Doc

Well, you may invite people to publish lists on your personal possessions and pastimes, I see it as an attempt to harrass with absolutely no redeeming purpose. I also am not going to ignore the potential misuses of this list as outlined by MrVJP. I find it amazing how easily we now accept such intrusions into our personal lives. I guess we are starting to get conditioned to accept it and even defend it as being harmless. I'm not so accepting of that kind of nonsense and will speak out against it whenever given the chance.

I'm a "ground-stander" too, but I have already been out fixing up some of the ground blinds that I have scattered through the woods. There's always shooting lanes to clear and new brush and stuff to add to the blinds. I don't like to wait until too close to the season to start disturbing things, so most of them are done already. Doc

I had some guys setting up a drive in the little 1000' deep thicket in front of my house. I'm not sure whether they intended to post some guys up in my front yard or what. They never got that far before I was on them. I'm afraid I wasn't as nice about it as you were. I just gave them the boot. The leader of the drive turned out to be a brother-in-law of a guy that I invited out to hunt years previously. The posted signs went up the next day and have been there ever since. I always try to think only the best of my fellow hunters, but some times you just have to shake your head and wonder. What the heck is the matter with some people? Doc

I suspect you're right. Those critters cover a lot of ground and lay down a pile of tracks, and in the snow it can look like you are over-run with them. On the other hand, there may be places where there are piles of them. I have heard of places where getting to your wounded deer winds up to be a foot-race with the coyotes. So I do believe there are some places where the population density is quite high. However, I have found around our area that they are not as plentiful as I once thought. And that fact does make them an extra-special challenge to hunt. Doc

Here's a sign That I have to get installed in front of our house:

Well, here's a little something that ought to give a few a chuckle:

Question: When you do come up with loaded rounds that won't go off, what is the proper way to dispose of them? Obviously you don't just throw them in the trash ..... so how do you get rid of a round or two that refuse to fire. I suppose with centerfire ammo, you could just pull them apart and reuse the bullet, powder and case if you have a bullet puller. But rimfire would pose a pretty tough disposal problem. So what is the recommended procedure? Doc

Mine comes off at the stand or any time I shoot or am prepared to shoot. Doc

Of course the horse is out of the barn now. But then that doesn't mean that we simply pull the doors off the barn. Honestly, I have no idea why you would defend this action. When someone thumps me on the head, I tend to react differently than just sitting there inviting them to do it again.....lol. Or maybe even do it better ..... : Really ...... I wouldn't have the slightest clue how to access that info ..... until now. Now it's real easy isn't it? As far as personal info, I would guess the fact that I have a pistol might qualify as that. At least it should be. What really concerns me is just what did this person (or organization) have in mind when they went to all of the trouble of filing the FOI petition to obtain the info and then set up the web-site to display it to the public. I can sit here and imagine all kinds of dastardly uses that some of the wackos of this world might put that info to use for (Some of which MrVJP listed above). But this guy obviously had something a little more concrete in mind. Doc

Some time in early August, I believe.

I haven't gone back to my spreadsheet to check, but I would say that Bowseason sightings on average across the whole season is probably less than one deer per hunt (from stand). That would be a quite a bit higher when scouting or walking around. I spend a lot of hunts closing in on where the deer are. And those hunts may pass without seeing one deer. That brings the average down in a hurry. In gun season, the number would be a whole lot lower. Even though opening day I may have deer running all over me, when you average in the weekdays when deer have moved into the survival mode, that average number drops way down. That number also changes upward on days when I am still-hunting. I tend to see a lot more deer that way than when I am sitting like a lump, feeling like the only guy in the woods, and all the deer are switched to nocturnal movements. Doc

Magnus stinger 4 blade. Doc

Early on I had Ben Pearson, Shakespeare, Wing, Damon Howatt Super Diablo and two Bear recurves, and then bought my first compound ..... a butt-ugly bear whitetail which by the way probably still holds the record for the most deer I've taken with a single bow. My first quality compound bow was a PSE Citation. I shot that for a few years for hunting and field archery and then bought some 40# competition limbs and rebuilt the whole bow giving it a new fancy paint job (of course that made it shoot better scores). Then I bought a PSE Laser for hunting. Both PSE bows were exceptional for the time as far as being top of the line, high performance bows. Of course, I was getting into the mode where I had to always have the best ..... ha-ha, so I bought a Bear Tamerlane for tournament shooting and then started making my way through Golden Eagle, pro-line, and finally up to the Mathews MQ-32 that I still shoot today. Oh yeah, I won a Ben Pearson compound as a door prize when Jim's pro-shop first opened up on route 332. He's in Manchester now. That one I gave to one of my sons who needed a new bow at the time. But I must say that the early PSE bows treated me pretty good and I was always a fan, but I simply couldn't stay with one manufacturer (Always chasing that elusive fastest, smoothest, quietest and best bow) until I finally bought the Matthews. Now it looks like that will be the last bow I ever will buy unless it breaks or something. I've now entered the "cheapskate" stage of my life ..... lol. The same old bow and 1980's vintage Easton Autumn Orange XX-75 arrows, and they are still killing deer. Doc

