Doc

Right there is the point where I get a bit confused. Exactly how is this "baseline" established? When did they actually go out and do a count to establish a firm "baseline". Of course we all know that they never did. So for me it isn't so much about what they do with their statistics afterward, but more about just how accurate this super-critical starting point (or baseline) is. Yes, if you have a firm starting point, you can apply statistical methods involving harvests, and maybe even throw in a few educated "guesstimates" about non-hunting mortality (although that by itself has to be straying a bit from reality), and eventually come up with a current population estimate and a few factors for accurately setting permit quotas, etc. However, if that baseline is flawed, any calculations or statistics that you apply to it will be as well. Further, the more consecutive years that you keep building on to this flawed baseline, the farther away from reality you get because of statistical creep. I would go along with statistical models and such (since that is the only practical way of doing business) if only that "baseline" thing could be explained to me. The accuracy of that vital building block is essential to any hoped-for statistical manipulations accuracy. Otherwise, I really can't understand why any of it has any credibility. Also, I believe it is a recognized fact that there never is any periodic on-the-ground verification to ensure that statistical activities are not building on and extending prior errors (statistical creep). So if someone can fill me in on how they keep this "baseline" accurate, I too will become one of the believers. Perhaps you might want to ask your math professor about that.....lol.

I'll bet NYS isn't too far behind them in doing the same thing. In fact I read somewhere of a discussion here about that very change. I believe it was associated with a DEC comment of some sort. I think I would be in favor of it. These guys don't seem to be able to control their critters very well, and as far as I have heard, 100% of the hogs introduced into NYS came from local wild boar farms and hunting preserves. I am getting a bit tired of reading everyday of some kind of introduction of invasive species into the wild. And nobody is getting dinged for it. Time to take a hard-line approach.

My cameras all came with straps. They seem to work pretty good, so that's what I use.

I'll have to see if I can talk my wife into doing that. Save a lot of wear and tear on the ATV ..... No, on second thought, I think I won't even try that one!

It is always interesting how many excuses we can all come up with when trying to figure out why we are not seeing deer. I think I have heard them all from moon phase on opening day to unusual weather, and I think most of them may have a touch of validity at any given time. I am not going to try to tell you or anyone else anything about any particular assessments of deer populations in an area where I have never hunted or in some cases never even traveled through. However, we have just concluded a thread that was almost 100% in agreement that hunter activity has been on a significant down-slide which is exactly what I have noted in our area, and is also what my response in this thread was about. Now even with that said, I am not trying to say that that is the case in every township in every WMU of the state. But there seems to be growing evidence from what I am hearing here on this site that more and more people are coming to the same conclusion that generally hunter participation is dropping faster than our numbers. I am simply saying that that lack of participation is at least partly responsible for lack of deer movement. Right now we are in a situation where we have just enough hunter activity to put the deer nocturnal and into their super-survival tactics, but not enough to kick them out of their sanctuaries. To me that sounds like a reasonable assumption based on observation. If that is not the case in your particular area then you will have to make your own conclusions based on situations where you hunt.

I don't think I would be afraid of using a realtor if you can find one with adequate experience. They specialize in all things regarding real estate, and a local realtor should have adequate experience in valuating recreation properties. The best thing to do is to determine what price you think you have to get for it Minimum. If a realtor doesn't come close enough to that price, move on to the next one. If you can't find a realtor that can value the property at something you can live with, you might have to come up with an alternate plan. I would think the lack of power will be the biggest detractor from value. Is the fact that there is no power because it physically can't be put in there, or is the cost of doing so prohibitive, or is it just that no one ever got around to doing it?

Not me!!! I would just as soon these mountain lion reports stay in the category of "BS". I don't want them added to my already over-active imagination as I walk in the dark to or from my stand ..... lol.

I kind of wonder if most guys even know how bad a shape they are in. A good long drag can tax people way beyond anything they may have ever imagined. I see a lot of hunters in the woods, and a bunch of them really look more like sumo wrestlers than marathon runners .... lol. I think Clint Eastwood put it best with his movie line .... "a man's gotta know his limitations". By the way, the main use of my ATV is plowing my 1000' driveway through the winter. That keeps me from dropping over shoveling snow......lol. I suppose a few trips up the hill over the hunting season to help get a deer out probably is also a good use of that critter too.

