Doc

I understand the attitude that says let the guy remain ignorant. After all, whatever trouble he gets into is his tough luck and nothing to me. I understand it, but don't agree with it. I can see someone innocently buying some of this stuff and never realizing that they will be committing a violation if they use it, especially after noting all the confusion on these laws right here in this forum. And all that confusion is added to by the fact that local stores are selling these materials that are illegal to be used in NYS. Why is it wrong to try to do the guy a favor and give him a heads-up on the law? What I can't understand is the reaction of the customer and some of the wacky statements he made.

Yup, the mud bottom of the crick was full of them. But back then we never thought much about it .... Just pull them off and then head home ..... lol. Yeah, today it would be a traumatic event.

I have countless face and nose pictures as well as those "stare-down" shots, so I always knew that I was not getting away with my spying activities without any notice by the deer. However, I never had the video to show the results after the picture and how disturbed these guys get at that little black box sitting there harmlessly stuck on the side of a tree. Who would ever guess that an inanimate object could cause such trauma. Needless to say these situations can cause one more dead spot in woods where those particular bucks will never visit again. That's not really our intent, is it? I do wonder whether it really is the vision that gets their initial attention, or whether there is some airborne scent that leads to them seeing the camera. I know from interactions with deer, that if you remain motionless and the wind is in your favor, deer can be fooled and walk right by without ever knowing you are there. But when the wind is not in your favor, you will never fool them.

Did you get out of your car and pet him ...... lol. We do have a growing population in the area, but still it's not always that easy to actually see one here. My closest encounter was one night when a bear decided to bend down the iron pole on our bird feeder and drag our garbage can about 50 yards up into the woods leaving a trail of garbage along the way. He did make a permanent change in the way we do things now. The garbage is kept in the shed and the feeder is now an overhead "tram" arrangement that is about 12' off the ground.

It has nothing to do with "high horses" or minding someone else's business. None of us passed the law and as far as I know, none of us are responsible for enforcing the law. However we all should be aware of the law, and I would expect that we are all interested in respecting the game laws of our state. Maybe we don't understand the reasons for the laws and maybe we have some kind of problem with that law, but the right way to solve that situation is to work on getting it changed within the system. What I have noted from many similar threads is that there is an awful lot of ignorance about this baiting/feeding law. Sometimes a comment like Eddie's might just save someone from an arrest. Instead of getting all exercised that someone saw fit to educate this guy, it should be viewed as an attempt to keep the guy out of trouble. If he takes offense to that, well, that's really his problem. But at least now if he's going to break the law, he definitely knows that he's doing it. Then it is between him and the encon officers and he gets whatever he deserves.

Excellent video! So, how much damage are we doing to our hunting by some of these cameras? Sound like we had better be thinking a lot more than just wandering around strapping cameras to trees. I have to admit that I didn't really expect that the visual thing was a big deal. A simple small box on the side of a tree, who would think that would alarm them so much. I always thought that there would be a scent problem, or a sound tip-off. Well, live and learn. Elevation seems to be the key.

A lot of these people when they start losing an argument begin to fly off into a little fantasy world where they all become Jean Claude VanDam leading a righteous crusade against tyranny and all of the world's evil forces ..... lol. What can you do? .... Just simply laugh at them. But you are right. Other people hearing those kinds of jackass comments do start wondering just what kinds of guns really should be available to wackos like that. And since he is going off over a hunting issue, we are all implicated by default.

I personally do not know any military personnel that are contemplating mutiny or treason over the NYS gun law. And law enforcement people value their jobs and positions within the community too much to be sucked into any radical subversive activities. If anyone intends to take on the U.S. government, they had better be ready to organize their own little rebellion. And if this is a direction that you favor, you might contemplate what kind of mess you would have left over if any such activities were ever to become reality.

