Doc

went down to the Town Clerk yesterday and I got my bow license and two permits and wife got her fishing license yesterday morning (9:00 am). The Clerk mentioned that the system had been down. Compared to how the process used to be, I have absolutely no complaints. No producing old licenses or any certificates. No long hand written forms to fill out. Now with my lifetime licenses, all I have to do is tell her what I want to get. No ID (we've been on a first name basis for decades), and now with the lifetime license, and being older than dirt, I don't even have to come up with any money......lol. Yeah, computers occasionally crash, but we should be getting used to that by now. That isn't a problem that's unique to the DEC.

Anything that has to do with archery has gone through the roof as far as prices. That is why I have turned into such a cheapskate. I have killed deer with some amazingly primitive equipment. It has been decades since I played the game of "keeping up with the Joneses" with my bowhunting purchases. I began to feel like a fool that all these manufactures took advantage of. I learned that my old aluminum arrows still kill deer. I also learned that these old broadheads that I purchased years ago still are amazingly lethal. I also found out that it is not necessary to spend $1000 on a bow or to chase the "speed-gods" with constant new bow purchases. The big thing is that I learned that trying to buy a successful hunt is a losing game. Others can do whatever makes them feel confident, but for me these characters have priced themselves right out of my market with their stinking greed. Now instead of gradually getting me to part with some of my money, their ridiculous prices have changed my whole outlook on what I really "need" to get a deer, and now they get nothing.

I was just trying to think how many decades that I evolved into a ground stand hunter. I wish I could say it was because of some fantastic piece of intelligence, but it really is merely a reaction to a developing phobia about heights....lol. Actually, I put a lot of man-hours into treestand hunting, and not really with all the current safety recommendations that we have today. I am pretty sure that even without the "heights thing", I probably would have eventually made the change anyway. I had a cousin that died from a fall out of his stand. He was taken from the family at way too young an age. I do realize the benefits of treestand hunting. But I have discovered the excitement of hunting eyeball to eyeball with the critters on their level, and while it has restricted my success somewhat, I do enjoy the additional challenge.

Keep us posted as to how things are going. We miss you here already so get things fixed up.

We have a lot of logging that goes on here, and I have heard from loggers that a chain saw can act as a "deer call". They often associate chain saws with food because it means that tops are now on the ground for eating. So motorized items do not necessarily mean spooked deer. I have seen the same thing with ATVs. They often will lay right in place and never even move.

And a word of caution: If you cannot use power equipment because you are cutting on state land be advised that the state does not allow any cutting at all on state owned lands (hand tools or power equipment).

And if those "thorn bushes" happen to be multi-flora rose, the "pain" comment above can be taken literally. Those things are man-traps.....lol.

I have not done a count lately, but I would say that I have close to a dozen bows currently hanging on the wall right now as well a several that I have sold over the years. Most of them were high end bows when I bought them. I am counting recurve and compounds. There was one recurve that had to be thrown away because of heavy checking. A SIDE-NOTE: That reminds me, if you have bows that are showing structural flaws, don't just set them out with the junk at the side of the road. Either make them completely unusual of attach a note explaining that they are in dangerous condition. There are an awful lot of trash pickers that will use these things or place them in a yard sale or flea market for some unsuspecting newbie to try to shoot.

Anybody remember the old Bear Whitetail hunter. Six wheels, steel cables and solid epoxy limbs that could double as pry bars if need be. The price was under $100.....lol. Probably one of the slowest bows ever made other than perhaps the old Allen originals. I killed more deer with that bow than any of the super-duper bows that I have hanging on the walls. And none of those top of the line bows hanging on the walls killed any of the deer any more dead than that old clunky Bear. I am not saying that bow design should have ceased after that old Bear hit the market, but I have watched prices climb through the roof over the past years and most of those increases were based on things that you need exotic instrumentation to measure. The speed freaks accounted for a lot of the price inflation, and new terminology was invented to justify features that in reality meant nothing without a shooting machine and a chronograph to measure. Yeah I was chasing all that technology too. That's how I wound up with a wall full of very expensive (for the time) bows. Finally, I gave my head a shake and stopped trying to keep up with all the Madison avenue hype and recognized the real value, or lack thereof of all these mysterious features. The day I bought my $600 Mathews about 19 years ago, I took the first step toward shifting my disposable income to other toys that offered more perceptible true value for the additional bucks. And I still get as many deer as we can eat, and they are still just as dead as anybody else's deer take. Oh and by the way, I am still shooting aluminum arrows too. No I am not shooting these deer at 50+ yards, but then that wasn't why I picked up the bow in the first place. But the bottom line is you buy what you need to feel good about your bowhunting. I did for years and I really don't regret it. I just found out that I really didn't have to.

