Doc

There are plenty of ways to justify hunting if it becomes important to you to do that. I have seen the results of over-population among deer, and believe me it wasn't a pretty sight. I have heard the death squeal of a rabbit that someone already mentioned. It's a pretty hideous sound as an owl or some other predator rips chunks of meat out of the critter. I have seen the results of a deer kill after dogs had run it to ground over a long distance, weakening it a bite at a time until it fell from blood loss. I would imagine that coyotes operate in the same way. I have put down a coon suffering from distemper, and a fox suffering from an extreme case of mange. These are all very agonizing ways to die and usually are quite slow to provide relief from a suffering death. All these things remind me that it truly is the lucky critter that dies by my bullet. Mother Nature's ways of disposing of the critters is not a very kind or gentle way. I suspect that none of them die peacefully in their bed from old age. Disney painted a pretty tranquil and innocent picture of the lives of animals living merrily in the wild, but that was pure fantasy as it was intended to be. The realities are much more harsh ..... everytime. Whenever you get "hunter's remorse", just think about the alternate ways that your prey has of dying. That might help with any guilt feelings you might have. Also when talking about the ethics and morality of hunting, I agree that you always should make every effort to provide as humane a death as possible. I think it is also important to use the animal in whatever way is practical when there is a practical use for it. But I don't rate any animal as unhuntable simply because I can't eat it. If I can eat it, that's a bonus. What I don't do is to spend a lot of time anguishing over the fact that hunting usually means death as an end product. Hunting and the results of hunting simply inserts me into the natural cycle of life and death in the wild that is part of existance. And I see myself as one of the positive forces in that cycle.

Yes, there will always be the lawbreakers who will figure out ways to thwart just about anything you try to do. I suppose the same sort of lawbreaking would occur with ARs. That basically is an enforcement problem. Sure, I know people that do that or at least that I suspect are doing that. It was real popular back when you needed multiple people on party permits. It's amazing how many people were into hunting then that could hardly pick up a gun .... lol. But I would guess that regulations have to be created with the legal hunters in mind which I still believe are in the vast majority. And the ECOs will still be charged with upholding the law as with every other law on the books.

Well, here's the problem .... it is really a bit of a cop-out to say that you can only speak for yourself and those around you, and then in the next paragraph talk so definitively about how "either parents or kids just lack the desire". The fact is that we can speak for and about hunters other than ourselves when the results are so obvious. I don't need a poll to tell me that parents, friends and organizations are dropping the ball when it comes to getting their kids into the field for hunting. If that were'nt obviously happening, we would not be having this conversation.The fact is that parents and/or kids do seem to lack the desire and interest. Hence the declining new enrollment in hunter ranks. Will special youth seasons impact that situation? Nobody has yet explained how, since the same opportunities afforded by a special season are available right now in a much more suitable time of the hunting year. And that is where my question about the source of these mentors comes from. If we can't answer that question, then it tells me we have the wrong solution. So that is a question that can't just be sloughed over with a simple, "I don't know". Now here's the problem I have with special youth seasons. It seems to me that you are treating the symptoms rather than the actual problem. And such action merely is designed to make people feel like they have done something useful which detracts from efforts spent on thinking of real solutions. Rather than letting people off the hook for coming up with well thought out solutions, I would rather see time and effort invested in working on the problem of parents and other hunters dropping the ball. I would like to see people take all that passion and energy and point it toward programs in the schools that convert child disinterest into a real desire to participate. Here is a place where the DEC could have some real impact. I would like to see programs that promote families participating in outdoor activities that foster an interest in nature and the human activities that surround it. A state sponsored PR activity comes to mind. I want to see fish & game clubs encouraged to work with groups of youths to become some of those missing mentors that I have been talking about. If you have the mentors, you don't need the special seasons. Archers have been moving in the right directions. NYB with their youth hunts that they sponsor and conduct. We have a huge program called National Archery in the Schools Program which is designed to promote the use of bows and arrows in competitive activities. You can bet that that program has a huge spin-off result in bowhunting among youths. These are real programs and activities that have real results. They are things that restore the "cool factor" to outdoor activities. They're not things that people just toss out there and hope that they might work. I don't like these things that simply put a coating over a problem symptom and never do address the actual problem. These are usually the kinds of things where people walk away all puffed up, wiping their hands and declaring, "problem solved!" And that's what I sense with the people surrounding this special youth season.

Patience! We'll get there. Isn't it funny though that what they are after now (entire county) is exactly the same bill that sat on the governors desk the first time through when they all went into a panic and requested the governor to veto it. The language that would allow rifles in all of the county is what sent them all into a tizzy, and now that is exactly the resolution that has been sent up and the most likely to pass....lol. When was that? .... 3 years ago? We could have already had a couple seasons with a rifle by now.

