Doc

Now that we are digital, I have been looking at all those piles of carousels full of slides that I took over the decades. So the other day, I began a project to sort through all the slides and decide which ones that I wanted to pay the big bucks to have converted to digital. So I had to go through each carousel to determine whether or not they were worth the $.80 each to convert or not. We have been digital for a long time, so I have not viewed those slides for a long time. I was amazed at some of the priceless family pictures that I had. Many of the people are gone now, and of course those pictures of the kids are fascinating to look at. Little bity kids with snowsuits and such are now huge grown men and mature ladies now. Irreplaceable memories. Pictures of huge brush-piles and monstrous bon-fires from back when we hand cleared 1000' of driveway by hand (no chainsaw), and there are these little kids and this baby-faced guy and my wife all pitching in and helping. Camping vacations, and family gatherings all preserved in film are now at my fingertips on the computer. I'll be making up some individual folders of special pics to email to friends and relatives who have special interests in some of the subjects of these pics. Yeah the money I spent updating those pics to digital was well worth it. Those memories from years and years ago are easily available now and also refreshed in my mind.

Great video! I have had those little guys for several years, and the Eye doctor went thorough a similar explanation. Nothing to worry about, if you can deal with the minor distraction. Eventually they seem to go away, but most likely it is just the brain accepting and ignoring them for a while. but they'll be back next time you look at a bright surface or up in the sky. Ah the human body is a maze of crazy occurrences.

Anybody notice how many of those changes are in direct opposition to where NYSDEC claims to be heading?

Ain't that the truth. The most prized antler mount that I own is that devil-deer spike that was my first bow killed deer. Looks a bit silly along-side the other mounts and has brought a lot of jokes and snide remarks until I explain the significance of that deer. So many years ago, and yet I can remember every minute and detail of that kill. Stands way out above every kill since.

Sure, we all have our own ways of providing that challenge, but I suspect that for most hunters, they have some level of expected challenge that drives them to pit their skills and wit against the critters. And like you, everybody probably has that ever-changing set of challenges, usually getting more and more restrictive as time goes on.

I had a guy guarantee our pond. He spent days doing test holes. He made good on his guarantee to filled it back in for free if it failed. I was still out the original cost of digging. He was theorizing that a vein of gravel ran too close to the wall of the pond and simply drained it faster than it could fill. This is an area that has standing water most of the year, but that doesn't say anything about what is going on just a few feet under the surface....lol.

If there is anyone here that has not visited Letchworth or Watkins Glen, get those trips in the calendar for this upcoming summer. If you have only seen them once or twice, plan another trip. These truly are spectacular natural formations that will absolutely blow your mind.

I think that for me, the whole idea of challenge is the reason that I hunt. Otherwise I would simply go to the supermarket and get some nice choice cuts of beef. And there has to be some element of challenge that makes me enjoy bowhunting more than gun hunting. It is a limiting of hunting implement that causes the challenge level to go up. I know that it was the idea of taking on a more challenging way of hunting that got me into bowhunting.

I really don't know many people that actually save money with hunting. In fact, it can be a very expensive activity. I once bought a 4-wheel pick-up specifically for a moose hunt in Canada .... lol. Yeah, that was a bit on the extreme side. I am not one to ever say, "never". But when you do an actual tally of gas, ammo, gadgets and trinket additions to your hunting equipment, special warm clothing, weapons purchases, and even time has value, the costs of scouting trips, etc., the balance sheet seldom comes up with any money earned through hunting. That topic by itself could make for a very interesting thread....lol. I would guess that for most of us the lure lies in challenge and feelings of accomplishment. And also as you mentioned, there is an element of culture, heritage and tradition that get into it. Also, the self-reliance aspect is part of it for me, although sometimes that aspect creates more doubt than satisfaction. If I really had to hunt for subsistence, there is no doubt that I would be losing a lot of weight. Sport? .... yes I have referred to it as a sport in that there is a competition going on between me and the critter, but there is so much more involved, and it doesn't always wind up measured in pounds of meat.

