Doc

Back in the olden days, we used to think we were being the safety conscious ones when we simply tied a rope around our waste. In the years since, I have learned that that particular practice could be a killer that is more guaranteed than a fall. So, it's not always true that anything is better that falling to the ground. They've made some big improvements in safety harness rigs, even to the point where you are never disconnected even when going up and down the tree and also systems where you can ease yourself safely to the ground. Regarding the original question, I am having a problem visualizing what is being described there. I'm not sure how you are using the extra strap. This isn't a "home-made" safety strap deal is it?

As I understand it, it is the buck take that gives them a consistant guage of where the deer population is going because there is no interference of permit numbers. It is their yardstick for measuring harvest results. The doe take is not as relevant because it has the influence of changing numbers of permits. The buck take is a relative constant. That still has nothing to do with intentional gender balancing. In answer to your question about "a doe tag for everyone and limited buck tags for WMU's", I am sure it is because as I have been saying, the antlerless permit system is for population control. You do not control populations with buck harvest. It is the protection or reduction of the does that is the population control of significance. It really has nothing to do with hunter cooperation, but is strictly a function of biology.

That's the beauty of being retired....lol. I can pick and choose my days out, and don't have to be concerned about losing an occasional day here and there.

It's true that if the blood sign starts to dilute and disappear, you had better have one heck of a deadly hit. But then, not all rains produce that kind of blood-erasing effect. So, for me it is not just whether they are predicting rain, but what kind of rain are they calling for. For example right now I am hearing it literally pouring out there. No blood trail would have a chance of surviving long enough for recovery. This is a day that is better spent doing something more productive than being forced into a grid pattern body search of a dead deer (that usually signals a lost deer). But I have seen days when the rain was a light intermittant spray. I am quite often drawn out on those kinds of days.

I agree, there are many things that could tip off a deer to our presence and many of them may not be all that obvious. But I still have to wonder how they know when they can ignore all of these signals. What tells them when human scent, blaring TVs and radios and other indicators of our obvious presence can be completely ignored. How did they figure out that hunting season ended and it's now safe to walk around grazing on Doc's front lawn, next to his house, in broad daylight? How do they realize that the human scent oozing around that front step and that front door really doesn't mean anything when just a few days before, and throughout the entire hunting seasons even a slight hint of a distant bit of human scent would send them running in the opposite direction. I know that they have very primitive reasoning abilities. And even their memories are quite limited. So it makes me think that there are some strange instinctive abilities to analyze situations that we don't even have the beginnings of understanding. Is that all part of a 6th sense? ..... who knows? If that isn't the answer, then we have a whole lot more to learn about deer and their defences.

I can only keep repeating that antlerless permits are based completely on deer density and input from stakeholders and one might hope that habitat quality and availability is factored in too. Gender balance is not a consideration.

There is no excuse for designing and selling to the public, a unit that can malfunction putting the consumer's life and body at risk when the unit is being properly used. It just shouldn't happen. You should be able to stand on any part of that platform without any danger of the gripping parts of the stand parting from the tree. You should absolutely send a scathing note to the manufacturer.

Here is the Field and Stream article that I was reading: http://www.fieldandstream.com/blogs/whitetail-365/2012/09/poll-results-almost-70-percent-say-deer-do-have-sixth-sense And, just like any other part of hunting, someone has figured out a way of using this thought to take some of our money .... lol. How about buying a suit that blocks electro magnetic fields. Check out the references to a company that sells these things at the end of the article.....ha-ha.

I guess I really don't know. It all depends on which unit was deemed to be overpopulated, or if either was deemed over-populated. It could be that neither had any permits issued if it were decided that they both herds needed rebuilding. That's kind of my point. Antlerless permits are not issued based on gender ratio. That's not part of the decision.

Obviously, what I was saying is that the purpose of antlerless permits is a direct cut of the doe population (To impact over-all reproduction) and does not have as it's purpose anything to do with trying to achieve any kind of balancing of buck/doe ratios. As a matter of fact, the reduction in does causes future population reductions that are not gender specific and results in buck and doe future reductions. Gender ratio manipulation as a goal would have to be a whole lot more complex and would have to utilize some form of buck protection in conjunction with doe removal, and it would have to be done on a much grander scale than anything that is done in the name of over-all population reduction. Do you follow what I am saying? Population reduction as it is currently practiced is simply the removal of a quantity of the reproducing part of the population. If it were as simple as issuing gobs of antlerless permits, it already would have been accomplished wouldn't it? And it wouldn't even be a topic of discussion because that is exactly what we have been doing for decades. I think your visualization of gender balancing ignores at least half of the required solution if you are serious about making significant changes. Anything there that you disagree with?

