Doc

Yeah, it sounds like you are going to have a blast. You'll probably wear your arms out. Take a bunch of pictures for us and post some of them when you get back.

I have noticed that in areas where there is significant hunting pressure, the deer seem to adopt a "safety in numbers" attitude. That's why two different groups or individual hunters will have directly opposite opinions of deer populations. Some guys will be near the path of these ganged up deer and the next guy may just be out of sight of them. You either see a pile of deer all at once or see none depending on where you are standing.

200 yards ..... may I suggest that you do your best to locate what direction each of the houses are and try not to shoot in that direction. Hopefully all shots will be down toward the ground since you will be up in a tree. Even at that I suspect there will be some real nervous neighbors in that area if you happen to touch off around .... lol. They probably are not used to hearing guns going off in that kind of close-in range. There may be a few spilled cups of coffee .... lol.

That's funny! Luck like that is enough to give a guy a complex .... lol. Adjust that darned scope down an inch of so.... ha-ha. But seriously, that just points out how small that brain really is. You're only talking and inch or so between the perfect brain shot and a miserable experience like you encountered. But luckily the direction that you were off (high) probably resulted in a relatively harmless "de-horning". It doesn't take much more error than that in a low direction to cause a wounding loss that could be a very miserable and lengthy death for the deer.

From what I have seen locally, the movers and shakers of the town government are only concerned with increasing the tax base. And all the town residents are right there cheering them on. Nobody seems to understand the myth about increasing a tax base and how that kind of mindless and boundless expansion baloons the new tax requirements demanded by the new density. I'll never forget how proud the town supervisor was when he campaigned on his efforts to recruit new business and industry to "increase the tax base". I wanted to strangle him. Yeah, I know we're getting pretty far of topic here, but you tweaked a sore spot.

Unfortunately, now that the picture and story is out, that area will take a lot of heat for the next few years. There may or may not be another one like that one around, but that won't stop the new reputation of the area for being a "big-buck area".

Opening day I am out there well before daylight watching the trail of flashlights and occasional ATV tail-lights going up the hill across the road. I'm sitting there with my 5 tons of equipment and supplies and of course my thermos and bag of fried egg sandwiches, ready to make a day of it. After opening day, I am one of those guys that everyone loves. I get started when I'm darn good and ready and sneak around the hill. What the heck .... somebody has to do it....lol. Otherwise you have all the hunters sitting and snoozing with the deer flopped down and snoozing along side of them and no deer moving at all. So, it's my civic duty to get out there and find out where the deer are hiding and boot them in the backside like everybody used to do for me years ago. Anyway, after opening day, my hunting gets to be pretty laid-back, and usually it pays off pretty well for me. Not so good this year yet.

Man! that's an awful lot of "firsts". First deer, first trip up a tree with a climber, first time butchering, first time field dressing a deer I would imagine, and there you are with your first deer harvest picture. You broke a whole lot of new ground yesterday. Well, congratulations on all those "firsts". Well done.

Can you still read it? If so, I wouldn't worry about it.

I believe that coyotes are cannibalistic. I know they will eat foxes in a minute if they catch them. They eat small dogs, and I believe they would eat each other given the opportunity.

It looks like a long time yet before we can crank up the centerfires for coyotes. Also, I have a brand new .270 rifle that hasn't had a round put through it yet because of that regulation. My rifle range is in my backyard which is the woods. By the time I'm able to shoot the darn thing there will be a couple feet of snow to wallow through. That really wacks hell out of coyote season too. I wouldn't even consider hunting coyotes (or foxes) without using centerfire .... In my case that would be my .223. I do understand that they don't want people in shotgun areas walking around with centerfires. However, it does sound like there are no restrictions at all in counties where rifles are allowed...... Even during the late bow/muzzleloader season, because they have purposely incorporated that one stipulation: "in any county or portion of a county where deer hunting with rifles is prohibited during the regular deer season". Am I reading that right?

Yeah, invite him out for a couple of hours of bench shooting with something that isn't a "baby gun". After a few shots and a good shoulder mashing, keep on with the shooting session until he is ready to accept that "baby gun". I'm having a hard time with this idea of a kid mocking such a super expensive gift. Somehow that just don't seem right.

I often find Field & Stream in the racks at the doctor's office. I have found some pretty interesting articles in it. ...Just not enough to subscribe. I already get more magazines than I can read.

It's pretty well understood that environmental laws and regulations are put in place to protect the availability of the critters that we often complain about having such a heck of time getting. Imagine if there were no such laws. I think that would be a case where we would be rightfully complaining about not having any luck or even any animals to hunt. Even with occasional flaws, be grateful for the legal system that protects what we are trying to harvest.

Any suggestions for full or partial removal of surface rust on traps?

