Doc

For gosh sakes, don't homeowners have any rights to an expectation of privacy? What do you all want to do set up a stand where you can look into their living room 9or worse). Good grief. maybe you want to sit on their porch and wait for the deer to come out in their yard. Doc

There have been a lot of great experiences that rank right up there, but the most exciting has to be the time a huge doe broke off the trail I was watching and came straight over to the big oak I was standing behind. I mean, she was right on the other side, walking around the tree. I kept circling the tree trying not to let her catch up with me. finally she came to the folding stool that I had been sitting on and the pack that I left behind when this dance started. She bolted off about 5 yards and stopped. I was already at full draw, so I just let the arrow go. I got her. Boy was I hyped up. It's a wonder I even made the shot, I was shaking so bad. Doc

Aha!! There you go .... maybe one of them was the guide. Maybe the guide is the one who actually set the bait out ..... maybe. Ok, Uncle Ted is exhonerated. He probably didn't even know there was any bait there. Maybe. Anybody believe that one?

Well, that's no fun! Maybe you just have to be real careful. ;D

If the guide knew what was going on, he should be charged as well. I don't know whether their state law accomodates that, but I see him as an accomplice...... If he was aware. Of course, after he drops a client off at the stand, he really doesn't know who is doing what. It's really not clear who was baiting the site, but I'll bet that the guide probably kept the site baited for his clients. Bait usually is a habitual thing for it to be effective ...... right? Doc

Actually, from an archery standpoint it's nice to be able to shoot right next to houses. It comes in real handy when that deer refuses to move out from behind that big rose-of-sharon bush.You can bank the shot off the house and get him that way. ;D

Sorry smiley, I didn't mean to point out the obvious. Your just such a happy little agreeable fellow all the time ....... lol.

I don't know all the details of Rothaar's situation. I only know that he was caught in an illegal act, convicted of that, and poof..... we don't hear of him anymore. I'm sure that we will hear all kinds of justifications of Nugents legal woes, in fact we already have heard some. But as far as I am concerned his public status probably has more to do with the origin of his illegal acts than any kind of justifications. These guys that turn their passions for hunting into their income, do walk a different path, and their extra scrutiny and tighter requirements for legal purity are generally justified because they are the ones that put a public face to hunting and warranted or not, they do become ambassadors for the sport and the people in it. As far as Nugent's guitar playing capabilities, he may be very good at what he does. I simply don't like what he does ..... ;D . His era signalled the end of rock and roll for me. I do not recall hearing anything about him prior to R&R taking a turn toward that shrieky, screaming, acid rock, crap, so I have no fond memories of him at a better time. And of course that is all just personal preference, but I mention all that by way of explaining that he holds no star or celebrity status with me. So I repeat: You caught him ...... Now fry him. Just like anybody else. Doc

My-my ..... getting a bit testy aren't we? Starting to resort to the old name-calling trick again, I see. It's almost guaranteed on these crossbow topics. I always try to figure out just how many responses will go by before all civility is lost. We did pretty good on this one. ;D

Sometimes it happens ..... lol. I'll try not to make a habit out of it. ;D Doc

I just heard on the TV that pork prices are up and going higher ..... Faster than other kinds of meat. Sounds like it might make some sense to forget about these little outfits here in the northeast and head for the deep south with a good sized trailer, and fill it up with some of the hogs they have running all over the place down there. might even be able to sell some of that meat back here and re-coup your costs ..... lol. Is that legal??? Doc

I have to laugh at some of these replies, because I simply can't relate to Nugent's hero status at all. It was exactly his style of music that drove me to begin listening to country music ..... lol. That chaotic screaming and shrieking with squealing notes that were never intended to come out of a guitar left me completely out of the rock scene for quite a few years. So the man has no celebrity status with me. For me this story is just about another lawbreaking poacher that happens to have hunting shows, which also aren't all that special or entertaining for me. No real controversy to any of it for me. You caught him.....now fry him. ;D End of story! Doc

It's quite a complex web of rules and regulations, but I believe it all makes sense. I'm supposing that the purpose for the "no feeding" law is aimed specifically at activities that promote "swapping spit" or other ways that deer standing in or around a pile of food my ingest wastes from each other, which of course is all aimed at major methods of disease dispersal. I'm not sure why that is so confusing to anyone. It seems logical to me that it might be unhealthy to draw animals into one exact point to eat and deposit saliva, and body wastes on the food that the next individual will be eating. Now, unless you have a food plot that is measured in a few square feet, there is no comparison at all to a pile of food or a trough full of food, or a mineral block. What is so hard to figure out about that? As far as natural occurring concentrations of food (apples, acorns, etc.), there's not a whole lot the DEC can do about that, is there? However, compounding a bad situation by allowing thousands of landownwers and homeowners to create more of an unhealthy situation doesn't make a lot of sense either. So, I'm guessing that this particular law has a whole lot more thought and common sense behind it than people are willing to give the DEC credit for. Doc

Well, here's the thing. Nugent is not the first of the hunter-heroes to break the law in a frantic effort to be able to make deadlines with successful hunting footage or articles. Remember Roger Rothaar and Noel Feather and many more. None of them should be excused, and they are just as rightfully scorned as any poacher should be. Those before Nugent have been driven off to obscurity for their crimes. Will Nugent? Time will tell.

