Doc

Looks like there is quite a difference in what it takes to manage wildlife from on state to another.

"BOOGIE, BOOGIE, BOOGIE!"? ;D I love it!!

Isn't it also an antiseptic of sorts? Might not be a bad idea to use it on your hands after rooting around in a bloody body cavity.

Interesting comment about the Elites. Aren't they made in the area? That would be interesting to find out why they dropped the product. Would it make any sense to try to duplicate the bow you have now (as closely a possible) since it's primary purpose is to be used as back-up? Doc

Over the years, I have run into plenty of antihunters. I'm not sure that I would call them my friends. Aquaintances maybe, but friends ..... probably not. Most of those people have very little in common with anything I'm interested in.

My Gosh!!! Now I see the lion (in the top picture, right over the bears shoulder where you said they saw it). What a weird picture! ;D

For those that are unaware of the significance of the problem of hunters not wearing B/O, I found the following: Data collected for NYS between 1989 and 1995 Reason for accident: Mistaken for game 5% wore B/O 94% did not 1% unknown Reason for accident: Out of sight 37% wore B/O 58% did not 5% unknown Reason for accident: In Line of Fire 30% wore B/O 62% did not 8% unknown Reason for accident: Unintentional Discharge 28% wore B/O 69% did not 3% unknown Reason for accident: Struck by Rcochet 35% wore B/O 62% did not 3% unknown Reason for accident: Other/Unknown 44% wore B/O 66% did not 0% unknown Total of all reasons 24% wore B/O 73% did not 3% unknown Is blaze orange a cure-all? ...... Obviously no. Does it prevent many accidents? ....... The numbers say yes. Source: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00044112.htm Doc

Understand that all these things that you do are good things but not practiced by everyone in the woods. I have personally seen at least three people dressed in full camo (including face paint) on a very heavily pressured piece of state land, on opening day. I never saw two of them until they waved. So I know that people are out there tempting fate. Further, the records shown in the links that I posted on the other thread show that deer hunting accidents involving camoflaged hunters are actually quite frequent. So it is not like there is nobody that doesn't follow common sense like you do. So the question is do we feel that in matters of safety, we should just take care of ourselves and the heck with those that want to play games with their lives. As I stated before, if their lives were truly the only ones affected, a cynical person might say they get what they deserve, good for them. I guess I'm not built that way, and also I do understand that they are not the only victims, as I have already explained. I think that the damage that they do to their families and the potential taxpayer impacts due to their stubborness does create additional innocent victims. I also believe that this kind of collateral damage should not be acceptable. It's pretty easy to turn our backs on hard headed people who for whatever reason are not capable of taking responsible actions or making responsible decisions when it comes to safety, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's the right thing to do. Sometimes you have to think of the "secondary victims" and try to offer them some protections as well. I realize that not everyone agrees with all that, but that is my honest opinion, and it is the prime driver behind my support of a blaze orange law. Doc

Every year, I drag that old shoulder-muncher out just before the deer season an put 3 rounds through it at 75 yards just to make sure that the scope has not been bumped or otherwise moved. Almost everytime, there is no more need for beating myself up. But over the years, there has been a couple of times where it wasn't shooting quite where I wanted it to. That's not a real happy thing, and then the abuse begins. Isn't it weird that when a deer is in front of you, you never seem to feel any recoil at all, But off the bench, that 12 guage can bruise up a shoulder something awful ..... lol. And heaven help you if you develop a flinch because of it. You could wind up shooting a jillion slugs just trying to get a group that means something. Doc

And the obvious question would be ...... why not?

Well, it fooled me too. That sure does look like the wall and roof-line of a barn or something. I can sure understand why it would make people think it was a building. Do you see what I am talking about in the picture? What the heck do you think that might be?

It certainly would be a good aid to have along, but a lot of blood trails that were trying to give me fits had long distances between blood, due to bounding I guess. Also, the point where it really gets tough is when the deer starts to get a bit tricky and makes a sharp turn. Either one of these conditions could have you spraying an awful lot of woods before you found the precise spot where the blood dropped, especially when the deer refuse to go in a straight line. However, given your situation, the old hydrogen peroxide is better than nothing. I might start packing it myself. Doc

That's not something you want to have happen during season. I sounds like a spare string packaged up and stuck in the drawer might not be a bad thing to have on hand. Of course, a spare bow is even better ..... lol.

