Doc

What a tough decision. I have no idea whether I would like the meat or not. I probably would not really want to spend the money on a mount. I have no place for a bear rug. To my knowledge, we really don't have a huntable population in the immediate vicinity, and I wouldn't feel real good about shooting something that I don't feel exists in sustainable numbers yet. Maybe the decision isn't so tough. The answer comes out to be a "I would let it pass".

I was wondering how anyone was going to get a milk can off of a bear's head. It was just a case of having the right equipment and the right guy to use it .... lol. Good for him!

Gun season: Opening day is an all day sit (dark to dark). There's a lot of hunters tramping in and out of the woods. Deer are caught off-guard, and there are a lot of deer moving through some of the favorite escape routes. From that point on it is all still hunting. In our area, hunters all but disappear after opening day. The few that come out, sit all day. Since the deer are now in super-survival mode, they are nocturnal in their movements. And so you have deer sitting all day in their favorite sanctuaries. You have a small number of hunters sitting all day wherever they think will produce, and you have nobody getting the deer up out of their beds and moving. Under those conditions I have no choice but to engage the "you go to them" mode of hunting. I generally do pretty good, because I have hunted the same ground for enough decades to pretty well understand where the spots are that they consider safe. Another nice feature of the still-hunting is that I get to sleep in until I wake up without an alarm clock. I have a nice leisurely breakfast and get out there when I get out there.....lol.

Are we really going to start criticizing every topic selection now? Seriously, if the subject does not interest you, simply don't access it. Or better yet, start your own topics of whatever you think is worthy of discussion.

To be honest, I have never read anything about deer not being able to see blaze orange. No, if you put blaze orange on, you are not "invisible". No, they do not see it as we do, but I haven't seen any evidence that it does not grab their attention quicker when movement is involved than other more subdued and less "flashy", reflective colors. Has anybody ever heard or read that claim from any credible source? My take is that I don't really care whether they see it or not when there are guys out there that are shooting long distance projectiles at anything that they can somehow misinterpret as a deer. With a gun, I can take precautions to keep my movements super slow and down to minimum to take care of any added attention getting colors. But if I am out there in any gun-deer season without blaze orange (and plenty of it), there are very few precautions that I can take that will stop a bullet. That's a little more important to me than whether I happen to spook an occasional deer once in a blue moon.

Carrion eaters have to eat too. Assuming it is not in somebody's lawn of in the middle of a footpath, or along the side of the road, leave it there for the critters. Whether the location is appropriate or not is a judgment call. When in doubt, move it out of sight.

Not yet.

If I hadn't have had a stroke a bunch of years back, I wouldn't even own the primitive cell phone that I carry now. It is never turned on except to check the battery. Nobody including myself knows what the phone number of it is.....lol. It is only an emergency item that my wife makes me carry. Hunting is a way to get away from all the constant wired up lifestyle that we are all forced into these days. Hiking, hunting, fishing, etc. for me are solitary activities and purposely so.

I don't think it happens very often that any animal dies peacefully in its bed one night. Mother nature is a ruthless game manager, and I suspect that the most likely ending comes by being weakened by age to the point where you cannot elude the predators anymore. Or it can be a lingering disease due to health difficulties. But I doubt there are really many critters that simply curl up and die quickly and peacefully in their sleep. I have had dogs and cats that we have eventually had to put down because of age related problems that were causing all kinds of misery and pain. It was the humane thing to do. I think I would not hesitate to shoot a deer because it was getting old. In fact while it may not really be my true motivation, it could be considered the "kind" thing to do given the alternative ends that the critter would likely come to.

Most of the time, you would swear there is not a mature buck on the place. But then there are those occasional trailcam pics that show otherwise. So, I have no way of assessing the age classes in my hunting area with any real credibility. Also, there are those phantom bucks that just show up out of nowhere. Have they been there all along, or are they just passing through? And then there is that monster rub that belongs to a deer you've never seen. The valley where I hunt is a huge area of unbroken woods and hills. Who knows what all lives there....lol.

There is no question that deer have different tolerance levels to different situations and conditions. I have had deer walk 60 yards across an open field toward me because they saw something they could not identify. In that situation, I probably could have been wearing a flashing neon sign and the deer probably would have walked even closer .... lol. That does not mean that they can't see you, or that in a hunting situation, bright clothing does not amplify attention getting movement. Like I said, deer may not always be able to interpret color, but they do understand movement. And if you are wearing something that draws attention to your movements, you had better do it with extreme caution if you are going to get away with it. I'm not saying it can't be done, but when wearing clothing with nearly fluorescent properties, it's not the sort of thing you are going to consistently get away with.

Perhaps sasquatch in a bear costume.

Ha-ha-ha ..... I thought you might be referring to a comment something like, "Too bad you weren't able to get that with a real bow". Of course a comment like that will never come from me ..... lol.

Here's my take on deer vs. orange. Most everyone wearing blaze orange who has had close encounters with deer was probably standing perfectly still. That makes the situation where the deer really does see you (you're not invisible), but they lack the ability to interpret what they are seeing because you aren't moving. Now try going through a drawing motion as when you are preparing to shoot with your bow and see how long they stay there .... lol. My feeling is that blaze orange does not reflect any of the same shades of light reflection that leaves, tree trunks, bushes, etc. do. But I'm guessing that deer do not have the ability to think about colors or shades of reflection. But they have no problem understanding motion. And a bright object moving definitely catches attention a whole lot more than a bright object that is stationary. So, as long as I have to go through the motions of picking up my bow and drawing it back, I'm thinking that blaze orange would likely alert a deer. Gun hunting on the other hand is a situation where I try my best to spot the deer approaching and get my gun up and rested before the deer gets a chance to see me. That's the theory anyway .... lol. Does it work every time? ..... Not likely. Even when I'm still-hunting, my movements are super-slow, and generally if I'm going to be successful I spot the deer first and then really go into super-slow-mo. Does it work every time? ..... Not likely. I do believe that blaze orange has caused me to spook deer. I really don't care. That same visibility is exactly the same thing that can save me from being shot. Guess which one of those two events concern me more.

