Doc

This is probably the closest to my thinking. It seems to me that disrespecting the laws that govern the rules of hunting is the same as disrespecting the act of hunting itself and any gains derived from hunting.

Ha-ha....Yes, I do understand that there are some like you that are reading-challenged and can't handle anything more than 3 or 4 sentences at a time. So I thought I would give you a break. Maybe this time you will actually be able to comprehend a bit of the content. Probably not, but at least you won't strain yourself too bad by having to read too much.....lol.

I guess some people's principles can be bought. Frankly, I know a lot of people that own sporting arms that are semi-autos just like all those super scary-looking AR-style "black rifles" that have all the libs so spooked. And those sporting rifles can fire ammo just as fast and efficient as those rifles that have been labeled assault rifles by the ignorant "Chicken Littles" that are all running around in circles worrying about the appearance of certain guns.

The choices are being made for me with my slowly failing hearing. I used to rely a whole lot on my hearing which allowed me a few visual distractions. But these days if I don't see the deer approaching, I probably will be caught unaware that he is coming in and the resulting chaos and panic will probably cost me the shot. So it is constant scanning for me with no luxury of any visual distractions.

I hate night-time blood trailing, unless the blood is flowing so fast that you can just walk along wit a flashlight right up to the deer. Blood trailing can get very tricky under the best of lighting conditions without add problems of a quick onset of darkness.

What I have done in the past is simply to pick up the pace and get by him as quickly as possible and when out of sight I resume my painfully slow pace and finish out the original hunt. I have had it happen to me before where I was on stand and another hunter comes through still-hunting. They can spend an hour or more getting by you. That's all time that you can sit there freezing waiting for him to just get out of the area you are trying to hunt. I would really appreciate it if they would just increase their pace to a good brisk, fast walk and get out of the area. But unfortunately, that doesn't always happen. I know how much time can be invested in setting up a good still-hunt, so I really don't expect them to trash their day's plans and clear out of the area completely just because I am there. I just would like them to do their best to minimize the impact on my hunt and get past as quickly as possible.

QUOTE: "Is losing a deer an inevitable occurrence?" I think the answer is likely "yes". I don't know anyone who has hunted for any length of time that can honestly say that it has not happened to them. It is something that we must all try to avoid. Bad hits and other unfortunate things can happen to anyone regardless of how much planning and care we exercise. We sharpen our tracking skills and have preplanned methods for recovering wounded game, but they don't always work either. So when it does finally happen to us, what are the ways of coping? Well, unless the deer is taken under slaughterhouse conditions and tools, we have to understand that whenever a life is to be taken in a wild and uncontrolled atmosphere, things carry no guarantees. You go through a period of anguish and grief an hopefully eventually get over it and accept the fact that occasionally sh*t happens. Just like falling off a horse, eventually you have to mount up again, analyze what went wrong. Try to correct mistakes and hope it doesn't happen again.

So you have gone a long way out of your way to get the wind just right to set up a stretch of ground you intend to still-hunt through. Now you have the wind right in your face where you want it and you're starting to slow right down to a super careful, slow, still-hunt at a painfully slow pace. You have hours invested approaching this favorite area from the right direction and have had your still-hunt in progress for another hour or so. Then all your cautious scanning brings up a flash of blaze orange way out ahead in the area you wanted to hunt through. What is your next move? Do you continue to move along ahead at your normal still hunting pace, guaranteed to piss off the hunter while you slowly sneak through the area that he is trying to hunt? Do you pick up the pace so as to not be lingering around the area that he is trying to hunt and hurry up to get by him? Do you just hang a hard turn and get the hell out of his hunt completely, but wrecking the hours of set up that you have invested in setting this all up. It may even be a rare wind direction that is perfect for this area. It becomes a case of how much damage to your own hunt you are willing to incur in the name of trying to hunt with the maximum amount of etiquette to preserve the hunt of others. It also becomes a question of what reaction on your part will cause the least disruption to the other guy's hunt. It's not a rare happening in some of the more densely hunted areas of public land. What do you do???

