Doc

The area that I hunt is the same land that I hunted since I was a kid. I could almost walk some of it with no light at all. So I really don't need much of a light. Just a small flashlight to keep from stumbling over sticks and logs. However, during gun season, I carry a bit larger a light mostly so I can be seen. There are way too many shots heard in the near darkness long before legal shooting time. So, I want to be seen! Also, I want a light that is big enough to shine at any hunters that may not see me and start setting up in an area that I consider too close to me for safety. Doc

Simple - allowing all archery equipment to be used in the bow season - including that 2400 years old. But see now you are going against that wonderful benevolent attitude that you expressed a few replies back. You are advocating now that the aging hunter should not have the right to choose. You want to make those choices for him, and sure enough, that is exactly how these things work isn't it? You are agreeing that we always have to put limits on things. We don't always have the right to choose just because we have reached a certain number in our age. And by golly as long as we are having special seasons, there has to be some limits as to what is put into those seasons. We certainly disagree as to where those limits should be placed, but none of that really has anything to do with age (nor should it) and it's unfortunate that people try to muddy the waters by trying to bring that into the discussion. There are still very viable options open to those that can no longer participate in the physical activity of bowhunting and thousands of people use those options every year. Shotguns, muzzleloaders, rifles and pistols provide those options along with the appropriate seasons. Nobody is being deprived. So to use aging or physical limitations as a reason to cram inappropriate weapons into seasons that were never intended to have those weapons is just a false issue. Doc

Gutting a deer is a stinking, disgusting task. But, it is part of the hunt. A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. Doc

30 yards is it for me (a lot closer if I can arrange it). Sure I can do a lot better on the range but I get a little nervous about deer reaction when I start shooting any farther. So maybe I pass on some longer shots that might actually be successful. That's ok ....... I'm not into bowhunting to see how long a shot I can take. So up to 30 yards is where I feel reasonably confident. Doc

Wing of a butterfly (moth)? A lot of moths have that "eye" marking in their wings.

Hey, I am an aging hunter. I like choices. I like the warmer weather hunting. How about we change the laws so this old geezer can eventually grab a rifle when I feel like it and hunt deer during the early bow season? How far do you want to go with this nonsense. "An aging hunter has earned the right to choose", you know. Yes, I know how some would answer that ...... lol. If I asked that question in a serious fashion, there would be some here that would say, " yeah ...... what's wrong with that idea". Doc

I try to do all my maintenance myself. I have had a heck of a run of bad luck with small local shops, even some that were well established and had a reputation to protect. When you think about it, most of the so-called experts at the local shops are simply "tinkerers" that have no certification or anything that makes them any better at it than we are. So whenever possible, I take my bow to the one that I trust the most .......... me. One thing is for sure, I will put in whatever time it takes to make it right. That's a luxury that most archery pro-shops don't have. Over the years I have never hesitated to pull any of my bows completely apart. In fact a couple of my tournament bows wound up laying on my workbench with no two pieces assembled so I could give them custom paint jobs. It was no big deal. After all, we are not talking about auto repair here....lol. Doc

Yes, I have heard of "footed" shafts before, but the examples that I have ever seen were purely a shaping of only one kind of wood to get the FOC effect. However, we never messed with them because of expense (regular arrows were expensive enough .... lol), and the fact that we frequently lost or broke arrows. So regular old straight cedar arrows were good enough. However, these multi-wood varieties are quite attractive plus I can see where the different densities (weights) of the different woods could be used to enhance the FOC effect. I just thought they were pretty eye-catching, and would make a great addition to an archer's collection of equipment. The only thing is that I would be reluctant to shoot them for fear of scratching them. Frankly, I would have them hanging on display in a den or something..... lol. Doc

Are we just supposed to take your word for that? How do you know that most older archers don't simply take up a gun when they can no longer use a bow. For me a gun would be the easier thing to handle if the my body were breaking down from arthritis, and other physical maladies. Doc

I honestly did not know that arrows were being made out of laminated woods. Those things are really cool! It actually is an art-form. Things have come a long ways since my days of simple old Port Orford cedar shafting.....lol. Doesn't that mixture of woods and the odd ways that they are integrated into the shafting affect the spine? Doc

