Doc

Well, everything is hung up or put back on the shelves for another year. Now it's time for revenge with the thunder-pole. Just finished checking out the Ithaca ....... awesome!!! That poor old gun is going on it's 41st year and has paid for itself many times over with many pounds of venison and a whole bunch of hours of flawless operation, and deadly accuracy. I'm ready. Stand is ready for tomorrow and most of the stuff is packed and ready for action. I got a nice shiny new blaze orange hunting coat that does a good job of absorbing most of that 12 guage punch. Not only that, but boy am I orange ..... lol. Life is good. I don't do the late archery season so now that bowhunting is put away it will stay put away. I probably will dig out the stuff beginning in January and do some 15 yard shots in the basement just to bust through the winter blahs a bit. I might dig out my old tournament stuff and see what I can do with that these days. Doc

I think it is probably a good accurate thought to assume that sportsmen and women in general are not joiners or activists or have any particular interest in the politics of hunting, fishing and trapping. It takes something quite radical to get a rise out of the sporting community. Most of the issues don't rise to that level of actual concern. As far as the DEC layoffs and other cost cutting measures, I don't believe the DEC is the actual driving force behind those actions. Their actions are the results, not the cause. Check out the state politicians if you are looking to assign blame for resource changes in the DEC. Doc

Just out of curiosity, what do you all consider a mature deer? ....2-1/2 years old? ......3-1/2 years old? ....... older? .... sway-backed and toothless .... lol? Seriously, how is that term, "mature" defined when it comes to deer? Is there any unanimous or authoritative opinion on that? Doc

I think I would. I can't think of any reason not to.

Lol.... I don't think I have ever heard anyone trying to make the case that the accident rate in bowhunting is any where near as significant as the gun hunting rates. You have a tough argument to push there. I guess the reason that I have never heard that argument made before is that there is no realistic comparison. About the worst thing in bowhunting is self-inflicted wounds and that is not a B/O topic. You can try, but I don't think you are going to have a whole lot of success convincing anyone on that one..... .

You must have missed it, but I am a gun hunter. I do wear B/O. This is not some law that effects everyone but me. As far as the examples, it does point up the fact that the actual number of incidents involving archery equipment are basically insignificant. If the best you could find was a half dozen incidents from the entire country, I would say that that shows just what a rare occurrence that really is. Also, unless I missed it none of the examples are from NYS. I am not supporting a national law. One of the reports that I linked had to do strictly with NYS stats and as you should expect, the numbers are are not merely a few incidents. The data is quite on target and focused only on the area that would be affected and is of a significant volume as to be not easily ignored or down-played. In other words, it has not been shown that there is any correlation between archery accidents in NYS and the use of blaze orange. Clearly not so with the gun data that you must have read by now.

Yes, we can, but as a group we are not. The direction of hunting is set and nothing we do can change that. In fact we are accelerating all the techno-hunting and all the accompanying attitudes and activities and apparently loving it. The older generation has lost control of the sport as we eventually should. It will become what it will become regardless of what our individual choices turn out to be. It's all much bigger than the individual, and at some point we have to let it go to be guided by the younger sportsmen to shape as they want. We can try to describe "the good ol' days". Nobody may want to listen .... lol. But it's always nice to occasionally put it all in perspective and context even if it's only for our own purposes and even if we re the only ones that appreciate it.

Unfortunately the problem doesn't fit in a nut shell. A good bunch of the pages of this thread are devoted to examples and common sense explanations of how other people are impacted by poor safety choices of individuals. We have countless examples of laws on the books that are safety based and I (and most other reasonable people) feel are absolutely justified. The one that explains it the best is the safety belt law. My wife owes her life to that law. She, like the overwhelming percentage of the population at the time would not have been wearing that belt the day she got into a head-on crash. But because of the law she was obligated to do so. The fact that she did, kept her from being ejected through the windsheild. Now, she did not go off campaigning that her civil rights were being violated nor did she organize any armed insurrection to free her from the bonds of tyranny (and the seat belt). She along with many others in the years since that law was passed, thanked their lucky stars that someone had the forsight to mandate the presence and the use of that piece of safety equipment. Blaze orange is no different, and I really don't expect that anyone will be moved to armed insurrection because someone mandated that they use that piece of safety equipment. Look, I don't expect everyone to agree with my position. However, think that the stats are clear. I think that law has merit and should be passed. I guess you think it some kind of civil rights infringement. I frankly reserve that argument for things of significance that really deserve that classification, but you certainly are free to call it whatever you want. So we most likely are not going to ever agree. But the fact that we don't agree is not going to stop me from speaking out in favor of such a law, and that is what I have consistantly done throughout this thread. Doc