My still-hunting is what you might call a series of mini-stands. I move about 25 to 50 feet depending on visibility and then stand behind a suitable sized tree for anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes scanning every log, dip, or anything that could hide a deer. I am looking for ears, antler tips, tails or anything that looks even a bit out of place. This is not tactic that is used randomly throughout the woods. The moving part of this process is carried out with the same care I would use if I were stalking a deer that I had already spotted. Care is taken to ensure that there is no clothing that loose to the point where the wind could start it flapping around. Past experiences tell me the most likely places to find deer, and then I have the confidence to carry out such a time-consuming pace. I also use my binoculars almost constantly, and carry a Primos trigger stick in case I get caught out in the open when I spot a deer. I am lousy at offhand shooting so the portable gun rest is very important. It is not an easy way to hunt, and that is why I move through areas that I have seen deer bedded or feeding before. It requires great confidence to keep the pace down slow and careful, and that is why I put so much emphasis on prior experience. It requires that I genuinely believe that I will see a deer in the area that I am still hunting through.

What is with this cutesy title of "A Caravan"? Why don't we call it what it really is? ..... a stinking foreign invasion. And what is with all this discussion about whether this mob has lawbreakers and bad people in it. They are ALL coming to break U,S. law. They will become 100% law-breakers that have zero respect for the laws of the country they will be pretending to form an allegiance to. I think it is time to adopt a hard-line attitude on these would-be criminals and bounce them all the way back to their country of origin. Furthermore, once they are caught trying to test the sovereignty of our country's laws, they should be deemed forever ineligible for even legal attempt at U.S. citizenship. And if ever a case was proven for the need of a real border wall, this mass invasion (and now series of mass invasions) makes an irrefutable case for the wall.

You have to have some standard for legal shooting hours, or people would be out shooting at shadows that they THINK might be deer. I suspect that if you made it 1/2 hour before sunrise to 1/2 hour after sunset, you would still hear people talking about shooting way outside of legal hours. Of all the regulations, this seems like the easiest to get along with. Also, I am struck with how many hunting accidents happen outside of legal shooting hours. Coincidence????? I think not, especially when there are those that insist on wearing full camo during gun season. I have to admit that during bow season, I have actually quit early at times when I conditions warrant. There are conditions of dense over-story and fog and heavy clouds that really put in question the ability to locate that critical first blood. Those conditions have driven me off stand early, and I really don't regret doing so. I don't suppose the argument will ever end, but for me it is not something I would call an important priority. I get along just fine with the rules the way they are.

Ya know....Somehow this forum just isn't the same without Growie. We lost an interesting member who always offered a different way of looking at things. Had a few disagreements, but even those were fun.

Cold fried egg sandwiches on toast. 5 per day on opening day. I have a heck of a time making them last 'til lunch. Fill the scrambled egg full of busted up bacon slices while cooking and sometimes add some onions. On stand, I always keep a cup of good hot coffee within reach and then it doesn't really matter if a deer comes along or not. I just hate it when I have to set the sandwich down and grab the gun. Stand set-up for endurance. There's the bag of sandwiches to left of the stool, and the ever-present thermos of coffee. And gun rests everywhere just in case I have to stop eating long enough to take care of business.

So I am still trying to make some sense of this topic. I must be missing something. What specific laws would he be breaking? How is any other person being harmed or inconvenienced? What's the big deal? I wouldn't think the guy has picked out the best spot in the woods and chances are he won't really be accomplishing a whole lot, but it does remind me of a newbie up at work that decided to try hunting, and so he went out with a bunch of guys and sat at the base of a tree a few feet from all the parked cars. Yup!....You guessed it. He was the only one to get a deer that day and it was a pretty decent 8 pointer. He never went hunting again, claiming that it was just too damned easy.

The most memorable amazing shot that I ever made was about 4 or 5 feet from the tip of my arrow. I was standing behind an approx. 4' diameter oak watching a trail that was 20 yds away. A huge doe came along the trail and then turned and waked directly to the tree I was standing behind. I drew the bow while screened by the tree, and started walking around the tree as the deer walked around the other side. Finally I stopped and waited for the heart/lung area to be exposed as the deer kept walking. she ran about 15 yards and piled up. I swear I could have almost touched that deer. Even getting that shot without being detected was amazing. I had all the leaves raked away around the tree just in case a deer came from an unexpected direction. What I hadn't expected was having a deer walking straight at me to the other side of the tree that I was standing behind.

What a bummer it must be to see a flash of blaze orange in the scope a bit too late, just as you touch off the trigger while swinging on a running deer. Yes, the backdrop is unchanging, and immoveable, but hunters are not. There are a lot of good reasons not to shoot at running deer but you have just touched on the main one. But these stories about shooting women walking their dogs and shooting trucks thinking they are deer......well that defies imagination.

