Doc

Hunting is probably the only thing that won't be affected by gas prices other than perhaps I will put in even more hours because I won't be able to afford anything else. I don't travel at all to do my hunting. My hunting camp is my home.

So I don't know whether that loud-mouthed abrasive personality is real of just some faked, made up TV persona and frankly I don't really care. I can only go by the public picture that he has so carefully cultivated for us. And so, I still say that that kind of personality is not something that I want to be associated with. And I feel no particular need to be buddys with or represented by such a person just because he happens to hunt. Believe it or not, there are a lot of jerks that many of us wouldn't want to associate with that hunt/fish/trap. Also, there are a lot of them that I don't want being any kind of spokesman for the sport either.

I still have a lifetime supply of the old autumn orange XX75 shafts that still kill deer just as dead as any of the more modern materials. I have yet to know anybody that can legitimately blame the loss of a deer to the material that their shaft was made of. So far be it for me to insist that anyone change arrow materials if they don't want to. As far as aluminum arrows bending, I have just one suggestion .... don't shoot them at rocks or logs.....lol. However if a mishap should occur, the worst that can happen is an obviously bent arrow that you are not likely to attempt to shoot again.

I used to work with a guy who bragged that he could hold a coffee cup sized group at 50 yards ..... Consistantly. And by golly I and several others watched him do it at will. But I'll never forget that particular season when he came into work to report his 5th wounded loss. That's right, 5 lost deer in one season. That the year after he had three lost deer. And yes, he was taking shots at deer at 40 and 50 yards. I'm not going to say that it can't be done because I know better. However, I think there are a lot of people out there that think that archery range accuracy can and should be duplicated in the woods. Of course just like this guy at work, nobody will ever tell these people that archery range accuracy does not translate into deer hunting accuracy without a very healthy dose of luck involved. My take ....... long range shooting is great fun on a field course or an Olympic competition. I'll admit that it is truly magical to watch that arrow arc way up in the air and finally drop down into the target. But bowhunting has always been considered to be a close range kind of hunt where the emphasis is put on the "hunt" rather than the shot. There is nothing about modern day archery equipment that has changed any of that. Long distance hunting ...... that's what they invented rifles for.

That's how it always starts. First get the public used to the idea by floating a rumor. When it looks like it is being accepted, start cranking the prices toward the next milestone. The $4.00 /Gal rumor went over well and sure enough ..... here we are .....$4/gal. Works every time.

Look, I'll make it real simple ...... I don't like the guy because of his loud-mouth, arrogant, irritating personality. I 'm sure he is not the kind of guy I would like to hang around with or be anywhere near even if he had nothing to do with music, TV, or hunting. Inside of 15 minutes anywhere near that kind of person with that kind of abrasive personality and I'd be looking for the exit. Sorry, but I simply don't like him. So sue me.

Lol ..... That does kind of sum it up doesn't it?

Sure, I like to see them too. I think they're kind of neat. However that doesn't mean that just like any other critter, they don't benefit from a bit of thinning. I doubt you will ever put much of a dent in the population, so you can hunt them and still see them in the wild. It's kind of like the little old lady that hates deer hunters because she likes to see them. Well, we have plenty of hunting and still have plenty of deer. However, what I don't really like to see is just shooting them like rats and leaving them lay in the woods. That fur is just too nice to throw away, plus it's worth a bit of money. I know it happens, but it really seems like such a waste of a resource.

Yeah, but even the internet outlets have to deal with item transport in one fashion or another. I really can't think of any segment of the economy that benefits from excessive gas-gouging other than the gas producers themselves. Frankly, I see it all as a matter of national security. Anytime our economy is under direct attack, our international status, leadership, as well as our future sovereignty is under attack. But, from the president on down, nobody else seems to see it that way.

The guy definitely brings it all on himself. All these little vid-clips always seem to be aimed at just trying to get attention. What ever ya gotta do to try to keep yourself relevant .... eh? I don't blame him. It's probably an age thing ..... lol.

