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

I have a spreadsheet that covers hunting seasons from 1982 to 1995. I have attached (hopefully) some screen shots that show how I used to use this electronic journal. I have never used the photo attachment thing before, so if it all works, I will add another reply to explain all of what is depicted here. Doc

It sounds like some of the Rage 3 heads do retract and some don't. That's kind of what the wording of "consistantly" means to me. Does anyone know if that is the case. If so, I would assume that if you can demonstrate that your particular Rage 3 that you used to harvest a deer does "retract consistently" then I guess it is legal. Also, I am curious if there is some modification that can fix the problem of "the blades occasionally getting caught on each other and therefore acting as a barbed broad head". I've never seen one of these things up close and personal, so that is why I am curious. Doc

One other reason why private land gets shut-off...... Many years ago my Dad allowed some hunters from work to hunt our property (with permission). Next thing you know, they started inviting people out to hunt with them (without permission). That sort of thing mushroomed until within just a few years the driveway looked like a parking lot. The original invitees no longer came out, but all these people that they had invited took over the property. Finally, Dad stood down by the cars and one by one encountered each of the hunters and informed them that the place was closed to all hunting. That was the end of open hunting on our farm. So, when I grew up and got property of my own, apparently I didn't learn from Dad's experiences (what kid does?). I fell into the same trap and invited out two co-workers. Oh yeah ...... pretty soon their relatives began to show up. Brothers, brother-in-laws, friends ..... the same thing all over again. The original people were long-gone and nothing but strangers swarmed all over the property to the point where I was in a foot-race in order to get the spots that I wanted ..... on my own property. It finally came to a head when I noticed a bunch of cars parking out front along the road and a whole pile of orange-coats bailing out and setting up a drive in the thicket in front of the house. I went down to give them the boot, and found out it was the brother-in-law of the first guy I invited out and his merry band of drivers. They were going to put on a drive right in front of my house. I sent them packing and wasn't really too nice about it. I spent the rest of the next few days posting up my boundary just about as tight as possible. It has stayed that way ever since. Yes I remember when posted signs were a rarity, and I could hunt just about anywhere I could wander. As much as I hate posted signs, hunter densities and an eagerness to take advantage of hospitality have increased to the point that I and many other landowners have no choice but to try to maintain some sort of control. That control comes through posted signs and very careful and extremely limited offers of hunting access. Doc

If you are talking about deer hunting rounds, I can't answer that yet. Although the change is in process, we still are a shotgun only county for deer. However, on my other rifles: I use Hornady's V-max or SST bullets with Federal primers and Win 93 or IMR 4198 powder. Doc

No kidding!! I was over there a few months ago and drove the length of pole bridge road and I couldn't even find the place anymore even though I went there a jillion times during the 80's. I remember that the clubhouse and range was not visible from the road, and the driveway was real easy to get past without seeing it. I'll have to go over there and take a more careful look. I don't think I am interested in joining again. That 30 mile one-way drive hasn't gotten any shorter ... lol, but I think I would like to just go over and see the place again (just for old-times sake). A bunch of us put an awful lot into that place and were super active for quite a few years. I finally had to give up because of the distance. And then the winter facilities (in Caledonia) were even farther. Thanks for passing on the info. Doc

I was just curious as to how many here actually keep hunting journals. Those that do: - How many years have you got documented? - What level of detail do you record? - What is the format that you use (spread sheets, hand written notebooks, purchased canned programs, etc.)? - how useful has the journal been to you? - Do you use the journal just for historical purposes (diary) or have you tried to build in some analysis features for assisting future hunts? Doc

So, how many of you actually make some of your own equipment (putting together arrows, building bows, etc.)? How many work on their own bows for repair and maintenance? How many have ever gotten involved in creating your own archery inventions? To me, all that stuff is fun and interesting. I built my first longbow. I have designed and built sights and arrow rests and other archery trinkets and gadgets. I have never bought a commercially assembled arrow ...... ever. And up until recently, I none of my bows ever saw the inside of a archery pro-shop once I bought it. It all just seems to part of the archery experience, and I really do love puttering around with archery equipment and have for 45 years. If I had arranged things to have more free time over my life, I probably would have gotten even more deeply involved in it all. Doc

Steve- Way back in the olden days when I first got into bowhunting, traditional equipment was pretty much the rule of the day. Since the advent of the compound, I have not been able to regain the discipline and dedication required to go back to traditional equipment for any sustained period of time. However, as far as I am concerned, your style of bowhunting is about as pure a form of archery as there is. While my successes in the old days of traditional bowhunting were quite rare, I must admit that they were the ones that I treasure most. I guess I am not surprised to hear that any traditional bowhunter hunts from the ground. Somehow that just seems to be a whole lot more appropriate in terms of completing the traditional bowhunting experience. Doc

Man, you've got that right. There is simply not a better day than a crisp fall day with sun shining on those leaves. I don't even have to see a deer to get completely lost in the experience of hunting in those surroundings. Doc

Wow! Those sound too pretty to shoot. I'd like to see a picture of them. Doc

The scariest thing I have ever seen in the woods was a couple of over-sized german shepards that seemed to have a bit of an attitude. I guess they were claiming that part of the woods as their own since they really didn't seem to want to give any ground. I wasn't in to great a defensive position with just my bow and a hunting knife. So I pulled my coat up around my neck and put on my gloves (just in case) and slowly backed out of the area. Luckily, they didn't follow. That wasn't in the dark (fortunately) but was pretty tense none-the-less. Doc