Doc

Ok, so I guess I probably lost the context of the comments. I know that any gun season generally involves a whole lot more hunter density than bow seasons, and generally when gun hunting, we do not simply walk through the woods just carrying our gun but quite often actually shoot it. Judging from what I've seen during gun seasons, deer really do take a dim view of that bang and generally by late in the afternoon on opening day, a full-out defensive pattern develops. During my bowhunts on the other hand, I am still taking advantage of normal diurnal deer patterns even late in the bow season (unless I am being plagued by small game hunters ..... lol). Also, most of the bowhunters that I know (not all) simply go to their stand, sit there for a while and then go back home. However, gun season was kind of made for still-hunting so quite a few gun hunters spend their time covering ground (myself included). I'm sure it probably occasionally happens but I think that conducting drives with bowhunters is a pretty rare practice, but not so during gun season. So again, admittedly not really having looked up the context of the argument, I would say that in general, gun hunting probably does create more disturbance in the deer's world than bow hunting.

I'll be honest .... even if coyote season were open year around, I just can't picture myself out there in the summer months swatting mosquitos just to get a shot at a coyote. Not only that, but being raised as trapper all of my early years, there would be something almost sacreligious about throwing out a furbearer simply because it was shot at a time when the pelt is worthless because it isn't prime. I'm not sure I could really do that. I have a feeling that there is some of that sentiment behind the DEC's decision to put a season on them. On the other hand, I can relate to how other people feel toward coyotes. One thing to remember is that the coyote is at the top of his food chain with the possible exception of bears (where they exist). And most likely there probably has never been a bear that ever killed a healthy coyote. So there really are no natural controls on coyotes other than us and disease. Having everything kind of in the coyote's favor including only a small window of hunting time kind of negate's even us as a significant check to the population.

I have resorted to hunting state land, and have become quite adept at hunting in a crowd. It's not the best solution, but so far I am still able to make it occasionally work and still able to enjoy a reasonable hunt. Sure I do occasionally come off the hill spittin' mad because an entire evening's hunt was ruined by some poor small-game hunter that just happened to stumble across my stand at a very inopportune time. Or had some other bowhunter mogging across in front of my stand dripping sweat and thrashing every bit of brush and branches in the area. But I do get over it and hope the following day might go uninterrupted. Of course when gun season comes around, I use all these extra people to move deer for me and I have become quite good at patterning hunter movements for my advantage. It's nothing like the quality of hunt that I used to have years ago, but I have begrudgingly adapted, and it will keep me hunting for the few more years that I have left.

I saw a product for sale in either the Cabelas or the Bass-Pro shop catalog that looked like a large stone. And in fact that's exactly what it is .... a chunk of mineral rock from some place out west that has all the ingredients of a typical salt/mineral block that you might find in a farm supply store. I don't know if anyone is really fooled by this product, but it's obvious purpose is to sneak around the baiting prohibitions in those states where the practice is illegal. To the person walking by it, it would simply look like a stone. To the hunter that placed it there it would be warden-proof bait ..... lol. So, I wouldn't look for the stores to be responsible in what they sell or where they sell it. This product shows me that if a buck can be made on it, they'll sell it ..... even when the product will be likely used for illegal purposes.

To answer your initial question about where all the good hunting land has gone, I can only say that it is buried under the over-burdening population that has accumulated in the rural areas of the state. A little short observation that I have made over the years: I live in a rural area and have all of my life. Back in the 50's when I was just a sprout, I remember that on the rare event that I saw a car go down the road, I would kind of stare after it trying to recognize the driver because most likely it was somebody you knew. Today, you can stand there quite a while waiting for a break in the traffic before you can cross. Where are all these new people going? They're going home ..... away from the city and toward points south that used to all be large farms and acres of unbroken hunting land that most of the farmers left wide open for anyone who wanted to hunt there. Now all these big tracts of land are busted up into 5-20 acre parcels with a house plunked in the middle and the perimeter rimmed with posted signs.

But we do have laws against "feeding" deer and bear. Could some aggressive and picky (trying to use nice terms here) CO claim that your bait was intended as deer or bear feeding?

