Doc

Apparently a happy ending.

Do you have any other choices? A .22 hornet would be great. A .222 or .223 would work well too. Heck, a .22 long rifle will do the job as long as you aren't trying to reach out too far. .308 is a bit of overkill if you have any intentions of using the pelt afterward.

What is it? Do we have a bit of a fox version of Bambi-ism going on here? Does the fox look a bit too much like a little doggie? you probably have a problem with bobcat hunters shooting the little kitty-cat too. It's a shame these things don't all look like rats ....right? That would make it all better. Come-on, what the heck is wrong with you coming on a hunting site and whining about such crazy stuff? Do you have a problem understanding the concept of maintaining wildlife health through population control. That's some pretty basic stuff. Try to back off of the Disney movies for a while and throw away that PETA stuff when it comes in the mail. The little cute doggies and kitties of the wild will do just fine with a little population control .... lol.

Yeah, we have a pile of roadkilled deer around this year. Some of them are just downright gruesome.

You've got some mighty fine venison there. After all that hard work it seems like you finally got rewarded.

Like Fasteddie said ...... be sure to follow all of the doctors orders. No cheating and sneaking out there doing things you've been told not to. You'll do just fine. We'll all be thinking of you.

I am not so sure just what the management benefits are if you set up so many restrictions that you begin to lose the most important and irreplaceable management tool that the DEC has ...... the hunters. We seem to be getting regulation-crazy. Got a problem?... set up a new round of restrictions (sounds like gun control ....lol). I think there are signs that thinking exclusively in that way (admittedly along with a lot of other reasons) is beginning to take its toll on the future of hunting.

782 years old? .... lol. Sorry to hear of your breathing problems. It does sound like you may have come onto a solution with the mask. I'm a couple of years behind you in age, but I am feeling the ravages of hanging around for all these years. The old legs aren't quite what they used to be, and the endurance is getting to be a bit pitiful compared to my younger years. But I still get out there and get venison for the freezer. I have cut way back as far as how far back in I will hunt because there is always the reality that if I get something back there, I have to drag it out. Seems like when I was younger I didn't even worry about such things. The biggest thing that I discovered this year is that I seem to have lost my "sneak". Still hunting requires a lot of balance. When you feel that twig under-foot, you have to be able to pick that foot up again and re-position it without a whole lot of instability and noise. Man, that doesn't seem to happen quite as smoothly as it used to. I make a lot of mistakes these days. But what the heck, we do what we can for as long as we can .... eh?

My attitude toward taking a doe is purely based on my perception of the population size. Right now, with all the landscape destruction, I have no problem with taking does. The past couple of years, these critters have cost me a bundle in mangled up, chopped down, uprooted plants and shrubs and trees. We have no deer shortages here. So I have no problems taking a few of them out. I have seen years when I gave them a pass because I felt that the DEC had over-shot their mark with all the permits. Sentiment? ..... No none of that yet. Maybe when I really get old .... lol.

I keep my competition between me and the deer.

People are convinced that deer can read posted signs and have all retreated to your land for safety.

All my posted signs are on a plywood board, which is nailed to a tree. The nails are not driven all the way down to allow for tree growth. I went to separate boards because of the tree growth which would pull the nails right through the aluminum sign, leaving the sign on the ground, perhaps under the leaves and pretty much useless and even in some cases lost. I also have a self-imposed rule that when standing at a sign, I am able to see at least one sign before and at least one sign after. They are well within the required minimum distance and no one can claim that they didn't see the signs. That kind of care eliminates any and all arguments about mistaken trespassing. When someone enters my property they are willfully and undeniably aware that they are breaking the law and trespassing.

I hope they have something as good or better to replace it with. Frankly, I think the DECALS system is the best thing that has ever happened to hunting license issuing. It sure beats any systems that preceded it. I remember all the hand printing and waiting and the BS involved with obtaining a permit. What a pain that was.

Just a point of curiosity, but do they really regulate how many hunters that can hunt in a designated unit? Is there some kind of lottery system that required for hunters to be able to hunt in certain WMUs? I'm not familiar with the regulations of those states, so I really don't understand how they accomplish hunter number regulation.

