Doc

So Grow ...... How do you like that DR Trimmer. I have two of them now. The first one had a battle with a heavy deer-proof welded-wire cage around an elderberry bush down next to the driveway. I cracked the bearing casting on the rotating housing. I rebuilt that one and it is now just about as good as new. In the meantime, I had to buy another one because I rely on it so much for mowing both sides of our 1000' driveway and ditches. So now I have two. Both are the most reliable implements I have ever owned. Two pulls max and it is starting (first thing in the spring, never fails). The first one is about 9 years old now and has seen some super heavy-duty use. I don't baby these things. They are meant to work, and that's exactly what they do. They did change from a cast body to a heavy gauge sheet metal one for the new one, but it still looks super rugged.

Well, I seem to be having a bit of a problem git'n-er-done this year. There's an awful lot of "almosts", but no deer down yet. So this thread has brought to mind the most perfect excuse for my failure so far this year and I believe I am about to join in and use it this year. My official position right now (and current excuse for failure at this point of the season) is that "I will shoot no deer before it's time". I am holding out for a book buck, Oh let's say a minimum of 150 or 160. Oh sure there were a lot of "lesser" deer that I could have shot but due to my superior hunting prowess, I cannot lower my standards to shoot anything less than 4.5 years old. I want to see that severe sway in the back and a toothless, nearly blind buck that is stumbling through the woods suffering from old-age. A man has to have his standards ....right? There, how does that sound? Pretty convincing eh? Heck I can justify years of going scoreless with that line ..... lol. What the heck .... when the going gets tough, just raise your standards to the point where you can easily and believably justify failure.... Sorry couldn't help myself ..... The devil made me do it! I have noted some great examples of "implied bragging" (well some of it goes beyond implied .... lol), and I think it is all pretty funny. But I am beginning to see the usefulness of it all now.

That's all a part of hunting. There has to be a cut-off point somewhere to start and end the day. Sunrise and sunset are as good as any.

Bow hunting is not for everyone. I think I understand what you are getting at, because bow hunting, if you are going to be successful at it does require some pretty detailed understanding of the whitetail, it's habitat and patterns. And yes those are all good things for even a gun hunter to understand thoroughly. But to try to force participation in one activity as a requirement for another, probably would result in a net loss of hunters, at a time when that is already happening at an alarming rate. And like I said, not everyone is or wants to be a bow hunter.

10 feet! That sounds like a massive "flinch". Or who knows ..... maybe the arrow was not on the rest. If this has never happened before and it never happens again, you will just have to chalk it up to one of those unexpected anomalies that archery seems to occasionally come up with. As far as the "back-hair" shot, that is not really all that unusual. Those critters do have the reflexes of a fly. Keep at it. Keep up a good steady practice regimen and pay attention to all the details.

There are ways to gather wealth through real estate. The buy and hold speculation is probably one of the least likely to succeed. Unless you have an inside track on some significant community investment change, there are a lot more lucrative places to put your money. Do not get tunnel vision, and look at the whole spectrum of investment and then evaluate. Treat it all like you would treat any business venture. Create a model with realistic and educated expectations of return over time.

Well, being a guy that always goes after the obvious first, and since you never mentioned it ..... at what draw weight was this Oneida Eagle set at? Is it possibly as simple as reducing the poundage a bit? I find that most of the shoulder/back/elbow/wrist archery related injuries are caused by those who abuse their bodies through some unreasonable bow draw weight.

I wonder what would have happened if the guy was a bit slow in getting the treats to the bear? He probably would have had the hula-hoop wrapped around his neck .... lol.

Turnpike Lodge Guns & Gear on routes 5&20 between Canandaigua and Geneva had them for $7.00

How the heck did he ever train that critter to use the hula-hoop? I never did get to the point where I could use those things .... lol.

Personally, my opposition was never about an interruption of bow season. I simply think that the wrong problem is being addressed and in the wrong way, and that special seasons mis-represent and short-change the hunting experience for kids for all the reasons that I stated above.

