Doc

A bunch of years ago, I shot a 3-legged doe. About 1' of the left front leg was missing. The skin that grew over the wound looked like the pad of a dog's foot. You could not tell from the gait of the deer that anything was wrong. She was layered with fat like I have never seen on a deer. She was shot in a small field that I maintain as another lawn area that is surrounded by a huge dense thicket in front of our house. My theory is that unlike other deer that move from the bottom of the valley up the hill and back constantly, she just stayed in that thicket eating and sleeping and living a life of total luxury just building huge fat reserves. She had everything she needed right there in our thicket and in that field. By the way, she had been nursing, so she apparently had been successful bred the previous year. Amazing and resilient animals.

Some of these guys really don't seem to be all that smart. They think their posted signs protect them from getting caught and then plop a feeder or big pile of corn or apples or whatever where any low-flying plane or chopper can see them .... lol. Also, I would imagine the "loose lips sink ships" principle gets a bunch of them too.

I am a big proponent of online surveys. Once the software is written, it takes the cost of labor right out of the data-gathering game. Input is ones and zeros. Receipt of data is ones and zeros. even the bulk of analysis is ones and zeros. And with computers everywhere these days, voluntary participation eliminates every excuse relating to lack of involvement. Oh and by the way, demographics, regions, and whatever volumes of supporting data can be supplied at the click of a button. Personal computers were made for public data gathering. I have no idea why the DEC or Cornell or anyone who is serious about getting the real picture is not using them. It is absolutely weird that in 2015, we are still using the U.S. Postal Service for labor intensive data gathering that necessitates questionable numbers of data points.

If they still consider that to be the case, then what is this survey with an eye toward adding new restrictions all about. I sense they are saying one thing from a management stance and a completely different thing from a political stance. And I think I offered a plausible explanation as to why.

No, my selection has nothing to do with a fear of change. It has everything to do with the fact that laws have proliferated annually to the level that now everytime we go hunting, we can be pretty sure that we are breaking at least one unknown law. And now they are talking about yet another subdivision with another complex description of boundaries in order to implement these changes. Enough is enough! Basically, a vote for no change, is a change in the mentality that every issue needs a further restriction. I actually want so much change that I know that no one will go for it. I want every existing law to be re-addressed, and properly justified or deleted. Now there is a radical change that would be meaningful ... not simply throwing more regulations everytime someone gets a new fad-management brain-fart. Damn, we get enough of that screw-ball thinking in our civil and criminal law. We don't need that mentality in our Conservation law too.

So, what's the deal with this apparent DEC shift in opinion on the attempted protections of 1.5 year old deer. I do remember a Hurst quote that essentially said that there is no biological justification for AR, and in fact it is more of a social (political ....lol) issue than a game management issue. So this reversal sounds like a decision to let hunters take over the management and the hell with good sound management principles recommended by trained biological DEC employees. Well it might be more accurate to say that maybe there is an ulterior motive to this strange opinion shift. I have not seen a whole lot of rules changes in the last decades that were not specifically aimed at herd reduction ... statewide. I'm thinking that the thought here is that the harder you make a buck harvest, the more does that will be taken to compensate for the likely "deerless" season results that new rule of buck harvest harassment will cause. Perhaps this is really all just a back-door effort to force doe harvests.

I believe the most attractive selection of the 5 is the last one that favors No changes at all. That selection is reinforced by the fact that they find it necessary to come up with yet another dissecting of the state. I fear that by the time they are finished with this boondoggle, the odds of keeping all the boundaries straight and the unique set of regulations within those boundaries, they will have established yet another case where hunters are never 100% certain that they are not violating laws and risking heavy fines. I want to see things heading back in the direction of simplicity where all conservation laws are looked at and evaluated and discarded if they make no sense or are flat out wrong. Get that stuff all reduced down to bare-bones and then we can talk about responsible ways to add new restrictions. I have watched a ton of laws discussed here on this forum where obviously no one has a clue what they mean or how to accurately comply. No one should need the services of a lawyer just to hunt.