A few words from a "good hunter" ...... lol. Some of us have actually learned a few things about deer escape routes and actually do understand the correlation between deer movement and hunter patterns. Also some of us do understand that when deer go into that super survival mode after opening day, a little pressure from hunters is a good thing.

Yes, and I believe a good portion of that original post was about gun season as well as most of the follow up responses.

Have a good time and don't let those fish pull you in. I think we might be needing a couple of "hero" pictures of you getting a hernia from lifting some of those monster fish.

Maybe I'm not understanding the original post, but I don't see this as being anything peculiar for the seasons of the last bunch of years. haven't we all seen the season being primarily reduced to an opening day event (or maybe the opening two days)? I thought it was a pretty accepted expectation that every year hunters are becoming pretty much part-timers. Many show up for the first day, never to return again. Or perhaps in days after opening day, a few hunters show up for a few hours in the morning and then disappear at lunch time. Also, most of what few hunters that come out after opening day are strictly sitters with nobody moving deer. Meanwhile, once the trauma of opening day takes place, the deer remain in super survival mode as long as there is even one hunter in their area, and they remain sitting tight in their favorite sanctuaries. It has nothing to do with super heavy harvests, or coyotes, or diseases, or any kinds of deer deaths because when the following year rolls around, there are as many deer as ever (+/-). Let's face it, hunters are simply getting to be part-time participants with only a very tiny core of die-hard hunters (not enough to move deer). Not only are we losing numbers of hunters, but the dedication is waning as well. At least that is the way I have perceived recent hunter attitudes and participation in recent seasons.

It's kind of funny what some feel is an old age that requires mechanical assistance for a deer drag. I had a neighbor a few years back that dropped dead of a heart attack on his way up our hill (on foot) ...... and he was in his late 40s......and he wasn't even dragging a deer....... and supposedly he was in pretty good shape. It seems that there are a lot of reports of people dropping dead during hunting season every year. For some it isn't that big a surprise. For others it is. All I know is that for some people who are desk-bound for almost all of the year to all of a sudden begin dragging 150+ pounds or so of dead weight up hills and through the woods might cause them to think they are doing something healthy but that wonderful activity of "good exercise" might just be creating a potential health disaster. If there is an opportunity to use a mechanized method, or to team up with a fellow hunter or two for the drag, I say go for it. It just might provide a few more seasons for you to enjoy. There are times when I use the ATV to get me up the hill and then park it just under the ridge of the hill and start walking from there on semi-flat land. That may be a sign of deteriorating endurance, or it might just be a case of smart distribution of hunting effort and time. I suspect it is a combination of both. All I know is that it allows me to get deeper back in away from the crowds, and that ATV is always just a good "flat-land walk" away when I do get something. Unfortunately, since a lot of my hunting is done on state land, I still get involved in way more long drags than I probably should just getting the deer back to my land where I can use the ATV. Quite possibly my doctor would be the one having the heart attack if she ever saw some of the drags that I have undertaken in recent years..... lol.

67 years old and closing in on 68 (another month and a few days). Sure enough I have slowed down a bunch. But then I hunt in valley country and most of my hunting is done on top of a killer hill (actually it did kill my much younger neighbor a few years back). When I feel like it, I'm not afraid to take the ATV nearly all the way up to the top and begin hunting from there, but I have climbed that thing many times by foot as well and more trips are made on foot than by motor. What I have found is that I think a lot more about the practicalities of dragging a deer out from wherever I hunt these days when not too many years ago that thought never crossed my mind, and I always seemed to find myself hunting a ridiculous number of miles from home or transportation ..... lol. I tend to favor those areas where I can use my ATV for at least part of the drag. I've also turned into a bit of a fair-weather hunter. I try to keep in mind that hunting is a recreational activity and undue excessive hours of torture and discomfort are not really the goal of the activity. I've paid my dues and I now expect that shivering uncontrollably with wind-whipped rain soaking through my clothes probably is not the best way to spend my day.

