Doc

You don't always have a choice. If you hunt any public land, you don't have any say in who you hunt with or around. Maybe when they have let a round or two go in your direction, you might get a clue that all is not well with that particular hunter. Then you might choose to leave..... lol.

There is a statistic I would really like to see. I have often agreed with the idea of a 1-buck limit, but seriously I wonder if it really would have any significant impact. I don't know anybody who has gotten more than 1 buck in any given year. I'm sure it happens somewhere with someone, but I really wonder if such a law would actually mean all that much.

Seriously.... we do get a bad rap from drunken hunters. Maybe it comes from all the gin-mills being packed by noon. And then these guys head out to the woods again for the afternoon ..... YIKES! The public associates seeing these guys dressed in orange with those crowded bar parking lots. I can remember encountering one guy that was totally wiped out. He stood there weaving around, waving his gun as he gestured, just barely able to stand. The reason I got anywhere near him was to remind him that he was well within 500' of my house in case he had any idea about shooting something. As it turned out, I suggested that he head back to his car and wait for his buddy (who I hope was in better shape than him). Fortunately he agreed and headed off toward the road. I don't think I've ever seen a guy so bombed and still able to stay upright. Pretty scary stuff. I didn't realize that hunting while drunk was illegal or I would have been doing him a favor and anyone around him by calling the cops. I always figured that I didn't handle that situation very well.

I can think of at least three chunks of state land that have large areas of un-broken hunting areas. One would be Hi-Tor in Naples and another would be in the township of Bristol and another in South Bristol. The hills are such that roads are limited in terms of how close they can actually get to each other. My hunting has always been in these areas so I can't speak of other areas of the state. Actually, when it comes to the orange crowd, I welcome them and use them during gun season. Things get a little tougher when it comes to bowhunting where we are actually trying to pattern deer movement and move in to that 20 yard range. That's not exactly a condition where you want throngs of people walking by. fortunately I have been able to squeeze into the edge areas where nobody seems to go ...... yet. I have pretty much been pushed out of some very good hunting areas by the new activities that have taken over the area. It's not much of an impact on gun season because all the non-hunting uses cease as soon as the orange army invades the area.

My experiences are relative to typical state land that is used for hunting. I can only tell you that in the 67 years that I have been wandering and hunting this particular chunk of state land, I can assure you that the activity that has been added to this parcel has definitely altered deer patterns to the point where bowhunting is a useless effort in those areas where the mountain bike trails have been added (which is a huge amount of the total area). Those areas have very little daytime deer movement since at any moment they can expect to see and hear 5 or 10 bikers go by, or some merry band of hikers. Fortunately I have found small areas that are not impacted with human activity.

I suppose you have to have had a few hunts busted before you can truly appreciate the frustration. I think the attitude hardens a bit when you find huge chunks of what used to be prime hunting land now riddled with a dense maze of mountain bike trails hacked into what used to be quite pristine forested land. And yet if I clear a couple of shooting lanes, I find out that I have broken the law. Yes, I have learned to cope by simply deserting large chunks of land that used to be very productive hunting grounds. I am expecting the ATV people to start pushing their influence to get chunks of state land opened up for riding trails. Sure they all have a right to over-run any state parcel that exists. That doesn't mean that I have to cheer them on. Am I bit hostile about turning semi-wilderness into Coney Island? ..... Yes I suppose I am. Is that unreasonable?.... No, I don't think so.

By 7:00 you should be flapping at the end of your safety strap like a flag if you are hunting western NY....lol. By the way guys .... seriously ..... you should always wear a safety harness while up in the trees, but from the weather reports that I've been hearing, it really is especially important tomorrow with those high winds. Also, take a quick look up over your head to see what kinds of things might be dead or hanging around up there. I had a little wake-up call last year when I found my ground stand flattened by a huge dead maple within a day after I had been standing there.

Crap it's going to be windy! No, not just windy, but winds approaching hurricane velocities. 60 MPH winds in western NY. Guys are going to be blown right out of their trees. This just ain't right!!!!

Nope! ....... She'll just think that you are a wishy-washy wuss and then really expect you to relent with that bridal shower too......lol. Do guys really go to bridal showers???? Is that part of that "getting in touch with your feminine side" stuff that I've heard about?

About the only difference I see between hill-tops and valley bottoms is the fact that whichever one I am hunting, it will turn out that the deer were having a party at the other....lol. By the way, don't forget the trails up and down the side-hills. Those can be some super hot-spots. Deer do get very habitual about choosing and using those (especially early in the season).

Be sure to take a couple shots with your bow before you actually wear them out hunting. You probably won't have any problems, but better safe than sorry.

I will get a last minute forecast to make sure that they are serious about all that crappy weather that we got coming. And if it is still the same garbage forecast, I may not be out there super early. It may be a good day for a little combo of still-hunting and super slow-mo scouting.

Saturday just might be a good day to try some of nyantler's still-hunting. I'm picturing a windy, nsty, blustery, day with bowhunters all hunkered down in their stands, and the deer just out of sight all hunkered down and both being miserable and neither one of them moving all day....lol. This might be one of those cases where Barry Wentzel in his video would be recommending that "you go to the deer". I think a little combo of still-hunting and slow-motion scouting might just be in order. Wet leaves and heavy wind should keep movement pretty quiet.

