Doc

I think you have been given excellent advice!

I feel your pain ... lol. I have seen the state land that I hunt change from a bowhunter's paradise to something that resembles Coney Island with an unbelievable volume of hikers and bikers. Also contrary to documented trends, there has been a marked increase in small game hunters in the last couple of years that seem to be more interested in just shooting up the woods than any real small game hunting. But I have found that the bikers and hikers pretty much stay on defined trails. So if (and that's a big "if") you can get away from those, you have a chance of having a spot to hunt. It probably won't solve the thievery and you may have to make adjustments to fix that problem. For example, for other reasons (a fear of heights), I have become fairly proficient at hunting from the ground using natural blinds. It isn't really the end of the world, and I have found it way more exciting to hunt deer on thier level, eyeball to eyeball. But anyway, there are ways to make the best of a less than ideal set of conditions.

Something that you might want to try to take care of first would be to check with the landowner that has the adjoining corn field and try to get permission to track a wounded deer onto his property. It sounds like you are close enough so that you might need that. Also, you never know you might just obtain permission to hunt his property too. As far as how to get educated on some new land (public or otherwise), how about a little of both? Try a morning stand for a few hours and then start wandering around learning a bit more about the rest of the state land. There's a good chance that you may locate a few another spots that may even be better.

On the ones that have meat removed, I don't see any way they could be anything other than a bullet wound. You know, there's an awful lot of people in the woods that definitely over-estimate their real shooting ability. If only they could shoot half as good as they think they can ...... and I'm not talking about benchrested off sand bags either ..... lol.

I've tried it ........ Drove me crazy. I couldn't really concentrate, thinking about what might be coming in while I was not taking care of business .... lol. Years ago I tried listening to Rush Limbaugh with the little ear thing stuck in my ear. Same thing..... drove me nuts thinking about the snapped twig or the footsteps in the leaves that I was not able to hear. Only one thing to do when hunting anymore. That involves intense looking and listening and concentrating on what I'm there to do .....lol.

Generally, I pack a big zip-lock plastic bag (gallon size??) and butcher them right on the spot after shooting them. Everything just seems easier when they are still warm. What I do is make approx. a 1-1/2" slit in the hide across the back. Then working a couple finger under each side of the slit until I can get a good grip and then just pull the hide apart in opposite directions. It all takes a couple of seconds, Then I open up the belly and strip out the guts. Chop off the feet and tail and into the bag he goes. And then I am ready for the next one.

I just wish I had a bit more confidence this year. Trail cams are a wonderful thing until they don't show what you want to see. Last year, there were jillions of pics of does and bucks....... not this year. I can conjure up all kinds of reasons why what I'm see on camera is not representative of what will be happening once the season starts. But now we are getting real close and the cam story is still the same. I have spent days wandering all over the place, but the sign is still extremely sparce. I think I might be getting a bit worried now ..... lol. A few days from now, we will be getting a first hand look at the real situation. I just hope it all lives up to expectations.

Oh..... lighten up! It was a joke.

Frankly, I have no problem with people putting whatever effort into food plotting that they want. It's not really any of my business anyway. However, I did get a bit torqued at the post that basically said that if you're not food plotting, you are not pulling your weight. That one was a bit over the top and needed a response.

Maybe some people just don't like gutting deer .....

We had a young coyote killed in the road in front of the house. I have seen a couple others over the years. It does happen, but I don't think it is all that common. To find three of them in that short a distance on the same day is really weird. It makes me wonder if somebody was dumping illegally shot coyotes. Probably not, but I suppose it's possible.

I'd shoot him. There's nothing wrong with shooting a 2.5 yr old. That buck would meet any state's AR requirements and surpass most (pointwise or spreadwise). I wouldn't even hesitate. I mean, you can hold off shooting deer until they die of old age, but after all, I am a deer hunter and not a deer watcher.

