting to use. There has only been one place that I was ever at that was completely free of man-made sounds, and you wouldn't believe the crazy effort of canoeing miles and making long ugly portages required to get in there ..... lol. And then some big-mouthed loon was making an ugly ruckus that messed up all that peace and quiet .... ha-ha-ha. Let's face it, audio stimuli is just a part of life. You can complain about it, but you can't escape it. Not in this day and age.

That last bit of distance to the stand is the most important as far as being quiet is concerned. If you walk in on the deer in the dark making all kinds of noise (ATV motor), they may not go charging out of the area, but it is pretty certain that they won't be wandering around in the area that just got disturbed. So, I agree, it is a real bad idea to drive to your stand. I think when the time comes that I am so beaten down that I have to ride to my stand, perhaps I should re-evaluate whether it is even safe to be out in the woods by myself in the first place.

How seriously can you take this nonsense when the DEC decided to discourage hunters from getting permits by charging for the applications. That is the old case of them talking out of both sides of their mouths.

Ha-ha-ha ...... When it comes to bowhunters, the DEC giveth and the DEC taketh away.

I honestly believe that opening bow season to guns will happen. That issue of an early muzzle-loader season hasn't really gone away yet. I think the DEC regrets putting so much of the deer season in the hands of a bunch of buck hunters. I overheard a DEC person talking to a group of other DEC people call bowhunters a bunch of buck-hunters during a break at one of the public state-of-the-herd meetings. I am sure that the attitude at the DEC is that bow season is a waste of good deer harvesting time that could be used much more efficiently with firearms.

Now it looks like there will be a massive recall on airbags. Why? because on deployment they explode showering the passenger compartments with shards of metal. Imagine that. If the crash doesn't kill you your airbag will ..... lol. Used to be that cars would nickel and dime you to death with piddly little problems. Now they just design them so they kill you outright.

Every year that goes by, I lose a bit more durability. Having already had a stroke, I do wonder about what kind of stress I should be putting my body through. And then there is the fact that we now call the hill a killer because we lost our neighbor, who was younger than me by quite a bit, to a heart attack 1/2 way up the hill. The fact is that I actually walk more ground because of the ATV. Rather than using all my energy just getting up the hill, I generally park just under the top ridge to keep the sound over the edge, and walk up about 50 yards to the crest and walk wherever I want to from there. It means that I can hunt quite a bit deeper in than I would be able to if I didn't have the ATV. Now, all that sounds like I am trying to justify my using the ATV as a hunting assist. I am not. I used the quad since the early 80's for transport and for dragging deer out because it made sense to extend my distance, and to use the assist for deer dragging. There is no virtue to hunting harder, and no vice to hunting smarter.

As long as wildlife management is looked at as discretionary spending by the state government, and state budgets are balanced by withholding funding from the DEC, nothing can be done about the poaching situation. But I wonder if an agency who seems to worry only about eliminating deer from the landscape are really putting forth a maximum effort in fighting poaching. Apparently we have two competing philosophies at work in the DEC. One half concentrates on how to whack on the deer population while they are also want to give the appearance that they need to safeguard the herd with strict poaching enforcement. I wonder which philosophy is winning out?

I can't believe that they can't remove enough does through the permitting system. Heck, if they are serious about wiping down the deer population, just eliminate the permits completely in select areas and place a daily bag limit like they do down south. I know there are enough game hogs around to knock the hell out of the deer population under those rules. Want to thin them out? ..... legalize jack-lighting. Hunt them with dogs. Open a snare season. Come-on get as ridiculous as you need. Enough of those kinds of rules, and they'll get the herd down to the level where you'll hardly ever see one, which is apparently what they are really after. I mean if you want to eliminate the herd, there are a lot more effective ways of doing it than taking away hunting opportunities from bow hunters (and soon to be x-bow hunters).

Anybody ever wonder if maybe we are asking our cars to do just a little too much for us these days? Yeah, I realize how great it is to have the wonderful long life, high mileage and super conveniences on the modern cars. I do remember when getting a car to go 100,000 miles was almost unheard of. But really, some of these things that go wrong these days are absolutely aimed at killing the driver and occupants. No prior warnings, the car just decides on its own that it is going to take off at top speed? Damn! what if there had been a line of cars in front of her? What if she was just coming into a hairpin curve? What if their was a busy intersection coming up that had a stop light or a stop sign? The ugly scenarios go on and on. It seems that maybe some of the design standards need a bit of tightening. I know that I don't ever want to encounter something like that. I might not be quite as lucky.

Are these all things that you did before turning tail and crawling out of the state in defeat? Did you withhold your payroll and property taxes as a protest before you ran away? Maybe all that stuff sounds so much better as advice for others than as actual deeds for yourself. It's much easier to run away than to follow your own advice, isn't it?