Ha-ha ..... At least he didn't get hit in the back of the head with a paintball. I have watched joggers go running by in their little spandex flourescent colored jogging suits, prancing like some kind of gazelle. I must admit to a certain amount of respect (maybe even a bit of jealousy) for anyone who can climb that friggin killer-hill and still have enough strength left to be running back in as far as I am. After all, after you climb that ridiculous hill, about 3/4 of a mile with a slope that has you almost on your hands and knees (well that might be a slight exaggeration....lol), I am another 3/4 of a mile deeper in. You have to give it to someone with that kind of stamina. However, when you have spent a few hours patiently waiting on stand, that sort of thing is not exactly something that you welcome....lol.

I'm a "Data Nut". I log everything. I keep a spreadsheet that records the picture number, date, time, (buck, doe, unident., fox, squirrel, etc., etc.), heading, camera location, and any comments. I can sort on any of these categories. It may or may not present any kind of predictive uses, that's yet to be determined. But in general, any kind of information that I amass, including pictures, is lost if it isn't organized. Perhaps there are short-term trends that might be recognized and be useful for hunting. For example, I have one particular area where there seems to be a pretty substantial amount of consistant daytime deer movement. That might continue, or it might end immediately, but it is something that's worth knowing. There are other trails that have been seriously mucked up that my cameras are now showing is purely "after dark" movement. Time spent hunting there would most likely be wasted time even though the sign would indicate that it is a hot-spot. Perhaps there are other long term general trends about deer movement that is just something interesting to know whether it helps our hunting knowledge or just fills in a few missing gaps about whitetail behavior. At any rate, the cameras are out there amassing all kinds of information. It would be a shame to just throw it all away.

I wonder how the various parcels of state land have escaped this sort of thing. I'm not talking about an occasional neighbor kid or two. I mean organized paintball events. It's certainly not illegal. And the mood that the DEC is in these days, I'm surprised they are not inviting this kind of participation on state lands. They seem to be in a mode of encouraging all kinds of non-hunting uses of state lands. After all, they have no problems with the big mountain bike clubs hacking a maze of trails and painting trees. Ha-ha.... that will be the next thing. We'll be in our stands surrounded by paint-ball armies ..... lol. They can join in with the hikers and bikers. And by the way, anyone who thinks that such intensive activity doesn't effect deer behavior, doesn't really understand deer behavior very well.

I suppose it all depends on the personality of the CO. If he's having a bad day, I think that shooting a bear that has been drawn to a stand via some food source (gut pile or whatever) has grounds for calling it baiting. As far as "intentions", that word doesn't really show up all that much in laws. However, if intentions were to be taken into consideration, it probably would not come down to the intentions of why the gut-pile is where it is. They might consider to be more important the intentions as to why you are hunting over the gut-pile and subsequently shot the bear. I wouldn't doubt for a minute that many COs would not even question the circumstances involved in the kill. It certainly doesn't show up during the harvest report .... lol. It probably wouldn't be a real good idea to volunteer that info to a CO.

The possibilities are endless. Even with perfection on the archery range, we don't really have control over what the deer will do when the arrow is on it's way. There's a lot of other things that can happen too ..... such as a 25 yard shot that I took years ago that was heading right for the vitals but somehow found one little twig that I had missed when I brushed out the shooting lane. I watched the arrow deflect badly and the deer run into the bushes. I thought I clearly saw the arrow miss the deer, but what I didn't see was that it passed through the deer's neck cutting the jugular (that was back when my luck occasionally ran good). Later when I went out to see if I could find my arrow and assess the damage to it, a slight movement to my left caught my eye about 15 yards away. Yup, there was my deer with his head halfway up looking at me. At that point I completely lost it. I panicked and tried to make a quick shot and I missed. Hard to believe .... 15 yards just isn't something that I would normally miss, but I was out of control. Slammed hard with buck fever! .... lol. The deer staggered up to it's feet and headed over the rise weaving back and forth and almost falling over backward. 150 yards later, I found him. So anyway, when an arrow winds up in a place that we would never expect, sometimes it's just the way things happen. These little "accidents" when coupled with the fact that deer just simply do not stand still like our archery range targets can cause some strange things to happen. In the case of these pictures ..... who knows what happened. It is even possible that somebody tried to shoot him in the head ...... lol. It's not really something you can tell from a few pictures.

Actually, deer screwing up perfectly executed bow shots is a very well video-documented occurance and that applies with modern high-performance bows and arrows as well. The fastest bow and arrow combination is still a long way from the 1126 fps which is the speed of sound. A deer that is spring-loaded and on "set", and ready to react to the slightest sound or movement is still a challenge for the best of archery equipment.

Take a walk someday with snow on the ground and take note of how many sets of tracks you see going up and down the hills. The deer in the valleys are the same deer on the hill-tops (and vice-versa), and they can cover that distance in no time at all (and do).

Those pictures also illustrate just how much non-lethal area there is in the head.

I would have to think that if you hunt over it, you are technically using it as a bait whether intentional or not. If you harvest a bear because of it, I would expect a CO to be enclined to call that hunting bear over bait, especially if it were shot while it was consuming the gut-pile. I think it would make a good question to ask the DEC people.

LOL ......

If you want to check out the scope, just take the ML scope and put it on your rifle and see what happens. That assumes that the mounts are compatible.

I'll just stay with exactly what I said in my reply. I think it was a good assessment of what you were saying and I also think the response was appropriate.