Doc

And that really seems to be the center of the whole issue isn't it. Those that would like to silence Nugent really are not willing or able to step in to take his place in publicly speaking out for gun owners and hunters. None of us have that bully pulpit of fame (or notoriety) from which to speak, do we? We are all as individuals pretty much silent and ineffective in the arena of public debate because all we do is preach to the choir and discuss these things only amongst ourselves and have no national standing to reach the other side. Most of that is because we simply don't have the platform, and part of it is because it is a lot easier to simply snipe at those who do. I must say that other than Nugent, I have found very few people who can and do talk to the general non-hunting public on a national stage while arguing (quite factually and effectively I might add) all the pro-hunting and pro gun ownership points with precision and passion. In fact, I guess I don't hear anybody taking on that set of issues on our behalf who isn't simply talking between hunters. So I have to ask ..... you all have lots to say in terms of shooting down this guy. He does make an easy target of himself because he is not afraid to put himself on the firing line. And apparently there is no shortage of people overjoyed at taking potshots. So who exactly do you all have in mind to pick up the public debate in our behalf? Do any of you detractors think you have the ability to do a better job? Is there some other personality that you believe will take on these issues in a public fashion as Nugent does that will also do it according to your own narrow versions of perfection? Are you content to try to destroy this guy and leave this argument only to the antis. After all there are plenty from that side that are more than happy to preach to the public their version of the debate. Just about any person from the entertainment field will be more than happy to speak against guns and hunting and they have th eplatform to do it well. Are you all happy to leave the antis to frame the complete debate? My take is that Nugent is a fairly intelligent and effective speaker who is the only public figure willing to publicly stand up to the antis. I have not yet seen one of these antis who can successfully hold their own against this guy in a debate of the issues based on hard numbers and documented facts. To me that is a resource that should not be squandered by namby-pamby nit-pickers. We are pretty fond of shooting our own messengers. I am here to tell you that it may give some some sense of warm and fuzzy, but in reality we can't afford to keep on with that kind of nonsense. I see this kind of nit-picking in the way we treat our advocacy organizations and now here we go pulling the same crap with individuals who are willing to speak up on our behalf. Think what you want about the antis, but one thing you have to say for them is they are smart enough not to bicker among themselves. They have a singularity of purpose which hunters and gun owners just don't seem to be smart enough to match.

Lol ..... yes, maybe I should not be so amazed at anything that happens in California, particularly as regards game laws and policies. But I've got to say that their policies on the hog issue couldn't be any further apart from what appears to be the overwhelming opinions of all of the other states. I just thought it was curious.

OMG ...... you're right! If the shoe fits ..... wear it. Your attitude sure sounds like it fits perfectly. I've already explained the way I feel about those that attack our advocates. It may be uncomfortable for you to hear, but it has to be said.

Of course your definition of a "whacko" might just be the thing that is in question. I've heard other gun rights advocates referred to as whackos. I think the common term is "gun nuts". Actually, that is a term that the anti-gun crowd likes to use on anyone who has any strong, pro 2nd amendment thoughts, or even those who have the audacity to even own a gun. Is that what you believe? .... that he is a gun nut? Is it really his stance on these issues that you don't like? Or maybe it's the fact that he dares speak his mind when it comes to the support of guns and hunting. You want him silenced? If so, you have a lot of company. Go to any Handgun Control Inc. meeting or any animal rights organization and you will find all kinds of people who agree with you. Speak your mind at a PETA rally and you will get cheers from the crowd.

I have been watching a few of these programs on National Geographic channel about California game warden activities ..... "Wild Justice" I believe is the name of the program. So far I saw a couple programs that described their efforts to apprehend wild hog poachers. So out there in California, feral hogs are apparently protected to some extent. Season, bag limit, or some other level of protective laws, I'm not sure. But apparently there are laws that make some acts of pig killing illegal. Just about every other state that I have ever heard of treat feral hogs as basicly a scourge to the environment. I have heard the spread of active hog populations described as an apocalypse visited upon the environment, and a scourge that impacts the welfare of habitat and nearly all native species (human or animal), to the point where most state governments would like to see them exterminated completely. NY has adopted the policy of "kill 'em ...... kill 'em all". So is there anyone else that's confused by this radical difference in game management policy? Having never personally witnessed the destruction that everyone talks about, and the out-of-control population explosion that is always supposed to happen to pig populations, I have to wonder how California can support any level of legal restrictions on the harvesting of their pigs. Why isn't California one huge rooted-up state with jillions of pigs over-running every yard in their state? And of course there is the question as to whether the hog impacts might just be a bit over-stated. I don't know, I can only go by what the supposed experts tell me. But then most of that does not reconcile with California's notion of "wild hog poachers". What he heck am I missing here?

