Doc

So Rob, I assume you have some magic way of purging this site of the spam attack. Keep in mind that none of the moderators are receiving a salary from this site, nor do any of them necessarily qualify as computer wizards. So, I think this comment is a bit unfair. If you have a solution, perhaps your time would be better spent on suggesting ways of stopping the attack.

I am thinking that every gun cabinet looks a bit bare without a .222 or a .223 rifle in it.....lol. I think you have to consider the situation that usually happens, where the yote, and even foxes will hang up at 100 yards or so, and simply refuse to come any closer. It seems to happen more often than not, and it is nice to have enough gun to reach out and touch those nervous coyotes.

The reason I was asking is because I would think that the government would have to supply some minimum ages for kids to be running around, unsupervised, firing off guns. The concern is for their safety and also any unsuspecting other people that they may come into contact with. First of all, we all know there are minimum ages for unsupervised hunting, but I can't recall ever seeing laws regarding unsupervised target practice and other gun use. So maybe this topic has two parts: 1. Are there such laws regarding minimum unsupervised gun use? 2. If you were implementing such a law, what age would you establish as the minimum?

There are a whole bunch of old foundations along the west side of Canadice lake that are pretty cool to poke around. The City of Rochester bought up all the house and cottages around the lake between 1872 and 1947 and pulled them all down so that that lake and Hemlock lake could become water supplies for the city. The state now owns the properties, and there are trails maintained there that lead to some of these old ruins. I suppose that metal detectors are allowed, but removal of anything is likely against the law. It's pretty cool stuff to poke around and explore.

What legal minimum age would you recommend for gun hunters/shooters that are unaccompanied by an adult? Do you think there should even be a government mandated minimum age?

Some of the stuff that I have found in the woods offers a picture into some of the local history from many years gone-by. Much of the land that I wander around in and hunt in is what some might call "old growth forest". And yet I have found huge old stone piles. I have found old plow points, and a horse-drawn potato hiller (the kind with the two handles for the farmer to guide behind a horse. Also the same style hand cultivator. These were found at the top of the hill a long way from any roads or farm buildings or obvious fields. I also found the remnants of an old sap-house, half way up the hill with a brick fire box and all kinds of rusted pails and big rusted chunks of a boiler. All these things offer up a very different picture of family life where farmers were trying to scratch a living out of land that has long ago been abandoned. Another "find" up on the hill was a huge hollow dead tree with a hole chopped into the side of it. Inside was an old axe head. I have no idea what the story was behind that.

Not really something "cool", but it did make me feel like I was intruding on a private moment between two trees:

Several days ago, I had a list containing TV programs that I wanted to record. I went out in the kitchen to make a bowl of cereal. By the time I got back and turned on the TV, the list was gone, never again to be seen. I swear there are ghosts in this house. It has been over a week, and that list has never surfaced. By the way, the wife was still sleeping while all this happened, so I know that she didn't move them.

I am hoping that we eventually get a public release of those documents so we can see exactly what our national top-cops are involved in. We do not need our own version of the KGB springing up within the government here. It has to be aired out, and corrected immediately.

It sounds like you have trust issues with your doctor. That is not acceptable, and you should be looking for another doctor. This question is one that you should be able to ask your doctor and rely on his/her opinion. If you can't, then you have the wrong doctor.

I lost my wedding ring in the slime of chicken guts when we were butchering chickens. It is up in the town dump under ground somewhere.

Sure.....It is like a mobil trail cam that can be sent to surveil and verify bedding areas and such without actually entering the area. I just wonder where it is all going to stop. I know we don't like to draw lines and we have a million ways to justify each successive step toward letting technology do the hunting for us. I guess I just spend too much time worrying about these kinds of things that take hunting further into the realm of tech wizardry.

Every year, I shell enough walnuts for the wife to use in her cooking. I use a vise to crack them. It takes an unbelievable amount of force to crack through that shell. The only thing that will stand up against that kind of force is the steel of the vise jaws, or a good hammer. I cannot picture a deer's mouth developing that kind of force. And then cracking them is only part of the job. The nut meats then have to be dug out of each of the little pockets with a nut-pick to separate the edible stuff from the sharp shards of rock-hard shell. They are not like the relatively soft acorns where once you get them shelled the one-piece nut-meat falls out. I can't see where a deer would even have the option of eating these.

I have to say that I have never seen a deer eat a hickory nut. I have cracked a jillion of them for cooking, and cannot imagine a deer having the clamping force necessary to crack the shell of a hickory nut. I use a bench vise to develop enough force. And then it is an amazing job to separate the intermingled nut-meats from the hard sharp shards of the fractured shell. I mean, it is not like the thin shelled acorns with the single large nut meat inside. Hickory nuts are one nasty little bugger to open up and the sort through to get the relatively small edible contents out of. Are you all sure that deer actually eat hickory nuts?

