Doc

Lol .... So now we have a pretty good idea of what is true hunting and what isn't ...... or do we? How about guided hunts? Guys that go on those hunts where the guide does all the actual "hunting" and they just do the shooting ...... are they "real hunters"? There is a lot of game and locations where a guide is not a choice. You either use a guide or you don't hunt. Does that kind of a hunt disqualify you from being a "true hunter"? I never have and never will go on a hunt that requires a guide even though for some species, it is the only practical way to go. And that is simply because of some crazy notion that I personally have concocted about being as totally responsible for the success or failure of my hunt as I possibly can. That to me is part of being a true hunter. I think I am probably in the minority on that, but that is my personal impression of what hunting is all about for me. However, I won't be telling you whether or not a guide is ok for you. You'll have to figure that out for yourself. We probably should not be telling other people about how hunting behind a fence is real hunting or not either. That's their choice isn't it? But, don't get me started on canned hunts .... ;D ;D ;D

I still look at those who willingly go afield during hunting season without blaze orange as people that don't value their lives, or the future welfare of their dependents very highly. In terms of minors, if they are not instructed properly about the importance of blaze orange, then there is an adult somewhere who has dropped the ball and who has terribly misjudged the maturity and the level of supervision of that minor that they have put in that position. I hope all you people are not disputing the effectiveness of blaze orange as a safety measure in a deer gun season. There is documentation back several pages in this thread that points out the ratio of NYS hunting mishaps that involve b/o versus those without. It is overwhelmingly convincing. Is it a cure-all? ...... not hardly and no one has ever claimed that it is. Does that mean that it shouldn't be used? ..... I hope no one here is foolish enough to believe that. On the other hand, when viewing the stats on the number of hunting incidents that involve hunters not wearing b/o, maybe one should expect that we might have a few in our membership as well. Whether you think it should be a law or not is an individual decision. But I'm getting the impression that there are some here that think that wearing b/o is not an appropriate safety measure. For those individuals, I hope you never find out just how terribly wrong you are.

Without a guarantee of anonymity, they needn't expect any calls from me. I don't need a barn or house burned down over some illegal deer.

Speaking of accidently shooting someone, if you want something that will send cold chills down your back, watch some of these hunting shows on TV that show some of these African hunts. They very often display some of the sloppiest gun handling practices that I have ever seen. I just love that way of resting the rifle horizontally on their shoulder while holding onto the barrel, which is generally pointed straight at the back of the guide in front of them. I've never figured out who decided that that was a good way of carrying a gun, but for some reason, as soon as these guys get over to Africa, all notions of being aware of where that loaded gun is pointed, go flying out the window.

No ice here at the moment.

Lol ..... Don't you just love it when someone comes on a hunting forum and just spends all their time continuously dumping on hunters. Heck, if I wanted to see that sort of thing I would go to one of the animal rights forums.

Jim was the one who answered the phone the other night. My guess is that he is still the secretary.

There has to be something very chilling to an intruder in the middle of the night that hears that sound of a 12 guage pump being racked. There's a pretty good chance that the very next sound would be the intruder running for his life without a single shot being fired. Handgun? ...... Don't own one. For me it just isn't the ideal self defense weapon.

That's a pretty good solution. If I was getting bunches of them, I would skin, stretch and sell them myself. Unfortunately that's not the way my luck has been running....lol. I know a few people that most likely know some local trappers. I really don't like just throwing them away, and giving them to a trapper is just the right solution. Thanx

The sad thing is that we can expect funding for wildlife law enforcement to go in exactly the other direction. I agree this is becoming more and more of a problem. Any poacher or potential poacher is well aware that everything is pretty much in his favor already. They know how ridiculously stretched out our COs are. I think that added taxes are not the answer because the politicians steal those kinds of funds quicker than they can be generated. One thing that possibly could help out is the involvement of hunters in tipping off the authorities when they find out about violations. Other than that we are likely going to continue to see these characters stealing our resources and that kind of activitity is likely to increase. Doc

