Doc

This part of my season gets real casual now .... lol. Nice leisurely breakfast wait for things to warm up a bit. and then out I go for a nice "sneaky" stroll, doing my best impression of still-hunting. No more sitting like a frozen lump at the base of a tree waiting for the sun to come up. Actually, in the past still-hunting has been my best and most productive way to hunt. There won't be anybody out there keeping deer on their feet and moving, so I have to do the job all by myself and sneak into their bedrooms. And that can wait a few more hours. Maybe I'll get lucky and add to that pile of deer....ha-ha-ha.

With the wind shaking every tree and branch in the woods this weekend, it's a wonder he didn't run out of ammo right off the bat .... .

I butchered my deer for a good many years, but there is no way that I could ever say it was a process that I looked forward to. In fact the word "dread" comes to mind. I can't say that I really miss that chore. For tackling chores that I really hate, I have to assign an extremely high dollar-per-hour value to the time that it takes. For those that enjoy that activity, all I can say is, "have at it!"

As a matter of fact, when we picked up our meat, it did in fact come out of a refrigerated room, packaged exactly like your average cuts of beef at the supermarket. As far as leaving a deer out in the sun, I'm sure the short amount of time that these deer actually spent there was significantly shorter than conditions in the woods before you actually lay hands on your deer, or get it home to any source of refrigeration.

Well, I have no way of knowing whether there were any "game-hogs" adding to that pile, but I will say that there was a steady stream of vehicles coming and going, and while I was there, I didn't see anyone come in with a truck-load of deer. So what I am saying is that the pile in those pictures only shows that deer hunting is a very popular activity and that there are a significant amount of people that are successful at doing exactly what they intended to do. It is just a graphic representation of the realities of hunting. If we believe in hunting, then we should have no problem with a display that those deer are actually being used.

The tag never leaves the carcass throughout the whole process. That applies whether the carcass is whole, on the conveyor or on the butchering table. Of all the imagined problems with professional butchers, that is probably the most unlikely. And as far as laying in the sun, I watched that pile grow and then disappear, and believe me most of those deer probably laid in the woods a lot longer than they laid there. I've been using these guys for quite a few years now, and I have never gotten any bad venison. Unless the deer has already been laying in the woods and already begun to spoil, these deer didn't stay there long enough to do any harm to the meat. The trick is not to leave the things laying around for half a day before getting them to the processor. I know I have heard all kinds of arguments against processors and really believe that most of the comments are simply the product of over active imaginations .... lol. These guys don't stay in business if they start handing back tainted meat or short-counts on the amounts of venison. I butchered my own deer for a whole lot of years and I know what quantities of venison I should be seeing. I have never gotten back less venison than if I had done the job myself.

The original post talked about steel shot. Does the S.A.F.E. act extend to background checks on shotshell ammo?

It probably is not a good idea to intentionally shoot through brush, but I think the question is still a valid one when asked in a different way. If shooting something like a .270, and the bullet strikes a small (maybe pencil sized) twig, are you likely to be in for a long day of tracking. In other words, what size twig does it take to upset the flight of the bullet to the point of a wound. Looking through a scope, it is always likely that the focus will obliterate the view of some unseen twigs. So naturally one has to wonder if this is a concern with using a rifle. I know when I was sitting there in my blind, I was wondering if I should have gone crazy butchering all the trees in the area to ensure that I didn't hit a single thing.

I watched these guys work, and believe me those deer didn't stay there too long. They had a pile of guys working there and processed them like an assembly line. They were almost running. Once they got them inside the building, the temp in there was pretty darned cold. This isn't an operation like we might do at home. They can skin a deer in an unbelievably short time and onto the conveyor racks they go. It was interesting to watch people doing this stuff that really know what they are doing.

Just tell the deer to stop and pose with a right hand profile, then a left hand profile and then a frontal shot. If the deer passes, shoot it.

Just 5 hours into the season: I tried to rush a few pictures and also stay out of everybody's way so the pictures highlight more the quantity than the quality of the deer that were there. I did see some guys walking out with some caped out trophies, but I didn't get their pictures. Sorry about that ..... maybe I'll do a better job next year. The pictures were kind of a rushed after-thought. But I thought some of you might find the harvest of the venison there kind of interesting. This is a processor located between Bloomfield and Victor in Western NY. By the way, note the stack of deer hides in the background from deer they had already skinned.

