Doc

So where did they come from? Is there a creek or river or swamp somewhere nearby? If so, you may find a perpetual source of these critters that you can't get rid of. It does look like there is a limited supply of food for them there, so they may start checking out your trees in your yard....lol. They are interesting critters to have in the area, but they may find ways of irritating you .... ha-ha. That setting really doesn't look like ideal beaver habitat.

This NYS Safe Act has got a lot of these mail order places spooked. The results of that legislative travesty are going way beyond what most people even realize. Cuomo and his merry band of lackeys really got away with something there when they snuck that law through in the dead of the night. Just remember all this when the next election rolls around.

I lost a $220 Cuddeback on state land last year. The camera had only been out a week or so and was located in an area surrounded by thick brush and multiflora rose. Hard to imagine anyone actually going in there. In fact unless they were familiar with the only nearly imperceptible trail to the spot, I dare say that it is nearly impossible for anyone to get there. Anyway, I learned my lesson. Even areas that are considered to be nearly inpenetratable, or even spots that are so far in that you would consider them absolutely safe, it is likely only a matter of time before you will lose a camera to these thieves.

I simply have problems with those that decree that they have a private insight into all kinds of conspiracies with absolutely no shred of proof. These mythical characters and the lore that goes along with them certainly are entertaining, but if somebody is trying to convince anyone about these evil forces, they had better come equipped with hard evidence and documented proof rather than some once-upon-a-time movie plot. Seriously, when we discuss "human nature", it is wise to understand that it is also human nature to try to take credit for some level of superior secret knowledge that no one else in the public is privy to. It is also true to human nature that many people have wild uncontrollable attractions to anything that sounds conspiratorial. I don't think it is particularly out of line to perhaps apply a bit of mocking to these kinds of "The-sky-is-falling" rantings and ravings until some credible proof or evidence is put forth. That would be credible proof or evidence from credible sources, not some article in some wacked out conspiracy mag or internet site. Oh, and if we are going to assign some conspiratorial motives to every world summit or any kind of meetings where world leaders get together, then we had better figure that the world is already under total domination because this has been going on for centuries. Look people, we have enough real, in-the-flesh problems to worry about without conjuring up mythical ones. I get all excited and concerned about things I can see, hear, touch, and feel. I really don't need any new fictional ones being doled out on a constant basis.

Imagine the presidential democratic choice ....... Miss Hilary or crazy eyes Cuomo. Scary isn't it? And then consider that the Republicans will probably put their usual opposition candidates that no one has ever heard of, or who can't form a complete sentence with their foot stuffed firmly in their mouth. It's a pretty depressing picture isn't it?

Ok, I finally got some of my money back on the messed-up .270 Winchester Powerpoints. I had to drive to Auburn (about 2 hours round trip) to get a couple of replacement boxes of bullets. That is the last Winchester ammo product that I ever will be buying. The whole thing was a $21 loss when I factor in shipping the buggered up bullets back to Winchester. And then, if time and travel and gas count for anything there is an additional screwing involved. Of course the travel to Auburn is not Winchester's fault because they have no control over the ammo shortages that have since developed here. So anyway I am about as clear as possible as far as this whole fiasco (loss and all) and I will be sure never to do any business with Winchester ammo or components again. By the way, I am extremely lucky that the Bass Pro in Auburn had my caliber because most of the shelves that would have contained a lot of the other calibers were absolutely empty. Also, I had no luck finding reloading components anywhere in the store. But anyone with .270 has got it made for a while anyways. The price had only gone up about a dollar since I bought the boxes of damaged ammo at Gander. So it doesn't look like they are trying to gouge anyone there. Sorry , but I didn't look for any .22 rimfire for those of you that are looking for that, so I don't know what their supply and price situation is for that.

Ah yes, buck fever. hopefully we all get a bit of it to one extent or another. I do remember one huge buck that just about killed me in that regard. I had this huge critter about 35 yards from me for about 20 minutes but he was lightly screened with brush. My stand was just inside a thicket on the edge of a small field, and this guy kept me watching from my ground stand with my bow up all that time. He kept pacing back and forth giving me a good view of a huge rack. And quite a few times me made movement toward a trail that would have brought him the 10 or 15 yards to me through the thin line of brush and right into my shooting lane. I have to say that I was starting to go over the edge. This guy had me worked up that much. In fact a couple of times I started getting a bit light-headed. That kind of scared me. After this 20 minutes of physical and mental torture, he just melted back into the brush without ever giving me a shot. I have to wonder if I could have gotten off a shot anyway, I was in such a screwed up state.

