Doc

Don't take Sits too seriously. He is our resident flamer who joined only to see how many people he can irritate. That's simply his way of getting attention. He's just a little bit of static in the background of an otherwise fairly friendly forum. After a while, you will see that all his posts have the same miserable tone of a disagreeable personality. Anymore, I simply ignore him. I just hope his mal-formed personality doesn't lose any members here or cause anyone not to post. If we had an "ignore" button, he would be a good candidate for its use. Doc

Way back in the olden days when my wife and I were into camping, we spend a few years just using our pick-up truck with a small cap on the back. We slid two folding camp-cots in there and put a full size mattress on top, and it turned out to be the most comfortable sleeping quarters for two that you could imagine. Under the cots, we stored all our food, fishing gear, supplies, clothing, and cooking equipment, and had room to spare. It worked out pretty good because we had nothing to tow along behind us. I never used it as a hunting base, but it would seem as though it would probably have worked as well as a tow-behind "pod". Doc

Can't argue with any of that. I too regret that I am seeing all the hunting land that I grew up hunting being subdivided and locked up. It's just a sign of the times. Doc

I noticed that too. Makes me a bit curious as to how that could be. It must be that last year the odds were super - super - dsuper high ... lol. And yet you got turned down for the second one. I'll tell you, if anyone can make any sense out of that wacky "permit draw", I wish they would explain it to me. Everytime I think about it I keep coming up with questions as to how they handle all the variations in landowner preferences, preferance points, and the ever changing pool of names that they are drawing from as the sales period advances. Whatever it is that caused them to come up with this knee-jerk reaction in 8N of cutting the permits in half does tells me that they are trying to make up for some perceived screw-up or shortcoming in their statistical management schemes. You know .... the ones that have been audited by some statistical gurus and found to be perfect.....lol. Oh there I go again. By the way, judging only from what I have seen in my few hundred acres of 8N hunting land, I think they had it right last year. I don't see any sign of a diminished herd size here. Doc

I'm going to have to spend some time looking through all that stuff. There is a pile of interesting stats. I do wish that there was a newer version to compare this against for changes and trends. Doc

I have the same problem only my fear of heights is such that I don't even use treestands at all ..... lol. So yes, I wish all treestanders would use the proper equipment for safety, but for me personally it is non-issue. Doc

It's very difficult and even impossible to get inside the heads of some of these people who get so hyped up that they would think a human looks like a deer. However, it happens. I don't know how but it does. Another type of hunting mishaps is the deal where a deer runs between two hunters. That one is a scenario that I have often heard reported. That is just a case of using raw reaction and not even considering the consequenses. Both of these shooting circumstances would undoubtedly be helped with a blaze orange law. However, we will never be able to eliminate the hunters who seem to just completely lose their minds when they think there is a deer to be shot. Those people will continue to be a deadly problem. The only thing we can do in defense is to throw up a "red flag" or more exactly a "blaze orange flag" at the end of their barrel and hope it works in time to keep them from finishing off the trigger pull. It's about the only defense we've got against those out-of-control people, and it should be a legally mandated defense. Doc

Looking at the permit allocations for Region 8, it looks like a bunch of the WMUs are going to see a cut. In fact 8N will be about half of the permits that we had last year. 8A, 8H, 8J, 8M, 8N, 8P, 8T, 8W, 8X, 8Y are all having cuts from last year's numbers. I'm assuming that the DEC is in affect saying that there are deer shortages (under target or getting that way) in those WMUs. I know it's kind of hard to really say, but do you guys who hunt there agree with that assessment? Doc

I am one happy camper by golly. The shooting is shaping up pretty darn good this year. I spent a bunch of time tuning up the bow and have it flying perfectly. My practice sessions have been pretty short. When everything is going well, I generally keep the practice session fairly short so that I don't start getting fatigued and begin to engrain some crappy form concessions. Anybody else do that? Or do you continue to keep shooting even though your groups are already good? Doc

Why is that?? Doc

It's getting pretty close to it being too late for this year for me already. I won't buy a rifle until I know the law is in effect. After all, this is the third go at it ..... lol. The longer it goes without a rifle purchase, the less time I will have to make the final decision of what caliber, what make and model, what scope, etc. etc. I also need some time to get the thing sighted in and to shoot it enough to feel real comfortable with it. I'm thinking that maybe the bill got buried under a whole pile of other bills of higher priority while they were messing around all those months trying to pass the budget. Doc

They never explained what the new constraints were. It's hard to imagine what could cause them to dump such a popular and apparently lucrative activity. Sounds like demand is not a problem since they were turning away individuals and bus companies from participating. Oh well. Doc

Cynical? ..... you bet. But in my more quiet moments, I have to give them credit just as you mentioned, for among other things, exercising caution in the face of fanatical armchair game managers who latch onto an idea like a bunch of pitbulls and whip themselves up into a rabid frenzy, thinking they have the next best idea since sliced bread. By the way, I do come across as super critical of the DEC, but in reality, I do have to give them a lot of credit for doing one heck of a job given the resource limitations, and the political atmosphere that they have to function in. Also, I have said many times that inspite of my constant jabs at them, I have absolutely no idea of how to do their job better, and as much as we all think we know more than they do, the fact is that I don't think that any of us really do. Here and there we may have a more intimate knowledge of what's going on in our own little acreage of hunting area, but if any of us had the management responsibilities on anywhere near the scale that the DEC does, there is no doubt in my mind that every single one of us would prove to be a complete embarrassing flop at the job....... every one of us. On occasion I do get the feeling that they may bow just a bit to much to the political pressures that they are confronted with. I think I have seen a movement toward letting anti-deer forces have a lot more say in game management goals and I'm still trying to sort out the right or wrong aspects of that. There are a lot of fiscal-political realities that I am not real crazy about, and sometimes the DEC has to bear the brunt of those frustrations. But always, there is the time when I have to ask myself the question of whether I could do it any better, and if I am being honest, the answer comes back to be "NO". However, I still enjoy the sport of "poke the DEC". I think we all do. With hunters, the favorite prey that follows just second to whitetails is the DEC. It's all great sport, and we all like to play. I'm no exception. Doc