Yeah, I don't have a clue where this "ranking" thing came from. That is not anything that I think about when it comes to hunting. My competition in hunting is not with other hunters, but rather with the animal I am hunting. But there are people who like to handicap themselves with equipment to "up" the challenge level for themselves. In fact that is what was behind the original establishment of bow season. And ever since the establishment of that season, people have been diligently trying to remove that element of challenge. I'm not sure why that would be that much of a controversial statement, but some will find controversy even where there is none. .....lol. But anyway, this idea of "ranking" has absolutely nothing to do with anything I was talking about. I leave that kind of thinking to other people to deal with.

Perhaps it was just a little too long ago for you to really remember very clearly just how difficult it was to shoot recurves and straight bows consistently compared to modern compounds, but it does sound a bit disingenuous to be trying to tell people that the compound was not a step toward removing some of the challenge from bowhunting. I'm not sure exactly who you think you are talking to here, but I'm sure that there are a whole lot of people here who have shot both that simply are not going swallow that. Don't you sometimes wonder exactly why just about everyone shoots a compound now? ...... lol. And if you weren't so busy trying to spin away from my original point, you would understand that the truth about the evolution of archery equipment does matter relative to the point I was making about the natural tendency for people to remove challenge from a modern-day hunting activity that was born out of the desire of a minority of hunters to add challenge into their hunting. Oh, and by the way just to get the story straight, my first hunting bow was a hand made longbow made from a hickory stave cut off our farm back when I was about 11 years old. And it did figure in to the demise of about a dozen pigeons up in the barn.....Ha-ha-ha.

Well, here's the good news. The melt has been so controlled and slow that most is gone or very thin without any flooding this year. Not even a threat of a flood. The swamp is still low, and the ditches down my driveway are handling any run-off including the occasional rain. If you had to plan and execute a controlled winter thaw, this would be it.

For me winter camping would be a short term diversion, not an endurance test. I don't doubt for a minute that spending a winter camping in that kind of extreme climate, would truly be properly labeled as "terrible" ..... lol. I would like winter camping to be something that helps to cure cabin fever, not create it.

Well, it truly is silly to deny the part that today's hi-tech bows, arrows, and other gadgets and trinkets have played in the escalating success rates of today compared to those of pre-compound days. I was there when the few bowhunters that were around used to brag about simply getting close enough for a shot rather than bragging what the antler score was. Getting even a small yearling doe was a rare and massive achievement. Those who use traditional equipment could explain to you about "challenge" in deer hunting. Likely they will not be telling you about their 40, 50, or 60 yard successful shots....lol.

Yeah April Fools day. Good day for a colonoscopy. Isn't that appropriate and just for some additional April fools torture, it took three "sticks" to get that stinking I.V. set up. Apparently the first two were just some more April Fools jokes before she decided to actually hit a vein. Haven't been amused with my April Fools day so far .... lol.

Don't be trying to drum up sympathy for these scum-bags. It is most likely that these crooks are simply thrill-killers who did it just for the hell of it. I doubt that there is anybody in this welfare state of NY that has to live off the land for any reason other than that they simply want to.

It's not only the anti-hunters that zero in on the minorities of hunting. The more-effective danger of that kind of bias comes from our own hunting population. Those that intentionally built extreme challenge into their hunting by using hunting equipment of yester-year are now targeted by our own general hunting community who jealously eyeball the special seasons that were necessarily carved out for this kind of "high-challenge" version of hunting. Today the emphasis now is to get rid of that silly notion of voluntarily increasing challenges, and start working in the other direction. The mindset and motives of those entering bowhunting are now something that was never intended. Now it is "challenge be damned .... full speed ahead with technology" to change the very nature of this unique opportunity that had been forged by bowhunting fanatics. With that "challenge mentality" removed from bow seasons, the gates long ago were thrown open with an anything-goes mindset. Yes a few decades ago it was the compound bow, and now the crossbow. And anyone who thinks that it will all end with just crossbows doesn't really understand human nature very well. It doesn't take anyone with a crystal ball to predict more and more incursions of weapons that have nothing to do with archery. We have seen firearms incursions happen already. Look for more successful challenges from the muzzleloader enthusiasts. You cannot have a special weapons season that continues to grow it's success rates without having others start to question why you have been granted a special season at all.