Dad put the peep sight on it just before he gave it to me. It originally just had an open "V"-sight. That gun is deadly accurate. I guess there must be some story behind the missing stamped data. I'm thinking it may have been because it was marketed under other brand names or stores brand names, and they wanted to keep it clean to have the most versatility in marketing.

That is what bothers me most. I know we have some inexperienced and new hunters on this forum, and it really bothers me that there are people recommending low percentage shots without the proper disclaimers about the tiny sized target they are choosing rather than the much larger higher percentage kill zones. I'm hoping that none of the newbies or others that are tempted to follow or experiment with some of this advice about head shots don't head out to test this out and start choosing targets that are tougher than they need be. It may sound very "preachy", but I believe it is important that some of the strange shot selections don't influence the choices of others. And by the way, this notion that head shots are a nice clean miss or an instant kill, really is some very bad info. I have seen enough evidence to the contrary, and the consequences can be pretty gross.

I seem to recall someone mentioning that they didn't have to wear a backtag in the Northern Zone, but I don't think anyone explained why. Or the better question ..... why do we have to wear it down here in the Southern Zone.

So why didn't they take the extra step and give it some ATV features so you could drive it from your truck to the tree and they hook it up to the tree and take the whole thing up with you. Maybe that is phase two to be introduced in a year or two ..... lol. Hey, with a little more engineering, we won't even have to walk to go hunting. We can take all the effort out of hunting eventually. Just sit back and ride everywhere .... ha-ha-ha.

Isn't that weird that you are required to display a back tag in one part of the state but not the other? What do you suppose is the reasoning for that? You would think that it either serves a purpose or it doesn't regardless of what area of the state you are in. If it doesn't really serve a legitimate purpose, then it would have to go under the category of arbitrary hunter harrassment by the DEC.....lol.

I still recall the deer that I heard wheezing and gasping for air a bunch of years back. I put her down in a mercy killing. When I got up to her, I could see that her windpipe had been blown apart by a neck shot. Her attempts at breathing were causing a super loud rasping wheeze that I could hear long before I could see her. there was almost no blood at all, so I have no idea how long she might have had to live that way if I hadn't have coincidentally been there at that particular time. Again, looking at the pictures in the Deer Anatomy thread it is amazing how much area in the neck is not immediately lethal.

I knew when I did my scouting that I was in for a tough year. The wacky weather around the blossoming time in the spring absolutely destroyed ALL of the wild apples. And then the very few acorns that we actually had never filled out and dropped early leaving us with absolutely no acorns. What I learned is that when both of those failures happen, the deer take on a very random feeding pattern, and traditional heavy trails disappear and new very faint ones appear as the deer tend to scatter a bit. I never did get onto any patterns. Oh by the way, we have no agriculture so there was nothing to work with there either. Gun season was the usual decent start just before legal shooting hours on opening morning and then .... nothing. I think everyone went to sleep under their favorite tree and then left early from boredom. In other words, nobody was pushing the deer. The days after the opener were completely dead. I mean the silence was deafening. So I am already frustrated beyond belief to the point where I am looking forward to next year in the hopes that things will get back to normal again as far as the deer food situation. Weather-wise, I have no complaints. In fact the wind that usually tears up most of the bow and gun season was pretty much absent for most of the days. And I guess there were a whole lot more dry days than usual. The only thing I would say is that this time of gun season, it would be nice if we had a little bit of snow to make the bedded deer stand out better. And I do want to emphasize the word "Little" ... lol. I don't need two feet of snow to have to wallow around in.

But it is even more scarey that laws are written in such a sloppy way as to promote page after page of discussion in a forum (not just this thread but the others that have popped up recently). I am amazed at how many require calls to the DEC to get clarification. I am even more amazed at how many of those answers that you get back involve long explanations adding qualifications that don't exist anywhere in the actual Environmental Conservation Law. The official interpretations are exactly that .... "interpretations" or basically opinions. And another scarey thought is that the opinions that you get from the DEC offices, or from individual ECOs may or may not agree with the opinion that you get from the arresting officer as he writes out your ticket.

Yeah, I was looking at just how perfect that demo tree was. Kind of reminded me of a telephone pole .... lol. I'm not saying that it doesn't work on some gnarly old twisted, lumpy tree like 95% of the trees that I have seen in the woods. But the video would have been a lot more credible if they had used a more common tree with a few imperfections in it. Also, even if I wasn't afflicted with a fear of heights, I still would be very skeptical of taking that first ride up the tree. However, I was impressed with the creativity and ingenuity of that gadget. Like I've always said, there is absolutely no limit as to what level of technology that can be applied to hunting. Anybody who thinks there is simply has not been paying attention to what's been going on with hunting over the recent decades.

It just might be that this thread has uncovered why you hear so many shots and see so few deer actually being pulled out of the woods .... lol. Seems like some guys are passing up the much larger target for a tiny lower percentage target. Sounds more like an ego thing than a meat thing.