I kind of agree with Furman. Turn the local hunters loose in a "no holds barred" fashion and make the season as long as is necessary to get the job done. No rules, no seasons, no bag limits, and then if there are any left over, turn the professional guns loose on them. And even then, you might want to design a program like our venison donation program only make it for goose meat instead of venison. Whatever....it sure seems this the shoot and bury program should be a last resort. Doc

Yes, as bad as NY is, NJ is living proof that things could be worse.... : Doc

It seems like either way you do it you run a risk of being exactly wrong. But I think if I were forced to choose, I would probably interpret it the way they do. And then I would cross my fingers a whole lot, which I believe is also part of the official management process ..... ;D Doc

That 60% number has to be correct. I'm sure they used the same statistical magic that they use on the rest of their stat manipulations. You know ..... go out and get a sampling of a few dozen and then call it statistically equivalent to the remainder ..... lol. The DEC statistical models have been audited by some statistics gurus and found to be perfect or at least so the public advertising goes. They probably stopped into a gun club meeting and asked for a show of hands and came up with 60% for ARs. ;D Oh my gosh I am getting cynical these days! Doc

I think the last time I clocked it, it was 30 miles from my house to the AB clubhouse. That's 60 miles round trip. Not a problem once in a while, but I don't join those things to attend once in a while...lol. So you can see why I dropped my membership. I was a member there for quite a few years, but that constant drive a couple times a week (We had wednesday night league shoots along with something going almost every weekend, plus work parties and monthly evening meetings) eventually wore me out. The fact that I was driving between 70 and 80 miles round trip back and forth to work every day didn't help either. However, I did have a great time there and had a whole lot of friends that were members. My wife and two kids were members there too, so we made a family thing out of it. My guess is that if there is anything going on there, it would be probably on a Saturday. So maybe I'll head over there again in a week or two and do some tresspassing......lol. Just to see if there is any sign of life there at all. Doc

You have a great time! It's always nice to get away for a while and just flop and relax. Actually, it sounds like a pretty good idea to me. Doc

Look, I know it's important to you that get in the last word, so why don't you just add one more reply and I'll let you have the last word and then you'll be happy. Have a nice day. Doc

Well, that sign is new addition since I've been there. I honestly don't know how the heck we could have missed it when we were over there ...... lol. That is polebridge road, right? Man it must be hard for perspective members to ever join. There is no contact info or nothing. I guess if you don't know a member or something you would probably be out of luck. :-\ Anyway, thanks for the info. I might take a ride over some Saturday and see if I can't find some activity. I don't want to join or anything. It's still way too far. But I would like to see if any of the old gang is still there and what they have been up to and what they're all doing these days. It used to be a great super-active club with a great course and and a great bunch of guys. Thanks again for the pictures and info. Doc

I don't pretend to understand the distance difficulties for urban hunters. I have never even thought about hunting within 500' of somebody's house, and never will. Urban hunting is outside my idea of a quality hunt, so I guess I probably never will be concerned with whatever difficulties that are involved in such a thing. So, I guess I don't have a proper perspective on requests to cut that distance down. I do think I understand how it might be a problem controlling urban and even suburban populations without the ability to hunker down uncomfortably close to a residence. But I also understand landowner concerns. The idea of looking over in my hedgerow and seeing some goof sitting there staking out my yard is not very appealing ..... lol. That might not be the best thing for hunter/resident relations. From purely a safety standpoint, I can't see that being much of a real issue, but again there might be a perception issue even on that point that wouldn't exactly help out hunter/landowner relations. So what do you do with problem herds in tight urban areas. I would leave it up to local municipal control. If an urban area had a problem that was sufficient to warrant some cozy hunting situations, then perhaps they should be permitted in special cases, which would include written permission from the residents affected. If you truly have a problem herd, getting permision from residents that have experienced property damage should be no particular problem. Even with those safeguards, I would hate to be the hunter tracking my shot deer and soming upon a group of crying hysterical children watching Bambi in the final bloody death-throes.....lol. That would be just one possible scenario of many uncomfortable situations that could arise when you are hunting on the doorstep of so many potential anti-hunters. Doc

I think the key is portability because users are going to want to know that at anytime they can dump the info off to their own hard drive in case they leave the forum, or want to perform extra analysis on their data. So your thoughts of being able to easily download the log into a format commonly resident on user's home computers is a good one and a vital one. Doc

Apparently you don't understand an answer when it is given to you, so I see no need to continue trying to get you to understand. And listening to you repeating the same foolishness over and over again really is getting tiresome. Look, to be blunt, the idea is just not worthy of arguing over. It's something that will never happen, never should happen, and its foolish to waste time discussing such a ridiculous thing. If I should ever find that you have had enough conviction to actually be able to get someone of some authority to take the idea seriously then maybe it might be worth discussing. Until then it is just like so many of your posts, simply arguing just to argue.

I love this idea. I might suggest that you base the journal on an Excel platform or at least something that could be saved of as an Excel document. Since Excel is probably already on a lot of PCs at home or work and lends itself to mathmatical manipulation for any analysis work that you might want to incorporate or that any user might want to add in. Doc