That looks like a big one. Whats that in the background? it looks like a building of some sort. If so, that's interesting that a bear would be that close to a building in the broad daylight. Doc

See, I really don't believe that is a true statement. Nobody lives in a vacuum. First of all, most hunters have families that depend on them for food and shelter. So right away, such an irresponsible approach to hunting safety has a likelyhood of putting a family in destitute situation, sometimes temporarily, sometimes the effect becomes permanent. If the situation is severe enough, the burden of the family can be turned over to the taxpayer. Besides the family, there are friends that are impacted. Also, the shooter is impacted. Yes most of the time their carelessness contributed to the accident, but as far as I'm concerned some guy sneaking around in the bushes in camo during a gun season certainly bears part of the responsibility for the shooting. You've heard of suicide by cop? Well running around the woods in camo as I have personally witnessed several times is tantamount to "suicide by hunter". And of course there is the situation where death does not occur but rather results in catastrophic wounding or a prolonged death in which the family exhausts all of their insurance money and whatever resources they may have and are left destitute, in which case again it is the taxpayer once again to the rescue. So anyone who thinks that there is only one victim in hunting accidents is not seeing the entire picture of the residue of such accidents. No, blaze orange is not a cure-all, but the statistics linked on the other B/O thread show without a doubt that B/O does save lives during firearms deer seasons in states that have the common sense to make it mandatory. There is no such data or even logic that says that the same effect of B/O would be expected in any other hunting season. Doc

Is the actual boundary on the southern end of the Northern Zone actually the park boundary?

So the hydogen peroxide is just to verify that the red material that you can see is or isn't blood ..... right? You would not be just randomly spraying along the trail and looking for the bubbles ..... right? Actually it is good that you can see red as red even though you cannot distiguish between shades of red. At least that is something. I can see colors ok, but I have been in conditions where a blood trail runs through certain maple leaves that are yellow with blood-red spots on them. That drives me crazy. The color of those spots is exactly the same as the blood that I'm looking for, and they are everywhere. The trick there was to pick up the few that really look convincing and rub the red spots with a finger. If it's blood it will wipe off. If it isn't it wont. What a pain!! Doc

That seems like it has been an awful long time. How long did it take for you to get that? Doc

Relative to the "greed" comment, I believe there may be some of that, but much of what is mistaken for greed is merely hunters trying to maintain some form of absolute control over their hunting as they are being instructed to do by every magazine article, hunting TV show and video and every self-proclaimed "expert" in hunting that is out there making their living by conducting seminars. This is one of the changes that I asked about earlier that I have noticed over the past 30 years or so. We have been told that there are certain things that we must do in order to be hunters today. No true hunter can survive without some sort of food plotting activity. There are certain deer harvest requirements that must be followed in order to be a true hunter and foster the growth of the required amount of bone on a deer's head. There are all kinds of new techniques that must be used in order to be a true hunter which require a herd that is not constantly disturbe by other hunters. And all these things require strict control on our own lands (limited hunting access). I suppose some might call this greed, but I believe it is just a reaction to what we have been sold over the last few decades as the absolute standards and behaviors required to be a good hunter. That's not greed, it's just following the trends of hunting. Unfortunately, a lot of these modern hunting principles, activities and techniques require exclusive use of large parcels of land and exclusion of a lot of hunters who used to freely use those same acres. It all may look like greed, but it's merely the way hunting has evolved. It's not something that is going to go away and in fact I expect it all to intensify. When I saw the high fences and signs going up around a few hundred (or was that thousand?) acres over in Honeoye, I didn't see this as greed. It's simply what hunting is becoming. When I saw the 300 acres up on the hill being posted by a "corporation" to be used as member only hunting, I knew that was simply a sign of the times. When I read about the money being laid out for leases, I realize that that is just what hunters have been told is necessary to hunt. That all is not greed. It's just merely following instructions and doing what we have been told is the proper way to be true hunters by the "experts". Doc

Well, people hunt for a lot of reasons and meat is just one of them. Actually, when you think about it, it is really none of our business why or what they hunt. It is just our business that we don't do things that will discourage them from hunting. If somebody thinks they are getting cheap, healthy, meat by hunting, far be it for me to try to change their minds about that. Besides, I do know some people that I believe do financially make out from their deer hunting. I know we always think of hunting expenses based on what we lay out each year to hunt. But I do know people who virtually buy nothing but their licenses each year. Given the number of deer that they can legally harvest, they don't have a very big annual meat budget.