I guess I never thought of it that way .... lol. Nature, supposedly the time perfected and evolved form of game management functions exactly opposite of QDM. Interesting observation. Doc

I'm not sure I buy into the argument that if blaze orange is made mandatory, everything that not orange is going to get blown to bits. At least I have never seen anyone actually look into that in any scientific way. I've heard the argument used before, even by our former Governor ...... Pataki, but I just don't buy it. There are a lot of other states that don't buy into it either (most of them). By the way, there is one more benefit to blaze orange that nobody mentioned on the other thread. That is that when I spot even a flicker of orange off through the woods, that is an instant signal NOT to shoot in that direction. I don't even have to see enough of the individual to make out a human form. Just a glimpse or a brief flash of that color signals that I cannot shoot in that direction. In fact it more often becomes a signal that I had better be moving on and put some distance between us. No such instant warning signal exists with someone in camo. The opposite of this has also occurred. Hunters coming in late have spotted me glowing away in my stand and turned and moved directly away. Doc

Primarily because it is no longer 1520 B.C. I suppose it's the same reason we don't use sinew for strings or stone broadheads. : By the way, I had a release back in the mid 60's long before I had a compound. And I had a peep sight and a stabilizer, and a wrist strap, and an adjustable sight as well as multi=pin sights. It's funny how people seem to think that the world of archery gadgets began only when compounds were invented. You might want to check out the Stanislaus (sp?) back tension release which is used today and was quite common back in the recurve days.

As far as sealed, gas-filled, multi optic, scopes on bows, I did see such a thing many years ago as a prototype for single distance indoor target shooting. It was basically a pistol style scope mounted rigidly as a one-position sight. It wasn't very practical and if it ever made it to the market, it sure never went over too well. All it showed was that you can stick anything on anything as long as you don't care that it really isn't suited for its purpose.....lol. The main problem is that there isn't a whole lot of real estate on a vertical bow to mount such clap-trap. You simply don't have a stock to mount all kinds of different gadgets on. That's not to say that people aren't trying. But the proof of practicality is in the successful mass marketing. For example, scopes on cross-bows are a common accessory and are often sold as part of a package. Another thing too is that you are limited in what magnification you can use because there is no practical way to bench-rest a bow, or any feasible method of mounting a bipod or monopod to a bow. This as opposed to the fact that bipods are also very common accessories for crossbows and are also included in a lot of crossbow package deals. So whatever shake and wandering that might cause problems in a high magnification scope can be solved by use of a bi-pod or even simply resting the crossbow on any horizontal surface like a log or some other feature built into a blind. That's a technique that I use with my shotgun during gun season. My ground blinds all have plenty of convenient horizontal logs built into them to serve as bench rests for steadying my gun/scope.

For you people who like to try to authenticate credentials with raw historical age, I would like to point out that the early archery releases date back to 1520 B.C. So if you are trying to imply that archery releases were invented for compound bows, or that anything prior to a compound bow required finger releasing only, you might want to check the following link: http://www.atarn.org/chinese/thumbrings/archers_rings.htm Doc

Not me. I started out with a recurve. I was there when the compound controversy occurred. I was one that argued for the compound. I was one who laughed at those old fuddy-duddys when they predicted that the compund would be used as a precedent for unlimited inclusions into bow seasons. I wish to offer my apologies for not being smart enough to recognize the exact truth in what they predicted back then. They were absolutely correct as the compound is indeed being used as a precedent for the inclusion of the crossbows into bowseason. You hear that in every crossbow debate, don't you? Now, we have to wonder what weapons the crossbow will serve as a precedent for. It seems to me that with its crossbred design that is somewhere between a bow and a gun, we can look forward to the basic definition of bowhunting to be forever altered. There really is no limit anymore is there?

I think the criteria of last year's harvest as a means of determining this years permit allocations is also subject to a whole bunch of unofficial "fudge factors". I've seen it all before. Poor weather conditions on opening day, moon phase on opening day, weather extremes from the year before, heavy mast crop, sparce mast crop, high hunter turn-out, low hunter turn-out, not enough snow cover, on and on it all goes, and I have seen each of those qualifiers used before by the DEC (and probably many more that I am just not remembering right now) to justify the final count of permits. So basically, regardless of the size of the harvest, they can still change the numbers to whatever their current mood dictates. So, what's all this talk about the wonderful statistical model that they use that performs the perfect herd management....lol. When it comes right down to it, it appears that all that window-dressing (statistics) is thrown out the window and some form of "gut feel" replaces it all. Some times it works and sometimes it doesn't. It's not a problem because when the hunters all start belly-aching one way or another, the DEC can over-react with their permit numbers and reverse any mistakes and move over to the other extreme. I've noticed that deer populations always seem to go in cycles of too many and then too few and then repeating the cycle all over again. It certainly looks like a reaction and over reaction style of management to me. I don't ever get a sense that there is any pro-active planning actually going on. Doc

I saw that on another forum. Well celebrity status or no, I do not condone law breaking regardless of whether I agree with the law or not. I did have to laugh at all the excuse-making that showed up on the other forum. : Doc

I do not bowhunt the late season when there are muzzleloaders out there. Just a little too cold for me to be using a bow ..... lol. If I did, I would be wearing blaze orange. Doc

I think one major difference is when someone shows up with some little runt of a deer, I may engage in some light-hearted kidding and it's all known to be good spirited joking around. And in the end, a slap on the back and a completely sincere congratulations are in order. But I get the feeling that some people darn near take it all as being some kind of a personal affront and actually turn the whole thing into some big negative deal that actually is meant to ruin whatever pride and satisfaction that the hunter may derive from his hunt. I know everybody denies it, but I have detected attitudes that have that kind of message coming through. Man, I don't think that is right. That's getting entirely too serious about something that is supposed to be recreation. Doc

I haven't gotten my lifetime Sportsmans license yet. Starting to get a bit nervous. Doc