Doc

It used to be said that fishing lure design was more for catching fishermen than fish. I'm thinking that philosophy of design is not just for fish and fishermen.

We've never had very many bears around until recently, and I've got to say that I am totally ignorant about bear hunting in general. But there are a few things that I have picked up on the subject over the years. First of all, hunting bears with dogs is not something that I will ever be involved with. I think I have left that level of exertion behind me quite a few years ago ... lol. I guess as long as I am not letting myself open to having some traveling circus of bear and dogs ramming across my property while I am trying to deer hunt, I probably wouldn't have much of a problem with others getting into it. Bait .... I am generally an opponent of such practices for reasons stated before, but I have been led to believe that hunting bears in ways similar to deer is probably not all that practical (trail watching and still hunting). Not saying its impossible because I know it isn't. But if the DEC seriously wants to increase the harvest of these critters, I think baiting is the only practical way that that will ever happen. Again, it is probably not anything that I will ever get involved in, but it seems like with effective bear harvesting, it has an important place. Trapping ..... Another activity that I am very well versed in, but not when it comes to bears. I do know that bear traps are a pretty intimidating piece of equipment, and I doubt that I would ever want to find myself tangled up in one, but again, I have no idea what he pros and cons of bear trapping might be. I would need an awful lot explained to me before I could ever form an opinion. As far as the sporting aspects of any of these activities, the population control needs may transcend those concerns. In the case of bears, I believe it does.

Ha-ha .... You are certainly entitled to your opinion and also have a perfect right to be wrong.

And lose the deer.

Well, I am not sure how the hierarchy of governments work that sort of thing out now, but they must have figured something out because changes in setbacks are accomplished already (Just in the other direction). For example, some how they worked it out that setbacks could be expanded locally, so there must be some form of compromise and interaction already established.

Lol ..... less or more "restrictive is a matter of interpretation ..... eh? If you are a landowner you might consider the 500' setback to be less restrictive in that it impinges less on your rights to privacy and safety. But the hunter may see the 500' setback as the more restrictive because he can't cozy up to your house.

And my point, which apparently I'm not explaining too well, is that if you set the default archery setback to 50 yards statewide, every township across the state without a deer problem, suburban or rural will be forced go through the effort to change it back to where it is now or live with it. It sure seems to make far more sense to me to leave it where it is as default but change the law to allow the few areas with problems to pass local laws to shrink the setback. In other words put this invasive and perhaps unsafe setback only in areas where it is in dire need and force the communities deciding to do so to take full responsibility for any negative results. Apparently this is becoming a hard concept for me to explain, so please take a bit of extra time to slow down and understand the nuances of what I am trying to say.

Mike- The link to the draft is in the original post on this thread. Check it out. It is pretty interesting reading. As far as the trapping mentioned, I see it listed as the third means of harvest right along with hounds and bait. These are things that they are researching and studying, not actual proposals. I'm pretty sure that they are talking about a general trapping season. Also, I have been informed that Maine has a bear trapping season, so it is not unheard of here in the northeast.

Ok, All better now. The scum-bag didn't mean it ..... ha-ha-ha. He just didn't mean to say it out loud.

I absolutely agree. If we cannot somehow become totally united, it will happen. From what I have been reading on this forum, I am beginning to think that such unity is not all that likely. I believe that the culprits will likely all get re-elected and things such as the safe act will continue to be successful here in NY. The safe act was a test. It likely will turn out that they will be emboldened by the success of their test. The culture in NY may have simply leaned so far left that it has fallen over with no real way of straightening it back up again.

My understanding of the plan is that under current seasons and regulations, there is pretty much a lack of interest in hunting bears. And yet there is a growing population of bears that somehow have to be controlled. I understand the lack of interest aspect. There is no way that I would purposely go out with the sole purpose of killing a bear. The odds against success are ridiculous. So what they are trying to do is to create a "bear-hunting culture" change where people actually enthusiastically try to harvest a bear. The baiting, hounds, and trapping thoughts are simply methods to make the pursuit practical and entice participation. While none of these methods would interest me, I was just curious how others view these possibilities, and how many would actually use any of these methods. In other words, would the allowance of these methods really create this "bear-hunting culture" that they are trying to create?

No, actually the problem is the attitudes prevalent, in NYS in particular, that the government should become the parent of the constituents. There is now an expectation that the government knows best and should be looked to as a replacement for individual initiative and responsibility. We cheered the fall of Russian communism, never recognizing that their style of government has been slowly replacing ours.

Wooly- The original topic burned out about 20 pages ago and has morphed into something that is probably a whole lot more relevant to even those people interested in crossbows. I think by now we all understand that the "Governor has announced support for crossbows in NY". We spent a few pages talking about the relevance of that. And then the thread moved into more interesting directions. We probably could have, and should have, created a bunch of new topics, but that didn't happen. So, it has turned into a free-form general discussion that is still evolving. I for one find it all kind of interesting even though it is a bit unconventional.

Oh, screw this nonsense. Haven't you realized that this thread has actually gotten way off-topic, but has moved into some pretty amazing stuff. We have some real bonafide libs here that are spouting their pinko crap, and you are still worried about some imagined journalistic omissions?.... lol. While I have ben off looking forward to November elections with the thought that gun owners were a united entity who actually cared about gun owner rights, I am now finding out that there are a few (maybe a lot more than I realized) that enjoy being wards of the state, serving their Fatherland as proper obedient children, and others that are basically saying, "I've got mine so the hell with anybody else". Suddenly, your droning on about your critique of a news article and your imagined offenses kind of pales in comparison. I think we have finally moved on to matters of a lot more significance.