I remember those "compound wars" when people were fighting to get the inclusion of compounds into the bow seasons. The anti-compound side was using the argument that the precedents set would eventually break down all limits in the future and would be used to justify the inclusion of all kinds of non-bow implements. I said that was nonsense. As it turns out, they were right. Bow season was a chance to take on equipment challenges that no one else was willing to take on, and so success with a bow was a noteworthy achievement. Human nature being what it is, drove participants to continually seek to remove that challenge that used to be the reason for the special season. I don't expect that part of human nature to stop, and I don't expect that the crossbow will be the last attempt to discard elements of challenge from bow season either. Bow season is becoming just a warmer time to hunt, and really little else. That's just the natural evolution of things, I guess.

Does he sound like a raving lunatic or what?

I believe that it was more of a crazy high population than anything too weird about the weather. However, I do remember that the first day that I went over to see the mess, the wind was howling, and the snow was coming down pretty good. I don't recall any huge snow depths (perhaps a foot to a foot and a half of snow on the ground at the time. But judging from the fact that it was April '89 marked on the slides tells me that the winter was reaching into that month without any breaks. I have always heard that more than the actual severity of the winter, starvation rates are influenced more by the length of duration. Between that and the fact that there were so many deer everywhere in that valley (the entire length of the lake and beyond), it was kind of a perfect storm sort of event where several things were going bad at once.

I like the way a lot of that ground is cleared straight to the dirt. That way those stinking snakes down there cannot get to you without you seeing them coming .....

Ha-ha-ha .... I stepped away from this thread with the thought that someone asked a question, and there were already several valid answers given. I thought it was done. Then today I happened to notice that this one is on page 12. I hadn't realized that it had moved from a semi-simple question and answer to an "I hate guns that don't look friendly" topic. Or is that a "Nobody needs to use any guns that I don't use" topic? Whatever .... it certainly took a strange turn ....lol. You really have to pay attention around here. These threads morph in a heartbeat ..... lol. By the way, for anyone who cares, I couldn't care less if you hunted deer with a zip-gun. I am getting real tired of laws being passed based on how evil a gun looks. makes no sense to me, and gun rights are not really something to be messing with so arbitrarily.

Interesting problem. So what does the color red appear to you ..... gray or something? That could be something that may mess with you a bit. And yes, possessing gray squirrels out of season would get you a ticket. However, there are other visible differences between red squirrels and gray squirrels. Size is one thing. The reds are significantly smaller. Their head shape has some subtle differences. The reds are very vocal and have a completely different sound. Even their running patterns are different. However, to learn all these differences will require some research and observations. So it may be a good thing that you have this time to simply wander around and observe nature a bit and learn these different things about wildlife. The suggestion that you take up nature photography is a good one. It will keep you out in the woods for long periods of time so that you can pick up some of the woods lore that is needed for some of the subtleties of hunting. These learning opportunities can be more enjoyable than the actual hunting.

Lawdwaz- *UPDATE* Ok ...... I didn't forget about getting this answer for you on the date of the Honeoye deer yard. I found some of the slides, and they had a development date stamped on them of April 1989.

Hey......Maybe next year I'll break out the winter camping gear and try to break out of the cabin-fever mode. I'm not exactly a green-horn at winter camping, but haven't done it in a few decades. As long as I don't find myself in some of that minus zero crap.