I have to say that I am curious as to what makes people such haters when it comes to someone who speaks up for gun ownership and hunting. I can understand the obvious answer to that, except that most of you claim to be hunters who prize your right to own firearms. What is this perverse need for destruction of our advocates? Why is there so much comment here that sounds an awful lot like it is coming directly from campaigns of animal rights organizations, and/or the Brady bunch of gun confiscators? Is the left wing getting so transparent now that they can't even be a little bit subtle about their hatred of gun and hunting advocates?

As I understand it, it is anything south of route 20. Although, you have to wonder about cities like Canandaigua and Geneva, both of which have routes 5 & 20 running right through them, and have some suburban type areas south of that route.

I have always been back and forth on this issue, depending on whether I have my hunter hat on or my landowner hat on. I have a house that is at the end of a 200+ yard open field on some rather heavily used hunting area. The hedgerow between the field and my house is a few red pine trees. Deer do like to come down the edge of that hedgerow when the hunting pressure starts. The distance is such that nobody shoots the length of the field with a shotgun. With a rifle? ........ who knows? On the other hand, I have spent decades abusing my shoulder with that old 12 guage mangler. Heaven help me if my 3 or 5 shot pattern needs adjustment at the beginning of the year. Anymore than 5 slugs, and I am likely to be nursing a bruised shoulder and will be flinching like crazy by the 6th shot .... lol. I wouldn't mind retiring that old man-killer and replacing it with something like a .243 or .270, or something of that nature that is a little kinder to my old bones. Also, it would be nice to be able to pick the exact hair on the deer that I want to hit ........ and then actually do it. I have a theory (and that's all it is) that when a guy goes afield with a very precision kind of weapon that he has spent a lot of time shooting, like a nice scope sighted rifle, he is much more likely to try to use that precision in a careful, deliberate fashion, which automatically makes it a safer shot. That as opposed to the all too typical, spray and pray, 5-shot volleys that I often hear with the shotguns. I think that shotgunners have an awful lot of bird-hunter mentality in their deer hunting. Who knows, maybe while they are carefully settling down for that shot with their rifle, they just might see that gray house just beyond the hedge across the field .....lol.

Got a lot of heavy rain last night. I'm wondering what I am going to find out there when it gets light .... lol.

I have noticed that a lot of times you will see turkeys and deer together. It's almost like they know that where there is food for the other, there is food for them. Their diet is quite similar.

I used to make my own strings, so a string change was really cheap. You're right, back in the days when they had the tear-drop fitting, there was no need for bow presses and all kinds of expertise. I could do any kind of bow repair or modification I wanted with a spare, over-sized bowstring (over-sized string so I could do it by myself) that I kept around just for that use. Bow design has come a long way hasn't it? ..... lol. They have increased the cost of a string change by ten-fold. Somebody looking for something new to design and put on the market?.... well there is a good lead to a new needed product. Develop and market a bow stringing system on bows that doesn't require a $100 (or whatever) trip to the pro-shop. It wouldn't be all that hard to do.

Here is another picture for reference. When I spoke about the height of the camera, I should have also mentioned that it does have a slight downward slant because of the shape of the tree. So I'm not sure how well that shows heights of things in the image. But anyway, this image may help establish something about the height:

Well, when the heck did we get all this rain? yeah, I've seen some showers here and there, but nothing that would explain all this water. The only thing I can figure is I must have slept through some heavy gully-washers during the nights. I will say, I think it was Saturday morning when I was heading for town, every little culvert had logs, gravel, leaves and other debris laying all over the road, so something ugly had happened during the night. Good thing I'm a sound sleeper ..... lol. But now for the second week, there are huge places that I still can't take the mower. These areas are going to be a darned jungle by the time I can get out there to mow them.

That was my first thought. I really can't think what else it could be.

This issue can be a very volitile issue. I believe that whether these rifle changes get passed or not depends on how much public attention it gets. Ontario basicly had the thing passed until it was discovered that there was a flaw in the way it was written up. It was on Patterson's desk ready for signing when the Bristol town supervisor had to request that he veto it so they could correct the description of where the rifles would be allowed. Once that happened, it basically went back to the beginning of the process. That glitch got picked up by the Canandaigua Messenger and that was all she wrote. The anti-rifle forces got wind of it all and organized and strong-armed their town supervisors to take up a negative position on the change even after the area description was officially modified to include only areas south of rts 5&20. Apparently a much quieter movement has taken place to silently bring the change back to life and start it through the legislative gauntlet. I really believed it was a completely dead issue until I read about it in the NYS Outdoor News. So now there is some hope, but only as long as the anti-rifle forces are not alerted. I hope that NYS Outdoor News has not made this info public too early. So now, I guess the message is ..... "Sh-h-h-h-". I'll have more to say about it once the damned bill is finally signed and turned into law.....lol.