Actually, I spent quite a few years shooting recurves before I picked up the compound, so I am very familiar with what it takes to shoot both. First of all, there is nothing about recurves and longbows that require that sights and releases not be used. When I shot recurves, I tried instinctive shooting and in fact got my first deer that way. But it didn't take too long before there was a sight on my recurve. As far as the release is concerned, the turks used the ring released centuries ago and there were some in my recurve days that were using releases. So what really are the differences in shooting recurves and longbows versus the compound? Well, as a matter of fact there is still the entire max draw weight that has to be encountered at some point through the draw cycle even with a compound. Also, apart from the hold-weight differences, the act of properly shooting both a recurve and a compound are exactly the same. All elements and disciplines of form are identical including the stance, draw, consistancy of anchor, consistancy of hand position, consistancy of bow arm bracing and muscle alignment, consistancy of sighting, back tension, release, follow through. Further, failure to abide by these disciplines results in the same penalties in terms of target results. So, all of these elements are required to shoot a compound, a recurve and a longbow and that applies whether you are talking sight shooting or instinctive. Now, tell me which of these archery related shooting disciplines apply to a crossbow? Part 2: If you want to enjoy those hunts with your father again, I would suggest that with the lengthy regular gun season that we have in NY along with the muzzleloader season, there is nothing prohibiting that from happening. If he can cock, load and lift a crossbow, chances are pretty good that he can do the same a rifle or shotgun (perhaps even easier), and can therefore continue to hunt. That is exactly what I will be doing in a few years (maybe even sooner than that) when I get to the point where I can't shoot my bow anymore. That is if I still have the ability to pick it up, aim it and shoot, which may or may not be the case. If I can't do that then a crossbow is hardly going to solve the problem. I hear people talk about the crossbow like it is the absolute cure for all the ails and frailties of the aging process or the physically infirm when in reality, it is severely lacking in that regard. That point is getting clearer and clearer as I begin to approach that inevitable point in my own life. Doc

Would somebody explain to me why these things are even protected at all? There is plenty of evidence that shows there is no way that you could ever wipe them out. Not only that, but these critters are at the top of their food chain with absolutely no natural controls other than disease. What possible harm could it do to simply take all protections off them? Doc

Remember folks, yes piebald are neat to look at but piebald genetics are a defect and are NOT something that you want in a deer herd. If you see one you see one during seer season you should try to remove it. Besides, who the heck wants to see a deer that looks more like a goat than a deer ....... lol. shoot the dang thing. Doc

When it comes to doe harvests, the state does it's best to tailor antlerless permits to local populations. We may argue that they don't always do too good a job at that ...... lol, but give them credit for at least recognizing the different needs required for different localities and conditions. My point is that when we discuss AR, that same attempt to tailor management to reflect herd conditions and habitat, applies just as much. So when I hear people saying that they would like to see AR implemented across the state (and it's amazing how often you hear that), my blood pressure starts to rise just a bit. And when I hear people saying that the key to herd balance and improving the health of the herd everywhere is simply to slaughter does, I get just as impatient with the short-sighted quick and easy answers. None of that stuff is as simple as many arm-chair game managers would like us to believe. But I suppose it would be best if I were to just chill out a bit. Short sighted, quick and easy, one-size-fits-all answers and causes seem to be what sticks in the minds of hunters. No point in getting too excited about it ..... lol. It's always going to be that way. Doc

