Doc

And yet there are many posts here and on other forums from many members who claim to do exactly that, including myself. That doesn't mean that I am for mandatory AR, but I have no problems with setting my own challenges and goals. I believe that choice is available to anyone and it doesn't require mandatory AR to do it. But if they are going to claim support for the principle, they should at least be making the effort to practice it personally. Otherwise their support loses credibility. Doc

Do you only have the use of this area just for this weekend, or is it for the rest of the season? Tactics will be different if you only have a couple of days to jump in there and hit pay dirt immediately. If you have time, I would suggest devoting at least one morning and evening stand in an upwind location for observation of the fields. This will give you a quick idea of how the fields are being used, and where the points of entry are. I think regardless of what your time frame is, some fast scouting time is going to be required. Otherwise you're just flying blind. If you are there only for the weekend, I would plan on spending the first day with intensive scouting of field edges looking for entrance and exit trails. Then try to follow these trails back into the surrounding cover to try to locate staging areas and/or find potential bedding areas. Somehow you have to establish patterns without the luxury of time and experience. That's a pretty tough assignment to jump into a strange area and make it pay off in one weekend. If you have more time available to you, the job gets a lot easier. Doc

And that basically shows the actual level of dedication to the principle that they really have. They talk themselves into all kinds of stories and reasons and excuses why they can support AR but not actually practice it. The myth that that is all that is available to them is just one of those rationalizations and the folly of that rationalization is proven all over the state every season in non-AR WMUs. So the bulk of these bogus supporters have the best of both worlds. They can make themselves sound like elite hunters among their peers and yet not bother to walk the talk. That's the kind of phoney support that AR has. It's all attitude and no substance. Doc

Ha- ha ..... I am in my hunting area. My home is my hunting camp. Sometimes I envy you guys a bit when you actually have someplace special to do your hunting. But anyway ...... yes, I will continue to be hunting hard this weekend and I hope that sooner or later, I will be rewarded for my stubborness. ;D Doc

The fact is that a lot of people claim to be all for AR until the deer gets in front of them. In other words, the whole idea sounds great to your peer group and is intended to imply that you are some sort of superior hunter, so AR makes a good sounding thing to support. I mean, isn't it great to stick out your chest and proudly proclaim, "I will kill no buck before it's time. That's because ....... drum roll ....... I am a great hunter!" We've been reading a lot of that sort of thing here lately. Unfortunately, there is the reality of harvest data. That's when this "great majority" of high principled AR supporters and self-annointed hunting elitists are forced to expose their true feelings as the crosshairs actually settle on the spikes and fork-horns. Doc

Had a lot of help tonight ....... the deer did, that is. From 4:00 to 5:45, I had a couple of guys small game hunting throughout the area I was hunting (too late for me to move to another area). I say they were small game hunting, but I'm sure that the small game included chipmunks, chickadees and anything else that moved and maybe a few things that didn't. There was no way that any self-respecting deer would enter the obvious combat zone. In fact I was wondering just what the heck I was doing there myself. This is an area that's more than a mile from the road, and requires a long steep climb to get to. Also, just in case any stupid deer was to stumble into the area, the wind was blowing like a hurricane, and circling to the point where I could never really say what direction it was trying to be. Sometimes I just get so damned stubborn, and it never really does do any good. ;D Maybe next time I will recognize a losing situation when I see it and call it quits. Doc

If the polls have any credibility at all, his chances look mighty slim. The bad news of all this is that the Cuomo administration (and other politicians of his ilk) will take the voting results as a mandate for the continuation of liberal policies, and a repudiation of conservatism, and a confirmation that the people of NYS are powerless to control their politicians allowing them to continue to govern accordingly. That's why I will be casting my vote for Paladino. Not because I think he is some miracle-worker who can cure all of NYS's woes, but simply as a protest and to show the Cuomos of this state that not everyone here agrees with the "liberal" state of mind. Doc

If we are still talking about the PPT slide show linked in the original post of this thread, "Antlers outside the ears" is the exact phrase mentioned several times on page 20 of the powerpoint presentation. Perhaps I have missed the context of this comment. Doc

I do not shoot beyond 30 yards. Frankly, I would just as soon not have to even shoot that far. I really like 15 yards Doc

It's not a question of liking or disliking AR. It is this antler spread idea that goes way beyond any sensible practicality. I guess what you are saying is, if a buck is not looking at the hunter, you would force all hunters to simply let it walk. Or they can take a risk that the rack is so big it just has to meet the spread requirement (Too bad if they're wrong). I wonder if you know just how silly all that sounds. And you would actually support a law to that effect. See it's ideas such as that that really give the DEC some credibility for the responsible judgement that they have shown on the AR issue. No wonder they don't take AR seriously if that's the kinds of suggestions they are getting from the proponents. It could be that AR proponents are their own worst enemy. : Doc

