Doc

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.

Frankly, I prefer productive physical labor to keep in shape. I actually go out of my way to find physically demanding projects here at home that wind up producing something useful rather than going to the gym just to burn calories and exercise muscles. One of the reasons that I push myself into staying engaged in bowhunting and bow shooting, is to keep my arms from atrophying and I am heading for 75 now where I have to be concerned about such things. But I think I did do my physical longevity a favor when I dropped the 80 pounder and got a more reasonable draw weight....lol.

Frankly, I don't like to see political activism enter into commercial enterprises, no matter what the cause is. But for a store to take a political posture that is contrary to a certain percentage of their customers, seems like they are telling their customers that their patronage is worthless to them. Frankly I will do my business at places that don't have that sort of anti-customer attitudes and behaviors. We get enough harassment from the libs without handing them money to finance their harassment. However, to be fair, I have to admit that for me Dicks was a place to buy an occasional bowling glove or kid's sports equipment and clothing and footwear. I never saw them as a serious gun store. So I really am not involved in a true boycott. I just never liked the store in the first place. It has always had the "jack of all trades" syndrome, and it follows that they were "master of none". Well, they simply added yet another good reason not to waste my time there. If I miss out on an occasional sale or deal, it won't be the first time.

Yeah I guess that's right. But I will guarantee that those guys likely stressed their archery joints and muscles a whole lot more than we ever will in our lifetime even with our extended lives. No compounds for them, and they didn't just use their bows during, or in preparation for, a deer season. It was the daily tool of their trade. Native Americans wanted to eat, they began shooting at a very early age and shot a hell of a lot of arrows in their limited lifetime, until they decided it was "good day to die". Did they stop hunting when they had a bit of bursitis set in? I have a feeling they were a whole lot tougher individuals than we can even imagine. The Turks, Romans and Huns and all of those critters back in their day had to have been a pretty rough bunch of guys too. I have seen pictures and specs on some of the bows they shot, and damned few of us would even be able to pull them back.

Ok, let's forget about the modern day archery superstars, and just think about a time when archery wasn't just for exhibition, or for fun and recreation. There were whole civilizations built on regularly shooting a bow and where accuracy boiled down to whether you ate or not. They seemed to pull their bows back assumedly without too much groaning and wincing. And depending on which civilization we are talking about (native American or Roman archers, etc.) some of those guys were pulling a whole lot more weight than we ever thought about using. So there definitely is something involved in our modern lifestyle that seems to be making humans devolve into much less than humans used to be capable of when it comes to muscle usefulness. Yes, technology has figured out how to keep us alive way past what we even want, but it appears that something is being traded off for our modern lifestyle. It makes you wonder what our species will eventually look like and what other functions humans may lose over the coming centuries. One thing seems likely. The species will have well developed thumb and index finger muscles.....lol.

What is happening these days that is making people not age well? On one of the other threads we were talking about summer practice with bows, and it is amazing how many people talked of being effected by failing muscles and joints. Many of them are not really all that old. I think back to old guys like Fred Bear and Howard Hill and Stacey Groscup and others who were famous for using things like 110 pound long bows on elephants and shooting well into their old age. I can't even imagine pulling a longbow (or even a compound) with 100# pull, but these guys were doing it. Hey, and look at how Fred Bear was built ......not exactly what you would call the Charles Atlas of his time. Howard Hill was even deformed a bit from so much shooting that his right shoulder was visibly bigger than his left. It seems like these guys abused their archery muscles far worse than any of us do today and yet were able to shoot way into old age. So, I have to wonder what we are doing to ourselves that is breaking us down before our time. Even I have been forced to move from an 80# compound in preparation for a moose hunt, in my 40's, to one now set at 60# because of joints and muscles becoming a bit tweaky at times. How did some of those old-timers get away without body break-downs? Or are we doing things to ourselves today that is hastening a breakdown in body structure? I know that hunter ages are increasingly getting older, but it seems that a lot of these breakdowns are happening at younger and younger ages.

I will say that every trip into the woods provides an ongoing training session that can't be beat. The old school of hard knocks is a very effective teacher....lol. It's a tough way to get started, but the lessons learned are there forever.

The thought comes to mind that if the state screws this one up, they are directly impacting the future of hunting.....Big-time. These are some real horror stories I am hearing. We have enough of a problem with shrinking new hunter recruitment without trying to frustrate new hunters out even trying hunting out due to scarce mandatory training. Do other states handle the problem differently? Does anyone know? I will say that I believe the courses could be streamlined by paring them down to strictly Hunter Safety Training. The courses that I have been to were very heavy on hunting training and a fair amount of random B.S. about hunting stories and experiences. That is all nice, and I enjoyed it, but never considered bull sessions as something that the state should be mandating. My feeling is that the state should not be involved in mandating anything other than hunters being exposed to "Hunting Safety", and that should not take any longer than a couple of hours. I see it all as a massive inconvenience that you might get instructors to accept for a season or two, but I also see it as something that people would quickly be bailing out of when burn-out sets in. There has to be a better system. There should be compensation of some sort, and the courses should be stripped down to just safety training which should turn them into two hour courses.

There is nothing much that will stop that thing!

Ok......Are you all ready for a dumb question?? What do you do with dried turkey feet?

One way to rip the fun right out of the hunt is to have some kind of battle with other hunters going on. I'm not saying that you should always wuss out, but sometimes going out of your way to force other hunters out can have unintended consequences. Just something else to factor into your decision.

Perhaps what he really needs is someone to explain the error of his ways and work with him to help him become a responsible hunter. I have encountered people while hunting that didn't seem to realize that they are doing something wrong, and I frequently take the time to explain it to them. Sometimes that is all that is needed to change attitudes.

