Doc

I'm not griping, I am making an observation and expressing an opinion. That is kind of what we do on a forum. I have no intentions of donating $100 or making a career out of running the Republican Party. I'm looking at Cuomo's campaign and I'm looking at Astorino's stealth campaign and to me, there are some pretty wild glaring differences that indicate that one candidate and his party came in prepared to win, and the other came in simply to see his name on the ballot and obviously has no support from his party. That's not griping.... that's simple observation and comment. If you are happy with the way the campaign is being run ..... good for you.

I suppose an accident could have occurred that broke an antler off. But the guy is still in velvet. Are they really that brittle at that stage?

What the heck..... I'm out there looking for nice bucks and all we get are goofy things like this. And no, I do not live next to a nuclear power plant ..... lol. Oh, and then there are the aliens ... lol. The eye reflection burn-out of the foxes face is no big surprise, but the reflection of the 12' tall sasquatch eyes behind him was:

Well, as long as everyone is satisfied with the way this campaign is going, I guess that's the important thing ....eh? Rob who??? Oh yeah, he's the guy Cuomo is always talking about in his campaign ads.

Yes and while he and his missing Republican backers wait for the perfect timing, Andy is filling the airwaves with unanswered slander, building up the case that this guy is just short of being an Al Capone. Those kinds of charges if not answered right away, stick like glue and become the only "facts" that voters can remember when they go to the polls. There is no real excuse to be going into a campaign underfunded. All that shows is insincerity, and the lack of ability to plan. And by the way, if he came into this campaign counting on every gun owner to contribute $100, then we definitely are backing the wrong horse. That is about the silliest notion that I have ever heard. He and the Republican party know what it takes to run a campaign. It's not a big secret that somebody just sprung on them this year. If their campaign fundraisers don't know what the heck they are doing, they need to be replaced. We can't continue to be putting up these "lightweights" and expect to beat a real political animal like Cuomo. And I think that going easy on the Republican Party for this fiasco of a campaign is letting them off the hook way too easy. Somebody needs to answer for this non-campaign. The party is either totally incompetent, or they have some other unknown agenda that calls for hanging a paper candidate out to dry. We can talk about liberal this and liberal that, but maybe the problem in NYS is that we simply run a crap campaign with crap candidates and a know-nothing political party.

They used to be the "go to" local source for re-loading components. Not so much anymore for what I need. Last several trips up there (a 45 minute to 1 hour drive) I have returned home empty handed.

A simple question ..... a simple answer without any editorializing: A 12 gauge shotgun for small game and my .270 for deer.

So, what is the ammo situation in PA? Is it any better than here? In other words is it worth the trip to stock up on items that seem to be missing here?

Look, I understand all the popular excuses, but the fact is that Cuomo and the Democratic party seem to have no problem raising gobs of money. They have an organization that comes to the show equipped to perform. And I'll bet nearly none of that is from mom & pop individual contributors. The Republican Party has failed to catch on to something that seems to be second nature to the Democrats. It's time (past time) for them to smarten up and start preparing to actually run a campaign. This Astorino is not supposed to be standing by himself. He is supposed to have a political machine behind him that has already accumulated the cash to run an effective campaign. Why hasn't that happened? If a dingbat like Cuomo and his merry bunch of pinkos can do it, it can't be all that tough to figure out.

So where are the Astorino TV, radio and newspaper ads? It appears that the Republicans have a stealth candidate. One of the best kept secrets in the world of politics. Quite frankly it is getting a bit worrisome. This clown Cuomo seems to have the complete run of the media and for all appearances seems to be running unopposed. I'm hearing a lot of "Astorino who?" from people who see the sign out front of my place. The only name recognition he is receiving is coming from the slew of unanswered Cuomo attack ads. It is shaping up as a bloodbath this fall. And with this potential landslide goes our gun rights as the anti-gunners become emboldened by the "mandate". What seems to be the problem with the Republican party? They had a whole bag of real good issues this year, and they are all being squandered ...... again.

Actually it is a myth that overseas production and technology is inferior. We have spent decades actively shipping production lines along with technology and procedures, and have mastered the art of using the hunger for higher standards of living in other countries to our benefit. Until we get to the point where we are willing to work for a couple of fish heads and a cup of rice, the tech drain out of this country will not stop.

Oh ok, let's add on to that a bit. While walking into the stand in the dark let's concentrate on an image of some huge Russian boar with rabies running through the woods slobbering and squealing and looking for something to tear apart. Ha-ha .... if I keep this up, I'll be back to hunting out of treestands again ....lol.

I have a spreadsheet that locate all of my stand locations from 1982 to the present as well as hunting results, conditions, dates, times, sightings, etc., etc., it's pretty extensive. The number of stand locations is up to 114. Of course most of them are no longer used or maintained. At the present, I have about 10 groundstands built and maintained. In almost all places, two stands have been built to give options for wind directions.

I have never even been on a bearhunt, but through my ignorance, have pictured what perhaps is a major problem. I am picturing being way far from all means of transportation, and having just harvested a super-pig of a bear. Now I am faced with trying to get this thing home by myself. My vision of the task is something like trying to move a 300 pound bag of jello with no handles. Does this awkwardness of a bear carcass cause any of the problems that I am imagining?