NYS habitat is in decline as old farmland brush-lots mature into full-growth over-story. Some places worse than other places. Yes, there is still some excellent habitat, but we are losing it at an alarming rate, and there are increasingly more places that used to be prime deer hunting area that are either being eaten up by development, posted out of accessible reach, leased and under-hunted, or simply maturing beyond usefulness for deer habitat.

Nope, I'll be missing out on this Thanksgiving day hunt. That slime that dropped out of the sky the other night and covered up my driveway has to be plowed out this morning. There's only about 4" of that stuff, but it has the consistency of pudding. It has to be removed so the gang of friends and relatives can drive up my driveway and hope to have any chance of getting back out.....lol. That's ok, we have enough venison in the freezer for the two of us.

Interesting graphic.

Thank you for posting this update. We need more activity on this issue and other aspects of keeping the passion against this infringement in the forefront of the minds of gun owners. In concert with these various legal actions, we have to keep our eyes on the goal of punishing those legislators who supported and voted for the Safe Act. A message has to be issued by the gun owners that we will not allow our rights to be tampered with, and that those who do will be dealt with at the polls. We have to act as a single-minded, single issue, voting block in order to have the impact that will keep these people from daring to thumb their noses at our rights. It will be through the efforts of this organization (NYSRPA) and other similar NYS organizations and the ire of all gun owners in the state that this will be accomplished. And it must be accomplished in order to put the fear of God into these self-serving politicians, and to put an end to these kinds of harassments of honest law abiding citizens.

This thread certainly points out the variations across the state. Not really a lot of surprises here.

Probably the smartest thing ever done by the DEC is when they broke the state up into WMUs. Now the smart thing to do is to use that WMU system, and stop coming up with these one-size-fits-all kinds of solutions. I cringe every time I hear these statements about how NYS needs a statewide AR system, or how the state needs an Earn-A-Buck requirement, or how the state needs a one-buck limit. We have a WMU system so that hopefully, management activities and regulations can be tailored to the local habitat and populations. Now, we can argue about whether that is effectively being done or not, but the concept is sound. None of these schemes applies to all of NYS and there is no point in talking like there is some magic single bullet that will solve every situation across the state.

I still haven't decided. I already have two in the freezer, but I still have a buck tag left. I have this guy that I am still trying to find.

I see nothing wrong with stating the contents of a law that you may feel has been broken when reading a post. I would hate to think that any of us would allow another hunter to remain unaware that he had violated a law. Why would anybody want him to remain ignorant of the infraction and perhaps continue it over and over? That doesn't mean that such a reply has to lead to some kind of battle. As long as the correction is not stated in a way that is judgmental or accusatory, no offense should be taken and there should really not be any controversy. I personally got the impression that the original poster did not fully understand that the sunrise and sunset requirements do have a precise value that must be looked up each day. I thought it was instructional for someone to point that out.

These bullet hoarding s.o.b.s are still having an effect on component availability. I just came from Beikirch's without spending a cent. Just about no powder, and no 150 grain Hornady SST bullets. The story is that the components are all going to the bullet manufacturers instead of the small distributers. Manufacturers are apparently cranking out factory ammo to satisfy the hoarders. Not only that but I heard that Obama is trying to shut down lead manufacturing in the U.S. That's going to have a huge effect on bullet costs. Not sure where the guy got that tid-bit or how reliable it is. Oh by the way, the Safe Act supposedly has no impact on components. So if we can get past all this hoarding crap, those of us who re-load should theoretically be able to shop mail order for components again.

Huge amounts of deer in my chunk of 8N. The cameras, and the snow doesn't lie. It still requires being in the right spot at the right time ..... not always that easy. One thing I have noticed is that it is once again that time of the season where deer have bunched up. So if you don't happen to be in the area where the bunch goes by, you may get the impression that there is not a deer in the woods. If the bunch goes by you, you will probably be telling everyone about the gobs of deer in the woods. The best way to check it all out is to walk around with this snow on the ground. Deer cannot move without leaving their story behind

Well, we got through the first weekend. So what do you think of the herd size so far. I'm reading some disturbing stats in the latest issue of New York Outdoor News. that claims the numbers so far are down. I didn't read the article yet, just the headline. So what is your estimate of what you have been seeing, hearing, etc. in your part of your WMU?