Doc

Man! ...... That's cold.....lol. If there's an old stump nearby, maybe you could have the kid hold the pet rabbit in position so you could chop the feet off easier. Is rabbit season closed now? I would say that maybe you should go out and get your own rabbit. Even your buddy may look at you a little strange if you ask him....lol.

My fear is that just like the compound bow has successfully served as the precedent for the crossbow, the crossbow will serve as a precedent for the next generation of bow season dilution. I have followed the discussion for a few years now, and I hear all kinds of descriptions and historical references and attempts at trying to compare the various components and all kinds of stretching and reaching and contortions aimed at justifying the inclusion of crossbows. We tend to try to justify the introduction of crossbows by applying all kinds of criteria that most likely aren't even relevant. Long lengthy discussions on the relative challenge of shooting each weapon all wasting time and energy. I hear comments that the crossbow will be the salvation of hunting by adding untold numbers of hunters to the ranks of bowhunters and filling te woods, and then the same people tell us that the introduction of the crossbow into bow season will be transparent to bow hunters. And on and on it all goes. The reality of the whole argument really boils down to one fact which is not arguable, which is that there are people who want to use the normal time slots of bow hunters who simply don't want to go through the rigors of practice and mental and physical disciplines that bow hunting requires. The whole notion that bow season is a time of the hunting year of putting maximum challenge into deer hunting has been trashed years ago. This idea of diluting the challenge of bow season is not even a new or unique need of hunters as witnessed by the advent and popularity of the compound. So naturally, the crossbow was the next logical change to bow season to help dissolve some more of that "difficulty & challenge". Also, gun hunters already question why bowhunters need special seasons and why we unfairly get the first crack at the deer, and why it is fair that we with our evolving weapons are allowed to thin the herd of the best trophy animals before they even get a chance. Are they right with those criticisms? .... It doesn't even matter. What matters is that they have this perception and they are the vocal majority and every year as we add to the bowhunting arsenal, their arguments get closer and closer to the truth. But one thing this crossbow campaign has shown very clearly is that if someone wants the season of a minority bad enough, they really don't need any excuses. With the proper preparation and backing, they simply take whatever they want. Oh there may be some convincing and some manufacturer's bank-rolling, but the majority of hunters are not bowhunters and that majority becomes very easy allies when it involves bowhunter's seasons or their perceived advantages. It all worked for compound bows, it will work for crossbows and at some point off in the future, it will work for the next generations of weapons inclusions. At some point we will be wondering exactly why we call it bow season. That is what the old-timers of the 70's saw back when the compound was jammed into bow season. It was an argument they used. They saw the power of precedent and by golly it turns out they were exactly right. The pursuit of easy hunting takes some strange but very predictable turns, and the advancement of that need for easier hunting won't be stopping with the crossbow. So yeah, as a bow hunter who has been involved in the sport for more than 53 years, I would like to see bow hunters draw a line in the sand and claim, "this far and no further". But then, I am a dying breed of hunter that definitely is in a tiny minority today. I have gotten out of bowhunting what I wanted, and I suppose it is up to the next generation to shape the future for themselves.

Those are the kind of newspaper editorial comments that really deserve the use of the "letters to the editor" feature. The Canandaigua Messenger has been red-hot with some pretty good letters lately.

It's ok. It can do nothing but help the addition of new hunting recruits. Of course it's easy for me to be so easy going on the subject of lifetime licenses since I got mine at that magic year that it was available for $50 for us newbie seniors .... lol. That was a hell of a deal. It really would be good to find out the real reason(s) for this sudden reversal. Yes it may be just a bone thrown to the hunting portion of the gun-owning population, trying to get us calmed down a bit. But I also wonder if there may not have been some of those famous statistics that they are so fond of that showed them a forecast that showed that at some point in the future there would be some peculiar backlash and showed that there was going to be a collapse of license sales if they didn't bring the fees into a more reasonable area. No, it's nothing they are publishing or making public or admitting to, but I do wonder.

The BeeGees were geniouses with a very unique sound. Of course my all time favorites have always been the Everly Brothers, who I'm sure were the inspiration for the Bee Gees sound. The first "45" that I ever bought was the Everly Brothers. I believe it was "Wake Up Little Suzie". And then I continued to buy everything they made. But I'm still finding some new ones that came out mostly after they broke up and went their separate ways. even separately, they made some great albums.