Lol ..... So now we have bow hunters calling gun-hunters names and wanting to eliminate some of their season too. I guess that's only fair, usually it is the other way around. I guess that's what hunters do ..... they try to take season days from each other and then make disparaging remarks about each other. "Spoiled fat kid of hunting world"????? It sure is interesting to watch. But maybe we should be a little more careful about who we want to run out and pick fights with. Bowhunters are still in the minority and there sure are a lot of them that would be more than happy to push us out of the deer season. Don't come to a gun fight with a bow ..... lol. ;D That's not the way the saying goes, but it still fits Doc

Pretty much going in a circle here aren't we? You refuse to answer how the law could be applied if the deer isn't looking at you. Is that just another "no-shoot" situation? Or do you make some kind of noise to get him to look straight at you and then after a hurried judgement, snap off a shot quick before he bolts if he's a keeper. That sounds like a real good idea. I will repeat that antler spread ARs are simply not the right way to go for all the reasons that I have laid out and you have ignored. Doc

Are you serious??? Is it brown???? ...... It's down!! ;D Easy now...............just kidding Yes, it's a goofy looking deer, but what character. A mount like that would be likely to draw one of two reactions.... Either awe or laughter. But either way, it certainly would catch people's attention. Doc

Yeah, I suppose there are a lot of meteorological happenings that effect deer movements, And I suppose that a serious hunter might want to make a study of all that stuff. I mean, what the heck we study everything else about deer and their habits, so why not the forces of nature that effect those habits. But the fact is that I have always had a lot of problems with some of the contradictory opinions on a lot of it. A lot of that sort of thing is some pretty dry reading, and then the first time any of it gets tested, the deer do something just the opposite of what is commonly accepted. So, you won't find me studying lunar tables and high and low pressure formations, etc. One thing I do pay attention to is the prediction of heavy rains (like yesterday). That's not based on predicted deer movements, but simply based on what a rain storm will do to a blood trail. Also, as a point of personal comfort, I don't particularly want to get soaked. Also, for obvious reasons, I pay close attention to predicted wind directions, and hope that once in a while the weather people are correct. Also, I pay attention to high wind predictions. That does not mean that I stay home when the wind is blowing, but my confidence level takes a serious hit when the wind is howling. I think that generally I have the same philosophy as others here. I hunt when I can and when I feel like it. Being retired I can put in some serious time, but being retired doesn't mean free from appointments and other activities. So there is no way that I am going to let other scientific theories keep me from hunting when I think the time is right. Doc

Well that's twice that I've spooked him at roughly the same spot. I don't have a lot of confidence that I will get him there. However, I'm sure he has other activities around some of my other stands. So maybe I'll run into him again, or maybe not. I usually only get so many opportunities each year, and I can't afford to be screwing them up like that. But even though I blew it, there is still one heck of a lot of excitement about getting that close and I really enjoyed the experience. Doc

Well, before you continue wandering too far away from what you were originally saying, let me bring it all back in focus. You originally were supporting antler spread as the AR method of choice. I assume that would involve some specific number of inches as a legal minimum, not some feeling or assumption, or guess. I pointed out that it is not a practical method of selection and gave reasons for that and supplied a bunch of pictures that supported that point since in most instances you simply cannot see the spread. So far, you have not told me one way that you are going to get those deer to turn their head toward you so you have a chance of complying with the law. Further, you offered no spread dimensions for the pictures of the bucks I supplied, and of course that is because there is absolutely no way that you could. So much for the practicality of antler spread for a legal standard. All I hear you saying is to make sure the antlers are so big that they can't possibly be under the legal spread. What kind of law is that? Is that how you would have the law written? That doesn't make any sense to hold hunters to a legal standard of something that cannot be seen most of the time. Doc

There is a lot of that "hunting by the numbers" game going around these days. When you talk about competition in hunting, I always consider that competition to be between me and the deer, not between me and other hunters. So for me there is no need or value in keeping score. I'll be honest, I don't have a clue how to score a rack, and most likely I'll never have any need or desire to learn. I don't need a numbers system to evaluate my hunting abilities or to determine my goals and challenges. What the heck, it's not a hockey game ..... lol. Doc