It is specifically the word "Random" that bothers me the most. There generally is some intelligence behind participant selection. Recognizing that these subjects are highly influenced by region, deer density, availability of permits, and other specific regional influences and demographics, one would think that randomly drawing a few names out of a hat has a pretty good chance of accidentally skewing results. And as far as how well it has worked in the past, that is still highly controversial.

Or $2.50 at any news stand or magazine rack.

My January 9 issue came yesterday, and yes they do talk about POTENTIAL changes. They are in the process of sending out 7000, 11 page surveys to randomly selected license holders. They apparently have developed a new decision-making process that turns it into a popularity contest.....lol. Anyway, the survey includes hunter opinions on: 1 Mandatory AR for all of bow season, through the first week of firearms season. 2 A one buck harvest limit. 3 A shortening of the firearms season by 1 week in the southern zone and 2 weeks in the Northern Zone. 4 An active promotion of a voluntary AR 5 No changes at all And yes, they have yet another funky subdivision scheme (WMU aggregates) that will be in addition to all the other regulation subdivisions (Regions and WMUs) to determine where any rules changes will apply. So get ready to sharpen up your map reading skills some more....lol. But it certainly is a bit premature to say that there will be statewide AR or any of all the other regulations that hunters are so eager to strap themselves with. You know I wonder how eager all these people who are in favor of regulating the sport to death would be if all of a sudden, life circumstances forced them to move to certain areas of the Adirondacks or Catskills or other parts of the state where antlerless permits are scarce and maybe the deer too. Maybe all this stuff wouldn't sound quite as good anymore. Yeah, I know ..... look out for number one and the heck with those that aren't as fortunate. That's the typical thinking. We all think that things are the same all over the state .... right?

Unfortunately, I'm not quite as fast as I used to be, and the damn things won't hold still while I run up with that tape measure. Also, that perfect broadside bow shot doesn't really give you much of a look at antler spread. I guess all that idea of concealment would have to go by the wayside while you yell at them to get them to look in your direction. Gee that sort of thing is something I try to avoid when I am bowhunting.

So, they want to regulate hunting right out of existence. Who really cares. People are in love with their ideas of a new regulation every day with their ARs, and their EAB, and their one-buck rules and all the variations of those restrictions and whole list of others. Every time an issue comes up the first thought in those simplistic minds is, There ought to be a law, or lets pass another regulation. One answer fits all .... lol..... more laws. Well, one glance across the desk at those copies of NYS Environmental Conservation Law books tells me that there likely is no one person, including all the enforcement agencies that know and understand all those volumes of rules and regulations governing our sport. There is something disconcerting about understanding the likelihood that every time I go hunting, I am most likely, unknowingly, violating who-knows-how-many laws buried in those books, and enforced by arbitrary opinion in most cases. So if along with a whole bunch of other reasons, people are opting out of hunting because everybody's solution to every problem is to pass another damn law, I guess I am not surprised, and probably not really all that far behind them.

Ha-ha-ha .... Don't just worry about chicken. Hell most of our veggies are coming from countries where the people picking them hate our guts. I hate to think of what they are doing on our food before it gets shipped here.... lol.

We just changed insurance companies, and they are the ones who pay our YMCA bill, so I went in to change the company for billing, and I could hardly find a parking spot. This New Years resolution stuff seems to have centered on exercise ..... lol. Apparently there's a lot of people that decided they need a fitness activity this year.

I guess to put it a bit more bluntly, we have probably heard enough about your personal problems with your deer farm and the government, and trying not to sound too heartless, in the words of Rhett Butler, "Frankly, I don't give a damn".

Tell you what ..... I have yet to find any constitutional guarantees that place deer farming anywhere near the importance and status of the 2nd Amendment. We have real issues to be concerned about. I can't be concerned about every guy that feels picked on. There simply are not enough hours in a day to worry about your pet peeves for more than maybe 4 and a half minutes or so. Sorry, it just doesn't sit too high on my list of priorities. As a quick glance across the top of this issue, I would say that it is illogical that the government would arbitrarily single out your business for a crusade of harassment. And that quick glance along the top of the issue is much more attention than I ever would have believed I would spend on deer farms.