When it comes to such things as hunting coyotes, you have to remember that the coyote basically is at the top of his food chain in NYS. The only critter that is a predator of coyotes is humans. Other than hunters and disease, there is no other population check. However, all that aside, it may be a mistake to consider hunting as having to fulfill some lofty goal in the greater scheme of things. I don't really justify my hunting in terms of some rigid code of morality. I don't demand that everything I kill has to wind up on my table. Shooting rats at the dump is not a food gathering exercise. I have no craving for eating crows, or woodchucks or a 40 pound black-meated, scungey carp. And yet I do hunt all those critters. I didn't run a trapline because I had a hankering to munch down a skunk tenderloin or a rack of fox spare-ribs. So, there is nothing wrong with trying to keep some moral code involved in your hunting to a certain extent. But there also is nothing wrong with acknowledging that modern day humans are descended from predatory ancestors. We have a genetic pre-disposition to hunt, and it's not always about meat or fulfilling some function within the eco-system. Some people might cringe at the semi-evil looking grin on my face as I tighten the squeeze on the trigger with a stinky old woodchuck in my crosshairs. But believe me it really doesn't make me a bad person.....lol.

That is still an excellent point. You want self-regulating restraint on buck harvests? ...... Just make sure that the hunter understands that if he chooses to take a runt, that is a single, unreversible choice. How many times have I heard it said, "The first one is whatever it is and then I begin to "trophy hunt"? More times than I can count. That attitude would change real quick if there were no 2nd chances. One buck per season regardless of weapon ..... just one. Sounds simple to me.

Since we all have computers and access to the internet, I really don't think there is anyone on this forum that is being faced with any of those choices .... fortunately.

Your indignation is noted .... lol. However, I would say that to any rule, there may be an exception, but let's face it, there has to be some truth to the thought that the large percentage of the fathers do not take their kids out during regular season and perhaps the motives for that have been accurately figured out. I keep coming back to this same unanswered question, "where are all these mentors going to be coming from for the special season if we can't even get people to take kids out during regular season". Can anyone answer that simple question? Is there something about a special youth season that's going to force parents, friends and neighbors to do the responsible thing? I don't think so. Could it be that many hope that someone will take their kids out hunting if a special season is formed, and eliminate the need for them to have to be burdened during their own prized hunting hours. I mean, to listen to all the people climbing aboard the "special season" bandwagon, one has to wonder why we have a youth recruitment problem now. If a significant number of the people calling for a youth hunt would simply take a kid out during regular season, I would guess that there would be no problem (hence no need for the special season) .... right? The fact that it is not happening has to make one suspect the worst in motives and I can't blame anyone for coming to the conclusions that we've seen in this thread. Is all the noise about special youth seasons just a diversion to cover the fact that we are not doing our part and really don't intend to?

Yeah really, there should be no one that is forced to live off the land. We do have systems on top of systems to handle dire emergency survival situations. I really do believe (hope) the comment about being willing to break the law was a remark that was blurted out in the heat of the argument without any thought.

New update on the Ontario County rifle bill in the latest issue of New York Outdoor News. Apparently they are going for rifles in the entire County instead of just areas south of routes 5&20. Also it looks like 2013 is the earliest possible effectivity date. Apparently, it has already been put forth as an "county-wide" resolution approved by the Board of Supervisors. What a fiasco!

There is no justifying poaching as far as I am concerned. a possible exception to that is if you are in imminent danger of starvation. But of course if that were the case, the poacher would likely not own a computer or be able to afford an internet account. The appropriate way to handle legal things that you disagree with is to either fight to have the law changed or work to defeat the law from being passed in the first place. Breaking the law is not acceptable. I am hoping the comment was made by mistake and was made strictly for shock value and a rather spur-of-the-moment poor judgement.

Lol .... I guess if you automatically rule out every opinion on this thread that doesn't agree with your thinking, I can see where you might arrive at that opinion. Hey, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but please read and try to understand the opinions of those that maybe don't quite align with your version. Try applying a bit of an open mind and maybe you might actually see where the opposition is coming from instead of trying to define it by decree.

I remember throwing a few spinners in the river a bunch of years (maybe a few decades?) ago while passing through Binghampton. I can't remember where we got access. It was just one of those deals where we saw the water and said let's give it a try. We caught and released bunches of those smallmouths. But none like the one in the picture. however, it sure showed the potential of that stretch of the river. Unfortunately, I never got a chance to get back and explore the river there.

There is one nagging quote from the DEC top biologist Jeremy Hurst. That being that there is no biological reason for ARs. Certainly not a direct quote, but it does capture the essence of the quote. What exactly did he mean if ARs have such a significant effect on the health of the herd? Did he lie? If so, why? He actually described the demands for AR as being a social request from hunters. Again, not a direct quote, but essentially conveys the meaning of what he said. Can anyone straighten me out on what the deal was with those widely publicized quotes?

