Doc

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.

By the way, not to get too far away from the original topic, but I have been wondering just who's paying for all those ads. There have been a pile of them and I know TV time isn't cheap. They really are just political ads .... they should be payed for by the Democrat Party.

Ok, so it wasn't that long ago that hunters, fishermen and trappers had it stuck to them when they raised license fees, supposedly because the DEC was in danger of going broke. Now all of a sudden they are awash in money, such that they can drop the fees and eliminate licenses. Where is the cash coming from to make up for the loss of revenue for the DEC? Is this another case of creative accounting?

My guess would be that if there was an overwhelming support shown by counties, some enterprising politician might decide to cash in on that sentiment to propose a bill that would repeal Cuomo's law. And if that kind of overwhelming support were to happen, those sleaze-bags that voted for Cuomo's gun-grab probably would see the wisdom in turning on that law and voting for repeal.

Here is something that works. In fact I have seen it send trespassers running for the lot-line .... lol. I had this old red coat that long ago wore out it's usefulness. I hung it on a branch about 100 yards from the posted line. It was not clear as to what it was, but that red was obvious as hell from a long distance in any direction. I seem to remember someone else (I think it was Growalot) who came up with ingenious cardboard cut-outs that looked just like a human silhouette. I know those would work. As has been already mentioned, do not resort to man-traps, or garrot-style strung wire or even items designed to destroy trespassing machines or their tires. All that will accomplish is law suits that will basically give the trespasser or their heirs the deed to your property, and give you a bunch of years in jail for manslaughter or whatever the appropriate charge might be.

Well, this sort of position statement by a county, may take off and spread across the state from county to county. Most likely if this became the official position of a overwhelming majority of the counties, there probabaly would be some official state legislative action that would get that goofey law repealed. That may be wishful thinking, but I do see some hope in one of our counties starting this sort of thing going.

Ok, so what exactly does this mean? A county cannot repeal a state law can it? Is this just a position statement, or does the measure have some real meaning?

Oh yeah she was the pastey-faced gal with the gray face and the ribs showing through her sweater.

Lol ..... This subject does indeed drive me crazy. You can see how frustrating some of these situations can get. But I think the post by erussell even outdoes the experiences that I have had. My gosh ..... it's getting pretty bad when you start having motor vehicle accidents in your hunting turf because of excess trespasser traffic ...... lol.

There are a lot of things that get passed off as "science" that definitely need de-bunking. That is where the term "junk science" came from. Biased, contrived, manipulated, studies and experiments can be powerful tools for those subjects that have political outcomes. Heavily funded "scientific" studies funded by those that have a stake in the outcomes come to mind. Our biggest shortfall is in being so intellectually lazy as to simply grab onto whatever version of "science" that suits our purposes and then passing it off as fact. It's a common tactic used with the hope that it will stop opposing arguments in their tracks with it all being posed as irrefutable scientific fact.