I wonder..... It seems to me that I have read something that prohibits leaving personal property behind on state land. That may require a bit more research or perhaps an e-mail to a DEC regional headquarters.

It only takes a second to pull an arrow from the quiver an stick it on the bow ..... No sound and only minimum movement. No, I seldom walk around the woods with an arrow knocked.

I still can't figure out how foam breaks a metalic "chisel" point, unless the point was already cracked and just ready to break as soon as it hit anything.

Well, we certainly are getting into a circular pattern here aren't we? I can't think of anything to add to this discussion that I haven't already said, and there is nothing new that you are offering. So I guess, as they say, we'll just have to agree to disagree.

That was my first reaction when I started reading this article. But then I started thinking about other experiences that I have had. For example, there have been times when I could "feel" someone staring at me, and turned around to find out they were. Or as someone mentioned, there have been times when I have turned around while on stand to find a deer there. No indications of something being there, not a direction that I had any intention of watching (downwind), but something told me to turn around an look. So there are a few situations that indicate that we might have some version of that 6th sense. So it does make you wonder if animals may have a bit more developed ability which sometimes gives them a break. On the other hand, I am aware that wind in particular can do some things that we are not always aware of. I'm also pretty convinced that everytime our wind blows to a trail (even if it's only once), it does leave behind our scent molecules. So perhaps we forgot that about 15 minutes ago the wind did have a brief back-draft. Also, there might be something about your stand that looks un-natural, or perhaps when you were brushing out a shooting lane, you removed something that the deer was used to seeing there. Or perhaps when you were preparing your stand and leaving scent everywhere, the deer recalled those disturbances in that particular area and decided at the last minute not to go near your shooting area. So it's very difficult to be able to say anything too definitive about a sixth sense, but sometimes there does appear to be no explaining how a deer gets it all figured out. Like my examples about the deer activity on my lawn, there is no way that I can explain how they know precisely what scent to pay attention to and what scent to ignore. Why would they go into an area where that scent is the strongest? And I have no clue how they figure out so precisely just when the gun season is over. There definitely is something tricky going on in their little critter minds that I don't understand. Does it all relate to some 6th sense? ..... I don't know.

Yeah, there was an episode of "Hell on Wheels" that had a couple of guys using hogs to dispose of a guy's body that they had murdered.

I guess I have never heard anyone deny the rise in deer numbers during the late 80's and 1990's. "Explosion" may be a bit of a strong way of putting it, but I guess that all depends on whether you witnessed the outcomes first hand or not. The vision I have in mind is the huge yard at the south end of Honeoye lake where hundreds of deer starved (a scene that has not even come close to being repeated since). And perhaps you missed the necessity for the DEC to dramatically cut antlerless permits after the drop in populations in many parts of the state. I also remember all the arguing later on over whether the population decline was related to winter weather or an over-shot in permit allocations. The one argument I never heard was that the gender ratio was all wrong ....lol. So while you may have missed it, deer populations have undergone cycles of excess and decline. And not to be sidetracked from the original topic that I was addressing, none of these changes had anything to do with deer gender ratios.

But the funny thing is that some of the normal home-spun food plotters are spending fortunes on farm equipment too. How much do one of those Kubota 4-wheel drive tractors go for. I know of a couple of guys locally that have bought those brand spanking new.....ouch! Plows, discs, drags, seeders, etc., etc. believe me I have done the same thing (for different reasons). Well, I was operating with an old 1950 8N and an old tricycle style Case and not anything that was brand new, but I had a full line of tilling equipment and even way back then and buying everything as broken down used stuff, it was no cheap thing. I'll tell you when I was on one of those tractors plowing or discing or whatever .... it was a great feeling! It was all fun and if there had been anyway that I could have bought a brand new tractor, nothing would have stopped me. So, I understand all of it, and maybe more than most because it did take me back to my youth on our farm, and the activities that I was always involved in. But like a lot of guys, it all eventually got replaced by more practical items. Yeah, those guys on TV can probably justify it with actual money that they are making from their commercial hunting operations. But a lot of guys who get into these food plots are spending a lot of cash as well. And most of them aren't making a dime, and it is all cash out the door. So for them it is a lot easier to justify shutting down the food plot operations when the time comes. And I have to believe that it does leave a heck of hole in the local habitat.

Ok .... How about this? I will guarantee that within a week of the closing of gun season, there will be at least three or more deer casually grazing in my front yard in broad daylight. I will also guarantee that I will see night-time deer tracks within a couple yards of our front door. Human scent everywhere. We don't dress in scent-lok clothing or spray down with scent-killer. So I'm sure that our presence is no secret to them. Also, the TV or stereo blasting away is not intended to disguise our presence. Just the few weeks prior, those same deer would take off like a ruptured duck at 150 yards. One sniff of human scent would cause instant panic. Somehow, they are able to determine when it is safe to come out and when it is not. Now I'm pretty sure they don't have a copy of the hunting syllabus, and probably don't have a calendar, so there must be other signals that are given off in some form that tells them exactly what our intentions are. Is that part of a 6th sense?

