Doc

We went to into northern Ontario Canada back in the 80's. We drove on some pretty remote log roads, dumped in two canoes and a 8' motor boat into a huge lake. We went to the end of that uninhabited lake and portaged 150 yards into another uninhabited lake and went down to the swamp end of that one. We set up a tent camp by the end of the first day I have never experienced that kind of quiet....lol. There were 4 of us with all kinds of bear and moose tags. Drawing tags back then was not an issue. We used an outfitter which was a legal requirement back then, so he got all the tags we needed but that was all we really used the outfitter for. We lived on dried food and some of the best walleye and northern pike I have ever tasted. The one suggestion that worked well for us is to hunt near the water so the removal is only a short distance to the canoes or whatever. We hunted the edge of a river that ran out of the lake we were camped out on, shot the moose at the edge of the river, and the moose dropped at the edge of the river. Quartering up the critter made everything pretty easy and a very short carry. I would highly recommend taking someone with you even if they aren't hunting.

I try to get the best deer that the property has to offer, when the opportunity offers itself. I hunt the deer as I find them and do not concern myself with trying modify the deer or their habitat to accommodate my hunting. I manage my expectations to accommodate reality and enjoy the act of hunting rather than worry about peer acceptance of what I harvest. I find that allows me to enjoy my hunting without stressing about what is going on over at the neighbors or who is shooting a bigger deer than I will get. It's just a different way to approach hunting, and I find it makes me feel a whole lot better about that part of my outdoor activities. Yes there are issues of the quality-of-the-hunt and the fact that I do not enjoy hunting in a crowd and I don't appreciate gangs of hunters interfering with strategies or creating unsafe situations. That simply means that when I feel crowded, I move to a different area or retreat to my own land, but that has nothing to do with "managing the herd" or growing a buck that will make me the hunter-hero of the neighborhood.....lol. I realize that we all hunt for our own reasons, but one of the reasons that I hunt is to de-compress a bit, relax, and not to create stress about things that really don't actually matter all that much. My enjoyment of the activity has sky-rocketed since adopting a more casual attitude toward my hunting. Maybe that's something that comes with age ....lol.

You see this kind of attitude in every aspect of life. Basically it is the free-loaders that let everyone else do the heavy lifting for them and then berate the very organizations that do ALL the work. The funny thing is that when you ask them, What have you done to stop the 'gun control nut jobs'? you are met with dead silence. Today it is fashionable to belittle your allies while enjoying the work that is done on your behalf. It's the "free-ride gang" letting others finance the legal battles and the lobbying as the NRA tries like hell to be effective with only a miniscule percentage of gun owners willing to pay the way. These are people who think that law suits and lobbying and pro-gun candidate support happen out of thin air, for free. And when the lack of participation results in an occasional loss along the way, these free-loaders point the finger at the NRA screaming and yelling....."See .... see.....they are useless"! In reality, the only useless ones are the free-loaders who ride the coat-tails of those who put their money and efforts where their mouths are. Instead of running your mouth and proclaiming that all you are is a cheap-skate whiner, you should hang your head in shame and admit that you don't have the courage of your fake convictions regarding the 2nd amendment and the organizations that have for decades safeguarded the gun rights you have enjoyed all these decades (for free). It's bad enough to not financially support the only organization that fights for your 2nd amendment rights, but to turn around like the gun control nuts themselves and attack the NRA shows a complete lack of character and conviction. Frankly I am getting damned tired of your senseless carping. I have little patience with people like that. Today gun ownership is under more well-financed attacks than ever before, and the fight requires more backbone and support and unity than ever, and here we have weasels sniping from within doing the gun-grabbers work for them.

How many hours do you have into that staff? What kind of tool do you use for wood carving? It looks like something I might want to try my hand at.

This stuff is all hilarious, but it does help understand why talking logic to some people is a fruitless task. Anti hunters, anti-gun activists, never-Trumpers, and other idiot liberals not only believe whatever is suggested to them, but eagerly want to believe it if there is an anti-Trump ring to it. So many people instantly develop vocal and activist opinions on things that they have no knowledge of. The future of our Nation is becoming more and more in the hands of these kinds of weak-minded individuals who eagerly suck up this kind of thing, and will surely pass it along to their simple-minded friends as fact. The fact that it is presented with an anti-Trump context makes their eagerness to sponge up this crap so much easier.

Any special plans for your well deserved retirement?

Ok, this may sound like a drunken hallucination, but I promise it was not. I had just come in from doing a bunch of yard work, and was sitting on the couch watching TV for a bit when something caught my eye out the window. I looked out and two yearling Hereford bulls were casually strolling across the middle of the lawn heading up into the woods and up the hill. I have no idea where they came from or where they were going. I called down to my sister's place and apparently they saw them walking down the center of the highway and called 911 and reported them to the county sheriff's department. My place is way off the road and surrounded by woods, so I am quite used to seeing all kinds of deer wandering around the yard, but cows are a whole different thing.....lol. I have got to believe that they are a long way from wherever they came from and are working on getting themselves completely lost. I don't think anyone will ever get them back. I mean they were heading into a large stretch of unbroken steep wooded area. The one guy that raises beef cattle in the area was called and he claimed that all his are accounted for. I'm not sure what else could be done. I know that they represent a big chunk of money, but probably won't be seen in this area again.

Here is some more evidence that people desperately attach the status of credibility to statistics and polls without the slightest idea of what makes them work or turns them into a joke, or tool for misleading. Is it any wonder that so many people can be easily misled and influenced by those that know how to manipulate data. So many opinions of so many people are manipulated by adding the words "poll" or "statistics" to the argument. The polls here on huntingny.com are not worth the time it takes to construct them, and they certainly are no indication of "the current state of deer hunting in NY".