If there is a firearms season for deer of any sort that is in progress, I where full length blaze orange or stay out of the woods (even my own woods). There is no doubt in my mind about the effectiveness of blaze orange in situations where you can be shot at from distances longer than a bow (or crossbow). I have seen instances of being able to catch a flash of orange (not even the complete outline of a hunter) from amazingly long distances. The stuff works in reduced daylight conditions also. No, it is not a cure-all, but who knows how many times that stuff has stopped someone from pulling the trigger on me or shooting in my direction. It also helps me keep track of who has snuck in to a distance that I consider unsafe. There has been more than a few times where some guy decided to post way too close for my comfort, and I had to move.

If you think that's bad, how would you like living in the country and having a 5-apartment building next door with tenants coming and going, dragging all their noisy irritating toys and city ideas with them....lol. At least with your arrangement you have new neighbors that probably intend to be there for a while and are more than likely interested in maintaining good neighbor relations. Tenants ....... not so much.

It really doesn't matter who came up with the idea. I am convinced that if you bury the electorate under enough volumes of data, the results will actually be opposite of what you are trying to achieve. I am not against guiding people into the political process, but once there, they have to show at least a minimum of native intelligence toward making informed decisions. I do not want to condition people to letting others do all their thinking for them. There is a bit too much of that already.

Oh, I think that battle has run it's course. No real point in imagining fictitious reactions to circumstances that haven't even happened yet.....lol.

Now that right there sounds like the best advice I've read on this thread so far.

Why would that happen? I don't understand.

Speaking of time and technology, I did have one great chuckle when My nephew (age 12 at the time) asked to use the phone. I pointed over to a big old ugly black phone in the livingroom and told him to help himself. He stood there looking at it totally unaware of how it worked. You see we have one old phone that is the circular dial type. There isn't a push-button on it anywhere .... lol. Kind of freaked him out. Yup, time and technology keeps on marching forward. I wonder how he would have reacted to the old wall phones that I grew up with. It had a coded system that would tell you if the call was for you or one of your neighbors. I think we were something like 4 longs and 3 short rings. It was not exactly the most private telephone system .... lol. And it didn't take any pictures either.

That is another stand type that I forgot to mention. I have a section adjacent to my lower yard that is huge goldenrod. There is a trail that come out of the thicket in front of our place and runs through the goldenrod and out into the mowed area. I have had some pretty good luck cutting a couple of shooting lanes that I can shoot over that are perpendicular to that trail. Instead of the 5 gallon pail, I have a folding camp stool .... lol. I use one of the shooting lanes as a spotting lane and the next one as a shooting lane. When the wind is right, that stand can be deadly.

The first deer I shot last year was at about 85 yards. A second one with it ran to me and stopped at about 15 yards. I shot that one too. The scope was set at 9X and the gun was zeroed in at 100 yards. Not really a problem, both deer folded up within a couple steps.

One of the things that has made this political forum even more active than usual is the fact that we have been slammed with a 2nd Amendment karate-chop from most of our own legislators. We have a political opportunity coming up to make our displeasure felt. This attack on gun owner's rights has brought on some related ideological discussions. Knowing human nature as I think I do, I believe it is just a matter of time before all of this subsides and everybody gets back to their old priorities. Some see that as good news for the forum, but others see that as bad news for our future. But no matter how you view it, there's no doubt in my mind that all the hub-bub about the political forum will fade away. So fear not .... We survived crossbows, and I have no doubt that the forum will survive this as well....lol.

I have not taken pictures of a whole lot of my stands but I will enclose a few of those that I maintain. They are basically a wall of logs built around some multi-trunked red oak trees. The pole-line stand #1: On top of the hill is an old pole line from the days when electricity was first put into rural NYS. The old road that they used to set up and maintain this line is 20 yards in front of the stand and used every year by deer. It looks more like a deer trail than a road now. It is lined with scrapes and rubs, and the normal prevailing west winds blow from the trail to the stand. This stand is heading for 30 years old and is seldom touched other than to replace an occasional log that has rotted and fallen away. It is a part of the woods. Farther along the road is another stand of similar construction. Basically they are a light-tight wall of logs and brush. I can stand behind all of that at full draw and when the deer walks out the other side .... release. That same basic construction is used on all my stands. This stand is 11 years old now. Down in the valley, I have stands of similar construction, hacked into the thickets years ago. This is a view looking out the right side of the stand (apple tree to the right side of picture). This is a view standing behind the stand and looking out the left side of the stand. This is a view of the stand as the deer would see it at 20 yards. The stand is in the center. These three stands are generally the same construction and they rely on age and seasoning to become part of the landscape. They all used existing trees for foundation and local woods debris to seal the movement and view. Basically, I could be doing jumping jacks behind them and the deer would never see it.....lol. They are arranged so that one sight opening detects them coming in, and the next sight opening is to shoot them as the come out the other side. Other stands can be simply some oversized tree or other natural feature. Once these stands have been in for a year or so, the deer accept them as simply a landscape feature. Generally they are built at some location where deer normally pass, or in the case of the last one pictured that is combined with a traditional food draw like the apple tree. Last count I had 110 different stand locations (some still in use, some not) so wind direction can always be accommodated. So, as crude as they all may look, the deer don't pay a bit of attention to them and I have had some incredibly close encounters with deer of all sizes and ages.