I have got to believe that there is something completely innerving for a would be intruder (even an armed intruder)when out of the darkness they hear the unmistakable sound of a 12 gauge pump Ithaca Deerslayer rattling a round into the chamber. I believe that within 1.5 seconds there would be nothing left of the intruder in the house other than the vile smell of his feces polluting the air as he turned and ran for his life. I suspect there would not even be a need to pull the trigger. In fact a mere tape recording of that sound would probably do the trick......lol.

Yup, August is well under way, so it's likely that a lot of you are starting to snoop around and, scouting, and beginning to check on deer locations, and patterns and food sources, and starting to learn of any deer pattern changes, or verification of old patterns and any changes to habitat. So is your scouting time yielding any useful info? What are you seeing? What are you learning?

So does it seem to you all that every decade, the drivers seem to get significantly more reckless? It almost seems like people are getting less concerned with their lives and the lives of others on the road. I realize that roads keep getting more and more crowded as time goes on, and therefore the odds of encountering idiots are increased. But these days it is getting downright scary. It feels like Russian roulette.

I have not had my fill of summer yet. It all goes way too fast. Yeah, there will be a very quick blip of hunting season and then winter sets in in earnest with the slipping and sliding and cars that are only half under control. And I have a 1000' driveway that has to be cleared if I want to go anywhere but inside the house. Then too there is the walking around like the Michelin Man with way more clothing than what is comfortable. Wallowing around in a couple feet of snow is not my idea of a good time....lol. No, I am not in any hurry to see summer over with. I'll enjoy the hunting, but unfortunately it is the preview to the most ugly and seemingly unending time of the year.

Some people do all kinds of silly things to call attention to themselves. Not everyone cares whether the attention is positive or negative as long as they are the center of attention. These clowns are simply exhibiting that pathetic cry for attention. But what a stupid way of doing it! Look at some of these actors and pinko news pundits. It's all the same frantic attempts to receive attention. It is sad that these people love attention more than they do their country.

I remember back in the 60's and 70's when I was still hunting from treestands, there wasn't a whole lot of talk about safety harnesses. I'm not even sure there were any available, or maybe I just wasn't aware of them. But as time went on there was some talk about treestand safety and a lot of us began the very unsafe practice of simply tying a rope around our waist and then to the tree. I rigged one up that incorporated an old VW Beetle lap belt latch mechanism that had a push button latch release which was a little more safe, but still could leave you landing horizontal with a back-snapping jolt to the waist. most arrangements back then were perhaps more dangerous than the problem they were supposed to solve. I am not sure when the first full-body harness safety restraints were introduced, but I believe that regular widespread use of them is fairly new-ish (recent decades). Today most designs are fool-proof, and there is no reason why anyone should go up in a tree without a proper harness on.

It has been decades now since I realized that I am not a tree dweller....lol. It was a case of a fear of heights. Who knows maybe that affliction has saved my life. My cousin was not so fortunate, and met an early end to his young life because of a treestand fall. Sad for him and sad for his family.

Next time you are on a two lane highway, consider the fact that every oncoming car is going about the same speed as you are and will be passing by you somewhere in the vicinity of 4 feet away from you. And they could be focused on some "smart phone" or high on some drug or just one of those sloppy drivers or one of the many new electronic conveniences that they are filling cars with today. Always be ready to take evasive action. "Drive defensively" is more than just a cute slogan.

Yes, it all a matter of numbers. It is easy to say that all we have to do is to get a bigger percentage of Republicans to vote than the Dems (who have a prohibitive majority) but no one really knows how to do that.