Well, it's hard to prove mathmatically, but my guess would be that a 1-1/2" cut probably would not be what I would choose for a low poundage bow. So that may be another consideration that I should have put on my list above ...... Be careful choosing a head that tries to be too aggressive with the cutting width. Also, the cutting angle or the angle formed between the cutting edges might be something to consider. Some broadheads have some huge angles and look more like they are trying to chop their way in instead of slicing. Again, it's just about impossible to prove that all these things NEED to be used, but the idea that I am trying to convey is to use everything you can to promote effortless penetration. 40 pounds of bow will definitely do the job, but putting everything in your favor is not a real bad idea at that weight.

Well, before you throw something out of joint patting yourself on the back with your self proclaimed hero-status, let me point out that deer and other animals have done just fine prior to food plots. And as some have pointed out, most of this food plotting has more to do with personal gain in attracting deer for personal hunting purposes than any sort of benevolent concerns for the welfare of wildlife. So it's probably time to climb down off your high horse and understand that food plotters are not the salvation of all things wild. Also, don't be trying to make it sound like food plotters are the only ones that are paying their way. We all foot the bill for the real wildlife managers of the whole state. And just because you choose to draw deer to your own piece of property for the benefit of your own hunting, don't be over-stating the importance that your efforts have on the overall state wildlife picture. The rest of us are picking up the tab on that item. So if you want to put in food plots, fine.....but don't be belittleing the contributions of those that don't.

I would probably choose a two-edge, cut-on-contact blade that is very-very sharp. And yes, I would definitely stay away from expandable heads. It may not be a lot, but when you are using low poundage, you definitely do not want to give up any energy to opening blades.

I have done rather well on state land, but that is not to say that there isn't occasionally some additional problems associated with the increased human activity. Most of that kind of interference happens during bow season. We have had the state parcel that I hunt taken over by mountain bikers, hikers, and the small game season/turkey season has also presented a few challenges in recent years. We have a very dense network of mountain-bike trails that were built a few years back, and it is being very well used by huge mountain bike clubs from the city and individual bikers and hikers during bow season. It is very hard to get very far away from these human thoroughfares, but having lived in the area all my life, I have found a few spots that they missed, and with some luck, these places provide some pretty good hunting of deer that are still a bit diurnal. Many of my favorite spots of years ago are just completely worthless because a deer cannot move in daylight hours without being constantly bumped by people. Gun season is a different story. All these walkers, runners and Lance Armstrong wannabes stay home (for obvious reasons) when gun season opens up. That is when you want enough familiarity with the land to know the traditional escape routes, heavy cover hiding places, and most importantly, hunter patterns. All those things can put you right in the perfect interception spots even in a fairly crowded chunk of state land. In fact in some cases, that activity (pressure) can make your deer hunting more active than big chunks of tightly posted land where guys have tightly restricted the number of hunters. Being hill country, I can get a pretty good sense of hunting activity around the area, and it's not all that unusual that state land is the primary pocket of shooting activity. Sometimes state land is the only area that has enough pressure to keep the deer moving while guys on private land sit there waiting for deer that refuse to move. So state land can be a good news-bad news situation. But it certainly is not something that hunters should run away from.

Yes, I think a lot of us have seen some rather unfortunate results (Horror Stories) from some of these "special" kinds of shots. It's the kind of thing that you might expect when someone choses one of the smallest lethal spots on a deer to shoot at. Some of those visions can stay with you. I'm sure that is where many of the differences of opinion are coming from. It all relates to what you have seen, or have not seen afield.

I'm not sure I really want to get into this, but I guess I will anyway.....lol. To my way of thinking, baiting and food plotting have one thing in common. They both have the capability (and often the purpose) of artificially conditioning an otherwise "wild" animal to present itself for the convenience of our hunting, and to make our hunting easier. Baiting does that in a more efficient fashion that puts the prey animal in an exact position, and the plots do the same thing except the positioning aspect is no where near as good. Of course, the same thing can be said for any agricultural field, it's just that again, the positioning thing is even less precise than the plots or the baiting. My preference is that I don't really get involved in trying to treat deer like farm animals in any fashion, and that I hunt deer that are pretty much establishing their own patterns which I have to discover and take advantage of. That's just an additional part of hunting that I want to be challenged with. Like I said, that's my preference. Others practice whatever they want their hunting to represent for them. It's a personal preference kind of thing. No real right or wrong to any of it, just preference. The only right and wrong about any of it is that plotting is legal and baiting is not. And as stated earlier, I believe the DEC has some valid reasons for making the distinctions that they do.