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I suspect that most successful still-hunting turns into stalking before the shot becomes available. However, I have had some situations where still-hunting actually became stand-hunting as a deer that I spotted was walking toward me. I used a tree as cover while I waited for him to close the distance to within bow range. And so that hunt started as still-hunting and morphed into stand hunting. So whenever I have been still-hunting, I never know what style of hunt that it may eventually become.

I was driven out of the woods by rain yesterday (Tuesday). What a miserable day. And I am not just whining about some petty drizzle. It was flat-out pouring for most of the day. I know that deer move on rainy days, but they would have had to have been wearing some kind of floatation gear. I made it for a couple of hours, but eventually got washed right out of the woods.

The first buck I ever got with a bow was when I was on my way home. I have gotten a few still-hunting, but I have to say that the most effective hunting for me is still out of a stand. But I will not argue that still-hunting can not be successful. My problem is that still-hunting requires some very precise control of balance and muscle control and I have reached a point in life where that sort of thing is not my strong point.....lol. I have lost my "sneak".

Pretty much on target here. And if you think land access has changed since the 80's, imagine the perspective from someone looking at it up close and personal since the 50's. I remember when a posted sign was a true oddity. Farmers didn't really have time or money or even a desire to go traipsing through the woods hanging up posted signs. But if you want to go even deeper into this problem, the change is due to modern vehicles and improved roads that promoted a mass migration from the cities and suburbs to the more rural areas. Everyone wanted their little piece of paradise in "the country". Large blocks of huntable forested land became chopped up into little 5-20 acre lots. And that residential migration to the U.S. hunting lands still continues to take place at a break-neck pace.

I heard that a lot of the quality displays and events were driven out by escalating costs of the spaces. So now they sit there not making any money at all and leaving the floundering hunting/fishing/trapping activities that the DEC relies so heavily on, high an dry with no public exposure. Yes I was there back in the good times when I was with the Avon bowmen. It was a wild heavily populated representation of what those sports were all about. And I know that a lot of kids were exposed to the world of nature and outdoor activities even beyond hunting fishing and trapping. How the region 8 DEC finally decided to abandon outdoorsmen in the fashion they did I am not sure. But a good event was trashed when they kicked the event off the property that we help to support.

I get so sick of the lefties trying to poo-poo an obvious rip snorting economy (by any measurement you want to mention) that is staring them right in the face. That is an incredibly cartoon-ish biased opinion, or just plain ignorance. A lie does not become a truth if you say it often enough. It was not uncommon back when I came out into the market to have to wait at least a couple of years for a decent car. Today most high school kids are tooling around in brand new cars. I take a look at some of these "mansions" that the 20-something employees are living in and laughing as these people whine about how tough things are today. Second homes are not all that uncommon anymore. Take a look at some of these motor homes that people are cruising around in. They cost more than my house did. And the stock market that has become the retirement income for most retirees is going nuts and restoring all the resources lost during the Bush/Obama years. Most of the whining comes from those that are just plain lazy and are swallowing up this socialist crap that believes that asking people to work for what they have is a stingy and heartless way to do things. So go pedal your left wing fantasies somewhere else. Nobody is buying into it here. The world is not one big free lunch paid for by the dummies that actually work and produce things.

I suppose it would follow that the best way to provide the biggest racks would be to make buck hunting illegal completely. All in favor raise your hand....lol. Actually, the state is perfectly happy the way things are right now. They are interested in getting control of deer numbers of any size and they actually prefer that you harvest antlerless deer to do that. And if an occasional button buck gets harvested, that's just the way things go sometimes. That's basically collateral damage. The AR push really comes from guys who are intent on insinuating themselves into the lives and goals of other hunters.

It's good that you mentioned "early" Fall at the end, because I had a different vision pop into my head: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I didn't know that ears could hurt so bad; Its almost time to go and I sure am glad. I haven't had feeling in my toes for hours; this bitter cold is testing my powers. I'm shaking like a leaf, can't pull back my bow; With 35 pounds of clothes on maybe it is now time to go. Well here I am at last, the truck; glad I made it but just by luck. That tired old battery is barely enough; the engine caught but is running rough. I sure do wish that I had four wheel drive; Maybe then I could get home alive. Oh what fun fighting the wheel and driving in this snow; It's all ice underneath in this two below. Oh...here we go right straight for the ditch; 10 inches of snow makes driving a bitch. The tow truck should be here any minute; This hunt seemed like a good idea until I actually got out in it. Finally I'm home thinking about it all; Damn, I knew that Winter was not all that far behind Fall. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- All inspired by real events .....lol.