It doesn't matter. Let me repeat that ..... "It doesn't matter". I don't care what they say. I only care how they vote. The point that will be made and must be made is that a vote for gun control has consequences to the legislator's career. It is a fear factor that has to be put back into the career path of politicians. They must be re-educated to the fact that they work for their supporters and must vote in accordance with the fact that they are our representatives. It is a message that has made the NRA the powerful voice of gun owners for all these years. Politicians feared our gun lobby, and that fear has to be put back in their minds if we are to keep this anti-gun steamroller off our backs. My suggestion is not really anything radical. It is simply making the vote work again to restore representative government. This is not a call to arms or any of that other wacky stuff. It is simply using the system as it was intended. Very simple ..... you want to vote anti-gun, you have a huge block of voters to contend with. You can use them as support or opposition ..... your choice. There is no politician that will risk any votes, not to mention an organized, dedicated, unified significant percentage of the voters in their district. The draw-back to all this ...... gun owner apathy. We have many that don't vote at all let alone voting as a single issue force. Can it be done? I think it can with enough anger and passion whipped up by the pro-gun organizations and we as individuals. How important is this issue to us? Maybe after the next election, we may find out. But I will say that those who do not vote against these known anti-gunners really should have nothing to say about any problems they encounter with gun issues. By the way, I intend to publish that voting record of the NYS Safe Law as soon as I figure how to cut and paste an Excel spreadsheet on this forum. I tried and so far the formatting on this forum is very unfriendly to spread sheets .... lol. I'm working on it.

And that is a problem that can be laid at the feet of the apathetic NYS voter. At some point we have to band together as "single-issue" voters that vote out every legislator that vote for pro gun control bills. The next elections are as good a time as any to start. Yes we are the minority, but it is hard to defeat a dedicated and unified minority. We have to re-ignite the anger over this law at a time when votes count. We have the voting record and that should make election decisions easy.

Is there some anti-hunter out there inventing these new diseases?......lol.

I think if I were a legislator, that tactic would instantly signal my opposition vote, no matter which side of the aisle I was from. It's the best signal to flag the fact that some sort of sneaky, unpopular, issue is being steam-rolled through. That automatically means to me that more time is required to thoroughly read and understand the bill and to get as much public comment as possible.

Good luck with that ... lol. Have you started organizing your headquarters and barricaded compound and staffing it with militia? When do military maneuvers begin?

It seems to me that those that are concerned with the handicapped and aged and infirm would have made that their first priority and crafted their first round of legal incursions into bow seasons limited to taking care of that problem by itself. I won't predict how NYB would have reacted to that kind of bill, but I will say that nearly all of the opposition from rank and file bowhunters would have disappeared had the bill simply been written in that fashion alone. But I think that crossbow proponents use the handicapped issue only as "sympathy" side issue to push their real agenda. Frankly, if someone had posed a bill that allowed the handicapped and aged to use crossbows in bow season, I would not have written even one letter opposing it. I suspect that most bowhunters are of the same opinion.

We used to swim in the local creek across the road. When we got finished, we would get busy pulling all the blood-suckers off out feet and legs. That would absolutely gross me out today, but back then we didn't think anything about it. By the way, that picture looks like there should be some good fishing there.

Are there really people that are such poor hunters that they have to rely on something like baiting? I have read magazine articles that tell about deer being conditioned to the extent that when the timed feeders go off, the deer come running as a response to the sound. It's like Pavlov's experiments with dogs ..... lol. Is it really necessary to train the wildness out of the deer to make them easier to hunt? When I look at all the different crazy things that we engage in, simply to remove challenge, I have to wonder what "hunting" has turned into and why.

Imagine if the illegal drug trade went by those rules ..... legal to buy and sell but illegal to use. Those drug laws would become a nightmare to enforce wouldn't they? Well, I can imagine that same kind of thing makes the enforcement of the feeding/baiting laws just about impossible as well (especially on private and posted lands).