It always seems like the DEC is almost panicked at their inability to peddle their DMPs. It looks like way more of them are made available than they ever really expect to be taken. But then if that is the case, I wonder what mental midget came up with the idea of charging for applying for one. I think they may have reached a situation where no matter how many they make available, there just aren't that many interested hunters willing to take them. Also, I have to wonder if all of those permits actually get filled. Well, no need to wonder, we know that they don't.

Here is another observation relative to the OP. After the first hour of opening day. deer are put on full alert and enter survival mode. It used to be that large drives, and still-hunters kept the deer moving (and visible). Not so today. Many hunters are "sit and wait" hunters. So you have all these guys plunked down next to a tree, and all the deer plunked down in some nasty areas where guys won't go. The advent of clothing technology has allowed guys to sit tight. The advent of Saturday morning hunting programs has convinced them to do so. So the thing is that the deer may very well be there and nobody is forcing them to become visible. Now add to that how the state parking lots empty out by noon and a lot of guys figure that is the end of their season, and it turns out that the remainder of the season has very few hunters in the woods to move deer that have gone nocturnal. Just enough to let the deer know that they had better stay nocturnal. There is also the posting and under-hunting of a whole lot of private land. Land bought up and hunted by tiny groups of hunters, again make situations where deer in survival mode are allowed to simply sit tight and make everything appear like there are no deer left in the woods. Yes, this is all just a lot of theorizing based on some observations only in one little area of one little WMU, but I have to wonder if these scenarios don't take place in many areas and WMUs across the state. It definitely would cast a very misleading picture of the deer populations of today compared to the apparent situations of years ago.

If you are interested in how permit targets are set, read about the Citizen Task Forces at the following web address: http://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/7207.html There you will find who the DEC and the Cornell extension service agents consider to be the real movers and shakers in determining who has the say in deer numbers. The list of "stakeholders that they have provided are: "Farmers, hunters, foresters, conservationists, motorists, the tourism industry, landowners, small business, etc, are all considered as potentially distinct stakeholder groups". If I were to assign a "pro-deer" or "anti-deer" attribute to those stakeholders, I think the majority of that pool of stakeholders are anti-deer minded people. I also have to wonder how these results might turn out a bit badly skewed by a few biased strong personalities in the group. Anyway, check it out. Some of the make-up and power of these CTFs may explain what kind of population picture the DEC is trying to get to in your WMU.

Hey .... When you gotta go, you gotta go. And there's not always a whole lot of options. Often, I find myself in denial, pretending the urge will go away. Of course it never does. It just becomes and emergency that will not wait for a dash back to the car or off to some convenience store .... lol. The paper is for obvious reasons, but also doubles as a warning to others not to step there ... Now that would be a nasty situation.

OK! So that's the way it's done. Good job ..... Great story. And another one falls to the mighty .270 .... lol.

Just like my ancient ancestors, I eventually came out of the trees and am now a ground dweller. Actually, I have a phobia about heights, and have learned the art of ground-stand construction. Not only does it avoid my "heights thing", but I have also come to prefer the excitement involved with taking on whitetails in an eyeball to eyeball state. It doesn't get any more exciting than having a deer on the opposite side of your stand, so close you could reach out and touch them. Yes I do believe it is a handicap, but then challenge is the main reason for my hunting. Sit or stand? .... both. I have an aluminum collapsible stool with a canvas top that I have used for 15 years now. I prefer standing, but these old legs need a rest once in a while, so I do both standing and sitting. From this point on, through the rest of the gun season, I will be still-hunting since all the natural daylight patterns are busted and the deer are in full survival mode. No stool carried along for that. When I need a sit-down, there are plenty of logs to sit on. I generally put on a very, very slow walk into the wind for about 10 - 15 minutes and then find the nearest big tree and stand there for about the same amount of time checking out every inch of ground ahead of me (often with binoculars), and then move slowly ahead again for 10 or 15 minutes. Pretty effective way of sneaking up on bedded deer. You don't cover a lot of ground, but you do cover it thoroughly. I'll be heading out this afternoon to get into a still hunt, taking advantage of this noisy wind. It's bucks only for me now, and I have a few places that have been productive in the past.