His choice of a "double barrel" vs. single shot shows that he does understand something about the value of having additional shots when in a defense situation whether he intended to admit that or not. I suspect that he didn't really want to highlight that end of the argument, but I did note that he went out of his way to specify double over single and unknowingly admitted that ammo capacity does factor in when deciding protection capability. He should have finished off that thought by honestly admitting that if a double barrel is better than a single shot, then a weapon with 10 or 30 shot capacity is even better ..... lol.

Along with the old standards in country music, I have pretty good collections of Prairie Oyster, Southern Pacific, Kentucky Headhunters from the country rock end of things.

Could it be that the ammo producers are taking a lesson from the gas companies and are driving the ammo prices up by manipulating supply? I would hate to think that they might get involved in that sort of thing, but today when it comes to businesses, nothing really surprises me anymore. It could be that the higher prices that they are getting for their products because of the big consumer runs on ammo buying triggered off an idea to make even more per bullet through contrived artificial shortages.

And in the case of home invasions where more than one assailant is coming through the door? Could be that that 30 round clip and that so-called "assault rifle" might become very necessary. Man the guy talks like an absolute jerk. But I guess it's pretty easy to talk that way when you have the round-the-clock protection of the secret service. Why worry about the subjects .... right Joe? "Screw them, I'm safe".

I don't know anybody who has fully automatic weapons pointed at them that will refuse to comply. When the U.S. military has the drop on you, your rights no longer exist. And yes, if they can do it there, they can do it anywhere at any time and with just as little reasons or legality. And, I don't care who you are or what kind of arsenal you have, if you decide to resist, you will die and somebody else will have to sort out the legality of your death.

I came out of the trees quite a few years ago. It was from a developing "fear of heights" thing. I will say this, I believe that hunting from a treestand puts the hunter at a distinct advantage. It definitely is not fool-proof, but it is hard to argue with the advantages of less scent detection, and being out of the direct line of sight of the prey. There is also an advantage (usually) of having a greater visibility from an elevated position. None of these advantages are guaranteed or perfect, but in general they are significant. Now the good news for a "ground-stander". The excitement level is un-paralleled. You just can't beat the excitement of watching a deer close the distance, step by step while you are right there going eyeball to eyeball with him knowing tha teven the slightest movement if not done super carefully could be picked off by him. I have had deer within touching distance. It really will give your heart a work-out. Oh sure, back in my tree climbing days, I had some deer walk straight under my stand and so I was within 10 feet of them, but on the ground, I have had several situations where I literally could have reached out and touched them. I also feel that on those bitter cold days, it is nice not to be hanging off a tree, exposed completely to the wind. My ground-stands are generally a solid wall of local debris that forms a great wind-break. From a safety stand-point, there is no question that the ground is pretty difficult to fall out of. Are you any safer from getting shot by somebody if you are up a tree? ....... probably not. If the ground is flat as a pancake, there might be a slight advantage, but most of the time you never know whether you are actually above or below somebody that is shooting in your direction even when you are up in a tree. At least on the ground, I generally have a pretty solid wall of debris and usually a big old tree trunk to stop slugs or bullets from one or two directions. actually there's probably not much of any significant difference. As far as the portable pop-up ground blinds, I have just started to use them in the past couple of years. Safety-wise, I have used strips of blaze orange fabric that is held securely to the outside of the blind by velcro when I am using it during any firearms season. It just helps other hunters know that there is a stand there and hopefully tips them off that it's not a safe direction to be shooting. The advantages of these kinds of blinds are the absolute removal of your movement. Also from a comfort standpoint, they do keep you out of the wind and other elements. There also are some limited potential scent capturing benefits. Disadvantages: they will be noticed by the deer unless they are well brushed in and preferably seasoned for a couple weeks. Also, if you are trying to use them on public land, it is really necessary to take them down whenever you leave. That can be a pain, and also defeats any attempts to let them become an accepted part of the deer's habitat. Yeah, there is a lot that could be written about ground-standing, but this reply is already turning into a book .... lol. So, I'll snip it off right here and let others chime in.

Ain't that crap? My wife consistantly out-bowls me ...... by a lot too.

