Doc

A bullet proof rock bunker ....... I could use one of those for gun season over here ....... lol. Doc

Keep going sits. Eventually you'll have a crossbow trolling rig out in every one of the forum categories....... lol. I almost think you are unhappy that the crossbow got legalized. It's getting harder and harder to get anyone excited about the only topic you seem to have an opinion on......Ha-ha. But I know you'll keep trying.

I had a snowmobile accident ...... does that count? Back in my young and foolish days when we first moved onto our property, we used to heat with wood. At the same time, there was a sugar-bush that I was thinning out on top of the hill, so I figured that all those approx 6"-8" diameter maple logs would make good firewood if I could get them down to the house. So I figured I could use the snomobile. -No ATV's at the time-. So I got a heavy rope (about a 1" nylon rope) and bundled up about 3 or 4 at a time and skidded them down the hill to be cut up at the house. Well, the snow was pretty deep, and that was no problem while I was coming down the hill, but I figured I had better get up some speed when I got down off the hill to the flat parts. Here's where things got a bit nasty....lol. I started really moving out, and had to turn a sharp corner right at the bottom. I had a bit too much rope out behind and the logs rolled way out sideways and hooked behind a tree. Everything came to an absolute instant stop ....... except for me, the plastic windshield and the handle bars. I found myself laying about 5' in front of the machine, laying on top of the windshield and the handlebars still attached to the snowmobile only by the cables. I had busted that tubing that the handlebars attach to. No, I wasn't hurt other than for my pride. The language wasn't to pretty either. I had to disconnect the logs (no, the rope didn't break) and then rotate the skis by hand. walking alongside holding the handlebars to run the throttle I would move the machine ahead until I had to manually turn the skis then move ahead again. I did that all the way home. Then I had to go those last few yards up to the house with my wife standing on the front step doubled over laughing at me. It wasn't one of my better days (or one of my better ideas). I welded up the handlebars and got everything working again, but I never did pull firewood off the hill again with the snowmobile. Yes, and as far as the original load is concerned ..... The damned logs might still be laying over there as far as I know. Doc

In the wintertime, I have to ride down the side of the road to get to my mother's driveway to plow it out. I don't think I have any legal right to do that but I have to do what I have to do. So in order to cut down on the number of violations I might incur if I get caught, I keep my machine registered, with the little license plate mounted on the back, and I always wear my helmet (A real pain, but again, I do what I gotta do). I also carry insurance. I don't know whether that is a legal requirement (I think it might be), but I started doing that when I found out that my homeowner's policy doesn't cover such things as ATV's and other recreational vehicles down in the barn. By the way, as luck would have it, I was once passed by a state trooper while I was going down the side of the road and he didn't even slow up. So I don't know whether he just didn't want to be bothered, or maybe he wasn't too sure about the laws regarding ATV on the roadside, or maybe I'm totally misunderstanding the law about roadside ATV travel. Doc

So they were not shooting just a regular round patched ball as we usually define primitive muzzleloader bullets? Because I have heard people describe legally defined primitive muzzleloaders as being pretty much a short-range weapon as guns go (like out to 100 yards max). That's why I was having trouble correlating what I saw on that program with what I am hearing those say that actually shoot these things today. Like I say, I have never messed around with them, so I am totally uneducated in terms of their real limits. Doc

I have heard the argument that if hunter orange is made mandatory, hunters will automatically gun down anything that isn't orange. In fact Pataki used that line of reasoning when he vetoed the last attempt at a blaze orange law. Personally, I don't buy it, but then I'm not the guy sitting at the desk with the veto pen .... lol. Several times over the years, I have seen guys in full camo during opening day of gun season on a very heavily pressured parcel of state land. That just plain shouldn't happen, and I have to wonder what is going through the minds of these idiots. I can't think of a single justification for such lunacy. I realize the excellent safety record that NYS has even though we don't have a blaze orange law, and I believe that has more to do with the fact that we have an excellent hunter safety mandatory program that seems to convince almost all hunters to wear the blaze orange. And yet I still see these jerks out there in full camo. And sure enough each year brings another list of people that get shot, mistaken for deer. And if you read the details, quite often they are not in B/O. Also, the headlines often only pay attention to the fatalities, but I am sure that even the wounded victims probably do not think that their experience was exactly a pleasant thing. Missing limbs and organs are not exactly a victimless occurrance. So anytime I see a blaze orange law being offered, I am 100% behind it. There's no reason not to have it. Doc

I don't like snakes! I don't like anything that can't get up and walk. Doc

No. Maybe I should, but I don't and probably won't. Doc

Just to save us all a lot of time and bandwidth, let me point out that each and every one of these points has been addressed and either refuted or shown to be irrelevant already. We're starting into our summer re-runs again, and restating all of it will not make any of the points any more true or relevant from either side of the issue. This apparently has been turned into an issue that is trying to be settled by endurance. What is it, who ever repeats the same stuff last wins ....... lol. By the way ...... Thanks sits ...... your trolling worked once again. You snagged a bunch of them. Doc

Yes, on opening day of gun season I generally make a day of it. It's not my favorite thing to do, but on that day I do find it sometimes (but rarely) pays off. Otherwise a few hours after sunrise and a few hours before sunset pretty much maximizes the time spent. Doc

Now there would be an interesting dream to try to analyse ..... lol. Chocolate rabbits eh?