I don't know. I never heard of it happening. Well, wait a minute. I do remember seeing some gross picture of a kid with an arrow sticking out of his head but I don't think that had anything to do with hunting. I suppose anything is possible and like I said, if I can be shown statistics where the lack of B/O is a demonstrated safety problem in bow season, especially if it is anywhere near the gun stats shown in those three articles that I linked, I would have no problem with extending it into any season that shows a need for it. By the way, when you read those articles, take particular note of the little chart that is at the bottom of one of them that shows what the authorities determined were contributing causes for the shooting incidents. You'll find that the major one was mistaking the hunter for game. That's a real tough one to imagine when you're dealing with a bow. In fact most of those categories would be hard to imagine being a cause in an archery scenario. As you read down through those , try to substitute an arrow for the bullet and then apply some common sense and you will come to the same conclusion that I have. The choice of weapon definitely makes a difference as to whether B/O would have any impact on the results. I think that is why no one is seriously talking about any requirements of B/O for bowhunting.

Oh man ...... Now you're talking!!!! Yeah - really .... shouldn't be talking food at this time of night. I'll be out there in the kitchen pretty soon frying up some eggs. ;D

I remember one time when I packed just a 5-pack of slugs. That sure is plenty .... right? Well, surprise - surprise when I got to my stand and went to load the shotgun, guess what apparently slipped out of my pocket. Yep! that's right. Nice gun ..... no slugs. An hour of opening morning was spent back-tracking looking for the box of slugs. Now I always empty out one 5-pack into the slug-holder loops in my vest and then throw in an extra box into the pocket just in case something wacky like that happens again. There are other cases that I have heard of where the hunter made a not-so-good shot (it does happen occasionally even to the best of us ..... lol) and had to take some extra shots along the blood-trail. Things happen. Better to be prepared. Theoretically we only need one slug, but I don't know anybody that only goes out with just one . Doc

Here's the good news about gun season opening day. The deer have no choice regarding being picky about whether they will move in the wind or not. Once they get that first half-day shock of the invasion of the orange-coats, they begin to figure it all out. Of course at that point they all seem to disappear - wind or no wind .... lol. But opening day of gun season,as long as you get a good hunter turnout, the weather shouldn't have any impact. I was thinking about bow season when I wrote my reply. During bow season, I hate windy days. Gun season ..... not so much. In fact a little wind can be a good thing for gun season. Doc

If you can show me statistics where lack of B/O is a demonstrated safety problem in bow season, I'll go along with that. I am not for passing laws that have no purpose. Doc

Hunting sure has changed since the days when I started. As has been mentioned already, herd sizes have grown, equipment has improved, hunter comfort has improved, and hunter success has improved. How could those days so many years ago be considered "the good ol' days"? Well, there are some things that have not improved. Attitudes surrounding hunting have changed in ways that are not necessarily improvements in my eyes. When I was in high school, opening day of gun season was an unofficial holiday at school that was taken advantage of by the majority of boys of deer-hunting age (don't ask - don't tell). Imagine that happening today. Hunter safety classes were conducted in the school's bus garage. Imagine that! Hunting adventures were open topics everywhere that most people were truly interested in. I can't recall an anti-hunter anywhere back then. In fact even non hunters weren't all that plentiful in rural settings. Hunting was considered an honorable activity and not something that the general society looked down their noses at as they do today. Those were the things that made those the "good ol' days". The family gatherings that revolved around hunting ..... The story telling about hunting that friends and family members actually enthusiastically participated in .... the whole atmosphere that surrounded hunting was very different than what it is today. Yes there are still little pockets of that existing today, but it has become a rare situation rather than the normal way that hunting is viewed. Instead of the youngsters hovering around trying to hear all the little tidbits of hunting talk that the adults were conversing about, today the kids all take off to some rec-room to play with their latest electronic do-dad. It's just not the same. There are other things that are evolving in hunting and one of those is the personal attitudes toward hunting. Today hunting involves competition between hunters with scoring systems to keep track of the winners. Hunting achievement has been reduced to numbers and measurements. Money and big business has crept into hunting in a way that de-personalized the activity to a point where many hunters look for ways to buy success. Hunting success seems to come to those who can devote the most money to their sport. I could be wrong, but I don't see that as positive change. Today we idolize TV hunting stars who have learned that there is money to be made in hunting reality and simulations. Hunters now watch their hunter-heroes and develop outrageous expectations and then demand that those expectations be realized. I guess back when I was first introduced to hunting we kind of accepted the activity of hunting the way it was presented by nature, and we simply went out and did it. We didn't try to create any sort of pressure or expectations. We weren't out to set records. We weren't out to turn hunting into some kind of farming operation or genetic experimentation. The only science involved was whatever was observed or passed down from other generations. Hunting was relaxing and accepted as just something that was natural and easy-going rather than forced and demanding. Perhaps that was the key to it's lasting appeal from generation to generation in the past, and perhaps changing all that is part of hunting's undoing that we see hints of today. Time will tell. So I think that in spite of those physical things that we find are better about hunting today, when I hear somebody talk about the "good ol' days" of hunting, I know exactly what they are talking about. I've seen the changes. Personally, I liked it the way it was, but then that's just me. Actually, as more and more of us old-timers make way for the next generations of hunters, the actual date of "The Good ol' Days" will continue to shift one generation at a time. And each hunter will decide what were their individual "good Ol' Days" for themselves. I'll bet that's the way it has gone for many years. Doc

