Doc

Some people do all kinds of silly things to call attention to themselves. Not everyone cares whether the attention is positive or negative as long as they are the center of attention. These clowns are simply exhibiting that pathetic cry for attention. But what a stupid way of doing it! Look at some of these actors and pinko news pundits. It's all the same frantic attempts to receive attention. It is sad that these people love attention more than they do their country.

I remember back in the 60's and 70's when I was still hunting from treestands, there wasn't a whole lot of talk about safety harnesses. I'm not even sure there were any available, or maybe I just wasn't aware of them. But as time went on there was some talk about treestand safety and a lot of us began the very unsafe practice of simply tying a rope around our waist and then to the tree. I rigged one up that incorporated an old VW Beetle lap belt latch mechanism that had a push button latch release which was a little more safe, but still could leave you landing horizontal with a back-snapping jolt to the waist. most arrangements back then were perhaps more dangerous than the problem they were supposed to solve. I am not sure when the first full-body harness safety restraints were introduced, but I believe that regular widespread use of them is fairly new-ish (recent decades). Today most designs are fool-proof, and there is no reason why anyone should go up in a tree without a proper harness on.

It has been decades now since I realized that I am not a tree dweller....lol. It was a case of a fear of heights. Who knows maybe that affliction has saved my life. My cousin was not so fortunate, and met an early end to his young life because of a treestand fall. Sad for him and sad for his family.

Next time you are on a two lane highway, consider the fact that every oncoming car is going about the same speed as you are and will be passing by you somewhere in the vicinity of 4 feet away from you. And they could be focused on some "smart phone" or high on some drug or just one of those sloppy drivers or one of the many new electronic conveniences that they are filling cars with today. Always be ready to take evasive action. "Drive defensively" is more than just a cute slogan.

Yes, it all a matter of numbers. It is easy to say that all we have to do is to get a bigger percentage of Republicans to vote than the Dems (who have a prohibitive majority) but no one really knows how to do that.

I have always had easy access to the back-country up on top of our hills where you would think no sane person would ever consider going. A short ATV ride on my own land up a steep "killer-hill" to where it flattens out, opens up hundreds of acres for me to get way back in without all the sweat and exhaustion that others have to contend with. And yet even way back in, the place is crawling with hunters. On the days when there is snow, the hunter tracks everywhere (and I do mean EVERYWHERE), tell you that the popular strategy now is to concentrate on the back acreage where it is thought that no one will go except the deer. People walk right by some excellent hunting grounds to get to such places .... and the deer know it too. I have seen guys cresting the hill, dragging all kinds of stands and backpacks, ringing wet with sweat, and panting like a steam engine, only to find the top of the hill and beyond totally populated with other hunters who thought they would be rewarded with deer running all over the place.

My almost 60 years of deerhunting life has revolved primarily around bowhunting. So my observations are going to be about the evolution of bow hunting through my years of hunting. Some of the biggest changes in hunting have happened at work. I remember how a bunch of us bowhunters would spend the early hours of Monday morning gathered in one of the cubicles discussing the weekend's hunt. The hot topics back in the 60's revolved around even seeing a deer or a good track and occasionally a rub or scrape. And once in a while, someone would get a shot (almost always a miss). And sometimes a very rare event when somebody actually got a deer and had to recite every little detail of the whole hunt right from the time they crawled out of the sack in the morning to the final recovery of the deer. Today the Monday morning conversations at work involve a lot smaller group of people. Someone will talk about a deer that they got and the first thing that is asked is, "What did it score?" If you want to tell the story to somebody that is interested, the score had better be adequate. Never mind trying to raise a conversation about getting a doe. Nobody cares, and that will usually send everybody immediately back to their desk to begin the work of the day....lol. A lot of the conversation today involves the ag practices of food-plotting or other things done to train the deer to avail themselves to weaknesses in our hunting prowess. Instead of finding the deer (hunting), we strive to perfect our abilities to "attract" deer into posing themselves to be more easily shot. Food plots, fake scrapes, sex attractants and such are what hunting is about today. Also, there is an interest in using equipment that allows longer shots rather than honing our woods-lore and knowledge of the prey to get closer shots. Technology now rules hunting and success is more and more dependent on some mechanical or electro-mechanical designer slaving away in his cubicle at some bow manufacturer's engineering department to enhance our success rates. Where will the hunting evolution take us? ...... Where ever technology can lead us to an easier kill.

Those that have been deer hunting for a bunch of years have likely noticed changes in the way hunters hunt. What are the hunting and preparation methods or changes in priorities and that you have noticed that have changed over the years.