I believe we have not yet seen all the problems that will need to be addressed in the future. There will be problems of privacy also many abuses that we cannot even imagine yet. And when it comes to them being a tool of terrorism, that is coming too. If you are concerned about the invasive activities of the government into your personal lives, wait until it is a neighbor that you have to be concerned with....lol.

Probably my favorite hunting memory was that first pigeon hunt in the hay mow of the barn, using a hand-carved longbow that I carved from a hickory stave cut off the hill. Some un-fletched willow arrows and a whole bunch of time on my hands, and a new lifetime of hunting was born. I was age 11 at the time. My Mom cooked up the two pigeons that I got, and as I recall, they were pretty darn good tasting.

I see scouting as just one part or aspect of the hunt. And I see aerial surveillance as one step too far. I am getting the impression that many have drawn no lines, and all is fair in hunting. If technology can supply it, anything goes in hunting. But I always thought that was why people even talk about "fair chase". But, I could be wrong. Maybe it really is, "a dead deer at any cost, with no holds barred."

I imagine flying a drone would be great fun. I know that scouting is great fun. combining the two seems to me like a step too far when considering "fair chase" notions. Where do we draw the line in hunting equipment and methods? Do we draw any lines?

Ok......Now I recognize the movie. I didn't remember just the title. Actually, It seems like it was a long time ago that I saw it, like maybe a year or so. It was a great movie!

So these silly restrictions of the Safe Act have done what was intended by the pinko authors. They have confused and frightened the ammunition suppliers to the point where they are afraid to do business in NYS. The intent had nothing to do with gun safety or crime reduction. It was simply legislated harassment and frustration aimed squarely at law abiding gun owners.

I'll bet that most of the dogs running around the woods are family house pets that people let run free. I'd hate to say how many people over the years I've heard say that they wanted to move to the country so their dogs could "run free". That is just a lot of irresponsible nonsense, but there are way too many people with that kind of screwed up thinking. People that would allow their pets to become problems for the environment and their neighbors, should take their damn dogs and move back to the city where that kind of irresponsibility is expected. We don't need their "free-range dogs" raising havoc in our woods or yards or properties. I had some big old mutt that decided to claim my yard as his domain and stood there barking and growling at me until I re-emerged from the house with the 12 gauge. Then he finally got control of himself and decided that getting out of there was the prudent thing to do. I also had a visiting bowhunter that was kept in his treestand by some cross-breed, Cujo-style dog for quite a while. I told him he should have shot the damn thing. I'm not sure what is such a mystery about the fact that a pet owner has a responsibility to maintain absolute control of their animals all the time. There is not any acceptable excuse for any pet to be unsupervised and not in total control. I also know that some people use the rural areas as dumping grounds for all kinds of pets that people don't want to have anymore. So, they take a little drive in the country and drop their critters off to fend for themselves. Just a little gift to the people that live out here. Thanx a lot folks!

Yes, they seemed to be encountering more problems than you would want to. But, it still looks like they took it all in stride and still had a lot of fun. It could have been worse, as Burt Reynolds and crew found out in "Deliverance". I couldn't figure out if they were really supposed to be hunting or whether the bow was for self-protection.

You know, if I had kept records over the years, I probably would find that my first compound, the old 6 wheel Bear Whitetail with the crow-bar epoxy limbs is probably the most prolific bow in terms of deer harvests of any of the fancy, expensive bows on my wonderful wall of super-bows. I did the thing where I had to have the latest and the greatest every time I turned around. I have a pretty impressive collection that represents a pile of money. Well when I finally bought my last super-bow, I declared that short of the thing exploding in my face, the MQ-32 would be the last bow I would buy. So far I have stayed true to my word.

Sure, I and many others have tried to turn back the tide of the changing culture. It is similar to banging your head against the wall and just as effective. It has nothing to do with rallies and gatherings or even politics. It has to do with changing the hearts and minds of kids who see nothing "cool" in hunting, and would much rather sit on the couch exercising their thumbs with the latest communications device or game, and who will look at you like you're nuts if you happen to mention anything that has to do with stepping outdoors and wandering around the woods. That is just before they break out laughing in your face and then say, "Oh, were you being serious?"

By the way, Kolb has been a very vocal opponent of the safe act from day one. I don't want anyone to take Jdubs misinformed rant seriously. The man has never wavered in his gun owner's support, and is as good an opponent for Andy as anyone. What we don't need are these closet Cuomo supporters trying to dilute any opposition to the Governor. We gun owners seem to have a hard enough time uniting without these kinds of negative talking points on anyone willing to run against our little state tyrant.