Beard and mustache used to work best but that white is kind of defeating that now ..... lol.

Beard and mustache went on in 1972 bow season and will be with me when I get planted.

Yeah, I kind of felt sorry for the little critter. He was constantly being plagued with bugs. That was amazing video quality for a cell phone.

I can recall every bow killed deer. It may take a bit of prompting on some, and maybe I would have to consult my records a bit, but eventually I can recall every detail of each bow kill. I can even recall a lot of details of bow-hunts where I got nothing .... lol. Unfortunately, I cannot claim the same with my gun-killed deer. A few may stand out, but most gun shot deer have been relegated to "meat gathering" status. I'm not real proud of that, and have always considered that I had the same attitude toward all my hunting that you talked about above. But apparently my memories and appreciation of the kills are tied very much to the challenge and method of the hunt and the weapon that I used.

Never underestimate the power and impact of technology. I have seen so many things become reality that were once said to be flat-out impossible. We can't even imagine the extents and potentials of technology in hunting. My example of "computer hunting" was just one example of hunting technology gone crazy. That is definitely one version of hunting success "being completely dictated by the efforts of some set of mechanical and electrical designers". I suspect the future will continue to surprise us with how invasive technology can become in what we consider to be hunting. Maybe we will pay attention and recognize it when we see it or maybe, as has already happened, we will simply come to accept it all simply because of the slow evolutionary way that it comes on us.

Great video, but I still haven't figured out how the fawn got in there in the first place. In the second place, how did anyone know it was in there?

Not nice to have our legal system bent by the social issues and biases and hot-buttons of the day.

Will those stop the penetration of a thorn from a multi flora rose?.....lol

But it's all true!

Wow! That video nailed it.

48.7 degrees this morning.

What an interesting video. Did you notice all that "deery" behavior of the head bob and the foot stomp. I love that little feint of dropping the head down in a faked indication of eating or not paying attention and then whipping it up trying to catch you off guard. Where do they learn all that stuff so quick. That uncontrollable curiosity that they have is really something to watch. He just couldn't help himself. Just had to check out that new critter in the corn field. By the way .... nice camera work. You did a heck of a job keeping it framed and following him around. I thought it was one of the better videos that I've seen lately.

Conspiracy theories can be fun..... . But seriously, the only Bilderbergers that I take completely seriously was that promotion that Denny's was running where you actually told them how to construct your burger, item by item. No wait ..... that was "build-a-burger". ..... sorry! By the way, how did that 2nd gunman on the grassy knoll ever make out?

I am reminded of an experiment that I conducted years ago to settle an argument about the possibility that a deer can move out of the way of an arrow. You would be surprised how controversial that theory was among bow hunters. What I did was to prove that humans can "jump the string" and can do it quite effectively. I set up a large sliding cardboard target that had wire loops at the top that slid easily along a taught horizontal length of stretched wire. One of my sons volunteered to help with this test, so I set it all up with him standing way off to the side, behind a shed (for safety and also to ensure that he had no visual cues). A length of string connected him to the sliding target. I stood back at 20 yards with my tournament equipment and the instruction was that as soon as he heard the sound of the bow being released he was to take off and move as fast as he could. Interesting experiment ....eh? Well guess what. We conducted the experiment 1 dozen times and he consistently moved the target approximately 12" each time. I figured that really wasn't too bad for a human. With sound being the only stimulus, and a slight delay due to a little slack in the string, I thought that was amazing. Now, if you take an animal like a deer with their fly-like reflexes and their super-tuned ears and their skittish personalities, there was no longer any question in my mind about their ability to move significantly away from an arrow. It was quite a few years afterward that I saw the first slo-mo video evidence in Bowhunting October Whitetails that clearly showed a deer dropping down, loading up those legs for a full retreat, and the arrow flying harmlessly over its back. It was not a big surprise to me and my son, but was interesting to see the theory proved using a real deer.