It doesn't matter which version of sign you choose. The point is that it's time to put our money where our mouth is and show these guys that we haven't "gone away".

And that is the one part of the recruitment problem that no one is addressing. We came up with this special season, and now walk away patting ourselves on the back claiming "problem solved".

Of course, being a SCOPE member, I am in favor of getting the signs from that organization. That is not the cheapest place you will find them, but it does also serve as a donation to one of our more active gun advocacy organizations. However, I will say that there are many other places that these signs are for sale, and at many different prices as well. I have heard prices as low as $5. I would suggest that you call or stop into any independent firearms dealer, and there is a good chance that they will have a supply on sale. Regardless of where you decide to purchase them from, it is important to blanket the state with these things and let the politicians know that they have poked at a hornet's nest. The time for legislators to be thumbing their noses at us has to stop, and this is one small way that you can each help with that. I want to see those creeps shake in their shoes everytime they go down any road in NYS and see those signs.

If we are concerned with giving the new hunters the best chance of seeing deer, we really should be talking about opening day of gun season. Statistically that is the best opportunity for any hunters old or young. Coupled with those additional success odds is the fact that in many cases opening day exposes kids to the deer camp atmosphere which is a definite plus in recruitment. Add to that the fact that there are already potential mentors out there participating in hunting rather than having to talk someone into taking them out at some odd time. Add to that also, the fact that using opening day as an introduction to hunting also includes all family members and family friends which is an important add to the experience. My question is that now that we have this "special youth hunt", what is actually being done to promote it. If the new hunters cannot find a mentor with free time to spend with them when the season is in progress, where are these "mentors" supposed to be coming from for a special youth hunt. Oh, and that problem is made even worse by picking a time when many potential mentors are planning on bow hunting instead (that was a brilliant move). Another question is have we just established a youth hunt and then wiped our hands clean of the fundamental components of the recruitment problems? Has there been any kind of campaign begun to encourage adult hunters to bring in new hunters? Or do we just now assume that since a special season has been created that all is now well in the world? I hear a lot of talk about the problem being solved with a special season and absolutely nothing about encouraging the adult hunting population to volunteer their time. No one is trying to convince the adult hunter population that they have to become a part of the solution. It's as though just coming up with a season is somehow going to create mentors where we previously had none. I am of the opinion that when you try to brings kids into the sport by depriving them of the actual experience of hunting, i.e. deer camp and the camaraderie of the "whole experience" of hunting with friends and family, something is lost and mis-represented. But it has been decided that incoming hunters should be pulled out of the mainstream and shoved off into some isolated situation outside of hunting season like that is really some kind of solution. Simply make them fend for themselves as far as finding someone to take special time to arrange a mentorship and a separate hunt. I don't know, but to me it all seems to be a rather anemic, half-hearted, attempt rather than a well thought out recruitment plan.

Pretty meager crop in our area.

All I have heard so far was one shot, and that sounded like a .22 and likely was a small game hunter. I'll be taking a break from bowhunting for the next couple of days. I need it ..... lol.

Be careful about giving these scrapes (or even the area) too much attention. Keep your observations and scouting at a long distance until the day you decide to pop in there and hunt.

Being a believer in blaze orange for safety, I would recommend that if you're out bow hunting, be sure to have some B/O on. It may not occur to everyone, but you might want to mention that to anyone you can think of. Let's keep it safe.

Heck, deer use my driveway and quad trails. They don't care. They are all about looking for the easy way to travel from one spot to another. A cow path provides that very well.

