Doc

I loved it!

How about you post just one place there where someone posted a so-called "trophy" buck and got anything but a congrats. I'm not sure why you are so intent on making up controversy, but if you want to be a bit honest about your comments, you will be forced to admit that the "brown and down" comments throughout this forum have not exactly been rare. And if you have any kind of memory, a site research project is not required. So don't be telling me that this is all just from one side. If you are to be honest, you know that isn't the case.

All of the pictures (real or not) the canines are all in the upper jaw. It is hard to imagine the features in Grow's pictures as being canines of the upper jaw pointing down. I still think they are just another of many different versions of IR camera anomalies that are common with these game cameras.

Actually what bugs other countries and forces them to not mess with us is the friggin awesome technological superiority in weaponry and the willingness of our military to use it. They don't care if there is a mob of deer hunters heading their way no matter what their numbers. They do pay attention to the fact that they will be vaporized if they mess with us in a serious way.

It's not worth the time to go back and poll all the replies and negative responses. I'm not going to do it and I'm damn sure that you haven't either, so the remark is without credibility and serves no purpose anyway. If you feel picked on, I regret that, but the slights are self inflicted as far as I'm concerned and resident only in your own mind. Yes, we all seem to be overly concerned about what the next guy is hunting. Why any of us think that any of that is any of our business .... who knows? But for sure everyone wants to get into the other guy's hunting, trying to prove who the hell knows what. But to try and say it is all coming from one side or the other of these issues just is ignoring the truth, and trying to make some bogus point for some bogus reason.

The DEC is a state political agency whose Commissioner serves at the pleasure of the Governor. Of course they listen to comments and react to lobbying and pressure groups. Just as the governor wants to be on the popular side of any issue, so do the agencies that he controls. Their job is to make the Governor look good and to ensure that they are on the winning side of any issue as determined by the squeakiest wheel. And yes, I believe they all have a pretty good idea what the outcome of any issues will be before they even begin to make any plans for change public. No, I don't have any crystal ball or inside track, but simple logic and following the chain of command makes certain outcomes rather obvious.

I know we all enjoyed the Rambo movies, but it is always good to know fictional entertainment from reality. We certainly can use our guns effectively for home and domestic self defense, but that wasn't the premise of the original post, was it? Imagining that we hunters are in any way similar to the armed Militiamen of the revolutionary War simply is not facing up to the fact that the technology of warfare in this century consists of weapons that would make our hunting rifles totally ineffective against an organized enemy domestic or foriegn. It really is not a Liberal vs. Conservative argument. It is simply common sense vs. romanticized day-dreaming and fantasizing.

My guess (and that's all it is), is that it is some kind of camera anomaly that is double imaging the super bright eye-flash. What makes me say that is the perfect spacing with the eyes, and the fact that they are way outside the tooth line of the deer's muzzle.

Sure is some heavy selective reading going on there. I have seen plenty of opinionated and passionate negative comments on both sides when it comes to trying to tell people exactly what they should be hunting and why. The "Brown and down" comments are certainly in no short supply. None of it is really hidden too well, and if someone hasn't seen it, it is only because they haven't been looking. It is plain that there are a lot of people here that want to make negative comments about what others choose to hunt as if they really have the right to do so. And "the pot calling the kettle black" is not doing much for unity among sportsmen and women.

Good thoughts, but you are preaching to the choir. Also, don't forget that if the hunters of other states are aging at the rate NYS is, that army may be starting to look a bit geriatric.....lol. Would it really be all that scary to have a bunch of bald, bent-over, hunters with walkers limping their way at you? No seriously, It is not so much a question of how many people you have with rifles when you are dealing with today's modern warfare of drones, missiles and unmanned weapons that can be launched from more miles away than your trusty old deer rifle can shoot. Those limitations also apply to those counting on armed insurrection against an out-of-control domestic government. Yes, we would probably look pretty formidable all organized and operating in unison ........ for a few minutes anyway.....lol.

Amazing! Halfway through January and not only does that guy still have his antlers attached, but they are on there strong enough to withstand a fatal collision with a car.

I am beginning to see the difficulty that the DEC has with managing herd size. Hunter attitudes toward doe harvests definitely seem to be quite emotion driven. I suppose that is why so many antlerless permits go unclaimed and unfilled. I thought we had left that irrational bias behind years ago, but it seems that it is still very much alive and well.

I know there are people who believe that every environmental conservation law is contained in the game syllabus that is handed out when you get your license. Well, that really isn't the case. It's not all on the DEC web-site either. It is in the volumes of law books that hardly any hunters own. And inside these law books are hidden some of these laws that contradict each other or are written so poorly that they can be interpreted several ways and some that are so obtuse and written in such a way that it requires a judge to untangle them, and often even he is simply rendering an "opinion". So really all you can do is try the best you can to live by the laws as you personally understand them and hope that you are not inadvertently or accidentally breaking any laws that you don't understand or that have not been adequately made available to the public. To me violations of the kind that are buried and contradictory and confusingly written are in a whole different category from those violations where the hunter fully understands the law and knows full well that he is breaking that law, and then publicly boasts of his violations. Unfortunately enforcement and judicial branches of government make no such distinction, and in truth can not. No one has ever said that our system of laws or any system of laws is flawless. But just imagine a world without them ..... lol. Responsible citizens do the best we can to abide by the law and teach our children to do the same. For some, responsibility is optional.