Well again as I said, I haven't checked the seasons yet, but I assume that opening weekend of turkey season is established by now. And I believe that somewhere I heard a pretty definitive proposed date for the youth deer hunt. The question is, do they coincide or not? if they do, it seems like the youth hunt has purposely been put in one of the most seasonally competitive times of the year when kids that are interested in hunting will be torn in about as many different directions as the DEC can arrange. If they don't, it still is one heck of a busy time for various hunting activities, not to mention that fall fishing is still going great in October.

Is that true? Are they proposing to hold this special youth deer season on the first weekend of fall turkey? I haven't had a chance to check it out yet, but if that is true, you really have to wonder how serious they are about this special season being attended by the kids. I guess there must be some silly reason why they decided to put it in the most competitive time of the year. between a bow season that is happening, and all the different small game hunting opportunities, and now the opening weekend of turkey season ...... could they have picked a more likely time for failure. I mean really, what the heck are they thinking? I have been suspecting that the whole thing is just a silly "feel-good" piece of window-dressing. I guess now if this is true, that kind of is the convincing last straw.

One thing I have noticed a lot of this year are storms where you can have a "gully washer" going on in one spot and a half-mile down the road everything can be bone dry. Some of these things are so isolated, it's no wonder that the weathermen have been so screwed up lately. Quite often, I have watched huge storms on the radar split apart and go both sides of us and not a drop of rain here.

Anybody ever try to make anything out of wild grapes?

Well, apparently we can be put into 3 categories of hunters. There is the "meat hunter", a lowly villainous guy who is the scourge of the earth always looking for ways of decimating the deer herd. Then there is "trophy hunter" who never saw a reason for shooting a deer if the rack score wasn't of some particular minimum number. And last there is the "deer benefactor" who apparently doesn't like the meat, only shoots old and toothless deer that are only a few weeks away from a natural death from old age. Yeah that whole paragraph is a bit of a sarcastic description of deer hunters, but the point is that none of us are truly just any one of those. We generally get into using those names only as a prelude to some kind of negative comment in an argument that is escalating toward a set of personal attacks .... lol. The fact is that we usually have a piece of all of those in combination. I don't know too many hunters that don't value the addition of venison to their menu. I also don't know too many that don't appreciate a good buck rack when they are fortunate enough to get one. And we all recognize that we do have to act with some thoughts as to adequate herd management to allow the realization of the first two attitudes. Unfortunately, the controversy of AR can be defended or attacked using these bogus hunter characterizations as criteria. Three different points of view ..... all the ingredients for yet another of our many divisive controversies. The good news is that it all makes for some rather lively forum fodder.

Lol ..... I think this is quite funny because I have also had occasion to name certain deer that might have some outstanding feature. Usually it is a name that has less human attributes though .... lol. I do remember the "Bog Buck", which was a huge buck that hung around a small swampy area on top of the hill. And then there was "Old Knobby" that had a right antler that was a normal 4 points, but the other side was a straight 6" antler that had a big blob of antler at the end ..... a pretty weird looking dude. As far as an antlered fawn, I've got no clue as to how common that may be. I'm thinking that I have seen some tiny little spike bucks that had little 3" or 4" spikes that may have been fawns of that year, but I wouldn't even hazard a guess as to whether they were that year's fawns or not.

Oh no!!! Bad genes!!! Kill it .... kill it now ..... quick kill it before it multiplies! .... lol.

I have had raccoon attacks on my cameras. muddy little hand-prints all over the camera, and some times having the camera pulled out of position. They even had me believing there was something wrong with my cameras because I was getting these pictures that made some of the big trees and surrounding bushes look blurred. I knew that the bigger trees were not moving. So next trip up, I looked at the camera and spotted where a raccoon had grabbed the camera. Apparently he was standing below where he was out of the picture. I have no clue what the big attraction was ..... probably just curiosity.

That is very similar to an old abandoned cemetery that I came across once (fog and all). It all looked exactly like that except there were old tombstones scattered through the woods. Talk about an eerie scene. It was a place that I just wanted to get the heck away from.

From what I am seeing on the radar, and hearing on the news, you probably should be thankful to have missed that batch of ugly storms. Trees down, and other damage. My guess is that the rain amounts were probably damaging as well. That seems to be the problem with this time of year. You either get no rain, or you get way more than you want. Also the kind of nasty stuff that usually comes with these storms (wind, hail, etc.) always makes me cautious what I wish for. Be a good idea to use a modified version of that rain dance ... lol.

Be sure you put it back on. Nobody wants to come across that thing laying around. ..... lol.