Doc

I'll bet their poor sales clerks get frequent grief from irate customers about this policy. Imagine working in a store like that and having to attempt to justify selling these products. It must get pretty ugly at times. I wonder if even the resident store manager has any say in what products will be sold there. What do you think, could these products be forced on the store by Gander Mountain or whichever store by the home office? Does it do any good to complain? Is there really anyone to complain to there that could actually do anything about it?

Here are the rare antiques that I typically come up with. This trip was the search of an old sap house half way up the hill. I know the remains of the structure are no later than the 1940's, so you would have thought that I might come across something old and rare. You would think something of value would have slipped out of their pockets or would have been left behind, but no-o-o-o, nothing but crap and junk.....lol. I have done old abandoned houses and cabins and foundations and came up with the same kind of crap. Old coins? .... those penny-pinching old-timers watched every coin they ever owned and never dropped anything. Old toys? .... I don't think they ever gave their kids any. Rings, bracelets, darned old farmers never had any of that stuff apparently. Anyway, I have lost a bit of enthusiasm for the metal detecting.....lol.

Oh Man ...... Another tough night.

As the fight got into the later rounds, the ref had trouble breaking up the clinches.

Looks like target practice could get a bit expensive, shooting all those arrows at the same spot. I think I would be using the other 4 spots on that target. You'll get longer target life and longer arrow life too. When you reach a certain level of proficiency, it pays to scatter those arrows around a bit.

Ha-ha.... I think they have their hands full just trying to be all things to all people. By the time they get done with managing the politics of their job, there may not be a lot of time and resources left to do much else .... lol. It's amazing how they always come up with a total population number of deer every year. Ever wonder how they do that?

Sometime in September, we have a new store coming to Canandaigua. Its a Runnings. It is kind of like a cross between Walmart and Loews and tractor supply, with apparently a rather large section of outdoor sporting goods (my kind of store .....lol). What makes it interesting is that they seem to have emphasized the fact that they will have "a large inventory of hunting, fishing, and archery equipment and accessories, as well as guns" (their words). It remains to be seen what opportunities they will have there to purchase that kind of stuff, but I am always happy to see another store that will add to the competition for sales of these kinds of products. The store where they will be located is a huge building (92,000 square feet). Anybody ever been to one of these stores or know anything about them? They are from the Midwest, and we are their first expansion into the eastern part of the country.

It seems weird that some of these counties have a couple of bears wandering around the entire county, and they have an open season on them. Are they trying to eliminate them from spreading throughout NY? I always thought there had to be a surplus or some negative impact to critters before allowing hunting them. I am all for new hunting opportunities, but it seems it would be better to have populations established before opening a season on them.

I never have figured out how many rounds it takes to familiarize myself with a gun. I simply like to shoot, and routinely put way more shots through all my guns than is minimally required. But I will say that if it takes a box or two to get it sighted in and shooting well, you may have bought the wrong gun .... lol. Blowing up more rounds than that is more about you than the gun, and well worth the time and money in fun, recreation, and learned shooting ability.

You know there is a message to taken away from these kinds of stories. When you consider that each one of these kinds of community actions represents places where entire communities have passed judgment on killing as a method of population control. One of the main concepts that keep hunting acceptable in our society id the idea of it being the only viable population control. Now we have entire communities publicly stating that they are against the concept of hunting. It really makes you wonder just how secure our right to hunt really is or what the future holds for hunting. Do we still believe that we are winning the hearts and minds of the non-hunting public? Do we still believe that the anti-hunting forces are not making headway and inroads into the attitudes of society towards hunting? I find this stuff more scary than comical.

Sorry, but your point is going over my head. I don't get it.

Dr. Woods ...... Lol. That's a good one. I'd be using that if I wasn't retired.

Impressive looking tree. I have only seen another one and it looked like it had been grafted onto the top of a regular maple because about half way up the leafed part it abruptly changed from the normal solid green leaves to all varigated. That one looked pretty weird to me, but your daughter's tree looks great.

It's my turn to lead! ..... No, no, you lead on the last dance.

Yes, some of this nonsense sounds so much like the words of the PETA-gang. "Bowhunters do this, gun hunters do that". My gosh don't we get enough ignorant criticisms from the animal rights crowd without helping them out with our own ignorant comments? We sure are a self-destructive bunch aren't we?

I often wonder how many of these super-precautions that we routinely consider as being absolutely indispensable, are simply carryovers from a unique experience that some famed outdoor writer had once in his life ..... lol. How many times or what percentage of times will a deer actually spot you because your face is uncovered? Does it ever happen? Does the deer spot your uncovered face, or simply a motion that they would have caught even if you wore a complete camoed face mask. I guess no one is going to conduct any kind of study on that, so we engage in a whole lot of "just-in-case" rituals. I still think about the old-timers that always seemed to have success in their plaid jackets and blue-jeans, and no attempt at facial coverings. It just makes you wonder sometimes what is about actual deer hunting necessities and what is about selling products to hunters.

The DEC is truly in an absolute "No Win" position ..... All the time ..... lol. So much from the hunter's standpoint is subjective, and at completely all ends of opinion. We fight and battle in heated arguments about all these things where our only education is based on opinion. The DEC has to operate in the middle of all that emotion, chaos, and argument. And then on the very rare occasion that they do make a majority of hunters happy, there is some other political entity nipping at their heels ...... lol. And of course when they do arrive at some grand plan, we have Cuomo buying votes with the resources that the DEC needed to implement their plan. How on earth do they ever find men and women that are willing to endure all that?

I think VT Outfitter had it in mind for others to add pictures to this thread to caption as well.

I knew what this guy was thinking when I snapped this picture.....

Can anyone really imagine managing a statewide herd with all the wild habitat and climate and population variations that NYS has? Oh yes and then picture having the whole process politicized by the system of government to the point where deer management is only a tiny part of your duties. And then having to answer to a huge list of various "stakeholders" and trying to satisfy them all even though they have totally opposite requirements of the herd. And lets not forget all the other environmental responsibilities that take huge bites out of the meager resources that are begrudgingly allotted. And then the never ending carping and unreasonable demands from hunters for even more micro-managed species quality to go along with basic population control. Hunters always become armchair herd managers and all believe they can do a much better job at it than those who actually are educated and trained in the field and who actually have to go out and do the job. It always sounds like such an easy job when you have no real connection or responsibilities regarding that occupation. And then consider that deer are only one of the hundreds of species that they are mandated to manage. Now there is a job that you couldn't pay me enough to take on ..... lol. But that doesn't stop us all from being absolute experts at it. Yeah, opinions are great as long as we don't start taking ourselves too seriously, and we actually keep in perspective what our real abilities are in that area of game management science.

Lol .... What the heck is a "secoration" hunter?

Ha-ha-ha .... Now you've done it. You have no excuse for not getting a nice buck this year. Now we know you've got them .... lol.

The problem is that when it comes to estimating herd size and density, we are not exactly over-run with options. And when I say options, I am talking about practical options that the DEC can find resources for. I am no apologist for the DEC by any means, but as little confidence as I have in their statistical manipulations, I can't for the life of me come up with a better way of estimating deer density, or the impacts because of weather, predation and other mortality issues. And with all the volumes of opinions that have been thrown around on the subject, I have yet to hear anyone else have any better ideas. So while I can pretty much guess that they don't often get it right, and have seen evidence of that in the past, there is nothing positive that I can suggest as a remedy. But I sure would like to hear what others have to suggest as a practical herd density estimation tool.