Doc

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.

My experience is that short-term effects will be a disaster. Deer will be shifting around, abandoning established trails (buried under tops). Your old stand-by stand locations will be worthless, and you will be totally screwed up. The long-term effects will be years of a boom in deer population, and the establishment of new hot trails, and some of the best deer hunting grounds in the area all due to the new emerging browse from increased daylight.

Some people think that every topic is about crossbows....lol. Well, if all you are concerned with is truly having a weapon that is a proven deer population controller I think the success percentage ratios cannot be disputed, can they? Firearms are far more efficient at that task. Arguing otherwise is simply not being honest. Oh and by the way there are already plenty of guns out there banging away during bow season and plenty noisy ones at that. But in spite of your attempt to hijack the thread, I still wonder why people are seeing more deer but DEC harvest numbers are going down.

My first trophy kill with a bow was the first pigeon that I shot up in the hay-mow with my hand-carved bow and hand made arrows at age 11. I cleaned it along with 2 or 3 others and made a meal of them cooked by my Mother. Nope, I didn't have them mounted like most trophies, but they were trophies to me nonetheless.

Hunting is a huge collection of combined activities. Marksmanship is one element of hunting. Patterning the prey and getting close enough is another element of hunting, understanding your prey is another part, and on and on. They are all pieces of hunting. So yes long-range harvests are "hunting". Is long range hunting as challenging as styles of hunting that require up-close-and-personal harvests? .... Well, that is a different discussion. But no, shooting distance is not the entire definition of what is hunting and what is not.

All these sighting and glowing reports, and yet I read in the latest NYON that the DEC is reporting a less than stellar deer take this past season. Something doesn't add up. We all know what we are seeing, so why isn't this showing up in the harvest numbers?

No. There is no "archery only" season where guns are not being used. When they wanted a fall turkey season, they jumped in with the bow hunters. When they wanted a youth firearms season, it got shoved into bow season. We share pieces of the bow season with small game hunters, and some chunks of muzzleloader hunters. Also there is no pure gun season either. They share that season with bowhunters and now crossbow hunters. So no, there are no pieces of the hunting year that are dedicated to archery and then others that are dedicated to guns. We already have mixed seasons. That precedent is established. I know what you were getting at about the two attempted distinctions but that is the misconception that most people have, and I just wanted to clarify that the distinctions only apply until someone wants to change them. There are plenty of examples. There were some WMUs recently that were threatened with muzzleloader incursion if the bowhunters didn't control the deer population. It was simple....The DEC just made a decree. Regarding legal seasons and weapons, it would be wise to bear in mind that technology isn't done messing with us. There are things coming at us that we can't even imagine yet. Also we as archers have to remember that guns are legal hunting implements and slipping them into any part of the hunting year is as simple as conjuring up a case for necessity brought about by any interested party and a DEC declaration. So when we get all complacent and confident that we are setting the limits, definitions, and lines in the sand, we have to understand that it is all temporary, and that at anytime we can find ourselves in the same boat that NYB found themselves in when someone else decided that they wanted a piece of the bow season. And likely we will have just as little luck as they did regardless of how convinced we are that there are absolutes that agree with our preconceived opinions and lines in the sand. All that crap means nothing when someone is determined to move in and take over. Someone else may have their own little brain-fart about how they need more options and choices, and it may not necessarily be a happy event.