Lol ..... It took me 7 years to get my first deer back in my recurve years. I've got to tell you that almost every bowhunter that I knew at the time (all 4 of them) didn't do even that good. However, that first deer was such a great trophy, that you cannot believe the overwhelming satisfaction and sense of accomplishment that was involved in that harvest. I also will say that I never really became frustrated or entertained any thoughts of giving up because all of us bowhunters were in the same boat. There weren't a whole lot of deer around back in those days, and sometimes "almost" getting a shot was the highlighted story at work on Monday morning. So yes, the equipment and the short seasons and the low deer populations made bow hunting a very skilled activity that required a whole lot of work, dedication and unfilled tags. But that was the challenge of bowhunting, and that's what made it different from gun hunting and we all accepted those challenges and understood that harvesting a deer (we called it killing back then .... lol) was likely to be a very rare event. But when you did connect, what a feeling and having success with a bow was recognized as a demonstration of extreme hunting skills. But I do understand what you are saying. Today, success is expected. And if you do tell someone that you got a deer, the first thing out of their mouth is, "What did it score?". And if you come back with, "Well it was only a doe", forget the conversation continuing. Nobody wants to hear about that .... lol. Expectations today are a whole lot different than they were years ago, and almost forces people to use whatever aids and technology that they can get their hands on just to keep up with those expectations of today. So, I never said that I don't understand this evolution toward using technology to bolster our skills. Hell, I have succumbed to it myself. One look at the 11 very expensive bows on my rack downstairs will attest to that. Also the drawers full of techno-junk in my shop show that I too chased the "perfect weapon" and "fool-proof equipment" as it all came out....lol. I do understand it, and I am merely commenting on the existence of a pattern that has taken over bowhunting. I am also wondering if there will ever be an end to it all, or wondering what bow season will look like a decade or two down the road with this ever-increasing quest for hunting solutions through technology. And of course I am always interested in whether anybody even cares about such things anymore. It's kind of an interesting subject, I think.

It seems to me that there will come a day when our hunting success will eventually be completely dictated by the efforts of some set of mechanical and electrical designers. I often wrestle with that thought and I try to focus my hunting as simply me against the animal and the woodslore required to take that animal and the knowledge of the prey. Hopefully, my success does not rely on the skills of some inventor working away in his office. One look at my pile of equipment amassed over the years will tell you that I have not been real successful at cutting technology out of my hunting .... lol. But anyway, I do believe that there is some point where technology has gone too far. We had these guys that tried to come up with computer-hunting.... hunting without the hunter/client ever stepping foot in the woods or laying a finger on a trigger. There was no doubt in my mind that that was going way too far, and yet I do see us heading for that sort of thing at some point in the distant future. No one seems willing to set limits as to what they will allow science and technology to do for them when it comes to hunting. Every generation seems to break down those limits farther and farther. I think it is an amazing topic and that is why I commented the way I did. I find it interesting as to where everyone today sets their limits. Unfortunately not a lot of people want to even think about such things and seldom ever offer an opinion. Sometimes the silence on that subject is almost scary.

That is a tool, not a skill. If you set down your bow and pick up a rifle, have you increased your skills? You have increased your success, but exhibited perhaps even less "skill". You have simply utilized a piece of superior technology (a tool). Utilizing someone else's creation (mapping programs) is a similar sort of thing. It has not increased your personal hunting skills. Someone has invented something to replace your inability to get that over-all visual advantage, but that is not a skill. It actually took a lot more skill to successfully read sign on the ground, and the mapping programs merely serve as a shortcut that makes those skills unnecessary. Oh well, enough nit-picking over skill vs. technology. The fact is that technology's primary function is to take over the need for individual skills or make them less necessary. Good thing for hunting? .... Bad thing? .... you decide.

No, I consider one of the prime bow hunting skills to be the ability to get nearly within touching distance of your prey as there was a time when that was a hunting skill that was required of any successful bowhunter. It all has to do with woodslore and stealth. That IS a hunting skill. A lot of today's technological advances equipment and concealment have taken away much of that requirement. And yes, a lot of the hi-tech peripheral archery and hunting equipment have indeed been invented and sold to cover up lacking hunter skills. These are basic hunter abilities that have lost some of its importance because we have bought our way past the problems. One way to show the effect of technology on bowhunting is the fact that compounds still enjoy an overwhelming popularity, and there is not a mass movement of people back to recurves and longbows. People are still for the most part staying with compounds and now are even looking towards crossbows. The reason? .... It requires far less skill and dedication to shoot technologically superior weapons. The other piece of evidence is the changes in bowhunting success rates. Absolutely, technology has lessened the required skill level for hunter success and we have the success rates to prove it. I am not trying to pass judgment on this evolution, but am simply pointing it out. Whether it is a good thing or not depends on point of view, but let's not deny the effects of change and technology.