Recently what I have been noticing is that hunters in our heavily pressured public land are definitely sold on what they have been told and what they read. They jump out of the car with the intention of getting as far from the road as possible. Our deer have taken note of that change in hunter patterns and stay in that thick impenetrable multiflora rose that will tear a grown man apart in just a hundred yards or so. The deer seem to be patterning the hunters very well. I also have had more and more occasions when I come dragging in after a day on top of the hill, only to have my wife tell me about the bucks in the front yard. They seem to have it all figured out......lol.

Yeah.....The weather doesn't even begin to make a person think of hunting, As the temperatures drop and that magical time with the leaves turning, even those that have no intent of drawing blood will be out there just to be out there. Some of us are getting older and a bit broken, and that does make it a struggle to work up the energy and enthusiasm. I am surrounded with "killer" hills, and legs and hips and such are starting to break down a bit. So it takes a bit of effort to head up the hill. Morning hunts are already very rare, but I still put in the best effort I can muster. No problems with the archery aspect. I an still pulling enough bow, and the marksmanship is still holding up pretty good. But the energy expended just getting to the good spots is waning a bit.

Nothing! NYS has a swamp of its own and just like the federal govt. the Republicans seem to have plenty of representation in that population of swamp dwellers. They are all buddies, and nobody wants to upset the balance or all the goodies that are coming their way.

My sister served up some roast pork that was cooked in a smoker. That was the tastiest pork I have ever had. So now I am getting interested in buying a smoker. So I went to Lowes and looked over their selections and found that there are all kinds, sizes, and prices. So what makes a good smoker. We probably wouldn't use it all that much, so I don't want to sink a pile of money into it. I saw electric ones, and I saw propane fired ones. There's only the two of us so I don't need some monster sized thing. I would love to hear thoughts on what's good and why. Any help?

What is the max temperature that you can stand to have the rynoskin on before you start sweating? Is it true that it is mosquito-proof? Is the weave so tight the little suckers can't get that proboscis through? I think I just might get a set (top and bottom). I suspect that on a day like these past 90 degree days, that stuff is probably not practical. But during hunting season, it should be ok....right?

It will be happening to us all if we are lucky enough to live that long to experience it. There also comes a time when we can't see as well, or even hold a gun up and still enough to guarantee a shot. Eventually, the old knees and ankles will come up short and fail us from even reaching preferred hunting grounds. It's all just part of the cycle of life. At those points in time, we will sit back and enjoy the memories and accomplishments and be thankful for all the hours of hunting we were blessed with. There is nothing new about all that and if we live long enough, we will all experience it. But finally hanging up the bow simply means that we were lucky enough to have had the experience of a wonderful way to hunt. I haven't gotten there yet, but it is now in sight. By the way it was a pleasure to see that picture of the magnificent work of craftsmanship that the Bear Tamerlane was. I have mine hanging on the wall rack to remind me of my tournament activities. What a work of art!

Bedding areas generally have several entrance and exit trails, and hopefully there are not so many of them that screw up your odds too much. I would suggest that you stay in the observation area some distance from where you have traditionally seen them moving out of the bedding area and then if and when you believe that you have determined a pattern, move Slowly and carefully) into bow range on a day when the wind is right and conditions cover whatever noise you might inadvertently make. Likely you will only get one chance, so put all conditions as much in your favor as possible.

Actually this whole thread is not really about constitutionality. There are no constitutional guarantees regarding these internet entities that really are a whole new form of political manipulation that has not yet been regulated, and may not ever be regulated until Democracy has drawn its last breath and the heavy hand of socialism finally has it's death-grip around our necks. Credit the left for having dominated most forms of media that forms public opinion. Understand that it is the left that has been able to control the educational institutions and bend the young skulls full of mush of entire generations to tolerate and encourage the pushing of Marxism and other such anti USA agendas and ideals. The educational system has been in their control for many, many decades. Take note that the left has found ways to turn our own freedoms against us and done so in a way that there is no defense. Don't blame these e-businesses for making use of our own free-speech guarantees. They are just seizing the vulnerabilities of our own freedoms and applying what has been drummed into their heads by the Marxist professors in their education that we paid for. There definitely are enemies of Democracy at work here, but there is no Constitutional argument to be made against them. They will use the Constitution right up to the day they abolish it.

Basically, starting out with a 50# bow is likely to end with frustration and a bad feel for archery. I started with an old Ben Pearson fiberglass bow and would have given up if I had not saved my pennies and bought a 35# Wing Gull. Finally, I could allow my body to achieve decent form and actually come to fulldraw and finally hit what I was aiming at. So, as a recommendation, I would say take the bow, have it checked out and get a new string made for it, and buy a lighter draw weight recurve as a starter bow and work your way into Grandfather's bow. That is a much easier, practical, way that is more likely to end in success.