It might just happen that if does were the only legal harvest, all those antlerless permits that the DEC wants to be successfully used might actually be used. Perhaps the numbers would go down to near nothing like they want. Perhaps we would find out just how much of a challenge does really can be when they start getting as scarce as bucks. The fact is that we might actually get to see just how stupid all our prized mysterious bucks really are when their numbers grow to where doe numbers are today ...... lol.

Ha-ha-ha-ha .... Now there is a hell of baseless assumption.

I don't remember anyone claiming that they have never broken a law. What is being claimed is the fact that the guy involved his kid and others and passed it off as being proper conduct, in effect instructing his kid that game laws can be ignored. This is a guy who advertises his disdain and disregard of the legal system. And the disgust being expressed here is about the support that he seems to get from others who apparently have the same mentality that he does. Point #2: I did not hear Grow claiming that she thought her rolling stop was justified. She took her ticket without an argument. Nobody here is being divine or righteous, but simply acknowledging that we are a nation of laws and obligated to abide by those laws, and there is seldom any justification for willful disregard for those laws and then pretending to the world that they were right to do so.

Yes, different states have different laws. That's not a new discovery. Yes some laws make sense some do not. NYS has no corner on that. One thing they all have in common is that it is illegal to violate those state laws regardless of what state you are in or whether you agree with them or not. The legal system is not a code of "suggestions". The words of support for this guy amounts to the same thing as praise to me and that is what I am reacting to. Perhaps "condoning" is a better word than "praise", but to me it all represents the same mentality that simply accepts law-breaking as proper conduct.

I smoked cigarettes for a lot of years, but I would never tell my kids that they should start smoking. That may meet your screwy ideas of hypocrisy but it still meets the criteria of responsible parenting. I hope I'm not telling any of the parents here some kind of special "news flash".

There seems to be some assumption that those who claim that they would hunt with the same level of enthusiasm in a doe only season, have something against taking bucks. I'm not sure where that notion got started. But let me just say that for myself, I like hunting deer ..... any kind of deer. And yes, I would be very charged up about a doe-only hunt. That does not mean that I have something against shooting a buck. If it is a deer, I enjoy hunting them. I am not out there shooting does as some kind of horrible penance or civic duty. I enjoy doe hunting and do get excited and eager to do so.

What is with all this worship of law-breakers? You all think it is ok to teach your kids about picking and choosing which laws are to be broken based of an opinion. Praise the lawbreakers and mock those that abide by the law ...... great message to pass on to your children. If there is anything that the word "disturbing" should be used for, it is the mass-support for teaching children to ignore laws. And that is exactly what a lot of the replies on this thread are expressing.

Well just to keep things on track, the question was not about changing hunting styles, but was about hunting at the "same level and desire". None of that has a thing to do with ARs. The one similarity in issues is that they are both concepts that would be attempting to remove current accepted choices for hunters, which likely is not good for the maintenance of the sport regardless of what our personal individual choices may be.

Likely it is just a "tit-for-tat" response to those that arrogantly look down their noses at the hunters who are not trophy hunters. See it all revolves around this strange need that hunters have for commenting on the selections of others. Apparently it can manifest itself in two distinctly opposite directions......lol.

It seems that maybe there has been a lot of "topic drift". The actual original question was: "If they stopped all buck hunting, Would you continue to hunt at the same level and desire? What would hunting mean to you?" There is nothing there that tells anybody what they are supposed to think or feel or do. It's a simple question regarding your personal reaction to a specific scenario. Nothing there asking anyone to critique anyone's opinion or justify your own. I believe that people can have opinions on this question without "high-horse" accusations or accusations of lying. My opinion is that I would continue to hunt at the same level and desire. Does that mean that I would not feel that something had been taken away? Heck no. A hunting opportunity would have been taken away. That's not a nice thing, but buck hunting is not the reason that I get excited each deer season. I think anytime opportunities are regulated away, something is taken away and lost. Is that a reason to think less of hunting and the opportunities remaining. Not for me. I would still be enthusiastic just as I was when I first started, and looking forward to another season. Does that opinion in any way indicate that I believe that everyone needs to agree with me? .... Not hardly. It is simply my opinion and is a product of my own hunting outlooks and reasons and past experiences. And yes, I would join other hunters in protest to get buck hunting reinstated. But if you actually read the initial question, the answer gets real simple to answer and almost gets down to a simple yes or no answer. And really none of it calls for any hard feelings or attempts to change anyone's mind.

Lol ..... Done!

With all this focus on bucks, I have often wondered if there were as many bucks as does, which would be the hardest to hunt, the buck who periodically loses his mind over sexual matters, leaving behind highly visible signs of his presence, or the wise old doe who has spent months and years looking after herself and bunches of dopey youngsters. It's an interesting question to contemplate. Are those prized bucks worthy of all the high esteem that we place on them or is all their mystique and supposed superior intelligence simply the result of the fact that they are simply "rarer".