Quote: "the crossbow is fairly easy for even a beginning archer to become extremely proficient with in a very short time." Quote: "a hunter can zero in a crossbow in 30 minutes and then be ready to hunt , without having to practice for hours like he or she will with a longbow." ------------------------------------------------------------ Ok now those are the words of the Horton media specialist. So let's not be hearing anymore nonsense about how the crossbow is the same as any other kind of bowhunting and how the compound has made the difference between crossbows and real bows insignficant. Obviusly, anyone who knows what they'r talking about does not agree with that. Furthermore, he is not the only person of knowledge that has said the same thing. In fact coincidently, I watched a program on the outdoor channel where another one of the usual hunter-heroes said exactly the same thing ..... exactly. So even though this whole debate is rather moot now at least this article posted by fasteddie has brought out the truth about that one point and in the words of someone who really ought to know. Now, I guess we are supposed to believe that all those who have previously forsaken even picking up a gun (a real gender an age neutral weapon), are now going to flock to inflate the hunter numbers since they can use a crossbow. Yeah .... right .... that's going to happen. I want to see the numbers on that when it happens ..... lol. At any rate, it appears that these kinds of discussions are a bit moot. However, the above quotes just happened to catch my eye and kind of fell in line behind my understanding from other sources as well as a certain basic level of logic even though we have seen countless pages of forum comments devoted to trying to convince us that the ease of crossbow marksmanship were being exaggerated. Doc

The cost of new dies is baked into the cost of any firearm that I buy (other than rimfire). It is just an automatic thing now whenever I buy a gun. I do like to target practice a lot. That's kind of hard to afford if I don't re-load my ammo. Besides, it's a great way to fine-tune ammo to weapon to get the best performance out of each firearm. Plus it makes a great winter pastime. Doc

Of course another thing that enters into the equation is the realization of just where your future crop of bucks comes from. This idea of just arbitrarily whacking out the doe population is another over-simplification that really does not reflect an understanding of the original concept. It kind of stands to reason that you have to take into consideration deer density in relationship to food and habitat. Doe numbers do absolutely no harm to the buck population if there is more food available than the existing herd numbers need and nothing is gained by mounting a campaign to arbitrarily try to decimate the doe herd ..... other than to shut off the source of future bucks. If you have an area that is already hurting for deer population of any sort, It would be kind of counter-productive to start a campaign of whacking does. Further more, that kind of judgement is an ever-green decision-making process because deer densities as well as habitat are never static. That's why I hate it when people just lay out blanket statements on any facet of deer management. It's like the people who call for across the board, statewide, AR. They are standing in their own tiny hunting areas and assuming that everything that they see is exactly the same throughout all of the state. Thank heavens those are not the people making the management decisions in NY. Doc

Yes, I'm not sure just who the organization is in Honeoye, but I also heard a lot of flack on local forums about how terrible it is to have such contests. Actually, I kind of like it when something like that tweaks the bunny-huggers. I think it's kind of funny. I never did hear how that contest ever came out as far as numbers of coyotes taken. It is my understanding that the ones who do well in those contests are the ones that run hounds. Some guy out there tooting on his predator call most likely can save his entry fee and not even bother. Doc

There is no doubt that these kinds of forums have a lot of wall-flowers who join and sit on the side-lines, never posting anything. But in all fairness, a lot of the topics that we come up with have some rather vague titles. It could be that a lot of people do peek in just to see if the topic is what they thought it was or if it really is something that they want to comment on. Doc

If anyone has any doubts about how dangerous coyotes can be, you should probably read this CNN account of the 19 year old Canadian girl who was killed by coyotes. http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Music/10/29/canada.singer.killed/index.html These kinds of stories keep popping up from around the country in increasing numbers which makes one wonder if there is a bit of a dangerous trend developing. With coyotes populating some pretty dense urban and suburban areas, one has to wonder what other ways these critters are adapting to get by. Doc

I was around during those compound bow discussions and in fact didn't really understand what all the big argument was all about. After all, just about all of the same archery mental and physical actions and processes and strict adherence to form and physical consistency and other archery disciplines still applied and yet these people were adamant that the precedent would be set for the further corruption of bowseasons by other forms of weapons that had little to do with archery. I couldn't imagine how that could happen. So now I find that I was wrong and they were right. The compound did lead us to where we are right now. They were absolutely right. The compound bow was the foot-in-the-door that set the stage for an anything goes attitude and opened up opportunities for anything to be included in bow seasons. So while we were busy calling those guys names like "pure blood elitists", it turns out that they were the ones who had the vision that the rest of us lacked. And now history is proving them absolutely right. Here comes the crossbow, and supposedly given legitimacy by the precedent set by the compound ....... just as predicted by those "pure blood elitists". Doc