I never realized just how badly you guys get screwed over up there. I never hunted up there so I guess I just never paid that much attention. Any thoughts as to why the DEC decided to stick it to you people up there. I doubt it is because of the massive bow harvest.....lol.

I would be very careful about counting on speed to solve the string-jumping thing. Unless you have a bow that is approaching 1126 fps (the speed of sound), I think you will find that the difference in bow speeds only allows you to make a wound instead of a clean miss. I think that concentrating on such things as bow noise will help. No you won't eliminate all the noise, but you may be able to shut down the harshness of the sound. I always think about the old highschool prank of sneaking up behind someone in the library that is engrossed in what they are read and slamming a big old dictionary on the floor. If they have a pulse at all, they will move faster than most of those deer. If I slammed a comic book on the floor they wouldn't move at all. Probably not the best analogy in the world but maybe it gets the point across that I am trying to make. Also, the point of aim might help a bit too. A bit lower is usually better. But the big thing is that this is something that can go along with bow-hunting. I have seen similar videos with super fast bows, so it simply is an unavoidable and unfortunate weakness of archery hunting, and sooner or later, regardless of what kind of super-bow that you shoot, it's going to happen to everybody that is in the sport long enough. You want to avoid deer "out-reflexing" your projectile, get a shotgun. There are no other sure-fire cures for the problem.

I'll probably never figure out why people think there is something great about shooting an animal in the smallest lethal spot they can find. What is the big attraction to passing on a high percentage kill area and choosing something that can end badly if the deer even begins to make any kind of last minute movement, or the shot simply is not executed perfectly. What the heck is the point? Is it supposed to prove something? I don't get it.

Look, you guys are arguing over something that is set in law and defined by people other than hunters, baiters, or food plotters. So the real point is that bait-piles, salt blocks, and feeders are illegal and food plots aren't. It doesn't matter why people plant food plots or why the want to bait. We're not the ones making the rules. so if you are going to try to determine a difference of a similarity between bait piles/feeders and food plots, I would guess that you have to use the same criteria as the rules-makers (DEC). As much as we try to frame the argument as regulations based on "fairness in hunting", I don't believe that the regulations are defined the way they are based on any of that. So if you believe that food plots and baiting are the same thing, you kind of have to prove that the DEC views them as the same thing. No other opinions really count. And, you have to look at why the DEC makes the distinctions that they do. My guess is that they are trying to keep deer from eating from food piles tainted with each other's saliva, urine and feces. I know that is the stated purpose for the feeding ban. And generally what pertains to feeding also pertains to baiting. Food plots are not arranged in such a way that that happens to anywhere near the same extent as some pile of food, a block of salt, or some timed feeder that spits out a concentrated pile of food. The plain fact is that the DEC doesn't see food plotting and baiting/feeding as having the same effects or being the same thing. I tend to agree with them. Using the critera that the DEC does, you can't view them as being the same thing.

It seems that given the financial state of the DEC, perhaps there are more than a few traditional DEC programs that need a long hard look. Maybe the pheasant stocking program is one of those that needs a very close look. I think I would like to see money that is spent on some of these cost intensive programs re-routed to use for critters that are known to survive and thrive in NYS habitat. It's not like we are ever likely to see an expanding resident population of pheasants here in NYS. The problem is that when NY legislators start wielding the budget ax, they are looking to take whatever savings and use the confiscated money on NYS general fund projects and expenses. So it's not just a case of forcing re-prioritization within the DEC, but rather pillaging and looting by the legislators for state uses in non-environmental activities.

Nope, I think Burt has it right ..... Definitely singing opera. Need to get some audio on that camera.

I still have to shave (under the jaw bone, and up on upper part of the cheeks) about every other day. If I don't do that and keep it trimmed kind of short-ish, it starts looking a bit out of control and scraggly. It's not one of those Grizzly Adams kind of beards.....lol. I think it's actually more maintenance than if I shaved every day.