Doc

What the hell ...... I had no idea that there was anywhere in the USA where they had such a ridiculous system of gun registration for long guns. That is just crazy. That alone would keep me from ever living in that kind of repressive system. Seriously .. I am not a militia-type, but they certainly have crossed over the line. $100 for finger-printing plus $120 for the application. And then 4 months until you get the license (if you get it). That is just plain harrassment! And it's not even a pistol that we are talking about, but your favorite shotgun or rifle. Man, that is just plain BS!!!

No there are no assumptions. Your messages lay out your love affair with behavior modification very clearly. There simply is no other way of reading it. And I am just simply drawing comparisons with other champions of that philosophy. See your last sentence lays it all out very clearly. Many things can be justified with that phrase "for the greater good". And I do realize that for you it's not that big a deal. For some of us governmental behavior modification is a big deal.

Are the same people who complain about losing hunters now thinking that the youth hunt is the only salvation of hunting?

I never realized how dependant I am on wild apple trees. This year,there's not an apple anywhee in the valley. First time in memory. So a lot of the mashed down deer trails that went by a few of my more favorite stands are grown up with weeds. It's going to be a bit different this bowseason. Also, there are no acorns this year. So without any farmland, I am left with trying to puzzle out just what the critters are eating. I haven't figured it out so far .... lol. Just a little extra challenge this year. Anybody else being thrown a bit of a curve by a lack of apples?

Are you playing word games with me? Are you trying to say that you really don't know what I am talking about? C'mon, your smarter than that. Excuse me I've got to get into the dictionary and see if there is some hidden meaning to "stuffed into"..... lol.

No, that's got nothing to do with making hunters more responsible. That is simply adding on complexity and serves only as a harrassment for those that are not all jacked up on ARs. Now if the law is intended to only shoot bucks that cooperate by modeling their headgear in a certain way for you, then I think it goes way beyond a simple 3 point rule. In my hunting, the object is to arrange broadside shots and avoid causing the deer to look at you. That probably falls under the category of responsible hunting that helps guarantee a better kill shot and helps avoid a string-jump. And I might add that with that set-up, I have absolutely identified the target as a buck with enough headgear to satisfy me. That's just as much of a "positive identification" as guessing what points are attached to which antler. Lol ... why don't we add in some spread widths and tine length estimates, and maybe the size and color of the throat patch. Hell, we can make it so nobody will ever shoot a buck. Kidding of course, but would that be enough positive identification for you .... lol. I maintain that it doesn't take any of this nonsense to clearly and positively identify the target as a deer, and that is simply a red-herring argument to help justify ARs as having some sort of safety component to it. I ain't buying it.

Who knows how many mentors there are out there .... do you? How smart is it to automatically exclude a bunch of them. Does that really make a lot of sense to you? Does it really matter what percentage of available mentors would come from the bowhunter ranks why would anybody in their right mind exclude any of them?

Yes they have reasons. Not necessarily good ones, but there were reasons. And there are plenty of reasons not to have stuffed it into bow season which they chose to ignore. Second, no one cares what the situation was prior to this event. The fact is that the hunt is this year and the Oct 1 bow opener has been established long enough so that they obviously intended it to coincide with bow season.

I used to work with a guy that could hold "coffee cup" sized groups at 50 yards without a single flyer .... ever. I had seen him do it. When he came in to work with his 5th wounded, unrecovered deer story in one season, I finally had to stop talking deer hunting with him. I have no idea what his problem was, but when it came to deer, he was always just good enough to stick them somewhere but never in a kill area. I don't know whether it was the pressure of shooting at a deer or what, but the guy was just an absolute menace in the woods.

Ok, there is an image of two things that I can't picture going together .... live traps and skunks.

Well, fortunately they have something in place to counter the alcohol and gunpowder mix. I was thinking about this very same thing yesterday as I stumbled across a pile of empty beer cans (8 of them) piled next to a tree. Some of these guys apparently party while they hunt ...... yikes. Glad I wasn't hunting that section of the hill that day .... lol.

I have watched the event go down hill in the last couple of years as the number of exhibits and events have shrunk in number. I think I will pass on it this year and maybe something will change by the next time I get the urge to check it out again. It's a real shame because it used to be a real good sales opportunity for hunting, fishing, and trapping. Hopefully it will become that again.

It's too bad that we have to learn safety the hard way. I had a cousin who will never get the chance to learn the harness lesson ...... ever.

What the hell is the point of this hunt if the only kids you can get to hunt are the ones that will never use the actual season. I thought the intent of this youth season is to recruit permanent hunters, not just provide some event to amuse the kids for 3 days so they can go back to their video games when the weather gets cold.