One thing that a journal did for me was to substitute fact for vague impressions. I didn't have to sit around and try to recollect a bunch of years worth of observations in order to form opinions. The sum total of all that I had seen for all those years was right there at the push of a button. That makes you a whole lot more confident in your conclusions. Doc

You're going to love it! Doc

Lol ....... There's a funny mental image. We talk about feeding deer. Wouldn't it be funny to find someone stuffing a coyote with venison to make it a guaranteed prize winner? Doc

Ok ...... that worked pretty darn slick! This Excel spreadsheet was developed way back in the years when I was just learning about spreadsheets. I was playing around with macros and taught myself how to make these things do a bit of analytical work for me. Most of the above photos are pretty self explanitory. The first one is my index page. Each of the buttons shown takes you to the page indicated. The second picture is the stand results which shows the historical deer sighting results of each stand in terms of percentages. The third picture shows what I call the "Moday" results. Moday is a 4 digit number that indicates the Month and day of that month. I developed that term because it was convenient for sorting on specific dates so that I could identify times of the season where activity changed. Good for rut analysis, and other features such as when activity shifted from primarily valley activity to hilltop activity, and when shifts in food sources occurred, etc. The fourth picture shows the page where stands are kept track of, identified and numbered. Everytime I created a new stand-site, an entry was added to this sheet. It's amazing how many different stands you can come up with over all those years. The stand numbers exceed 120. The last picture shows "areas" so I could look at larger more generalized area that I hunt to look for trends and pattern shifts. The one page that I did not photograph was the main database entry page. As you can imagine, it is huge and didn't lend itself to nicely to putting in one picture. This is where each hunt was recorded in terms of the details of what was seen and what the conditions were for that hunt. Each hunt received a log number. After that was recorded the date, stand location, number of deer sighted, Time (am/pm), weather (snow, rain, cloudy, sunny), temp, wind direction, wind velocity (general terms), deer entry direction, exit direction, Hunter action (shot, let them pass), results (hit, miss, deer spooked, kill), hunting style (standing, still hunting, scouting, walking to or from stand), Number of bucks, number of does, number of unidentified, location code (area number), stand number, closest stand (for sightings when I wasn't at any particular stand), Moday, uphill, downhill, remarks. All entries were kept to a specific wording so that results could all be sorted. The good news was that over all those years, the journal activity recorded every detail of every hunt, and make a great item for reminiscing. The bad news is that over that many years, a whole lot of physical changes take place that influences deer herds and patterns. For example, we had a devastating ice storm that re-routed deer trails significantly and even changed the nature of feeding and bedding areas. Also even over just 13 years, fields that were just scattered brush changed to more mature over-stories which made the deer use those areas in different ways and at different times. Also, land-use changed dramatically. Much of the area was state land which was pretty much vacant during the bow seasons back then. Today there is a thick network mountain bike trails throughout the whole area, and tons of hikers use them as well as the bikers. Also, the number of bowhunters has increased significantly, and through some of the bow season, small game hunters and turkey hunters have put pressure on the deer that have changed their habits and patterns. So what I'm saying is that as an analytical tool, the journal was only useful for a few years before old info started polluting the results of more current hunting conditions and results. It was all a fun experiment, and it sure did help me learn a lot about Excel. But as a long term hunting analysis tool, it just didn't work out the way I expected. One part of it is still very useful though. The stand identification part of the spreadsheet has preferred wind direction data in it, So on a day when they are predicting a west wind, all I have to do is run a sort of the stands on wind direction, and out pops all the stands (existing or former) that are suitable for that west wind. It also brings back to mind past stands locations and has often lead to resurrecting those sites again. I do believe that for hunters that own their own land and who manage their own land so that conditions stay pretty stable over time, an analytical spreadsheet might prove useful. The amount of work maintaining this level of detail is not as bad as it might seem. I developed some blank worksheets that I kept in a notebook and manually entered the info after each hunt. Then later in the year (the dead of winter) when I was actually looking for things to do, I would transfer the data over to the spreadsheet. So it all was not really any big deal as far as effort. Overall, I would classify the whole thing as a lot of fun. I think I did learn a lot about the deer in my hunting area, and I have a journal of memories that already I am beginning to appreciate. Doc