Very recently I read that the European cost for a gallon of gas is $9.69 (adjusted to U.S. dollars). When we start approaching that level, I think our entire lifestyle, and economy will be seriously and negatively impacted. And yet there seems to be nobody of any power that is actually concerned. What do you suppose these kinds of petro-costs are doing to inflation? Aside from our own personal finances, just about every purchase here and abroad are impacted by gas. These inflationary pressures are not being ignored by those that hire us. One would think that there might be some extreme pressures brought to bear on oil producing nations to pull in the reins of this warfare on our economy. It's getting to be time that we start attaching some strings to our overly generous taxpayer funded foriegn financial and technological assistance to these countries before our entire economy becomes trashed. It may also be time to quit merely shrugging our shoulders, and start explaining to our legislators that we expect this problem to start receiving some attention.

It's very weird ...... There's nothing that he says that I actually disagree with, but there's something about the way he says it that makes me feel like I just heard the ravings of a drug burned-out madman. What a shame that his message is so mangled up in all that pycho-babble that he actually takes thoughts that I hold close and turns them into something that would turn off just about anyone who hears it. I've heard him described as a spokesman for sportsmen and women, but there is a sound of lunacy whenever he supposedly speaks on our behalf that seems to have a very negative affect to anyone listening. Our spokesman? Not in my view.

I sure would like another kind of tasty thing around to hunt, and I do like pork (although I have heard mixed reviews on the taste of wild boars). But some of these critters seem to be of a real nasty disposition. One thing I really don't need is some 400 pound tusker charging out of the bushes while I stand there with just my bow and arrows for defense. Also, the damage that they do to the habitat is something that we probably wouldn't appreciate too much either. However, I'm not sure that we will really have much of a choice in the matter since they seem to be expanding their range northward all by themselves.

Do you really think it picks back up at the end of the season? I've got to say that at the end of the season around the valley here, it is pretty darn hard to tell there is even a season in progress. Generally the state parking lots are totally empty, and the woods are absolutely dead quiet.

Our bear population in Ontario County is so small that it hardly makes any difference that we now have an open season. We had a bear wandering around here about 2 years ago, and nobody has seen him since. However those two nights that he raided the bird feeders (destroyed them actually), and then dragged my garbage cans up through the woods strewing trash for hundreds of yards, kind of convinced me that feeding these critters would be a big mistake. The muddy paw prints on my neighbor's porch door was a nice reminder that feeding these guys and removing some of their natural fear of man, probably is not a real good idea. However, if the enforcement boys are going to interpret this new law as pertaining to the rotten meat in every trapper's dirt-hole set, or some dead animal that a farmer has dragged off into the lower forty, or some dead critter that a photographer placed in the woods for a couple of pictures, then I think it would be nice to know that before we are faced with a CO writing us up with a nice expensive ticket for some inadvertant offense that never occurred to us. That is the reason I brought the subject up. I just wanted to see if anyone had gotten any sense of how nit-picky the authorities might get over this new law.

I would like to see a graph or chart that shows the number of deer taken on each day of the season. I know that some deer are taken on days toward the end of the season, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the numbers during the last week or so are probably quite insignificant. If I go by the number of shots that I hear during the last couple weeks of gun season, I have to say that shortening the season would be silly and would make almost no difference in the deer take. Those two weeks are just good P.R. for deer hunting and have more of a harmless effect of making hunters just think they are getting a better deal than they ever will actually take advantage of. Has anyone ever seen any documentation that shows just how effective those last couple of weeks actually really are. I mean, this whole thread was based on the fact that shortening the gun season would have some real meaningful effect. I really question that premise. As a sales gimmick for hunting licenses, I think it is great and makes hunters think they are getting a great deal and perhaps that keeps some hunters from complaining too much about the current cost of licenses. But in reality I think it has a rather minor influence on deer take. And yes ..... I know there are all kinds of people who will talk about the deer that they got at the tail-end of the season, but I seriously would like to see some real numbers just to see if this whole argument is mostly about nothing.

I guess we need to concentrate less on people falling out of their treestand and more on crazies that are wobbling around on rickity step-ladders up on their raised decks. Anybody else wonder about the sanity of this guy? That was some pretty good shooting, and it's nice that he was able to gratify his need to show off a bit, but he sure didn't impress me at all with that nutty stunt on the step-ladder.

