Doc

There really is no need to explain that you are a total jerk. Your posts speak for themselves, and I'm sure everyone has already spotted your anti-social mental defects and the fact that your warped personality really has nothing to do with crossbows or any other hunting issues. You merely join these forums as an opportunity to be rude without any consequences. Heck, I recognized that messed up personality a long time ago. You really don't have to restate the obvious.

Actually there is no such thing as one-size-fits-all when it comes to deer management schemes. That's why when I hear such suggestions as state-wide AR, or Earn-a-buck, one buck per season, or eliminating doe harvests, or massively increasing doe harvests, I realize that these things are being proposed by people that do not understand just how "local" deer management has to be in order to be correct. We tend to offer suggestions based on the herd that we see on our own little piece of hunting ground and assume that the rest of the state is in the same condition. That is why the DEC has broken the state up into a northern and southern zone, and has broken those zones into regions and the regions into WMUs. And as pointed out in the posts above, even that is not small enough increments to be fool-proof. It's way better than blanket management of the entire state, but still has some problems. So whenever someone feels that they have the exact answer for a management program that will cure all the ills of NYS, just say "NO"..... lol. They probably don't.

I own a Mantis. It's a darn nice little reliable tiller when used for the proper tasks. One of the "proper tasks" is not breaking up large amounts of virgin ground. I use it for cultivating between the already tilled rows in the garden and it works great for that. It's basically a motorized "weeder". I don't know whether they are producing full sized units these days, but that little "tinker-toy" that I have would tear itself apart on heavy sodded or rocky virgin ground. I do have two 5-HP tillers (one front tine and one rear tine) and have struggled opening up a real small area of garden that had been farmed and stone-picked in previous years. That was not a fun thing and took quite a bit of time. Miraculously, these tillers have held together real well, but I have never seen a piece of equipment subjected to such abuse as when either of those suckers finds a large stone. I'm sure my little mantis would never have lasted through the ordeal.

I have to admit that I go hunting without any means of first aid. Probably not a real smart idea. I will say that my hunting these days is primarily local and within an hour's walk from the house, but still, it would be a good idea to have something buried in my pack. I do carry a fully charged cell-phone to summon assistance if I should need it, but that still should not be counted on as a substitute for some kind of immediate first aid. Doc

Ha-ha.... I realize that most people here probably were not even born when we had our little survival style deer hunting camp and most likely never knew a day when there wasn't at least one tent packed away in the basement or some kind of motor home or camping trailer parked out front. But we really didn't have any of those things that we could afford. In fact, we didn't even have sleeping bags. So the whole adventure was just an exercise in self-reliance just to see if we really could do it. Hacking a camp out of the woods is something that nobody even considers anymore (certainly not me), but it was a pretty good test of woodsmanship that few people ever get to try. Of course today, my version of "roughing it" consists of a completely outfitted modern tent camp complete with camp-cots and all the frills. In fact, like most people, my outings today often involve a cabin or motel.....lol. However, I didn't always have that luxury and I have to admit that the experience was a lot of fun.

We sure have gotten pretty spoiled. My first hunting trip back when I was still in high school was spent with a couple of hunting buddies on top of our hill in a hand-made 2-man lean-to made out of saplings and leaves and pine boughs. Actually, it was more than a lean-to since it was enclosed all around except for a tiny entrance. Hey.... it's all we had. there was no digging a tent out of the basement and we wanted to do the camping/hunting thing. As crude as that all sounds, we spent a pretty comfortable several days up there in spite of a 6" snow storm. We had everything we needed for comfort. We also learned that a squirrel cooked on a spit over an open campfire is a pretty inedible thing .... lol. Fortunately we weren't counting on that for food. No, we never did that again, but it was a blast. I'm glad I did it while I still could (or would). That was back when we were young and didn't think a whole lot about things, we just went ahead and did them ...ha-ha. Just another great hunting memory to add to a whole long list over the years.

Lol.... over here in Ontario County, we had our rifle bill considered a done-deal TWICE. And it still got stuffed! I hope your people do a lot better job than ours and get the damn job done right!

The question was asked but not answered ....... What possible benefit would the GPS location of your house be to a burglar? Is there anything there that a telephone book and map doesn't supply? What am I missing here? Doc

Actually, I have had better luck finding whatever I want at the Auburn Bass-Pro than I have at The Henrietta Gander Mountain. I am always amazed at all the empty shelves and vacant product hooks. In fact I guess I have now sworn off making the trip to Gander from now on because I have not been there over the past couple of years without walking out all torqued about some common item that was out of stock. Everytime I go looking for reloading items, I can guarantee that I will be disappointed. They even seem to be getting worse each time I go up there. I even went to all the trouble of calling ahead to ensure that a particular size shell holder (for the bullet press) was in stock and found out after the hour long drive that I was lied to. So I guess it's back to Beikirch's (sp??) in East Rochester.