That's an interesting thought. I don't think I have ever seen that specifically written, but if you think about it, the legal definition of what can be used for deer hunting is defined (is a field tip specifically defined to be illegal for deer hunting?). Since it wouldn't be too hard to prove that you are out "deer hunting", I think you might be able to make a case for it being illegal to possess an arrow that cannot legally be used to hunt deer. That is assuming that field tips are identified as illegal for deer hunting. It certainly is something that's worth looking into if you are going to carry something like that on your deer hunting trips. Another thought too, is that since turkey season overlaps deer season, you might be tempted to include some of these special turkey broadheads on some of your arrows. That's another thing that should be looked at for legality, just to make sure. Doc

screwed up again last night. The night before last when I was coming down the hill, I jumped a nice buck about half-way down the hill. On the way up, I spotted 1 scrape along the quad-trail at this location, and after seeing this buck I noticed another two. Looked like the spot had possibilities. I hunted another spot yesterday morning, but decided to move in on this guy in the afternoon. I have no stands there, so I left a bit early and walked up the hill to look for a strategically placed fat tree big enough to set-up behind. Here's the problem: I had no idea where this guy comes from and really didn't know which way to expect him to come in. No tracks, no trails, no nothin'. So, I backed off up-wind to a point where I could see the whole area and figured I would just use the spot that I picked for an observation stand to try to get an idea of what his routine might be for future hunts. I was treating the whole thing a bit too casually, and I tipped my bow up against the tree, and sat back and enjoyed the great day. 5:00, he comes running in. Well maybe it was trot. Anyway, I was caught cold right in plain sight. The first I saw him he was already only about 50 yards away. Naturally I was on the wrong side of the tree. But what the heck this was only an observation situation anyway and I really didn't expect to be doing any shooting. That was a bad mistake. He turned and trotted right straight at me. At about 15 yards he made a turn and stopped broadside, posing for me and he still didn't notice me sitting there right in plain sight. He took a little glance in the other direction, and I took the break to reach for my bow. When I did that, my release dangling from my wrist ticked the bow limb. That was it ..... game over. He was gone. Just a total fiasco! Well, we'll wait a week or so and test out that theory about a deer's memory that we talked about on a different thread. ;D Doc

One thing of interest on that presentation that was linked at the bottom of the original post was on page 22 there was a map of wild boar sightings in NYS. It appears that every county along our border with PA has sightings. Does that mean that PA is infested with them? Judging from all the sightings in NY, it appears that they are here already, and perhaps in breeding populations. Maybe it is not just a theoretical problem anymore, buy a reality. Doc

I could've sworn I read that somewhere too, but I just re-read the book twice and can't find it anywhwere. I've never done drugs and I quit drinkin' so I guess it's just old age kicking in. ;D In NYS it is not just baiting that is illegal, but feeding deer as well. So the 30 day thing wouldn't make sense. However, I have read posts on other forums that talk about restrictions in other states that have that 30 day rule. That is probably where you heard it. Doc

Our local deer population is large enough to warrant doe harvests. I have no problem with that. Depending on your confidence in the DEC, you might assume that if permits are available, the herd locally must need some decrease in numbers. I generally use a blend of what the DEC is saying and what I am actually seeing in order to determine whether I want to fill my antlerless tags or not. That decision has not always been the same from one year to the next. What really doesn't make sense is for people to complain about deer scarcity and then try to max out their antlerless tags. The opposite is also true. It's pretty silly to complain about a perceived over-population situation and then refuse to shoot does. Doc

I have seen some definite chasing activity already from at least one of the bucks, so I'm sure some of the increased car/deer collisions are coming from that activity. Doc

Well, I sure couldn't complain about the wind this morning. It was dead quiet, and it did pay off with a lot of action. I had some goofy little 6 point pushing does all around my ground stand. I had him within 15 yards, but when I say he was a 6 point, I mean a nicely shaped but teeny, almost silly-looking, rack. He was a real small body sized deer too. Just as I decided not to shoot him, the does formed a nice circle around my blind, but I couldn't draw or move because I always had a couple of them that would have seen me if I had moved. They aren't supposed to circle the hunter, so naturally I had no cover on the back-side of the blind. It kind of left me in a bad situation and unable to do anything. In all the years, I don't think I have ever had that happen before. All told there were 8 deer (7 does and the one buck). I don't know why they never got my wind. But it sure was exciting for a few minutes until the little buck finally chased all of the does away. All that up-close-and-personal activity and I never got to shoot. I also had a little episode earlier with 4 raccoons that came waddling through the woods and headed straight for the tree that my stand is constructed around. I had to step out and spook them off before I wound up with them in my lap. All in all, it was a great morning and once I finish lunch, I'll be heading back out for the afternoon. I want to check another chunk of the hill and then take up a stand about 3:00. Doc

Then why on earth should they just open their land to all who think they are the savior, when in fact it will have little to no effect beyond what they are doing? ??? ??? ??? ? What in the devil are you arguing about? do you just argue to see your words in print? For crying out loud what is so amazingly controversial about saying that it is in the best interest of farmers to enlist whatever help they can find to eradicate an environmental disaster before it gets a toe-hold. I honestly don't understand what it is that has your shorts in such a bunch about what I am saying. You seem to be awfully up-tight on the subject. Maybe I missed something along the way, but your reaction seems to be way out of proportion. Could you clarify the big attitude that you have adopted on this topic? Doc