This sounds like a real problem. We have locked ourselves into a system that can't seem to support itself. And the future of hunting is tied directly to the system being successful. If we keep discouraging and frustrating future hunting recruits, how long can hunting continue off into the future with that additional millstone around our necks? Maybe it's time to begin some pre-emptive thinking to fix the system. Is it time for "paid" instructors? Are there other ideas that will help boost instructor participation?

I really hate to see these kinds of battles over hunting rights. I would rather see some kind of agreement between you and this guy that results in a place for both of you to hunt. Land is getting so tight these days, and so many people now are scheming to take access away from others, it just seems like a battle that really doesn't have to be fought. There must be some kind of accommodation that can be worked out.

I have been checking out what it is like shooting from a sitting position. That is kind of weird, but I am getting used to it. So many times I have been caught when I try to get off the stool and stand up for a classic shooting stance. So I thought I would see what happens when I try to shoot without getting up off the stool. As long as I can set up the exact shooting position it works great. But once I enter into situations where the target is not in the perfect position and I have to get into any twisting, things get a bit more unpredictable. But I'm working on it.

My wife and I fished out of a canoe for a lot of years, but the years that have passed have left both of us in a situation where neither of us can sit in the same position for too many hours (minutes) before it starts getting damn uncomfortable. That is a function of age, and may be something you have to throw into the selection formula now or a few years from now.

There are all kinds of people getting rich selling us expensive chemical products that we buy without a single drop of real proof that they even work (other than the manufacturer's word for it). I have had this vision of Tink Nathan with a beer in one hand filling bottles of Tink's 69 with the other.....lol. And then there are all these people claiming that spraying their magic potion all over yourself will make your scent disappear. We spend the money, but how do we prove that it works? Special body soaps? ...... Special laundry detergents? Guaranteed attractants? So many things to tempt us into handing over our hard earned cash. Sure, I've done it too and quite often felt foolish when I started to realize that there is absolutely no way that I could ever prove whether it worked or not. Even when you have a successful outcome, there is no way that it wasn't just that deer's time to walk by.

You guys putting in any practice time getting those archery muscles tuned up. I usually begin getting a bit more intense at the beginning of next month (August), but this year I I have started a little early.

So many of these old pictures remind me of a time when hunting was a lot less demanding and represented a time when people "just hunted". No farming activities to train deer to make themselves concentrated and more available for easier hunting. We hunted the deer as we found them and did not try to train or program deer to behave in ways that we needed to take advantage of. There was less reliance on the efforts of some product designer trying to negate necessary skills. Many of the pictures in this thread were taken at a time when landowners did not post their land and there was free access to anyplace you were fit enough to walk. You could still-hunt without constantly stepping out in somebody's backyard. The bow seasons were known for rare and almost non-existent encounters with other hunters. Deer created real patterns that would stay stable without armies of people (hunters and non-hunters) interrupting them (except for gun season). Public lands were the domain of hunters, and not throngs of birdwatchers, hikers, and mountain bikers. State lands were not treated like shooting ranges. Deer hunting success was measured by body volume and/or the number of antler points and not some crazy intricate system of antler measurement. The 10 point buck was the talk of the neighborhood, and the mystical 12 point that everyone claimed to see but nobody ever got was what kept everybody out there trying. And probably the best part of those days was that there was no fighting and arguing over methods and seasons and equipment. The rules and laws and seasons were set and there was no constant loud combat about changing them. Hunting was a part of the rural culture, and never had to be defended. It was just something that a farm-kid was expected to become involved in. Even the teachers in school were known to have taken off an occasional opening day of deer season along with nearly all male high-school juniors and seniors. It was an unwritten day off.....not like today where you are practically spit on for taking the life of a critter. I began hunting in the last days of those times depicted in some of those pictures, and I feel quite privileged to have known that kind of hunting. I have seen a lot of changes since those days, and I often wonder where those changes and future changes will lead the activity in years to come.

I guess I would like to hear the supposed motives for NYS and most of the other CWD states to conspire to hoodwink the public about CWD. What are they getting out of it?

I did check, and I had to get separate insurance. Basically, if the barn burned down and the ATV was inside, it was not covered until I got separate insurance.

I have a question related to the original post, regarding ATV engine size. Has anyone ever been able to get all of the horsepower out of their ATV. What I have found is that the wheels will slip before the engine is ever seriously being over-taxed. So, it makes me wonder if it really makes any sense to buy these ATVs with the huge engines. Is it money well spent or value that will ever be actually realized in performance. My experience involves plowing a 1000' driveway, so I get plenty of hours of real work for the little critters. The Yamaha 400 seems to have more guts than traction but still does the job well for me. I'm Just curious as to what people think about the usefulness of the ever-increasing engine sizes. Do you ever find jobs that can really use the extra power? Perhaps in the area of food plotting you all have found situations where you can get more useful power out of these bigger vehicles.

Years ago when we went moose hunting (mid-80s) it was not a guide that was required, but an outfitter. Have they changed the law? We used the outfitter's camp officially, but we went off on our own miles and miles away and set up our own tent camp to hunt out of .....on our own. The law was just a subsidy for their outfitter industry. The good thing was that the cost was minimal and they did get all the tags that we needed, and they had a walk-in cooler for the moose when we finally got back from the hunt. Also, it was nice to have a cabin to spend the night before heading home. I'm not sure they are even still in business, but we used Three Bears Camp near Shining Tree, Ontario. But that was a lot of years ago.

Well anyway, thanks for the info. It just reminded me to put the dates, in big print, on my calendar here next to the computer where they belong.

All I have is a folding aluminum and canvas stool that fits in my pack.