What is he going to do with it? I think a lot of guys don't get involved with predator hunting because they don't have an idea what to do with the critters after they get them. I have a substantial trapping background so if I were to get enough of them to warrant a trip to the local fur auction I would know what to do with a few of them. But I have to admit that if I get just one fox or one coyote, I may be a bit challenged to figure out a proper way to use the resource. I do want to try my hand at tanning a coyote or fox again. But once I have done it, I'll be looking for suggestions as to what to do with 1 fox or 1 coyote. I do have difficulty in just leaving them in the woods to rot. For me, it does pose a problem. I'll bet a lot of guys have the same problem. Doc

Unlike us sitting at our computers, the DEC is in a position where it must not only manage the deer, but it has to manage the hunters. Their most important tool that has no replacement yet in managing populations, is the hunter. Their whole existance involves a balancing act between managing the herd and maintaining their hunter base so they can manage the herd. I honestly believe it is that reality that explains their current position on AR.

Yeah, that's kind of where I am too. I see no reason to scramble seasons. Maybe something could be improved, but just coming up with something different is not the same as coming up with something better.

The system I have the most confidence in is to visit a local pro-shop and let him measure your draw length while you are actually under the stress of pulling a bow to your chosen anchor. Also, if you are planning on using a string loop, and release that should be accomodated too. Draw length is an important bow spec and I wouldn't try to short-cut that determination. When you're spending that kind of money, it's important to get it right. Yes there is a certain amount of adjustability on most bows, but you don't want to start right off by using up all the adjustment just because you were not precise enough to start with. If you have to pay the shop owner for his time (and if you are not buying anything from him, that would be the right thing to do), it is money well spent. Doc

Could be that it is just a reactionary system that issues or denies permits only after the state of the herd is so extreme that it is obvious to anyone who steps out into the woods. Then adjust permit numbers accordingly. Set the permit numbers at a certain level until the hunters scream or the farmers scream and then react by changing permit numbers in the appropriate direction. And then perhaps we have this statistical system to simply make it look like they are doing something.....lol. No, that is just a little too conspiratorial even for me ..... ha-ha Doc

I don't know about little bucks be-deviling big bucks, but the whole discussion brings to mind the fact that fighting and other rut behavior is mighty tough on the bucks. I have read that a lot of the bucks head into winter in worse shape than some of the fawns because of the stress of buck rut behavior and the loss of winter fat reserves. I have seen what would have been a nice 8 point with every tine busted on the right side antler. I think that would have been quite a fight to see. The buck that I shot this year had some vicious looking deep wounds around the neck and hip that I have come to believe are severe antler punctures. I think these fighting related wounds led to something quite a bit more traumatic happening on the ass-end (probably from predators). Shooting this deer amounted to a mercy killing. So some of these battles can have some significant impacts on how they begin the hardships of winter. I have also seen bucks (young and old) after gun season that really looked quite thin (ribby), with the whole worst part of the winter before them. So I have to believe that an excessive density of bucks most likely complicates their existance and may very well send them into winter in a severely compromised condition. Couple that with a severe winter or one that lingers on excessively in the spring, and all that activity could mean the difference between life and death for some of those bucks. I'm not sure how that all relates to the current part of this discussion, but certainly the stress of rut related behavior is not something to belittle.

I can't do it. The logic is too intermeshed with my own personal entries, and things seem to blow up when I start clearing out my data. Sorry, I gave it a heck of a try, but nothing useful came out of it. Doc

That's all fun stuff to read, but I wouldn't put a whole lot of stock in the actual accuracy of such numbers. Actually I can't imagine why anyone would be interested in "statewide" numbers anyway. What effects hunters is a whole lot more local than that.

So when you get a deer at the bottom of the gorge, how do you get them back up to the top where the car is?