On TV, I have seen food plotters with tractors that some full-time farmers would be jealous of....lol. Much equipment is purchased specifically for food plots. That stuff isn't cheap ... even used. And then there is the seed. Some of this specialty whitetail seed gets a bit pricey. And lets not forget fuel. My gosh, I get all twitchy when I fill up my zero-turn mower these days .... lol. And then there is the time spent. Having said all that, I do understand. I went through the farmer thing. Had the critters, and the tractors and all the fitting equipment and the hay lot, and I loved every minute of it even though I never made a dime. But I do understand that it all is just plain fun and when you get all done, there is a huge sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. But just like me, I would imagine there are a lot of plotters that simply get tired of it and stop the whole thing rather abruptly. Priorities change and that large expense to repair one or more of the tractors or implements has to give way to new furniture, new car or a dish washer or something and the plot simply fades away. So the question about what happens to the deer that have become dependant on that food source takes on a bit of realism.

Yes, if you reach unlikely extremes, you maybe able to detect some effect on populations. However, those minor impacts are countered with manipulation of antlerless permits. So if I had to look for significant reasons for population changes, I would be looking at hunter impacts, and gender ratios would probably not even be in the running. One nasty winter can negate anything that gender ratios effect. A little bit of normal natural occurring disease probably has more impact on populations than gender ratios. In fact in some areas, there may be predation that has more effect on populations. At any rate, I am unaware of any manipulation of gender ratios in the years when population extremes were most noteable. Chances are very good that the ratios were exactly the same as they have been any other year. And yet the populations did some signicant things.... Not reacting to changes in buck to doe ratios, but more to do with hunter impacts on the doe populations and weather extremes.

Yeah you're probably right, but not that long ago, we had a brief discussion on food plot sizes, and I was surprised at the acreage that some guys are putting in for food plots. I mean there was talk about having more than one 20 acre food plot. Man that is a pretty huge feeding operation. And today, special seeds and crops are put in specifically to attract deer and cater to their sweet tooth. Some of that stuff sure does beat the farmers bland old corn and alfalfa .... lol. Actually, down our way in southern Ontario County, farming has all but disappeared. The tiny fields of the valley bottoms and the hilltops are suitable only for food plots as the farmers have long ago headed for jobs in the city. That is the situation all around our area and any place that consists of tight little valleys. And then of course there is the Catskills and Adirondacks that you mentioned. As a state wide phenomenon, it probably is not a big issue. As a series of local situations, maybe it is. I just thought the question was interesting and probably merits a bit of thought rather than simply discounting it out of hand. Apparently the DEC has thought about it a bit as noted in their comments regarding the practice of "feeding".

Read a short article in Field and Stream about a deer's sixth sense...... stories about a deer approaching and then all of a sudden turning all spooky for no apparent reason and turning around and exiting. I got to thinking about a couple of times when I have had that happen to me. Wind absolutely perfect ..... totally concealed and yet something about the set-up kept the deer from taking one more forward step. Ears switching around, that intent stare forward, the switching of the tail, and then the turn around and high bounding retreat. 6th sense?? Are we sending some kind of mental signals of our malicious intent? What did the author suggest? ..... avoid eye contact. The theory being that when we are so focused and intent on our prey, there is some telepathic signals. So his thought was to break that intensity. I don't know. Was this guy onto something or was he just fishing for a bogus subject to sell another article to the magazine? What do you all think?

Actually, if you look closely at some of the posts here, it appears that there are still a lot of places where guys are still thinking that deer populations need some thinning. And actually regardless of what todays population looks like it can change dramatically in year or two. In fact, with the mild winter and the perfect birthing weather this spring, I think the herd is due for a significant spike in population. I do still remember the heavy population densities of the late 80's and early 90's. There were many areas that were way over populated, and so the question that has been posed is probably a valid one. One of the reasons given by the DEC on one of the documents cited on this forum that regarded deer and moose feeding was their concern about inflating populations artificially through feeding to a point where it exceeds surrounding carrying capacity. Their concern was about the practice of feeding, but I would thing that food plotting could have the same concerns. That's particularly true when people start seeing the level of effort and money that can be involved in a food plotting activity and suddenly and abruptly discontinue the practice. That might place a new, undue strain on local habitat. It certainly is an interesting question at any rate.

The following is a document on AMO standards: http://www.outlab.it/doc/amostd.pdf Unfortunately it does not relate their ratings to any specific make and model of bow which I think is your question. I'm sure that that info is stored somewhere, but I couldn't find anything that gets down to that level of detail.