So is this thread really turning into a gun hunter vs. a bowhunter kind of thing? I was wondering when things would come to that. And looking back a page or so, was I understanding correctly that a lot of you consider bow season to be just as disturbing to deer patterns as gun season? That's what it sounded like. Things are really getting weird on this thread.

I think so. It may not be quite what it used to be, but for someone who has never attended this event, I know you will be totally impressed. For me it is getting a bit repetitive, and instead of growing it looks like it is stagnating a bit. But there are still plenty of things to see and experience for those who have never seen it.

Nope! The webbed foot thing would indicate some kind of duck. Any water around?

Don't just look at the number of bucks hit. All of the deer movement increases significantly during the chase phase of the rut. In fact a lot of doe/fawn family groups are busted up with all the chasing, and the stupid fawns can find themselves suddenly on their own. They make perfect victims to car collisions. If you can document any unusual and significant spike involving all deer in that November time-frame, you probably have come pretty close to seeing when the chase part of the rut occurred. That would be a darned interesting experiment.

Yeah.....I can only remember one buck that I ever killed during that "crazy-time". A doe ran by about 50 yards away, so I quickly re-positioned myself into a near collision course with the trailing buck. He nearly ran me over, but stopped dead still at 10 yards broadside when he winded me. I had already drawn from behind a huge blowdown. I think calling that a stupid blind luck situation would be understating it a bit. Other than that one time, all other sightings during all that running occurred out of bow range and offered no shots. So I really try to get my deer before all that nonsense starts.

50 yards on the practice range can be the final test of your hunting set-up. That doesn't mean that you have to shoot at deer at that distance. It's just a practice routine that proves out your equipment and also adds a little interest to your practice sessions. I occasionally shoot well beyond 50 yards on my archery range, and can do it quite well. However shooting at a stationary target under archery range conditions is not really the same as a hunting situation where the deer can take a step or two at anytime between when you decide to let the arrow go, and the time that the arrow actually gets to the deer. I keep my shots at 30 yards and under. And a nice 15 yard shot is really what I am after. I kind of try to see how close of a shot I can get, not how far I can shoot.

Can you explain a bit more about how the baiting ruined the hunting? Was it because all the baiting around him was drawing the deer away from his property or what?

From the comments that I have heard from most hunters here and elsewhere, they really wish that coyotes were not a protected species, and were treated more like rats, woodchucks, and bugs. That kind of attitude removes the fair chase thoughts. So, if we wonder why they apply a different standard to coyotes than they do deer, that attitude probably figures heavily into it. I have mixed emotions about coyotes, and probably come down more on the side of those who really wish they had not reappeared here in NYS. To me they do represent a form of vermin. I probably would feel the same if all of a sudden wolves or cougars showed up here. So if some hunters want to use extreme methods to hunt them, I have no problem with that. Anyway, from what I read, it sounds like there are no methods that really threaten to eradicate them anyway. So I don't think we really need to be too concerned for their welfare.....lol.

I suppose that the first thing you have to do is define which phase of the rut you are talking about. When the time comes that the bucks are chasing does over every hill and valley, I really can't say that I have had a lot of luck. And when that part of the rut is in full force, luck is all you can call any success. That's the time when you see bucks of all sizes that you have never seen before and they are running at a full trot (makes for a lousy shot) after a doe through the middle of the woods, nowhere near any trail and nowhere near where you are standing. That's a pretty tough deal for a bowhunter. Not exactly my favorite kind of deer hunting.

As I understand it, the whole system is based on harvest numbers. That much is easy to understand. But what they do with those harvest numbers is what would be interesting to read. Even though the harvest number reporting seems to be treated like a mere suggestion rather than the actual legal requirement that it is, this seems to be the major building block of the whole system. And from this, and the input from their CTF's they come up with some way of determining DMP numbers. Yes there sure has to be a lot of other necessary stuff between those couplke items that never gets explained, and that would be the stuff that would make interesting reading. Frankly I would be interested in how habitat is factored in, and how habitat is actually assessed, measured and turned into a numerical factor. It would be interesting to see how winter-kill, disease and predation are measured and factored in. Most of all, it would be interesting as to how they handle the verification process (how do they measure success of their system?) . They certainly can't and don't do any physical counting, so what is it that they do to prove they are not getting statistical drift? Ah, so many questions and so few answers

