Doc

My favorite is what ever is on sale and looks like the kind of garment that will keep me comfortable. As far as what gives me the best concealment, there is no question that my ghillie suit does that. Unfortunately, I have not figured out a way of shooting my bow while I wear it, but what a great thing for turkey hunting with a gun.

You know, I have to wonder. When they visit processors, taxidermists, etc. to come up with this ratio of those that report vs. those that don't, what do they do with the list of hunters that they find that did'nt report. Do they send out tickets? I have never heard of anybody getting a "failure to report" ticket in the mail. Doc

Wind direction predictions are a fundamental requirement for my stand selection or still-hunt plan each time before I go out. In that same forecast, is the sunrise and sunset times. It really doesn't take any "looking up". It's not all that big a deal.

I guess I am just a bit more picky about game laws, and really don't see them as simply suggestions or some kind of judgement calls. I also understand the ECO scarcity situation and understand that we all have to be a bit more responsible in policing ourselves. I get pretty out of sorts whenever I hear of somebody poaching or bending and breaking other hunting laws and have very little sympathy with all the excuses manufactured to rationalize breaking any of the laws that govern hunting. I have no problems with people putting extra additional restrictions on shooting times or conditions, but I find it no problem at all to note the sunrise and sunset times when I check the weather forcasts and wind direction predictions before I go out hunting, and then abide by them as a minimum effort to comply with that law. What exactly is so difficult about that? As far as not being able to take the time to glance at your wrist to check the time, I hope nobody is in that much of a hurry to take a shot. It's not really an issue where you have to make any judgement calls ...... thankfully. The law is clear. Every year I hear some of those shots in the dark where people are supposedly using their "judgement". I guess that's why some of those laws were written. Look, I understand temptation and understand that always complying with game laws is not an easy thing to do. But as hunters we need to be picky about such things. It really is up to us to be self-policing because the law enforcement branch of the DEC is never again going to be adequate to handle that job.

I'll bet that if you changed it all to "1/2 hour before sunrise to 1/2 hour after sunset", the same guys who are not complying now would continue to push the limits beyond that legal requirement. As far as the scenario of the breaking the law simply because of the quality of the buck, I guess it still boils down to your belief in a system of laws. You either do or you don't. The law doesn't make exceptions for large animals, and there really would be nothing about a large buck that would cause me to feel good about breaking game laws. I am amazed that people are starting to consider game laws a "suggestion". Perhaps they are realizing just how few COs there are out there and how small the odds are that you would actually get caught. I have to admit that I have come to expect to hear some of those first shots during gun season well before any kind of light. Every year there are some shots that make me wonder how in the heck those guys even know it's a deer. So maybe I should not really be all that amazed.....lol.

Yeah, that's kind of the point I was making earlier. It doesn't even have to be really pointed at hunting. Shooting a bow is just plain fun. Hunting with it is simply frosting on the cake. It's pretty darn easy to get hooked and is a lot more fascinating than other weapons that are not quite so directly hooked up with the shooter's personal abilities. Don't get me wrong, I do a whole lot of target practice with rifles, but that time on the range with the bow still has a special attraction for me. And some of the novelty shooting (like those plastic milk jugs) just adds to the fun. It's kind of like the "stump shooting" that SOB always talks about. It's just plain ol' fun that really has appeal to primarily a bowhunter.

A DEC 5-year plan ....... Now there is something that would be fun to read. Given the current financial climate and that of the forseeable future, I have to wonder just how they are able to plan anything? Well, I guess you can plan all you want ..... It's incorporating that plan that might be a bit tough to do ... lol.

One thing I am noticing is that the snow doesn't seem to last very long anymore. That sun is super warm this time of year. However, I have seen some wicked storms in March so I'm not writing ol' man winter off yet. I did see a few deer in the yard the other day and they are starting to show some real signs of wear and tear. Even though they had that winter "fluffed up" look, the hip bones are getting very prominent especially in the younger ones. They need a permanent break in this weather pretty soon.

So, the DEC is made to be ineffective because of the political aspects of their operation. I know that that will never change. So is there some way of effectively dealing with the political interferences in such a way that the DEC gets the support that they need to do a better job of game management? Usually when you can identify a problem, you are more than half-way towards solving it. However, in this case, I don't see any solution. Their financial condition will always be tied to politics, and our legislators seem determined to starve that agency right out of any sort of usefulness. Any thoughts?

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