Sounds like fun, Bill. I really haven't tried early morning practice sessions. Sounds like something I should do. Doc

You are trying to change the subject away from taxation again. I never said that renting is a good financial choice. We started out talking property tax. I am still talking property tax. I don't know where you are trying to steer the conversation, but I keep trying to keep it on point. I think I already said that it is likely because of the additional equipment and fixtures required internally that there would be more value and therefore a partially higher assessment on multi-family buildings. Other than that, assessments are reflective of residence value. In other words, assessments represent the theoretical market value of the property . I think if you go down to your town hall and check, you will rarely (probably never) find a rental property that truly reflects the number of families (assessments are all public info) when compared to single family residences. In other words, you will not find that two family dwelling is automatically assessed or taxed at twice the rate as a comparable single family residence. That means that residents of the multi-family buildings are not paying as much taxes as a single house owner. Am I not being clear on all this because a lot of what I am explaining is repeated from a prior post. I hope I am not stepping on anybody's feelings here because I realize that a lot of members are probably renters. That's certainly not my intent. This line of conversation is not meant as a personal slam toward anyone simply because they rent. I'm simply explaining an inequity in taxation that I believe could be remedied. I know that back when property tax was imposed, the assumption and probably the reality was that the landed people were the ones that represented the monied people and therefore it was decided that they were the ones in the best position to pay for public services. Unfortunately that is not the case anymore, and there is no correlation between home ownership and wealth as I pointed out before. In fact I know and, know of, some very wealthy people who have chosen the rental route for various reasons. Unfortunately, the philosophy for taxation never was updated to reflect the realities of today. Oh, by the way I just spotted a question where you asked why I don't rent. There are several reasons. The actual reason has nothing to do with finances. I simply enjoy privacy and elbow room. Actually there is one financial reason. The place is payed for and other than maintenance which is considerable, and of course the taxes, our housing is paid for. There is some question I suppose whether all that really is a financial advantage over renting when you add up the normal annual maintenance of the property and the equipment to do so, as well as the occasional major repairs and replacements that come along with a set of buildings that are now over 40 years old. Frankly, I never have gone through the analysis. The fact is that I could probably put the equity from selling the house into the markets and pay off rents for quite a few years as well as dispense with all the maintenance issues. It's quite possible that I might discover that renting might be a prudent financial choice if only I could stand to be all that close to neighbors. Which I can't. ;D I can hardly imagine it, but you never know. Perhaps the taxes will drive me out of my house too. Doc

You're probably right in that the interior facilities have to be duplicated for each family. I'm not familiar with what the interior furnishings are like, but I am sure that even with the additional fixtures and utilities, The assessment would never be twice what mine is. And, in fact rightly or wrongly the assessment is nearly the same as mine and yet there are two families residing there theoretically using government and educational services at twice the rate that I am but only paying half of what I am paying in tax money. In my opinion, those services just like any government services should be funded through income taxes. In that way the bill is sized according to your real ability to pay. I personally know of several people who happen to own land and are constantly scrambling to keep from losing it to tax forclosures because the fact that they own property has nothing to do with their financial state. They are people who accumulated property throughout their lives, but then retired to a fixed income only to be so unfortunate as to have lived far longer than their retirement incomes could accomodate as time and inflation has hacked away at their income. Taxes continue to rise as everything does and puts them in the position of risking the loss of their homes at a time in their lives when they are incapable of recovering. If we were on a system that relied strictly on income to determine tax burden, these people would be in a much better position to live out their lives without the constant threat of forclosure. By the way, there is another benefit to having everything based on income taxes. Once every year we would be getting that one huge tax bill all rolled up into one document and it would serve as giant reminder of just what ALL of our tax burden looks like ..... all at one time. That might just be a sobering realization to voters that might propel them to actually try to do something to control the various levels of tax and spend local, state and federal governments. Well anyway, that's my rant for tonite. Certainly the system will never change. But it is something worth thinking about once in a while. Note: relative to your follow-up question about the legality of subdividing a house for rental units, the answer is yes, it is done all the time. In fact our old house where I grew up was a big old 13 room farmhouse which the new owners subdivided into 5 apartment units. I don't think that even involved a zoning variance. So yes it's a perfectly legal thing to do. Doc

The Owner pays his taxes according to his assessment just like everyone else. I'm assuming he proportions that tax bill between the two families. So each of the families are only paying 1/2 of the tax owed on the property while my one family is paying 100% of the taxes owed on a similar property even though they each are using the same services that I do (and more).

No we are taxed according to the assessed valuation of the deeded property regardless of use. The only alternatives to that that I am aware of is farm land in agricultural districts and there they alter the rate per $1000 of assessment.