There is one thing to be said of hunter opinions. They are the only ones that actually set foot on the ground. Whether they are interpreting what they see correctly or not is certainly up for question. But I do believe that for their little corner of the woods, nobody knows the population situation as well as those that actually walk the land and make real observations. That doesn't work too well for WMU conclusions, or even township-wide conclusions. But when you take a whole area of hunters all saying the same thing as they were back a few years ago, it sure seems like something has gone terribly wrong when those opinions run contrary to the DEC's official numbers. In fact the DMP quantities issued by the DEC back then showed that they were paying a bit of attention to all those hunters also as numbers all of sudden were revised to more accurately reflect what was going on out there.

I think that when it comes to coyotes (and other predators), the gloves come off. Fair chase is not an issue when it comes to the attempt at eradicating coyotes. We have this attitude that similar to mosquitos ...... the world would be better off without them. Whether we all agree with that attitude or not, I think that answers your question as to why principles of fair chase apply to one species and not the other for many hunters. Another obvious consideration is that when it comes to the coyote trapline, baiting has been an acceptable practice for centuries. There's not much of a fair-chase implication there. It's not a great leap to apply trapping ethics to hunting ethics. Perhaps another example would be shooting rats at the dump. Is there any rules of fair chase being worried about there? Are there any fair-chase concerns when it comes to roach baits/traps? .......bug-spray? How about those mouse traps? Let's face it, we do pick and choose what rules we apply to each different species. That's why we hunt and trap coyotes but feed and house our pet dogs. Different species get different considerations from humans. And it doesn't always make perfect sense.

Is there anybody who really believes in the DEC's ability to properly estimate the deer herd numbers in any area? Yeah, I know, their computer and statistical models have been audited by some experts from somewhere and found to be just wonderful. And yet there is evidence from past years that they do screw up and sometimes quite badly. I think they are just like the weathermen ...... their actual abilities are often lacking, but they are able to baffle everyone with fancy numerical footwork to get enough believers to make themselves look like experts. Oh my ..... that's harsh! But really, sometimes I wonder.

That's an interesting thought because I'm sure there is a relationship between car/deer collisions and the rut. No it wouldn't necessarily be a prediction set of data for future years, but may serve well as some sort of verification of the various rut-timing theories and how well they actually worked.

Interesting discussion. So is it illegal to possess these baits or is it just illegal to use it as bait. In other words if it is kept from any possibility of contact with deer (as in the example in the original post) is it still fitting the definition of "baiting". I have often wondered about farmers with their salt blocks. Technically it is a bait but because the intent is not "baiting", the blocks are legal to possess and distribute for the farmer's critters. It would be a different story if the farmer were to be caught shooting a deer that had been attracted to it. So in that case the decision that illegal baiting is taking place seems to based on use rather than simple possession. :-\

Lifetime license and tags came in the mail today. I still haven't got my nifty credit card style license. This is the third year. I feel slighted .....

According to the weatherman last night, the drought has been erased. My rain guage has recorded over 5" so far for August. However, I have a shallow pond (about 5' deep) behind the barn that is only a puddle right now that you could walk across with knee-boots. So, I'm not sure just how effective a lot of this rain is in raising the water table. Let's put it this way: I'm not about to start washing the car and watering the lawn from my well.....lol.

I guess I don't see why any New Yorker wouldn't complain about ANY additional taxation no matter how small. I'm thinking the reason NYS finances and taxes are the way they are is because too many people think everything is a bargain. They actually welcome and encourage higher taxes and fees with their passive acceptance. For me there is not one increase in fees that I wouldn't fight no matter how small. Given the mentality of our tax and spend government, to do any different invites abuse and retards fiscal reform.

I occasionally shoot the longer distances in order to boost confidence on the more realistic hunting distances. I also have to admit that it's just plain fun to shoot the longer distances. I like to watch the arrow flight. get back to 80 yards and let one fly. It's amazing how even the super fast bows have one heck of an arc. In fact for some real impressive arrow trajectory, try it with a recurve. Just make sure that there are no overhanging limbs along the way ..... lol.