That is actually the best idea you've come up with yet!!... and it still stinks ;D Yeah, the whole thing kind of satisfies everything that everyone is trying to do with these off-the-wall deer management schemes. I think it fits well with all the hack-job ideas regarding gun seasons. Best of all, it winds up taking opportunities away from hunters which is the common thread that runs through all these proposed deer management plans. I figured it had to be a winner on this thread. ;D

Joe, The DEC has no clear estimate as to how many deer inhabit the state. FYI, google deer in Greenich CT where an INFRARED flyover was performed some time ago. It is eyeopening and was expensive! Eye-opening? ..... definitely! Expensive? .... yes, if the entire state were done every year. However, to do it once each decade, and only a representative amount of area, just to verify the statistical results of those areas, might actually be a bargain in terms of developing a reliable, credible, and proveable statistical management procedure. I would sooner see that than simply applying the same statistics decade after decade with each year's errors compounding with each successive year and never knowing if all that data gathering, inputting and massaging was giving you a dime's worth of reliability. As far as I know, such a reliable verification activity has never been done in NYS. PA did it and now you tell me that CT did it. I would say that that automatically gives those states a leg up in terms of credibility and reliability. That has to be worth something. And if we ever get this state financially righted again, I would support the same kind of periodic activity here in NYS.

There's the answer. Forget about AR and all that other complicated crap. Just stop shooting deer, and you will have all the monster trophies you can look at ..... ;D . By the way, since everybody else has developed or passed on their own theories of deer management, I think it is only fair that I treat you all to my scheme to populate the state with ancient, sway-backed, toothless, monstrous bucks that can hardly hold their heads up from the weight of their antlers. This is brilliant! It also kind of relates back to the original post so it's almost on topic. Judging from some of the other plans I've seen here, I am surprised nobody has beat me to it. About the only thing that hasn't been suggested so far is a management scheme that allows buck harvests only every other year or so. How about that one? That gets a bunch of deer past the 1.5 age, creates an older strata of bucks, helps balance the gender ratio, blah .... blah .... and so on and so forth and all those other neat buzz-words. By golly before long, we would have those out-of-state hunters begging to come into the state and hunt our monstrous bucks. Every other year doesn't cut it? .... make it every 3rd year. And then we can make buck season separate and keep it down to a 2 day hunt. We could actually expand the doe season. Before you know it there would be a "booner" behind every tree. To satisfy the reduced opportunities for the bowhunters and gunners, we'll just jam a crossbow in their hands and maybe increase the antlerless permits and they will never know the difference. Everybody's happy .... right? By the way, let's hope we don't hear anybody say, "by golly that's a heck of a good idea!". ;D Doc

No, this is a test of originality, and creativity. I wouldn't want to stifle some of the marvelous work being done on this thread. Actually that is probably some of the more realistic posting that will actually appear on this thread. ;D

You sure got that right. Something used to keep me warm that costs $600, had better baseboard heating or something. You can't be serious.

Wow, this thread has gone berserk! ??? It seems to cover just about everything except the original notion of shortening the gun season. I think we have hit just about every hot-button issue and jammed them into this thread. We even have a new one that I have never heard before. It seems we are having a civil war about to break out between the north and the south in NYS. ;D Where the heck that came from, I don't know. I think I hear bits and pieces of the Battle Hymn of the Republic in the background. No..... Maybe that's Dixie. This is a good thread, we got a smattering of AR, and a little crossbow action, and just about everyone's favorite deer management scheme represented here. Now a little soil analysis. We also have some prize insults (I've been taking notes). This one has potential for beating the antler restriction thread for number of pages....lol. Now if we could only keep all that crap bottled up in this one thread, it would actually turn out to be a useful topic. I'm like a kid in a candy store. I don't know which one to jump into first.....lol. I think I will try to stay out of this one. Anyone taking any bets on how many days I'll be successful at that? ;D