My sense of this year's hunting weather is that we have had all kinds of extremes. This hasn't been the worst year of hunting weather I have ever hunted in, or the best. Early bow season was wet and windy. Then it turned warmer and dry. Then back and forth some more. We've had some great mornings and ugly windy afternoons during both bow and gun season. My recollection of past hunting seasons is about the same kind of mixture of weather. Could have used some more snow cover, but I managed to get along without it. At this point, I could really care less what the weather does. I'm pretty much finished. The number of shots I have heard in the past week could be counted on one hand. And yet the deer are still spooked into nocturnal super-survival mode. I got my venison, and for me it's time to call it a season.

I absolutely hate the reckless viewscape pollution created by the proliferation of these multi story high whirly-gigs. But Of all the good arguments against these monstrosities, wildlife disruption is probably not one of the more legitimate ones. I would seriously doubt that all wildlife abandons property, food, shelter, etc. with the installation of these things.

We've all heard of "suicide by cop". That's where a guy wants to commit suicide and creates a situation where a cop shoots him. I think this is the same thing with just a slight twist and could be called "suicide by hunter".

It used to be that there were adequate hunter numbers on state land to keep the deer moving. It gave a patient sitting guy a pretty good chance to have some action. Guys would get cold or bored and start still hunting and bumping deer all over the place. Our little chunk of state land doesn't work that way anymore. It gets awful darn quiet even on opoening day.

If I can see another hunter, I'm moving. I don't care if I was there first or if I've got what I consider to be a great spot. I'm out of there! And that is regardless of whether I know them or not. If I can see him, his slug can make it to me. That's not an acceptable situation for me.

Shotgun slug in the head ....... yick! I don't even want to imagine that sort of thing. They were dragging a deer for crying out loud. I can't imagine why the gun was loaded or at least why the safety wasn't on.

I'm not sure that all the quietness is due to scarcity of deer or anything to do with their patterns and activity. At least that doesn't seem to be the case in our area. What I do see is very light south-bound traffic compared to years past, and not a whole lot of cars in the state parking lots, and darn few guys in the woods. Today was definitely better. Maybe today the hunters were getting a bit bored and finally decided to do a bit of walking and got the deer on their feet more than Saturday. I don't know..... I'm just guessing and theorizing .... lol.

Much different kind of action today from what I heard/saw on Saturday. A lot of shooting on both sides of the valley. Still wasn't anything spectacular, but at least it sounded like a gun season was in progress.

I have a ground blind that is well brushed in that I have walked right by when I was ready to use it ..... lol. I can't necessarily fault someone who accidentaly shoots into something that has been purposely and intentionally camoflaged to blend in with the background (if that's the way it was). I bought some blaze orange material specifically for the purpose of using one of my pop-up blinds during gun season. I haven't had occasion to use that kind of blind yet during gun, but without significant amounts of blaze orange, I would feel just as vulnerable sitting in one of those things as I would if I was foolish enough to go out in gun season dressed in camo (or anything other than blaze orange). I'm thinking the victim may have had more fault in this situation than the shooter. I know, we hear all the people parroting back the safety slogan we were all taught about being absolutely sure of the background before pulling the trigger. But unless you are an individual who only will shoot under target range safety conditions (fully cleared with an earthen backstop), you are never 100% sure that this sort of thing couldn't possibly happen.

I've been saying that right along for the last few years that every year is quieter than the last. Yesterday was ridiculous. Also, more and more guys are coming out for only a half day. But, they must be getting more efficient than ever before because when I took my deer over to the procesor around 11:00 am, he already had the conveyor full of skinned deer and bunches of deer waiting to be skinned laying all over the ground. I'm not sure how unusual that is because I have never took a deer over that early opening day, but there was a pile of them already. So what's going on? Whoever would have thought that opening day of gun season would be getting so deserted. I finally had to ask my Brother-in-law who's been hunting with me for decades if I was simply having one of those senior recall failures when I start getting the notion that hunter activity used to be so much greater 20 or 30 years ago. He assured me that it really is not just my imagination. The change is dramatic. By the way, surprising to me, the change to Saturday seems to have made it even worse. To me it seems like the change is way more than the annual couple of percentage points of decline that the DEC keeps talking about. I'm starting to wonder if there isn't a significant number of people who buy licenses and then don't go out hunting. Actually I do know a few like that.

Heard the first shot at 6:30. Then it was quiet until about 6:55 and there were a couple of shots right around that time. They were a little better this year than usual.