These last two replies from Larry302 and G-Man are exactly what I figured that article was going to be about. Those guys put into words the main problem I have always had with a lot of directions that hunting has gone. I do know landowners that have gone off the deep end with their fanaticism and have basically driven away their former hunting partners and discouraged any new ones, and maintain hunting lands that are sinply under-hunted because of the hoarding attitudes and desire to have all hunting on their land done according to their very limited restrictions. The super possessive attitudes that go along with all their efforts to groom and manicure their herd and habitat kind of feeds that need to empty their lands of competing hunters. I have to support that kind of thing because I am a confirmed believer in the supremacy of landowner rights and the need to protect a landowner's right to place whatever restrictions on that property that he wants. But when I place all that up against what is good for hunting, I've got to say that I do not see it all as pro-hunting activity. Doc

While it is true that Antler Restrictions is not all of what QDM is all about, antlered buck management is one major part of the tenets of QDM. And yes, various styles of antler restrictions are given a fair amount of print on their web-site. AR is a practical shortcut to defining maturity for those that are not expert (or for those that think they are expert but aren't) at using other body features to determine an age distinction. I think it is generally accepted that it's not always accurate.

Yup he threw one of those in there too. However, that still was not what I would call controversial. I feel pretty sure that even the most rabid QDM'ers would have to say that ragging on a kid about the quality of his first deer is pretty far over the line. Also it should be noted that it was only one hunter that started that nonsense and once the author stepped in, the rest were quick to offer words of congratulations to the kid. I don't know whether that crazy, over-the-top QDM stuff will ever become standard fare here or anywhere else. I'm thinking the ones that get real stupid about it all will eventually find themselves hunting alone, and in the case of commercial hunting ventures will find themselves without customers. I don't know that I will ever find out because when it comes to whitetail, I don't pay to hunt. At any rate, when I start listing all the things that are serious threats to hunting, QDM is way down at the bottom of the list in a nearly insignificant ranking. What ever hunting rules that private landowers decide to put on their land is entirely their business. If the state ever starts getting involved in such things (fat chance) that will be a whole different situation. Lol.... I suspect I'll be dead and buried before that ever happens.

I love the bait debate. I absolutely do not feel that my skills have eroded yet to the point where I need to condition deer to cooperate with my hunting success. I have got to say that of all the tricks available to us hunters to gain an advantage, I think that baiting is probably the closest to stepping over the line. Frankly, I enjoy the fact that I am hunting "wild" animals, not something that I have trained like Pavlov's dogs to respond to feed for my hunting convenience. I have read articles about deer being trained to come to the sound of automatic timed feeders going off. Then too I have heard about "baiting wars" where one neighbor is pitted against the other trying to out-bait the other and draw each other's deer away from them. Does that really sound like something that could be called hunting? Is that some kind of hunting activity that sportsmen and women should be engaged in? I suppose everyone has to figure that out for themselves. For me that is a hard-stop limit that I will not cross. Others may feel differently about it .... I don't care. But I will say that I am glad that it is illegal in this state. Should the issue ever come up for legal challenge, I will be quite vocal and active in my opposition. If after my best efforts it still becomes legal ..... well so be it. Lol... I'm getting to old to get too worked up over such things anyway, but I still love the debate. Doc

As long as there is electricity available, I will never clean fish without my electric filet knife! Even small panfish can be a breeze with that unit.

Lol ..... so does anyone still use tents for camping? I have never actually had a camper for all the years of our camping. Always a tent except for a couple of years when we operated out of the the back of our capped pick-up. By the way, that did work out pretty darn good for just sleeping arrangements. We set up two folding camp-cots, side by side with a (queen-sized??) mattress over the top. It was pretty darn comfy except for the ungodly racket roaring on the aluminum cap roof everytime it rained. Also, air circulation in some of the 90 degree weather was a bit lacking. However, it was very handy with all the gear stowed under the cots, and absolutely nothing to trail around or some oversized bus looking thing to try to maneuver around in. Today were back to the tent or campground cabins ..... lol. No more pick-up trucks for us. Doc

I had no idea they grew that big! Doc

So today I bought the magazine and read the article. I must say that the article was not nearly as controversial as the internet synopsis tried to be. Basically the editor went through descriptions of a series of highly managed hunts on highly managed properties where he was basically super-restricted on what deer were allowed to be shot. He was lamenting how difficult it was to feel comfortable that he was abiding by the ranch owner's instructions because of difficulties in aging deer and estimating scores. He also ran through a hunt in Texas where the specs on the deer that were eligible to kill was almost like a slot limit and was crazy complicated. Kind of like, "If the deer has this number of points and this kind of spread and is this age, you can shoot him. But if he has this other number of points, it has to have this other age". It was so complicated that even written down it was hard to follow .... lol. This left him in a circumstance were he was real nervous about shooting anything at all and it was spoiling his enjoyment of the hunt. Then there was a description of another QDM ranch hunt where the limits were so restrictive that none of the guests there were actually harvesting anything, but surrounding farms were doing just fine knocking off some rather respectible deer. For him all this was kind of taking a lot of the relaxation and pleasure out of those kinds of hunts. Most of the situations he was describing were circumstances where the ranch owners were setting standards that pretty much were unreasonable for the deer populations available, and I suspect way beyond anything that most hunters (even QDM fans) would consider fitting for the circumstances. I don't think it was all that controversial and turned out to be a whine about places that have gone way too far and over the edge without the quality of bucks to back up their demands. When I was finished reading the article I was left with one solution ....... Do your homework and start picking out better places to hunt that don't pose these kinds of problems for you. Nothing controversial about that. Don't like the rules...don't hunt there. Of course being an editor of a national hunting mag, I suppose these hunts were probably all offered free-gratis. That's a problem that I have a hard time relating to....lol. Doc