It has nothing to do with logic, facts or anything like that. The mind has a way of magnifying the nearly impossible into reality all on its own. Before you know it, you are walking to your stand in the dark totally convinced that the next step will bring you face to face with a slobbering, growling, female preparing to defend her cubs. Heck, if you work on it hard enough, your imagination can conjure up a bear with rabies .... lol. I remember bowhunting for deer in PA and getting a slightly later start than I really wanted. That put me walking through the woods in that predawn time when there's just enough light to make every stump and downed log look like a bear .... ha-ha. I had my imagination really working at warp-speed by the time I finally got up in the tree-stand. It didn't help that I had to walk next to a corner of a cornfield that was flattened down by bears with scat everywhere.

Yes, I have found a few, and they are always under oak trees. https://www.google.com/search?q=oak+plum+gall&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=1Wr4U7PtK6fksATjvYKQDA&sqi=2&ved=0CC0QsAQ&biw=1280&bih=592

Yes, I always have a leafless surface to move around on at my ground blinds. There is nothing worse that having the noise of your feet on leaves just as you are getting ready to shoot. Or worse yet having some unseen twig snap just when the deer shows up. However, I have often wondered about the smell of the exposed earth. There have been a lot of times when I have returned to a ground stand for another day's hunt, and found a deer track in the freshly exposed soil. This at a place 20 yards or so from any trail, so what exactly caused him to come over and check it all out? That exposed dirt has a unique smell that actually is quite strong it means different things to different animals. For deer it means that somebody has been kicking around looking for acorns, or some randy buck may have been starting a scrape. Whatever it signifies to them, it can be a feature that will draw deer to your stand. Perhaps close enough to locate a scent of just who really was there for a few hours earlier in the evening .... lol. No, there's nothing you can do about it, and it doesn't happen every time. But it is just another thing to be aware of when cleaning those leaves away. It can give away the location of your stand.

No Lifetime license in today's mail for me.

Early snows .... great for spotting deer and following blood trails. But then there is the slipping and sliding and trying to stay out of the ditch, and then trying to shoot my bow with 45 pounds of clothing choking off my full draw. And the shivering and shaking and miserable stand conditions. I'll tell you what .... 1" of snow will be fine, but don't be wishing our fall away .... lol. Frankly, I have been a bit concerned about the consistency of this cold and wet summer and the fact that nothing seems to be changing as we head toward winter.

Weather forecasts have moved from information reporting to the entertainment end of TV. Don't be taking these guys too seriously. I sometimes follow the extended forecasts of 7 to 10 days out. As the week progresses, you can watch every day past the 2nd one change completely such that what they were predicting towards the end of their extended forecast almost always changes to completely opposite what they were saying. Just follow one of those extended versions on a daily basis and you will see that it means absolutely nothing. So when someone starts predicting any weather even in general trends that are a month or more out, I have learned that that is just some more of that entertainment and their desperate grab for TV ratings.

It's pretty much gone. But the freezer is filling up with vegies from the garden.

Actually, I have seen those quite often. We have some very well shaded stretches of dark woods around a deep ravine that never got logged very heavily and so we have what might be called "old-growth" hemlocks that keep the area in a dark, damp and cool condition that apparently these things like. I never knew the actual name of them, but I have seen them frequently for all of my life. However, there was a plant that I saw only once back when I was a kid camping with my brother. It was something that covered the ground where we had raked a bunch of leaves back, and after dark, these things glowed. They actually glowed in the dark. I never saw it since, but of course that particular set of circumstances never happened again. I have never heard of plant material like that that glowed in the dark. Anybody ever seen anything like that?

I am always curious about the supposed motivation that the DEC would have for suppressing evidence of mountain lions. What purpose would they have for denying the existence of any species in NY? I know how much fun conspiracy theories are, but really doesn't there have to be some good believable motivations behind a good conspiracy theory? Seriously.... can anyone explain what value it is to the DEC to deny the existence of mountain lions in NYS if they didn't sincerely believe that the sightings were complete hog-wash?

One other observation that I have made is that going to areas that are distant or hard to get to do not guarantee isolation from gobs of hunters. There seems to be a health and fitness craze going on now that makes a lot of guys relish long and strenuous hunts. We have a hill that is ugly-steep and yet, unbelievably it is laced with mountain-bike trails everywhere .... on the side of the hill .... on the top and on the bottom. I have seen joggers during the bow season prancing by in the middle of the top of the hill. The bikers pretty much can cover everything up there as they travel in packs, hollering back and forth. What used to be semi-wilderness, now has a bit of a Coney Island atmosphere to it .... lol. Yes, things in the state land are changing rapidly as hunters lose ground to the lands they used to hunt in pretty much ideal isolated conditions. So, there are cases where no matter how far in you want to go, you may still encounter interruptions in your hunt, and a herd that is predominantly nocturnal because of all the crazy raucous commotion during daylight hours.

It's not always about just distance. I get about a mile off the road, but that mile is a pretty ugly climb. I won't say that it's hands-and-knees kind of steep, but it sure makes that mile seem a whole lot longer to those that are tempted to get up there. Also, there are areas down in the valley that are right next to the road that have some pretty good deer that hang out there. A lot of that does not get hunted because of the thick multi-flora rose that has taken over. The whole area is basically a "man-trap". Guys walk right on past that stuff and won't even attempt to hunt in that crap. Some of these areas are great deer sanctuaries when the orange army invades the woods. For those that want to take the time to find or cut trails through that stuff to get to some of the more open areas on the insides, some pretty productive areas can be hunted. So it is more than just distance that gets you away from other hunters and into the deer.