Understand that Long Island is just a tiny part of NYS. Other towns and townships when faced with what they consider a state mandated unsafe condition with invasive privacy issues may see things very differently and perhaps reactions will occur that will result in hunters losing much more access than they have now. That is why I keep repeating like a broken record that deer populations are a local problem and should be dealt with at a local level.

And in the case of setbacks that is the part of the law that they should be changing, not diminishing setbacks for a whole lot of the state that doesn't need or want it. Out of control deer herds are a local problem and solutions should also be local with local accountability if or when things go wrong.

And that is the problem. Like I said before, that sort of thing should be in the domain of the local government since the situations and potential negative effects are local. If they are serious about offering solutions to a local problem change the law so that they can do that (with local voters approval).

Typo

That's not the way I read it. But even if that were the case, this is not something that I believe should be forced upon any municipality by the DEC. I see it as a local issue.

Right, and that is what needs to be changed, not the statewide default setback. It's a fine point, but if a municipality wants to create a 100' setback, 50' set-back or even a 0' setback, that should be a local decision. It should take a local vote to create situations that residents may have objections to without it being a mandated by the state. What is being proposed is that a 50' set-back be universally mandated for the entire state including the rural areas and even suburban areas that don't even need it or necessarily want it.

No, I believe the new proposal mandates it be universally (statewide) changed to 50 yards whether the municipality wants it or not (including rural situations). I am saying the 500' setback should remain as the state default with local governments being allowed to reduce that through local ordinances, approved by local voters. That puts the onus of whatever negative occurrences that come about on the local governments and local voters.

I'll be honest with you. If a municipality decides that they want to cut the set-back distance to whatever they think they need (zero feet if they can sell that notion), I think that that is something that should be made possible. That would be a decision made by that municipality with the input and buy-in of those residents effected. That community would have to live with whatever consequences that evolve with that decision, but they would be deciding their own fate at the level of those that are directly effected. I do not see it as being something that the state should be forcing on every municipality across the state, for all the reasons of safety and privacy that have been laid out in this thread. The responsibility for local decisions that effect local situations should be in the hands of local jurisdictions who are directly accountable to local voters.

Darn near impossible??? Did you miss Mike's statistic about 3,066 Environmental Conservation bills pending? Have you ever tried to read one those bills and understand what it was all about as well as research supporting issues and data to evaluate it, and then do that for over 3000 bills? I want to know who on earth can even do 1% of that. Note that these 3000 pending bills are only environmental conservation bills. The volume of pending legislation involving state and federal and local legislative activity and agency proposals dwarf that teeny contribution of environmental conservation bills and are usually of higher priority and are also expected to become a part of every one of your day's activities. So, who among us has successfully kept up with the thousands, and more likely millions of documents churned out by the various governments and their agencies? Some would try to convince us that they have, but we know they are not telling the truth. Do you get my point. It is virtually impossible to do the kind of job that should be done. Our effectiveness as educated citizens is buried under mountains of paperwork every day. And anyone who tries to tell you that they are indeed aware and fully up to speed on even 1% of all this legislative frenzy is really just messing with you. So when you say, "every so often, there will be laws that bother you that you never saw coming", understand that that is a huge understatement. I will say that percentage-wise, that will happen just about every time. Yes, as best we can, we should take an active participation on those things that we come across or that are brought to our attention. but let's not fool ourselves or try to fool anyone else that we are really effectively aware and active in even a miniscule amount of the legislative activity that effects us as hunters or citizens.

It is truly amazing when I hear people trying to convince us that as good conscientious citizens, they keep up with all of the pending legislation in the DEC, as well as state and federal proposals and now also each and every detail of every proposal of every government agency. I am trying to think of a courteous way of saying B.S. It is virtually impossible for anyone to do even if they don't have a life that they are trying to conduct. The numbers alone make it impossible. In fact there are legislators who readily admit that they don't have the time to read and research all the bills that they vote on. And they only have to worry about their portion of the bills. So if all this high and mighty talk about the responsibilities of conscientious citizens appears to be going in one ear and out the other, it is only because it is.

I don't think the trapping that they were evaluating was referring to normal and current trap and transfer activities. The items that I spotted that may generate some controversy would be: Baiting: I know that there are many that there are many that don't like any kind of baiting. That's an issue that I would have to do more thought on. I am generally not one that is in favor of training (conditioning) wild animals through bait to simply make my harvest easier. I have always said that I prefer to hunt animals as I find them rather than conditioning them for my hunting convenience. That's just a personal condition that I put on my own hunting. However, being an old trapper, I can see the inconsistency in thinking there. Hounds: That is a method that some may have problems with. I guess I have no particular problems with hound hunting right up to the point where the bear is treed. Shooting a bear that the dogs have hunted for me does seem to end in what looks contrary to fair chase principles. Shooting a bear that is in a tree with absolutely no place to go does kind of strike me in a negative sort of way. Trapping: Yes, I have been a trapper in years past, but really, are their any states that still allow trapping of bears? I'm not even sure that's still a viable method of taking bears. Anyway, I thought this all might make for some interesting discussion.