Doc

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.

So anyway, is there some way we can salvage this thread?

My gosh are you still going it. Relax buddy. You're going to have a stroke or something. I thought you were all set. I already said you could have the last word, and that's always made you a happy Bubba before. My goodness if you say you don't teach your whacked out ideas about blaze orange in your classes, I believe you. You wouldn't lie to us. I don't need to see any copy of your certificates. I'm sure your a good instructor. Here's what you can do. Post one more reply and then you can say that you had the last word again and we'll have a happy Bubba and all will be well in the world again. Doc

You guys really don't think that the occupants of rentals pay the same kinds of taxes (directly or indirectly) that landowners do. I have been on both sides of that situation, and the assessments for rentals do not go according to the actual numbers of occupants or anywhere near it and those properties per occupant are assessed a whole lot lower than single family residents. The landlord is assessed on the value of his building, not on the number of renters he houses. So when you look at who's using and demanding educational and municipal services vs. who is paying for them and how much, it's pretty easy to see who is getting the nearly free ride. Remember, we are talking taxes, so don't confuse the situation by adding in such things as equity and never mind what it costs those people to provide a roof and heat and walls and such. That's all irrelevant to the discussion of taxation. That is a problem or benefit of one's financial planning, not taxation which is what we are talking about here. If you want to see who is paying what in property taxes, you have to look strictly at assessments and how many families are splitting up the tax burden. Here's a simple example of one situation that I looked up. We have a house down the road which is about the same size, design, age, and value as mine. the assessments are within a couple hundred dollars and therefore the tax burden per property is nearly identical. That house has been subdivided and rented and houses two families that have school age kids crawling all over the place. So even if the house owner passes on 100% of his taxes, each of those two families is contributing only half as much to supporting the school and the local government as I am. That is how they are skating on the taxation. And there is nothing unique about this situation. The same principle applies whether it is a two family subdivision, or an official multi-story apartment complex. Nobody is assessed according to the number of occupants. They are assessed on building value. Also I might point outthat the more run down the tenement house is, the sweeter the deal from a taxation standpoint. Doc

How did they ever convince landowners that just because they hold a deed, that is supposed to indicate that you are rolling in dough and can take on the costs of running schools and local governments while those who rent skate out from under that little burden. That must have been some con job. It's just like I've always said, you never really own your land. You simply rent it from the government. And if you don't believe that just try witholding your property taxes some time, or building something without permission from the town zoning board. They have established your ever-increasing rent and still maintain control on what you are allowed to do with your property. That sounds like a government landlord to me. Doc

Actually, Jim Shockey put on a couple of episodes of The Professionals that actually turned the cameras around to chronicle some of the behind-the-scenes effort and activity, and it was quite impressive. And I have no doubt that every episode is a logistical nightmare, and a ton of editing and hours of just plain work. Those thoughts are kind of what Shockey implied when he said that producing hunting shows is not about recreation but is just plain work. More work than anyone not in the business can imagine. He really didn't paint a very enviable picture of the hunting show industry. He convinced me that I wouldn't want anything to do with it. If your videos are truly unique, creative, inventive and contain an episode here and there that gets outside the actual hunt and deals with some of the peripheral activities that are behind the scenes of the hunt, I'll be looking forward to seeing some of them. If they turn out to be simply a rehash of a decade's worth of old deer hunting shows, I'll pass. It's very easy on my end as the consumer. It's been getting very easy to hit the channel selector when I start seeing one of the boring shows begin to fire up....lol. Doc

I can't answer that question. I think it was the dumbest move that they have made in years. and I believe there is already some data that shows that it cost us hunters and fishermen. I don't think they even realize what damage they created because of the rush to buy lifetime licenses just before they began gouging the hunters. But we don't resolve one dumb move by the DEC by piling on with hacking on the harvest opportunities of those who have just endured the license fee larceny. That's kind of the upper-cut and right cross finisher.

Tiresome isn't it? I've learned that Bubba always has to get the last word in, so I simply let him. We do want a happy Bubba ..... right?

Yeah, it does sound like fun. Of course I am your basic cheap-skate, so I always worry about things like that. ;D

I'm curious as to how much scent one goes through with one or two or three of those dripbags. I know that stuff isn't cheap. Is the whole thing really worth doing? Doc

So now you all have a system where you must "hunt hard" to score a harvest. That's good because it satisfies what you need to get out of hunting. At the same time you have forced others to "hunt hard". Even those who don't have the where-with-all to do so. The old guy that simply doesn't have the stamina to "hunt hard" anymore ..... the novice who at a time when he needs the most encouragement may hunt hard but not effectively enough ....... The working man who has to struggle to get a vacation day or two and may be just as willing to "hunt hard" as you do but has to put the priority on earning a living instead. Do you not understand how AR can put undo hardship on people who simply don't have control over how hard they are able to hunt? I submit that in this time of an aging hunter population, and an ecomomy that has downsized its workforce and is favoring mandatory overtime for those that are left, and the absolute requirement that novice hunters be allowed some kind of reinforcement in order to stay in our ranks, AR may be just exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time. In the face of a shrinking hunter force, this is not the time to be throwing serious roadblocks in front of those who have decided to stay. Doc

Crap???? .......... Spew????? ...... baloney????? ;D I thought you were going to work.

Hell hath no fury like a woman dissed. ;D I repeat, "I have no opinion". Tim the Toolman had it exactly right! Doc

In my case, I do value a good set of antlers, but do not obsess over it. As I get older, I have learned that I do not have to eat venison to survive. My livelihood or standard of living is not impacted by whether I get the heaviest rack in the woods. I don't value friends that judge me by my hunting accomplishments. I prefer to hunt as a competition with my prey and not a competition with my fellow hunters. I am never going to be one of those hunter-heroes on TV or even want to be. I prefer not to measure hunting satisfaction in inches. I would rather my hunting become something much more complex than just demanding that my harvest be recognized by some record book organization. I have looked back at what hunting has meant to me, and peer recognition has never been any part of it. I not only hunt deer, but I hunt squirrels, and predators, and that is all hunting too. And you know what, there is no record book agency to satisfy with squirrells or foxes or coyotes. There's no measurement. There's no competition to get the biggest. Why should deer be any different? It is all hunting and all means the same to me, and always turns out to be a much bigger experience than laying a tape measure on some deer's antlers. I think that over all these years that relaxed aspect to my hunting has served me well and kept the whole thing in perspective and made the whole activity fit the true meaning of recreation. Doc