I used to spend time up at Black Lake, and was always surprised on the trip up, at how guys were able to scratch out a living with their dairy farms and such. It is weird to see a farm that has big boulders sticking out of the ground every 50 feet or so ..... lol. I guess technically, that is a bit north of the actual Tughill area, right? But even up in the Theresa/Black Lake area, one of the biggest flocks of turkeys that I have ever seen was up in that area. But I can't for the life of me figure how deer and turkeys can survive any area off the east shore of Lake Ontario with the snow accumulations that happen there.

Actually, over my lifetime, I don't think there are many styles of music that I have left out completely. Way back in my younger days, I had albums by Dave Bruebeck, Al Hert. I listen to Glen Miller and Harry James, lounge music from the 40's, I even had a favorite record that my Brother sent from Taiwan when he was stationed there. I like bluegrass and other forms of hill-billy mountain music. I have a lot of classical stuff also. I am a great fan of X-Factor, and American Idol and enjoy a lot of that kind of modern music. There is one big exception of something that I can't get into no matter how many times I hear it, and that is RAP. I call it "Chanting" because it certainly has nothing to do with music ..... lol. Other than that, everything is fair game.

You will most likely be donating your stand to some filthy lowlife thief. I learned that lesson with a game camera that was located in an almost impenetrable thorny, thick area of state land that I swore no one would ever go into. WRONG! People cover every square inch of state land and help themselves to whatever they find there. You can use cables, chains, cast iron lock boxes, but if you can remove them, they can remove them ..... and will.

Baiting foxes and coyotes generally involves things that probably couldn't ever be argued as being deer food or bait. On the other hand, I have always wondered about using meat and roadkill and such in areas that have bears. Could that be construed as a bear-baited hunting spot as well? From what I have seen and read about the southern states, the most common form of hog-bait is corn. And we know that could be a problem in terms of being determined to be both a deer bait (or feeding station) and bear bait.

It may be difficult to bait hogs without feeding deer. That might be what they had in mind when they made that statement. But as far as there being any law that forbids feral hog baiting, I have never run across it. In fact I can't think of anything other than deer, bear and turkeys that are specifically listed as being illegal to use bait to hunt.

Yeah, I recognize some of those ...... lol. Actually I can understand how some of the new guys might have missed having had a crack at some of those oldies-but goodies. We have had some good ones. Maybe it's good to have a brief break from some of the Cuomo/Obama gun-grab subjects, as long as we don't let those slide too far into the background. Actually, as the next elections get closer, I'll guarantee that I will be doing my best to resurrect some of these gun law threads .... ha-ha-ha.

I'll have to see if I can get it. I really do like to watch people that actually know what they're doing. Being absolutely talentless at it, I can really appreciate what it takes to develop that machine-like consistancy.

I always consider that it is a first come - first served situation. If there's anyway that you can ascertain whether the stands are currently used, that would be a better way to figure out the answer to your question. Even better is if you can have a face to face talk with any other hunters that are using the land and work out some agreement. Here's the deal, ask yourself what you would do if you ran into this situation on state land. When you have a landowner that just doesn't care, the same rules would apply as a state land situation or any situation on wide open land.

What channel?

Well, here's the deal ...... Take whatever bribes the fool wants to offer and then when election time comes around stick the creep in the back like he did to us. That means voting for his opposition, actively work against his campaign (letters to the editor, Letters to rod & gun clubs and other individuals, e-mails to friends and relatives reminding them of his anti-gun law, and as much other involvement as possible for getting him defeated). By the way, that goes for all his lackeys that bowed down obediently and voted for that anti-gun law too. Sure, he's not the only one that use deceit and sneaky maneuvers. Let's give him a taste of his own medicine. Take whatever he's offering and then stick it to the creep and his gang come election day.

I bowl a couple times a week, and boy am I ever crappy at it. For example, today I bowled a 198 and followed it up with a 117 and a 124. So much for actually knowing what I am doing ..... lol. I've been at it for a couple of years (never bowled before that), and haven't got a clue what the heck I am doing right or what I am doing wrong. However, I will say that when I can control the frustration, it's a heck of a lot of fun. I don't bowl on any leagues or anything. Just do it for the heck of it.

So what he heck is the matter with the other political parties that they are not making a huge public stink about that? I mean that's a pretty blatant misuse of public tax money. And do we have no members of the news media that are unbiased anymore? ...... None?

That was kind of what I was thinking too. Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought he was just posting a heads-up on what the anti-hunters are up to.