Well, I frankly don't buy into the "poacher weapon of choice" argument, but poking a 17" anything through a window is not exactly something that would be much of a trick. At least not out of any of the vehicles that I own or ever have owned. Also, while I am not much of an authority on methods of poaching, I doubt that there is any mystical requirement that cars or trucks have to be used in the commission of illegal taking of deer. Where the heck did that all come from? Most likely the only real requirements are stealth, silence, and a low level of character. The kind of weapon is almost incidental. Doc

Thanks ..... I'll try that. But the last official word that I heard was that it was buried on the desk of the Governor waiting for signature. I just hope it didn't get mixed in with those 6000+ vetoes that he signed....lol. Doc

So, how did you guys make out this year? I read that the state turkey harvest this year was down a bit. I didn't get out this year. Springtime I am all tied up with work around the property ...... bigtime. But I was curious how the rest of you made out. Doc

I read that somewhere too. In heavily pressured hunting areas where a lot of hunters take to the trees, it doesn't take the deer long to begin expecting danger from above. It doesn't matter to me though because you will never find me up there anyway. Me and heights don't get along too well anymore. Doc

I'll bet that would be pretty interesting. Of course, I probably wouldn't have much to offer since I am entering into my "cheapskate" phase of life now ....... lol. Unless something breaks, I don't replace it. It could be that I will be buying a new deer rifle soon if the Governor ever signs the Ontario County rifle bill. After a while I'll be able to give a review on whatever I buy. I think you've got a real good idea there. What the heck..... you can always get rid of it if it doesn't go over too good. Doc

I have actually stayed away from decals and bumper stickers because they don't exactly enhance the resale price of your vehicle do they? I always figured that after they have been on there a few years, stripping them off probably would go all that great. Doc

I left out photography (wildlife and landscape). Doc

There's old sits out there trolling again. Your getting to be kind of a one trick pony ..... lol. It seems like your interests here are kind of limited ..... eh? Doc

Yes, I have such an extensive mapping of stands now that I have over 130 stands identified in the database, each with comments, locations and preferred wind directions and harvest data. At any one time, there are only a few of these ground stands that are actually still there and useful, but checking out the database always is like suggesting a good place to re-construct one of them based on predicted wind direction, etc. In fact, I can do a data sort on all 100+ stand locations based on preferred wind direction and get a printout of all stand locations over the past 30 years that are good for North winds for example or whatever the predicted wind direction is. Checking out the details of each of those and coupling it with whatever that year's scouting has turned up allows me to zero in on some of the better spots for whatever wind direction I am facing. That stand spreadsheet page also indicates what is needed to put the stand back in use again as far as repair, so that I can line up a lot of the stands that my scouting shows to have promise and see to it way in advance that they are serviceable. That way, when the wind is right, I can just pop into them without a whole lot of attention getting messing around. Yes, there are some of the stands in the database that are totally useless because of changes that have taken place since the time when they were hot. That is usually noted somewhere in the "comments" column so that I can pull them out of the sort. Yeah, it's a lot of screwing around, but it's also part of the fun, and a way of removing some of the vague opinions, recollections and feelings, about where to go on a particular day and why. When I go to a particular spot it gives me a somewhat educated reason for going there. I also can look at the harvest and sighting data for each one of the stands and tell what percent of the visits actually had deer show up (bucks, does or unidentified deer), and how many there were, and what conditions and time of the season or time of day they have been the best. But as I explained, all that info is tainted by 30 years worth of physical changes so while that stuff is all kind of interesting, it doesn't really turn out to be as useful or predictive as I had envisioned it would. That stuff is more for historical interest rather than current useful data to base any decisions on. ....... Too bad, it was a good thought that never really panned out. Probably the best part about the database other than preserving memories is the fact that when you speak about the local herd and changes over the years, you are speaking from recorded facts and not some time warped vague recollections. You don't have to preface everything with, "I seem to recall that ......"......lol. The exact observations are recorded right there just waiting to have exact information extracted. Doc

Early on I had Ben Pearson, Shakespeare, Wing, Damon Howatt Super Diablo and 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 until I finally bought the Matthews. Now it looks like 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

So maybe we have to do our civic duty and take out a bunch of them this year....lol. Doc

We always talk about blaze orange as just something that goes a long way toward avoiding being mistaken for a deer, but I believe the purposes go much farther than that. At least for me they do. Yes that is true too that blaze orange does make it hard for you to look like a deer, but it also is important for purposes of letting other hunters know you are there. Over the years, I could not count the number of times I have watched other hunters that had an obvious intent of standing in a spot that I considered way too close to me. That is until they caught a flash of my blaze orange "pumpkin suit" and then they moved on. I'm sure there also is some benefit of having the extra visibility letting other hunters that you are in their line of fire when a deer passes between you. Yes I know there are some hunters that are color blind. Also, there are some who get so excited you could be wearing a strobe light and it wouldn't make any difference. But I also know that if I am concealed in the woods wearing some of this super camo that is on the market with no blaze orange, likely nobody will see me until it just might be too late. That's a chance I'm not willing to take. Doc

I agree ...... you probably should be wearing a vest. I have a 1000' driveway through a thicket to get down to the road (My property). I won't walk down my driveway in gun season without a blaze orange hat and vest. Sometimes we put a bit too much trust in our private land always truly being private. I encounter enough trespassers each year to know that simply is not the case. My feeling is that blaze orange probably has cost me some deer over the years. Inspite of the deer's inability to distinguish color, I still believe that they can detect the intensity and brilliance of blaze orange, regardless of what color it appears to them. However, I have yet to see any deer that is worth any of my limbs, organs or my life. I have seen what a slug does to meat and bones, and there is no way that I ever want to experience any of that first hand on my body just for the sake of harvesting a deer. Doc

those are some huge bucks. I thought all the bucks in NYS were killed off at 1.5 yrs ....... Ha-ha. Seriously, it looks like you have a great spot to hunt there. By the way, I get more of a kick out of those kinds of videos than all those fancy-shmancy professionally produced and directed videos that you see on TV. Keep them coming. Doc