One thing that no one is looking at is the fact that no matter how you try to set the rules......You have to understand that you do not set the rules. You all seem to be content declaring what should or should not be allowed in the seasons as if you really had the power to decree such things. You have to look farther down the road and even take a few looks back at history. Understand that it is all about precedents. Understand that the introduction of compounds was the precedent for crossbows. Nobody knew that at the time, but as soon as the bows allowed in bow season started to add pulleys and cables and eccentrics and cams, the stage was set for the next step. Now we have set up the next stage for season intrusion. We have crossbows. And you people think it will stop there because you have all independently declared a new line in the sand and your own little definitions that talk about meaningless things like "stick & string" and bent limbs and other arbitrary definitions that none of you really have any power to decree. The old-timers of early archery had some inkling of this creeping change when they were against allowing the compound. And yes even I argued against the old-timers because I didn't understand the principles of precedents and creeping technology. But I understand it now. They tried to decree some basic rules and definitions and found out that their "opinions" and arbitrary, bogus, definitions meant nothing. Bow season will change as long as the majority of hunters want that season. What it will change to is as open as all the technological possibilities. And if gun hunters want that chosen season, there will come a time when they will simply take it. Some of that has happened already. They will use the same arguments of choice, elitism, selfishness and all the other slams and slurs that crossbow advocates used on bowhunters to shoehorn their way into bow season. I can't stop it any more than archers of the future will be able to stop it. But I do refuse to help it all along.

The whole post that I was responding to was talking about providing choice of weapons even to the point of using spears and atlatls and such. Now you are breaking down the season into distinctions and qualifications and more rules for definitions for exclusion and limiting choices just like the bowhunters tried to do. They tried to say what bow season was intended for with their version of what constituted a bow season, and that was declared selfish and elitist and exclusionary. And now just as I predicted, the crossbow advocates are hanging on to their season-grab and turning on anyone else that tries to enter. I am simply looking for consistency and not simply changing the rules only to support your own viewpoint and wishes.

I am simply testing some of these arguments for consistency.

Before you can declare a "Best Hunter", you have to establish the criteria. What makes a superior hunter? Is it quantity, quality, a certain species, the largest collection of species, ability to attract species through farming techniques, Ability to find game where little exists, Hunting style, range and effectiveness of the weapon used, technology used, amount of time used, knowledge of woods lore and animal habits and patterns? It goes on and on and I'll bet I haven't even scratched the surface of all the criteria. And then how do you rank all these different aspects of hunting? Which ones are more important than others? This is what you have to contend with when you turn hunting into a competition.

Quite a convincing set of arguments. The only question I have about all that is, "When are you going to start advocating that gun hunters not be excluded from the early season"? Expand the opportunities of choice to them too. Don't you see a bit of hypocrisy shouting and screaming about the selfish elitism of bowhunters while you all turn around and argue for the exclusion of gun hunters? Come-on.....You want to champion weapons choices? Don't all those same arguments apply when you willfully exclude guns from the early season? I think they do.

Hey....Life's a bitch and then you die. Try not to be a pain in arse while that's all happening.....lol. I think the problem is that I never got into the entitlement mode that is setting in with a lot of people. But as I have been saying right along, if you really feel that the bow season field needs leveling, then don't be half-way about it. Why are you thinking that the old-timers and the infirm should be saddled with the awkward, heavy and clunky crossbows. Be consistent in your thinking and let the guns in. But no, it turns out that there is that selfish, elitist, exclusionary thing at work even amongst the crossbow enthusiasts isn't there? It wasn't just bowhunters was it?

You know, there are a lot of the Adirondack high peaks that are past my abilities now. But I am not lobbying for the state to build a road to the top. I cannot do foot races anymore, but I do not ask anyone to change the rules so I can do the races in a car. There are a lot of things that I can no longer do, but I understand that there comes a time for all of us that we gracefully accept aging and not make the rest of the world accommodate me.

What the Hell are you talking about? Did you even read my reply or are you a bit challenged in the reading comprehension area? I was merely explaining that your description of the effects on gunfire during bow season was what some might crudely call B.S. I was trying to be a bit nice about it as I explained to you the real causes of deer slipping into the full survival mode. Calm down a bit and get control of yourself.

This is the time of year that deer start losing their winter coat. I have gobs of deer hair all over my front yard. They will be going through a disgusting looking stage of blotchy, scroungey looking hair-do that makes them look like they've got mange....lol. Nothing to worry about it is just the change from the winter coat to the summer coat.

This is all well and good, but how do you prove that a trophy is or is not, a genetically enhanced mutant? What a shame it is that hunting has come to this. The antler craze has driven hunting to a new low.