Andy is getting quite comfortable with the "message of necessity" clause. I was just reading in the paper where he used it again on some rather unexciting law which I can't remember right now. But anyway, it is beginning to look like he can (and will) thumb his nose at public comment periods on just about any law that he wants to cram through the system. So basically, he has been able to take public input and discussion right out of the legislative process. There is some really strange stuff slipping around the constitution that we are not always knowing about. Prior to this gun law, I never heard of this "message of necessity" nonsense. When did that get implemented and by who? And what is the supposed purpose of it?

The thing that people don't get is that baiting is not the only thing that is illegal. Any form of feeding deer is also illegal. So even if there is no intent to hunt over it, any form of distributing material for ingestion by deer is illegal regardless of motives. It may only be for picture taking purposes, but it still is breaking the law (everywhere but Sullivan County).

I have had that problem with my two Bushnell cameras. It seems to happen right at transition times in the AM and PM. I have always figured it was a confusion factor in the camera trying to decide whether lighting conditions require switching to IR or not, so it kind of does both at once. If Bushnell ever gets back to you on this, would you share their explanation with us? There are a lot of us that own that brand of camera and I'll bet more than a few that have experienced this problem.

As a matter of fact, there were some that did oppose this bill. It was not a unanimous vote in the Board of Supervisors. However the opposition was not organized or very passionate about their feelings. I also think that for most people this was a stealth bill that didn't get a whole lot of press. I never did see any letters to the editor on the subject. The only place I saw any lively discussion the first time around was on the Canadice town web-site and that was only during the first time around. I have to admit that even though I have been an enthusiastic supporter of rifles in Ontario County, I have to admit that I still have the same natural concerns that any landowner might have. I have considered the fact that the reckless hunters out there are now handed a weapon that can extend their recklessness. I am also aware that almost all of the new southern zone counties where rifles have been allowed have no real long term track record to judge whether it was a wise decision or not. Most of these have only been in effect for a couple of years. No way of knowing how many of the residents have even exchanged their shotguns for that shiny new rifle yet. We may have not seen the true results yet. Balanced against all that is the fact that primarily a rifle allows one to intentionally hit exactly what they are aiming at. I think there also is a shooting confidence that may create the mindset of one shot - one kill instead of the spray-and-pray mentality of shotgunners. I'm also aware that most of Ontario County is hunting that is "up close and personal" in terms of just how far you can even see the deer. And then there is that controversial study from Minnesota(?) that claims to show that rifles are actually safer than shotguns based in the fact that slugs tend to hold together during a ricochet. So my attitude now is let's try it out and let the record decide who was right.

http://public.leginfo.state.ny.us/menugetf.cgi Just type in the bill number .... S3929

I can't remember where I first heard that this year's version was a lock, but somehow I took it all to heart and went out several months ago an bought the Ruger American in the .270 caliber. No more bruised up shoulder. The old 12 guage is retired. I can decide which hair on the deer I want to hit (well, that might be a bit of an exaggeration .... lol). Yes, we have been at this point before (on the Governor's desk) and it still got screwed up. But this time I'm very sure that it is going through. My enthusiasm for gun season has been renewed!

"You can't see me"

My bowhunting does not rely on escape routes and luck plays as little a role in my bowhunting as I can arrange. I save all that for gun season. I am not at all interested in accidental bow deer harvests. In bow season, I do try to get away from that sort of thing and I do work deer patterns, and for the most part am quite successful in finding areas where others don't or won't go. Even in intensely hunted areas, there are often places that are uncomfortable for others to hunt. If you know your hunting area, you can find these spots. I won't say that it is flawless, but you can arrange things so that the accidental bow harvests are the exception rather than the rule, even on public land. But back to my original point, if there are a few people that decide to do some scouting (whether they are crossbowers, gunners or even other bowhunters), they are more than welcome to do so. They will simply join the others (hikers, bikers, bird watchers, whatever) who are wandering around in the traditional spots that people wander around in. Most of the time, I won't even know because I won't be there. It's a shame that such a large part of hunting considerations have to be in avoiding others, but what the heck, it is simply a sign of the times. And if you are going to hunt public land, that is becoming all part of the game.