Just finished watching a new show on the Discovery Channel called "Hogs Gone Wild" which is kind of a follow-on series to "The Pig Bomb" and a couple of other recent wild boar shows that have been highlighted on that channel. I'm not sure how much of the content is a bit over-dramatized, but it is a pretty interesting show about some of the trouble areas of the U.S. where wild hogs have gone completely out of control in terms of numbers, destruction, and dangerous encounters with humans. The show that I recorded and watched this morning was about a family in Hawaii that was completely surrounded each and every night by quite a few of these critters to the point where they didn't dare go outside after dark. There was another segment about a Texas family that had a rogue 400 pounder that was threatening livestock and causing some severe habitat damage. These things are not the lazy cute piggies that we have on our farms. They seem to be kind of nasty tempered, especially when they get old and big. The show was about animal control experts removing problem critters, and some of the unusual ways that they do it. Most of it looked like hand-to-hand combat. These guys have dogs that go in and grab the hog by the ears and hold him down that way while these guys reach in, grab a rear leg and then jump on top of the pig pinning it down. I'm sitting there scratching my head wondering why they simply don't shoot the critter ..... But apparently they are determined to catch them alive for some weird reason. The only thing I could figure out is that maybe it is illegal to discharge firearms in that area or something. In one case one of the guys had to use a knife to kill a 400 pounder because he was in danger of losing his grip on it ..... it was too big to handle. Anyway, I figured that some of you might be interested in catching any of the new episodes or re-runs of this one. I think they said that next Tuesday at 10:00 there was going to be the next installment on The Discovery Channel. You might find the program pretty interesting. One thing this program has convinced me of is that I don't want anything to do with having those things here in NYS.....lol. Doc

Like I said above I am not any kind of authority on plots, but I thought the distinction trying to be made was between a plot that was intended to be hunted vs. one that was put in only as supplemental winter deer food. If I had to guess, I would think that a plot that was put in strictly for hunting over would be rather small to make deer locations more predictable and highlight foods that would be attractive during the fall (hunting) months. Plots put in as a winter food source primarily to highlight a hi-carb food source available later in the season at a time that might benefit winter-weary deer. It might even be large enough where it might simulate typical agricultural fields which are not always all that useful in hunting situations. Supplemental food plots may still be created by hunters (or not) could very well have some distinct differences from hunting food plots. At least that was the what I thought was being implied when the two terms were being used in the original post.

I have heard quite a few instances where the intent of laws has been stretched way out of shape by over-enthusiastic COs intent on applying them way beyond what they were ever intended to. The cases that I have heard of had no warnings involved. I just thought that this law may be tailor-made for over enforcement and use in situations where there clearly was no intent to actually break the law.

I'm just guessing here, but I suspect that Wooly was using a bit of sarcastic humor poking fun at some of the other heated Photoshop allegations in other picture threads of the recent past. I could be wrong, but that's the way I took it.

I think the new law forbidding bear feeding is not really something that is designed to protect or increase bear populations, but rather is intended to eliminate the semi-domestication of wild bears and the resulting safety problems and property damage activities of the bears. However, my question was more aimed at just how tightly the new "feeding" law will be applied. In other words, is it possible that things that were formerly considered normal activities by farmers, hunters and photographers (as noted in the original post) might now all of a sudden put them on the wrong side of the law. There are so many things that can be considered bear food.

That's an interesting distinction you are making there. I don't think I have ever heard that way of defining a "hunting plot" vs. a food supply plot. I'm not much of an expert at growing food or attractants for deer or other critters, so I guess I probably don't have much to offer about what features promote a better "food" plot vs. a "hunting" plot, but I guess that now that you have pointed out the distinction, I can see where things might be done quite differently depending on what function the plot is supposed to serve. This will be an interesting thread.

Those pictures reminded me ...... keep your eyes open when riding your ATVs. I recently saw a picture of a tire on an ATV that had an antler sticking out of it. Kind of a real expensive coincidence.

With many of the same feeding/baiting laws that have applied to deer also now applying to bears, I have to wonder exactly how far the interpretation of these laws could reach. I have heard of some rather extreme cases where COs and judges have pushed the wording on laws to include some rather bizzarre interpretations. One has to wonder just how vulnerable trappers are now with the wide variety of baits that they have always used. For that matter, anyone who drags a road-killed deer off into the woods for predator hunting or photography purposes ...... Are they guilty of placing a bear bait, or feeding the bears? The farmer totes a dead calf carcass over into the hedgerow ...... same question. Is he guilty of feeding bears or placing a bear bait? Are there any details in the wording of the law or related laws that would preclude somebody from innocently and inadvertantly being charged with breaking this bear feeding law by some over-zealous CO?