Yeah, I would guess that is about the same number as I carry. I like the idea of having way more that I could ever need. I definitely never want it to be the other way around. They don't weigh that much. Doc

At this date, I am going to assume you are talking about gun season. The land that I hunt receives a fair amount of pressure and I don't believe that all the calls and other attractant types of techniques work at all on bucks or does. So I guess once the orange army invades the woods, I don't have any specific differences in techniques. My chief tactic is to simply find the deer (buck or doe) and hope that what I see first is a buck. Doc

I hope I don't gross anybody out, but I have kind of grown partial to cold fried egg sandwiches about 8:00 or 9:00 on opening morning (it's an aquired taste .... lol). I'll bet there aren't too many people that could really get into that, but I usually have a few of them to munch on. Also, a thermos of coffee gets a pretty good work-out. Doc

Opening day, I will become a stationary part of the woods for the whole day. After that I will be using a special kind of still hunting technique that utilizes a combination of a super-slow-w-w-w still hunting pace with a lot of glassing of every stick and log, mixed in with 10 or 15 minute stands. It takes forever to get anywhere, but I have targeted areas to go through that really aren't all that big. There are a lot of places where I can almost guarantee that there will be some deer. It's all a question of moving through these places in a way that can't be detected. Doc

Most of what I saw there was totally inconclusive. There is no real concrete concensus, and I now understand why the DEC wants to see some sort of super-majority before acting on any of this. There really is no serious commitment on the part of the hunting community. A simple 1 or 2 point majority really doesn't cut it and probably is within the margin of error of the poll. By the way, I was not asked to participate in this survey, and I am still waiting to hear from even one individual who was. It does make you wonder when you see all these surveys and studies and have never met anyone who has ever taken part in one. Doc

Mix a little rain in with that high wind, and my strategy is to find something else to do that day....lol. The last couple of days, we have had some wind that would require a bowhunter to be adept at hitting some pretty fast moving targets. Trying to shoot a deer that is being blown across in front of me is not something that I have had a lot of practice at. That end-over-end gait makes it a bit hard to hit the kill zone. No, seriously, I have never had any luck in high winds. Seldom do I see any deer that are willing to put up with those kinds of conditions. They usually are hunkered down in pretty tight areas and not willing to move. And the few that I have seen have been sneaking around in a spring-loaded condition studying everything and not giving much of a break. Those kind of days have always been very low percentage days that I found are better used doing something that is more productive. Doc

There were links posted earlier on this thread (page 15) for those that are interested in the facts of the argument. These articles and studies show that without a question blaze orange saves lives in a whole bunch of states and has the potential to save more in states that have yet to see the wisdom of such a requirement. There are also stats about the percentages of hunting incidents and the correlation to wearing blaze orange. There also is a chart that breaks down the contributing reasons for hunting accidents which shows a strong visual correlation. Those that didn't read these items of research should now go back and do so. Don't try to guess at the stats or make up what you think or wish that the stats show. Read and learn, then discuss from an educated position. The work has been done for you. Here are some links that I found: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00044112.htm http://www.dfw.state.or.us/resources/hunting/safety/docs/Hunting_Associated_Injuries_and_Wearing_Hunter_Orange_Clothing.pdf http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:3MRuEfjx3l0J:www.dfw.state.or.us/resources/hunting/safety/hunter_orange.asp+Reasons+for+mandatory+blaze+orange+while+hunting&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us I would be willing to read any credible opposing articles that anyone can point me to. I haven't found any yet. As far as the arguments that a B/O law is going to shake the very foundation of democracy I think I would like to reserve that particular argument for laws that really threaten to do that and not cheapen it by trying to apply it to such insignificant things as a B/O regulation. Doc

I think you might be surprised just how many people are out there with those same exact sentiments. I've heard it quite a few times before. Silly people!!! They are absolutely living in their own little world of fantasy. Doc

OK ...... now it makes sense ...... thanks.

Huh???? What does that mean?

Wouldn't it be an ugly situation to miss the buck of a lifetime and then find out that the sights had inadvertantly been bumped. I would have a hard time forgiving myself .... lol. Doc