I have always had easy access to the back-country up on top of our hills where you would think no sane person would ever consider going. A short ATV ride on my own land up a steep "killer-hill" to where it flattens out, opens up hundreds of acres for me to get way back in without all the sweat and exhaustion that others have to contend with. And yet even way back in, the place is crawling with hunters. On the days when there is snow, the hunter tracks everywhere (and I do mean EVERYWHERE), tell you that the popular strategy now is to concentrate on the back acreage where it is thought that no one will go except the deer. People walk right by some excellent hunting grounds to get to such places .... and the deer know it too. I have seen guys cresting the hill, dragging all kinds of stands and backpacks, ringing wet with sweat, and panting like a steam engine, only to find the top of the hill and beyond totally populated with other hunters who thought they would be rewarded with deer running all over the place.

My almost 60 years of deerhunting life has revolved primarily around bowhunting. So my observations are going to be about the evolution of bow hunting through my years of hunting. Some of the biggest changes in hunting have happened at work. I remember how a bunch of us bowhunters would spend the early hours of Monday morning gathered in one of the cubicles discussing the weekend's hunt. The hot topics back in the 60's revolved around even seeing a deer or a good track and occasionally a rub or scrape. And once in a while, someone would get a shot (almost always a miss). And sometimes a very rare event when somebody actually got a deer and had to recite every little detail of the whole hunt right from the time they crawled out of the sack in the morning to the final recovery of the deer. Today the Monday morning conversations at work involve a lot smaller group of people. Someone will talk about a deer that they got and the first thing that is asked is, "What did it score?" If you want to tell the story to somebody that is interested, the score had better be adequate. Never mind trying to raise a conversation about getting a doe. Nobody cares, and that will usually send everybody immediately back to their desk to begin the work of the day....lol. A lot of the conversation today involves the ag practices of food-plotting or other things done to train the deer to avail themselves to weaknesses in our hunting prowess. Instead of finding the deer (hunting), we strive to perfect our abilities to "attract" deer into posing themselves to be more easily shot. Food plots, fake scrapes, sex attractants and such are what hunting is about today. Also, there is an interest in using equipment that allows longer shots rather than honing our woods-lore and knowledge of the prey to get closer shots. Technology now rules hunting and success is more and more dependent on some mechanical or electro-mechanical designer slaving away in his cubicle at some bow manufacturer's engineering department to enhance our success rates. Where will the hunting evolution take us? ...... Where ever technology can lead us to an easier kill.

Those that have been deer hunting for a bunch of years have likely noticed changes in the way hunters hunt. What are the hunting and preparation methods or changes in priorities and that you have noticed that have changed over the years.

Recently what I have been noticing is that hunters in our heavily pressured public land are definitely sold on what they have been told and what they read. They jump out of the car with the intention of getting as far from the road as possible. Our deer have taken note of that change in hunter patterns and stay in that thick impenetrable multiflora rose that will tear a grown man apart in just a hundred yards or so. The deer seem to be patterning the hunters very well. I also have had more and more occasions when I come dragging in after a day on top of the hill, only to have my wife tell me about the bucks in the front yard. They seem to have it all figured out......lol.

Yeah.....The weather doesn't even begin to make a person think of hunting, As the temperatures drop and that magical time with the leaves turning, even those that have no intent of drawing blood will be out there just to be out there. Some of us are getting older and a bit broken, and that does make it a struggle to work up the energy and enthusiasm. I am surrounded with "killer" hills, and legs and hips and such are starting to break down a bit. So it takes a bit of effort to head up the hill. Morning hunts are already very rare, but I still put in the best effort I can muster. No problems with the archery aspect. I an still pulling enough bow, and the marksmanship is still holding up pretty good. But the energy expended just getting to the good spots is waning a bit.

Nothing! NYS has a swamp of its own and just like the federal govt. the Republicans seem to have plenty of representation in that population of swamp dwellers. They are all buddies, and nobody wants to upset the balance or all the goodies that are coming their way.

My sister served up some roast pork that was cooked in a smoker. That was the tastiest pork I have ever had. So now I am getting interested in buying a smoker. So I went to Lowes and looked over their selections and found that there are all kinds, sizes, and prices. So what makes a good smoker. We probably wouldn't use it all that much, so I don't want to sink a pile of money into it. I saw electric ones, and I saw propane fired ones. There's only the two of us so I don't need some monster sized thing. I would love to hear thoughts on what's good and why. Any help?