I seldom take any pictures of does. Also, I was working at warp-speed trying to get them off the hill and out of the heat. By the time I got them gutted, it was already close to 50 degrees with the sun beating down on them ..... And I still had to get them off the hill (2 deer at once). It seems the older I get the more I wind up in situations that test my endurance ... lol. It gets pretty time consuming and tiresome to drag one deer a ways and then climb back uphill to get the next one, all the while carrying a gun and pack. I didn't take the ATV up (like a dummy), so it was all hand dragging. What I did do, was to take some pictures at the processor's place. I have no idea how many deer he had there but it was a crazy scene. And some of the racks that I saw were just awesome. I have to download them from the camera, and I will post a few.

We have small game hunting going on from September right up to opening day, and shots can be heard all around the valley even during the summer. Definitely there is a whole lot of shooting during the day before season. Actually the sound of gunfire is pretty common and expected. So if the deer get all paranoid and start to hug the ground with every shot that is fired, I guess that by the time opening day rolls around, they must be all dug into the ground in some perfect hiding area. But then we know that isn't so. I think the deer become conditioned to gun shots until the shots are at them. They seem to know the difference. I found it kind of interesting that almost all of the shots on opening day were taken in the 1st half hour of the morning. To me, it signified that it took about 1/2 hour of shooting and hunter invasion for almost the whole deer population to "wise-up". So there are things that do put them into survival mode. But I don't think a few shots the night before really does that all by itself.

So, I guess the quantity and patterns of shooting varied depending on where you hunt. That's not surprising. Over the decades, I believe that shooting has gotten a lot lighter, and this year was no exception. The cars in the state parking lots have lessened in number, The cars along the road have gotten a whole lot fewer. These are observations made from the late 50's to today and are subtle changes each year that one would not notice without looking at a long period of time. I think there are a ton of reasons for the changes. The fewer shots I believe are due to the improvements in clothing such that people can stay in one spot for the entire day. No walkers - no deer moving. The shot patterns make that obvious. You have this rash of shots clustered right around daybreak (when hunters are moving to their stands) and then it tapers off to near nothing (when hunters have gotten all hunkered into their stands). Another thing that I have noticed is that hunters today tend to hunt the first part of the day and then take off for breakfast or lunch and only a few of them ever come back. And one last observation that I am sure I will be seeing later this season (like all recent years) is that most of the hunters are opening day hunters only. From here on out, it will be very, very quiet. It will at times seem like there really is no hunting season in progress. The drives of the old days are almost completely gone and hunters have learned the frustration of trying to sit with no other hunters moving around in the woods (moving deer).

Congratulations to your buddy. That is a great deer.

Ok, I can now officially say that he .270 works awesome ....... twice. It works good at 150 yards and it works good at 15 yards.....lol.

Ok, we finished off this year's opening day. It's the big one. So what were your impressions about the activity and participation? I noted that the busiest part of the day was the half hour before legal shooting time. During that 1/2 hour it really sounded like the "old days", But then things started slowing down (just about the time it was legal to be shooting). By 8:45, it was already starting to get to a point where shots were a long ways apart. That was when I added my two shots and filled my permits. After that things really got slow, and by 9:15, the shooting was basically over. My wife drove down the valley and told me that the two state parking lots were half empty. Yesterday afternoon, it was like there was no deer season going on at all, judging from the shots. I've heard more shots from squirrel hunters during small game season. So now I am curious. What was it like where you are hunting? And if it was like our area, what do you make of all this silence for an opening day? By the way, when I went over to the deer processors, it looked like they were having some kind of record day there and some of the bucks that I was seeing were absolutely huge. So maybe the few shots that were being fired were making each shot count. Oh one more thing. Now that rifles are legal in Ontario County, I didn't hear a single 5-shot (lets empty this gun out as fast as possible) volley. Any connection?

I think I will be hunting pretty casually today. Mostly just getting out to stretch the legs a bit. probably be doing a lot of ducking and diving trying to avoid falling limbs .... lol. Maybe be getting some wing-shooting practice as the deer go tumbling by in the wind. I heard there were going to be 60 MPH wind gusts today. Listening to things starting to howl out there right now.

2 antlerless permits filled. Now it gets a bit more difficult .... lol.