It is definitely something I would like to thoroughly test drive in all kinds of conditions. I am wondering about maneuverability. The videos did not show or highlight that as a feature. Here in the northeastern woods, that can be an important criteria. To me it looked like you are standing in a very light plastic sled trying to turn the much heavier power unit. On ice, I have to wonder how well that works. Perhaps a test drive could put those concerns aside.

Looking at that 2nd picture, makes me wonder exactly what is going through his mind at that instant. It is such a thoughtful look.

Quote: "What do you do after missing a turkey?" Throw my gun on the ground. Stomp up and down on it. Swear. Lay on my back and hold my breath. And then slowly look around to see if anyone is watching.

You know, my reasons for hunting go much farther than just deer. I mean, really, my hunting interests began with pigeons, squirrels and rabbits. It had nothing to do with antlers. I'm not even sure that getting into hunting had a lot to do with the meat, because I always sat down to a real meal of whatever our farm produced, and there was no need to feed ourselves from the woods. So for me, my hunting has nothing to do with antlers or meat. In fact some of the things that I have hunted had neither antlers or anything that I would care to eat. I ran a trapline for a bunch of years, and again it wasn't about antlers or meat. So, perhaps the choices are bogus. Maybe there is really something else at work when I step out the door to go hunting.

Apparently the problem is that the Boy Scouts membership has been seriously slipping as more and more boys lose interest in all things masculine. The constant campaign to stamp out masculinity apparently is working here. So what is the solution? .....Steal members from the Girls Scouts.......lol. Not a very gentlemanly thing to do, is it? I guess that is the way everyone wants it. Everyone knows that masculinity is a disease....Ha-ha-ha-ha.

I am envisioning some nice breast meat with feathers being dragged through it in a great big bloody hole. Is that what the results are with turkeys that are shot with arrows or bolts? I don't know because I have never eaten a bow or crossbow shot turkey.

So, how many guys are heading out this season with a crossbow? Would a crossbow bolt be more or less destructive of the turkey meat than a shotgun? Where on a turkey would you shoot for the most reliable kill with a x-bow?

Quick question: Are crossbows legal for hunting turkeys?

I have to wonder just how important the dominant eye thing really is when doing structured things that have already been learned "wrong". I mean, unless you are shooting pure instinctive, every element of your shooting has been taught the necessary muscle memory to the point where it is now cemented into your form and execution of each shot. At least that is how I would think it would be. I know that at this stage of my shooting, trying to change hands could be disastrous even if I was using the wrong dominant eye. I would risk losing everything I learned over the years and maybe screwing up both styles. However I do understand how that correction would make an interesting experiment just to see if it does have any effect.

What a weird world this is getting to be. First of all, why is the school system getting involved in 2nd amendment politics? Oh and by the way, it appears they are going for 2-fer by attacking the first amendment as well. Exactly what are they trying to school the students in anyway? Another thing that is starting to get a bit weird is with all this extraneous B.S., is there anyone who is worries about the disruption to concentrating on his actual 8th-grade education subjects. It seems that high school students are now getting more involved in everything but getting an education.

I guess there was a time when I measured success by using antlers as some kind of gauge, and I still appreciate a good rack. But over the years, I have begun to look more at the quality of the hunting experience than trying to reduce my hunter satisfaction to some arbitrary scoring system and competition with other hunters. I look at what some people do to get antlers, and I guess a lot of it doesn't really have a lot to do with my idea of "hunting". So, given my version of "hunting deer the way I find them" without manipulations of their patterns or diet or habits, I suppose that I really don't pursue the antlers thing with any kind of fixation like so many do. I guess we all look at our hunting with different attitudes and different goals. It's kind of a personal activity that extracts whatever it is that we individually need or want to get out of it. By the way, meat is not a huge motivator for my hunting either. It all gets eaten, but I could get along just fine if I never had another helping of venison.

So what are you all comparing venison to? There are so many different meat (wild or domestic) that is so much better than venison. Probably the best meat I have ever had was domestic rabbit. It puts that old wild mutton to shame (for me). I had moose meat that was spectacular. And of course professionally raised and prepared beef is darn hard to beat and worth every penny. For me and my family, venison is acceptable but nothing to rave about.

I have heard of grouse behaving like that before. What do you suppose is going through his brain? What would make a bird behave like that? One of these days he will try that with a fox or coyote or some other predator, and he may not be so pleased with the results.

Ha-ha-ha.....yes frequently I will wake up completely at all hours of the night or early morning, and it helps to get on the computer for a while.

We all will quickly say that a buck is more challenging than a doe. But are bucks really smarter? Are we measuring ourselves against an animal that is tough to get only because there are statistically fewer opportunities? Are the bucks really a more challenging prey because of their super stealth and intelligence? I have to wonder which gender would be tougher to get if their numbers were exactly the same. When I think about it, it is the bucks that are led around the woods by their sexual needs. They are the ones who advertise their presence by displaying sign-post (rubs and scrapes) everywhere they go. They are the ones who purposely isolate themselves at certain times of the year so they can pursue their breeding needs. Meanwhile the does seem to always have a few sets of eyes and ears available to detect danger. That really seems like the smarter way to help survival. I have to wonder just which gender is more adept at survival. It seems to me that the assumption that bucks are the greater challenge for us is only based on the fact that they have done a worse job in the world of survival and have become a bit of a rarity even though the birth rates are similar. What do you think?

Rat and mouse poison has kept the little critters at bay. Years ago, mice packed the cooling fins of the engine under the cowling where it couldn't be seen. During mowing, smoke started curling out from under the hood, and fire cooked the engine. Since then, I have kept poison all over the barn. End of problem.