Ha-ha .... you are welcome to try. Sure the state over taxes, and over regulates, but they do need tax money .....even yours. There are times when you truly sound a bit paranoid. That's not a malicious slam, but simply an observation. I kind of doubt the world really is out to get you......lol..... but maybe in your case and your deer farm they are for some reason making an exception. But I doubt it.

I can take a lot of cold, but let's keep the snow levels down. I don't have to plow "cold", and cold is not likely to make me get stuck .... lol. However, sometimes the cold gets that darn lake effect machine working, and we get the snow along with it.

I gave up on wood heat quite a few years ago. I found it to be quite dirty. Furniture always had a layer of dust regardless of how often they were cleaned. I also noticed the import of some wood eating bugs with some of the older wood that came in. And then there was the mess of taking the ashes out. But the thing that finally caused me to end it was the day we were sitting watching TV when I heard a "Whump" and looked over and saw glowing coals laying all over the floor that had been blown out through the damper by some kind of explosion inside the stove. That had us scampering around there trying to police up these hot coals. The hardwood floors over there still have the burn marks. What would have happened if we had not been home? I don't need that sort of thing. My Brother-in-law also had a raging chimney fire. Fortunately it happened while they were home and they got the fire trucks in before it caught any of the structure on fire. That was just dumb-luck too because they spend a lot of time away from home. On the plus side, I will say that it was the most comfortable heat going. And like somebody already mentioned, the exercise was great.

No, I have no more interest in the subject beyond questioning motives for twisting and slanting what. I will leave the causes and cures and assessments of CWD to those biologists trained in the field, and will forgo trying to second guess them or ascribe some kind of conspiracy theory. I simply was curious as to what possible motives the state would have for lying, and trying to drive a business out of the state. I still have not heard one that really makes any sense. I think they have a lot more motive for protecting businesses. They too have a profit motive, and cash does not come from businesses drummed out of the state.

Thanks all for the birthday wishes. It was a great year, and I am looking forward to the next one.

So, no coyotes were ever actually spotted. That brings to mind a question of whether these could have been a pack of feral or neighborhood dogs. I once broke up a dog pack (three dogs) attack on a deer in our front yard that had the same results. The deer was in a situation where dogs were circling the deer taking bites out. Unfortunately, it was dark out and I never did see the extent of the damage. I chased the dogs off, and the deer immediately limped a few feet into the thicket and was never seen again. Blood in the snow the next day looked pretty bad, but I tracked it for quite a ways, and it didn't seem to be even slowing up. But the point is that dog tracks and coyote tracks in deep snow look pretty identical. And dogs tend to lose interest after causing some major damage, because they are not in it for the food, just the chase. That would explain why there was no more attack going on. Just wondering if that could have been a possibility and coyotes were getting blamed for something done by man's best friend. It sure wouldn't be the first time.

I hate to get into this goofy discussion, but one question keeps rolling around in my head. One question that I haven't heard any answer to. I understand that deer farm owners have a definite stake in this issue, and it is a profit-motive driven stake. There certainly is plenty of reason to bend facts and slant whatever to try to justify their position. So it is reasonable to scrutinize any info coming from that side of the fence and view it all with a very suspicious eye. What I have not yet heard is any logical explanation of is why the state or any of its agencies would maliciously go after a legal tax-paying industry by using bogus information and trumped up data and studies and false research. What are they supposedly getting out of lying? What's the motive? Is there a motive?

I tend to say exactly what I feel whether it is politically correct or not. I didn't like the guy when he was alive and in a position to undermine our state government, nothing happened after he was out of office that changed my thoughts about him, and now that he is gone, as we all will be someday, it is not now time to become some kind of hypocrite and pretend to have fond memories of him now. And by the way, my attitude toward Andy won't be changing the day he leaves this earth either, and I likely will not be saying anything pleasant about him either.

Far better for the state and the people in it if his demise had happened prior to the devil-spawned idiot-boy that he fathered.