Ok, That's one.....lol. The fact is that in their infinite wisdom, they have forced the bowhunter portion of the available mentors to choose. And you know that there has to be some portion (probably a large portion) of bowhunters who will opt to hunt instead of volunteering for mentor-duty. Brilliant move! With an event that depends on a large amount of mentors, they just intentionally hacked out a bunch of potential volunteers by sticking it in bow season. Must have slipped their minds .... eh?

I actually like the "within reach" idea. You never know when physical action might be required to stop an impending shot choice error. That wording is exactly what should have been used. That's better than a distance thing and a lot clearer than the way they left it. Anyway, it is what it is. I just hope that all the mentors figure out what it really all means.

If they intended them to be in arm's reach, why are they complicating the issue with the "within sight" addition and the within talking distance phrase, and the no radio jargon? All of those things indicate some separation is allowed and expected. What is wrong with just saying "within reach". They always seem to have to throw in some kind of confusing nonsense that always leaves questions.

Absolutely, I could tell at a single glance whether they were in compliance. 10 -15 feet, you pick it. And it would be as easy to enforce and with absolutely no question about the definition of the requirement.

Bubsquatch???

But why is it mandated in some cases and not in others? What is the logic behind the mandate and why aren't the bowhunters under a B/O mandate for those 3 days? Do you understand what I am getting at? It seems like mixed messages and conflicting regulations on exactly the same issue.

Well if they meant that the mentor has to be able to instantly grab and restrain the youth, why did they go through all the suplementary jargon. Obviously if the intent was to keep a situation where you can physically restrain someone, they pretty much have to be "in sight", and close enough to talk, and radio wouldn't even be a question. I interpret their idea of physical control is as they described it .... I can see them and I can talk to them. Wouldn't it have been a lot easier to specify a distance? I am positive that there will be many who read it the way I read it .... and why not? They have left the door open for that interpretation. Plus, I am still not sure that interpretation isn't exactly what they meant.

I have lost a deer to excessive heat. Not every deer is recovered within a few hours. Mine was a late afternoon hit and unfortunately it had to lay over night and had begun to bloat when I found it. The stink when I tried to gut it was overwhelming. The temperature had flashed up to 70 and thedeer laid in the middle of a foeld with the sun beating on it. That's a temp that happened even during the old season (Oct 15th -). On the other hand, we found a dead deer early during gun season that had already entered rigor mortis but was still edible. It's all a function of time and temperature. In general, earlier season ... more risk.

So it's a "within sight" requirement with the ability to talk to each other. Actually, I can satisfy the talking requirement from 50 yards away if I'm not concerned with doing that in a quiet fashion. Well, that really isn't exactly the picture of the two sitting in the same blind that I had, or that I was hoping for. I think I would have made it a 20' rule if I was serious about "physical control". Oh well, whatever.... Just as an aside, It seems funny that they have mandated blaze orange for this special season, but refuse to mandate it for the regular season. In fact one would think that whatever reasoning led them to require blaze orange for the youth and mentor would have made them at least consider requiring bow hunters to wear BO. which gets to the 2nd question that I had. As far as the 3rd question regarding the potentially diminished effectiveness of BO when the leaves are still on, I guess that's still a matter of conjecture. So it does appear that there might be a safety concern after all. But then there is the deal about it only being attended by an estimated 8000 across the state which kind of makes it basically a non-event..... unless you happen to be in the middle of a group of them ... lol. Then it could get a bit exciting. Anyway, thanks for the info.

I am kind of a privacy nut, and having somebody posted 50 yards away from a persons house grinning back at them, is just a little on the intrusive side. Of course if you wanted to have a little neighborly conversation while your hunting, I guess you wouldn't have to raise your voice a whole lot .... lol. Giving the DEC a whole lot more credit than they probably deserve, one might think that they have surveyed the amount of suburban land that could be additionally hunted by lowering the distance to 50 yards instead of something like 100 yards. Perhaps the 50 yard thing met some arbitrary target area of additional hunting area that they figured that they have to have. However, going for the whole thing may be a mistake as Sportsman pointed out. I think the only way that they can pull this off is if they go into stealth-mode and keep the legislation as quiet as possible. If non-hunting people get wind of this, we'll be lucky if they don't wind up increasing the distance.

Yeah, it was pretty weird that right out of the blue NYON decided to run this article right on the front page like it had some timely value. And then at the very end, they finally tell you that it hasn't even moved to the legislature. They must be a bit tight for things to write about. I will say that I sense from the reaction on this thread that when it does come around, it may have a pretty difficult time. It doesn't sound terribly popular. And, I can imagine how the non-hunters will feel about it.