I assume you are not talking about the endangered yellow-spotted long nosed mole.

I know this is the way it always seems that the DEC operates. It's not really something that can be argued very much. But let's not lose sight of the fact that the DEC is not the sole contributer to dismal state of affairs of wildlife management. Many of your favorite legislators get to share in a lot of the blame. I'm not sure just who decided that it would be a good idea to try to starve the DEC out of existance, but there seems to have been a long campaign to do exactly that by governors, state senators and state assemblymen. What else could we expect from a highly politicized government agency. I'm sure the DEC is populated with a lot of well intentioned people who are doing their best with what they have, but game management has long ago spun out of control and and been placed very low on the priority list of our state government. I wouldn't be getting my hopes up too far in terms of it ever changing for the better.

Ha! ..... You people still going at it here? It seems everytime somebody new joins up, they feel compelled to get this thing going again. That's ok, if somebody didn't re-start this thread periodically we would never hear from squatsInBushes or whatever his name is. He only has one subject that he can actually form an opinion on.......anybody ever notice that? Just a bit limited. And always the same repulsive tone ..... He's a real friendly type. It's kind of fun to watch good ol' SquatsInBushes continue to make a disagreeable fool of himself. Mr. personality .... eh? I suppose every forum has to have at least one of these ....lol. Well anyway, carry on people. I'll check back in periodically just for a bit of comic relief. I'm sure you all feel that you are changing opinions and saving the world, so keep up the good fight.

Actually that's a two-headed coin. The same factors of questionable management and hard-to-believe deer inventory assessments that cause deer over-populations are also responsible for undue deer scarcity in other places. policies of reactive game management are the reason that we see the populations seeming to cycle from high to low and back to high again. At least that's the view and theory from my uneducated position.

I have to admit that even if I didn't hunt with the darn thing, I'm sure I would be messing around with archery anyway. It all has the same attraction as any shooting sport (only more so). The mental and physical discipline required to keep trying to put the next projectile closer and closer to the last one is the same challenge that comes with any kind of target practice. The fact that it requires a rigid set of form and execution consistancies is exactly the appeal of the whole thing. Success and failure is mainly a product of your own physical and mental developed abilities. And then to take all that personal accomplishment and apply it to hunting is just frosting on the cake. For me, I just could never achieve that kind of enthusiasm toward firearms. The ultimate challenges and satisfactions of hunting success just simply could not be equalled with anything but a bow. Yes, I hunt with a gun as well and thoroughly enjoy it, but I have to admit that it is the bowhunts that rank the highest in my memories and supply my standard and definition of hunting. Doc

There are all kinds of ads on TV and in magazines that illustrate the effectiveness of camo in terms of absolutely becoming invisible in a woods scenario. There's simply no denying it ..... a person who wants to be hidden in the background (perhaps behind a deer that someone is about to shoot at) can very easily do exactly that. The old saying about being completely certain about the background and surroundings is only truly possible if you are hunting on a completely cleared and back-stopped rifle range. If some idiot wants to conceal himself in the line of fire, today's camo technology makes that entirely possible. Sure, it's hard to understand how someone can get shot from being mistaken for a deer, but what I worry about has more to do with what I don't see than what I do. Doc

Exactly!

After being successfully voted through by the Ontario County government and getting screwed up in Albany both times, on the third attempt the anti-rifle forces convinced the Board of Supervisors to kill the whole idea. And so the latest vote, the idea was voted down. I guess there will be no relief for me from my old 12 guage shoulder-mangler....lol. This whole thing has been similar to watching a Keystone Cops movie. These people along with the state government just never seemed to be able to pass some simple legislation without totally fouling it up.......twice. Well, by the third time they tried to get it through, the non-hunting public finally got wind of what was going on and kind of grabbed their town supervisors and gave them an earful. Honestly, I guess I really don't care since I had mixed feelings about the safety aspect here anyway. But I sure was ready to retire that old bruiser of a shotgun and take up something that was a bit more user-friendly. My prediction now is that it is a dead issue forever here in Ontario County. I really don't think the issue will ever see another chance that was as good as the two failed attempts that it has already had. Doc