I don't think anyone is doing that here. I haven't read anything negative about setting your own goals and challenges. In fact, I think that is exactly what Wildcats160 was suggesting should be afforded him. However, as I mentioned, I have heard an awful lot of people who announce their standards in such a way that it sounds more like a criticism of those who for whatever reasons choose limits that are not quite as stringent. Personally, I consider hunting goals to be personal, and I can't think of a single reason why anyone other than myself would ever be interested in them. Understand that there are those that would look at that 74" deer on your wall and immediately start telling you about how they don't shoot deer that small. They may start going on and on about how you should have passed on that deer for a year or maybe even two more to let him grow up. Then they might start in on how NYS needs a law to prevent deer that small from being harvested. If you can imagine how that would make you feel, then maybe you understand exactly what Wildcats160 and I are talking about. Doc

Yes, I can see how close shots could pose a problem with the scope set at 24X. However, it's no real problem to dial it back to 6x. I never take running shots and don't even like to be hurried in my shots, so as long as I have the opportunity to change the magnification that probably wouldn't be a real problem. However, I am beginning to see the wisdom of the 3x - 9x selection. We're not out west shooting at 400 yards ...... lol. So it would seem smarter to save a gob of money, and headaches and go with the more conventional magnification selections. I guess if I were to ever get into more serious bench-rest shooting, I would maybe have to re-address the scope selection. Doc

Right. No reason to freak out about it too much. I don't know ...... If a little freaking out is what it takes to wake gun owners up a bit and stop them from simply shrugging off every occasion where the antis keep poking us in the eye then maybe a bit of paranoia is not a bad thing. I don't even have a pistol permit, but I still think that those gun-owners who do should not have to be hung out there, vulnerable to potential abuse and harrassment. Why should gun owners be singled out for this kind of listing? Is there something criminal about owning a handgun? Is there something about a handgun owner that requires that the public be warned of his existance and location? Are we now akin to child molesters that need to have their identities published? That certainly is the implications of this public listing and frankly I don't think there is anything about a handgun owner that deserves this special kind of treatment. There just isn't any need for it ...... period. If gun owners get excited enough about this to do something about future abuses of this sort, I certainly am not going to discourage any of that. Doc

;D Maybe the farmer's wife should have been looking for someone to shoot the barn cats instead of the woodchucks. Doc

I assume you have looked at the possibility of temporarily removing parts of the door jam if the size is close. Sometime some simple temporary dismantleing and then reassembling can save the day if it is almost making it through. Doc

Actually, I was the one to raise the example of the nuclear plant. That might be where you got diverted a bit.....lol. However, I think it is a good example of a place where you might run into the scenario asked about in the original post. Another would be school property where I think the prohibition of firearms is much more than a mere suggestion, and is backed up with the force of law. Other places of business may or may not have legal standing for such prohibitions, but I don't think I would want to be the one to test it out......lol. I try not to purposely practice activities that I know are unwelcome on someone else's property. Doc

Well, as far as I am concerned, that is the most powerful argument against AR of any that I have heard. In fact for me it is the only argument that matters. I am not for any new regulations that drive hunters from our ranks. It's not necessary and if it does harm to our already diminishing numbers, then why would anyone be for it? Doc

Ok ...... So how do you evaluate a pro-shop? We all know how badly some of these guys can screw your bow up. The timing of such screw-ups could cost you a good chunk of your season. So what criteria do you use. There seems to be no meaningful credentials to go by. I have had my bow screwed up miserably by a bow shop that came highly recommended. Others that I have had some good history with all eventually go out of business. So right now, if I had to have some work done, I wouldn't have a clue who to go to. So, when your in this situation, do you just hand over your prized bow, cross your fingers and hope for the best, or have you all figured out some method of interrogating these guys to see if they really know what they are doing? Doc

Lol ..... We do hear a lot of that, don't we? Everytime I hear someone declaring to the world how they hold out for this and hold out for that, I always wonder just what are they really trying to say. Is it really just another way of trying to convince the world that they are such a great hunter that they don't need to harvest those little bucks. Sometimes it does kind of have that ring to it, doesn't it? I feel much more comfortable around those that quietly set their own goals and challenges and don't spend a whole lot of time bragging to the world what those challenges and goals are. Sometimes those quiet ones will surprise you with what's hanging on their wall. Doc

They probably should have a little hair on them ...... lol

Yeah, I wouldn't try that at a nuclear power plant ...... lol. Most likely you might not want to disregard those kinds of signs at a school either.

As far as I can find, no one is doing any study anywhere that looks at the impact to hunter numbers due to AR in areas where there should be none. That includes the NYS experiments and the PA statewide results or any other state that has ARs. I'm not saying that such studies don't exist, but I have not been able to find any. I really don't think that it is a research priority with any of these state game agencies, and it certainly is not a priority with the "Let's jam ARs down everybody's throat" crowd. Personally for me, that is the only issue with ARs. I don't care about high-grading, or any of the maneuvered and biased studies on how AR is an emergency mandatory salvation of the species. I could care less whether there are old sway-back bucks behind every tree or not. That sort of thing has zero priority with me. What I do have a problem with is regulating hunters right out of the field, and the fact that nobody is even asking the question whether that is happening or not. Doc