Shakespeare was always a well thought of recurve back in the day I had one myself. Pretty good quality workmanship. If it was not abused and stored with some care, it should still be serviceable and have a lot of life left in it. I have a few bows from back in the 60's that I still occasionally pull out and shoot. They all shoot well.

I am not a turkey hunter, so any deer would be easier for me.

Hunting buddies come and go. Yes it is a lot more fun to have people that you can hunt with and count on not to do some of the things you mentioned. But hunting partners have to be screened carefully and chosen with care. Case in point, I had a guy from work that hunted with me on my property. Next thing I knew his brother-in-law showed up and then friends of the brother-in-law. Before long my driveway looked like a parking lot. I had another situation where a guy that I hunted with decades earlier had a brother who suddenly showed up unannounced and was starting to set up a drive through the thicket in front of my house (without introduction or permission). He had about 8 guys ready to push through the area when I went down and put a rather unfriendly permanent end to that activity. There are other surprises you can encounter when you decide to hunt with somebody. My Brother-in-law from Canada invited a couple of people down for a few days of hunting. The day before the opener, we set up a target to check their guns out to ensure they survived the trip without any changes. The one guy proceeded to rip off 5 shots as fast as he could pull the trigger. I'm kind of a "one shot-one-deer guy", and I really don't like being around the lead sprayers. Its a safety thing. Apparently he was raised with using deer dogs and his past meant laying down a wall of lead at deer running flat out. The other guy was worse. While we were walking up to check out the targets, he was hanging back doing something with his shotgun when all of a sudden, we heard a shot right behind us. I have no idea what the hell he was doing, but his gun accidently discharged (fortunately into the ground). That is when I turned around pointing to the opposite hill across the valley and told those two that that is where they would be hunting. The point is that it is great to have someone to hunt with, but you have to know them a whole lot better than just being members of the same forum. Bad things can happen when you don't screen them VERY closely.

This time of year, I am a "hiker". I wander all over my hunting area, checking out known past hotspots and occasionally going through some areas. What am I looking for? ...... primarily checking oak trees and the occasional wild apple trees and checking where the wild grape vines are. Tracks and scat are interesting from a deer inventory standpoint, but most of the time, deer are traveling differently than they will come October 1. Food sources are in a continual state of change. Bedding areas are interesting to locate, but they too change with the seasons. I do hunt some state land, so it is good to check non-hunting pressures (mountain bikers and hikers and bird watchers) on certain areas. Any activities that can impact patterns are good things to know about. I spend a lot of time re-building ground stands even if the locations do not yet look hot. Experience with many of them shows that even though the areas look dead right now, that can change with something as simple as acorn-drop or rut. So the answer to your initial question is that I have an infinite number of places to scout. It's not a case of finding a couple of spots, but more of keeping a running account of what is happening in the entire hunting area so that when the season comes, I will have a good idea where the deer should be as the season, food sources, and the rut progresses. I also place as much value on past hunting experiences as I do the current scouting (maybe even more so). Past hunts tell me a lot about how the wind behaves in an area and directions and times of deer travel and why the deer are where they are.

I reserve my favorite breakfasts for when I occasionally go to a restaurant. Then it is two eggs over medium, a double order of wheat toast and a whole pile of homefries. And if the wife has any egg or toast or potatoes left over, I glom them up too. At home it is 2-cups of low carb bran flakes or a couple of eggs and two slices of low carb toast. Carb count at all meals is 60 grams of carbs, max. (a diabetic's diet set up a bunch of years ago by a dietician). It works.

You didn't say what poundage your recurve is, but likely you are a bit over-bowed and your elbow is collapsing in trying to brace against the unusual forces throughout the draw cycle. Roll your elbow out and you will find extra clearance. The muscles used on a compound and the ones used on a recurve or longbow are not quite the same. Compounds start at zero pounds and go to maximum and then toward the end of the draw cycle, the let-off takes over. Your archery muscles have learned to accept that force-draw application. The recurve builds to a point where you reach max draw weight at full draw. The muscles feel a whole different pull throughout the draw cycle, and your muscles have to be re-conditioned to accept that. At first everything is trying to collapse. Until your muscles develop the new cycle of draw weight, there will be all kinds of form failures. Roll that elbow out, and you should get your string clearance back.

Probably won't live long enough to exhaust my own list of projects, but thanks for the offer ..... lol.

Deer prefer many different foods depending on the time of year and what is producing and what is not. There is nothing wrong with variety. Be careful about putting too much stock in observations in open croplands and plots. You may be seeing deer there simply because they are quite visible when standing out in the middle of a field. When deer back in the woods eating acorns are not necessarily "on display". And remember that not all oaks are created equal in terms of being deer attractants. White oak acorns are the preferred food.