Ok, I guess I have never heard them called that before, but I think I know what you are talking about now ..... thanx

I really didn't think that the weather has been very wet, but I still have huge areas of lawn that I can't even get near because of soggy ground. Some places I have standing water. Anybody else having any problems with waterlogged lawn, or is it just a local problem? Forget the low water table due to the snow-less winter here. I have a small pond that is over-flowing. Also, I have a well that is pushing water out the top of the casing. So any water shortages that the dry winter may have caused are certainly all better now.

There ya go! absolute proof of a NYS mountain lion ...... lol.

Bill- You were quite lucky. I've heard some awful nasty horror stories about injuries when bows self-destruct at full draw. I agree with the suggestion to take a real close look at the limbs. Some of these bows are becoming darn near "delicate" as the manufacturers try to squeeze the last foot per second out of them.

OK, this one has me really confused. I don't know what the heck I'm looking at here: The camera is about 2-1/2' off the ground and tipped very slightly toward the ground. To me it almost looks like the tail of a housecat or something. I tried to think of some part of a deer that would look like that, but nothing makes any sense. It must be fairly close to the camera because the flash burned out the image again. I'm beginning to think I am infested with aliens ..... lol.

See, that's what makes hunting different from a trip to meat counter of the super market. Appreciate the near misses as well as the scores. That's what makes success all that much sweeter.

Yup! and that sure does mean a whole lot than some hack-job by a news reporter. Relative to who Nugent speaks for, or doesn't, I will say that I really don't go out of my way to act like a loyal fan ...... because I'm not. However, I will also say that I don't go out of my way to throw him under the bus either. I find no benefit to hunters to do that. As far as I am concerned, anyone who wants to devote that much of their life and energies toward speaking up for hunters and gun owners, (When almost all hunters won't even bother to pick up a pen and write their opinions or hunting concerns to legislators), is probably not someone that I feel the need to tear down. I guess I just don't get the motivations for some of this spite that we seem to enjoy heaping on people that do speak up for us. I see the American hunter as being the most self-destructive set of individuals in society as they seem to get some perverse joy out of destroying those individuals and organizations that volunteer and serve as advocates. Really, I just don't get it. Maybe I don't necessarily like his abrasive style of speaking. Maybe I don't like his personality. Maybe he does make some mistakes along the way (don't we all). Maybe I don't like his music ....lol, but I have yet to hear much of what he says that I disagree with. I don't have to like the guy, or like much about him in order to not go out of my way to try to get people to stop listening to his positive views toward hunters and hunting. I don't see that sort of thing as being beneficial to me as a hunter and gun owner. Why would it be? Also, I would say that as long as we demand absolute perfection from our advocates, we needn't wonder why we have so few people saying anything positive about hunting and gun ownership. We do it to ourselves everytime.

That is the odd thing about this whole fiasco. Say what you want about the guy, you have to admit that he is not dumb. I find it hard to believe that he would knowingly air a program that depicts an illegal act. I really do believe that he had no idea that he had broken the law. In terms of the description of the law being obvious and clearly posted on the regulations book, I would have to see the example before I put a whole lot of credibility in the word of any newspaper reporter. Sorry, but I do have a bit of a general bias against the media when it comes to gun or hunting issues. Yeah, I know ..... it has to be true because it was in the newspaper ..... right? Well, maybe it is, but I would rather read that information from a more reliable source before I get too excited about it.

Trackloader???? What is that? I guess it's probably one of those things where if you have to ask what it is, you probably wouldn't know where to find one anyway ...... lol.

Yes, that little saying about "ignorance of the law" is an often quoted saying, and is most often dragged out by someone (like everyone else) who unwittingly breaks laws just about every day. I have reviewed some of the NYS Environmental Conservation Law which is contained in two volumes with a total stack height of over 3-1/2" of small print and complex legalese which will quickly throw you into a coma-like stupor and that simply resembles a bunch of double-talk. I have seen laws where if you ask 3 different law enforcement people the same question you will get 3 different interpretations. We have discussed laws on this site and have come away with no actual resolution of the meanings of those laws. Some of the laws defy interpretations. So saying that ignorance of the law is no excuse simply is another way of saying that any time that some L.E.O. decides he wants to write you up, it is very likely that he will be able find some obscure law and do so even if you have made a concerted effort to educate yourself on the entire content of the law. It's one of those things that sounds so wise and thoughtful when you say it, but which also like many of the laws themselves, has no basis in actual reality. Oh, and by the way I have only been talking about NYS laws. So imagine the research involved when you visit 3 or 4 different states in the same year. You had better have a whole lot of time on your hands or reconcile yourself to the fact that you will be ignorant of some local laws and you very well might get arrested for those. I hear that oft quoted little phrase about ignorance of the law, and acknowledge that it applies. However I also disregard it as a meaningless phrase that is so far out of touch with reality that it has no real practical meaning.