Generally when discussing hunting with youngsters (and others) and trying to introduce and excite them about hunting, I usually stress the tradition and heritage of the activity. That is the sort of sales point that the antis cannot combat. I don't waste a lot of time discussing what pieces of equipment will make hunting less of a challenge. They already have plenty of places to learn about how to "tech-up" the activity. I have found that kids are really quite interested in some of the history and reasons for hunting if someone just takes the time to talk about that sort of thing. It probably is not doing much for the sport or the participants to convince them that they can "buy" hunting success, or have some engineer invent it for them. Between the marketing forces in hunting, and the TV shows, hunting can be entered into with the same mentality as going to the store looking for the latest gizmo from Apple. It doesn't do any harm to point out that there is a difference between taking on the challenge of hunting, and going to the store to make a random technological purchase. Sometime people have to have that explained to them. Does technology have a place in hunting? .... absolutely. Even the pioneers understood that. But as has been pointed out, the world is a rapidly changing place, and things are being invented that we couldn't even conjure up in our imaginations before. We do have to guard against technology swallowing up and burying the basic reasons why we hunt. We have to be careful that we don't start regarding hunting as merely buying the easiest way to kill animals. I'm not talking about extremes and fanaticism. I am simply talking about keeping some perspective as to why we are out there in the first place. Where are the lines drawn? That is a personal decision. It is one of those things that fall under the category of "you'll know it when you see it". But that will only happen if you are looking for it.

I generally continue on with my original plans (just stubbornness). I have to say that I have never had any luck at a stand that I have spooked a deer out of. Unfortunately I usually am in a position where there is not enough time to change locations, and I refuse to simply give up and head home (although that would probably be the smarter thing to do ... lol).

It is hard to tell just how big around that tree is, but I believe it is not a rub. Deer usually rub on trees that they can get their antlers around. I frequently see these scratching marks on the bases of some large trees and have come to believe that it is something that squirrels or some other small-game critters do.

This time of year it is almost impossible to keep up with all the activities of putting summer away for the year. When you combine all that with my bow hunting and all the prep work that goes with that, trying to find things to pass the time really is not a problem.

Quite a few years ago, we gave up on the wood heat. We are surrounded by a woods so the fuel was basically free, but there were some things that eventually caused us to discontinue using the stove for heat. First of all, there was a constant fight with creosote. The stove pipe was a very short run to outside, and the drastic change from inside temperature to sub-freezing outside temperatures occurred so fast that the condensation of gases caused a creosote build-up in a very short period of time. So the tear-down, scrubbing and reassembling was a frequent pain-in-the-butt, filthy and time-consuming job. Second, there always seemed to be a film of dust on everything. Almost impossible to stay ahead of. Third there was the obvious work involved in cutting, splitting and stacking the firewood every year..... So many other things that I would rather be doing ... lol. Also lugging that stuff into the house and up the stairs was not something that was super convenient to do. Fourth, we occasionally would bring in some multi-legged wood munching critters that rode in on the wood. Wood eating insects are not really something that I wanted to be introducing to my wood framed house. Fifth, there was always the fun job of disposing of the ash. That always found a way of becoming a mess somewhere along its path down the stairs and out the door. Sixth, and the final problem that caused the stove to be shut down for the last time, was the time we were sitting watching TV and heard a loud "Thump". Walked over to investigate and found the floor littered with hot burning embers. I have no idea what the heck actually happened. I assumed that there was some kind of gas build-up that basically caused some sort of explosion. As near as I could tell, the embers blew out the air intake damper and onto the floor. I could only wonder what would have happened if we had not been home, or if we had been in bed sleeping. That little episode finally did it and the wood burning activity ceased. I do understand that stoves may be built differently these days, there are also alternate fuels (wood pellets, corn, etc.), and we did have a unique arrangement where the stovepipe length was extremely short. But the whole experience (about 5 years worth) just finally forced me to believe that it simply was not worth it. It all drove home the reason for the invention of forced air petro fueled heating systems. I decided that we were not so poor that we had to resort to that method of saving money. Also, if I counted my time for anything at all, I'm not so sure that it really was so cheap anyways. Certainly, if it had burnt the house down, the money saved wouldn't have meant a whole lot.