Doc

Yeah Eddie, but if I had known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself. I'm starting to feel like I've been rode hard and put away wet......lol.

What a slow lingering death that would be if the deer was not eventually harvested. Imagine how tough deer are and how long it would take for that animal to finally die of starvation. Difficult to even contemplate. By the way, those "neck shots" aren't really examples of great shot selection either.

You are describing a situation that maybe you should be thinking about in a bit of a proactive way. I know it's easier to say than to actually do, but I would be actively looking for other, more stable hunting land. It sounds like it could be sold out from under you at any time. That's not much of a recommendation for the problem you were asking about, but maybe just something to be thinking about in addition to whatever solution you finally come up with regarding those that think you are scouting and erecting stands for their convenience.

Yeah, but it wasn't really fun this time. But I will likely do it again just because I am stubborn .....lol. That same hill killed our neighbor, and he was only in his 50's.

I have no particular love for deer drives because I guess I like to think that getting a deer is an individual act of one hunter vs. 1 deer. But I have to admit that back when the big drives were commonplace, the deer were always on the move, creating opportunities for everybody in the woods. Today, with modern miracle fabrics, what few guys that are left go off into the woods and climb into their stand or hunker next to a big tree and spend the entire day motionless. Meanwhile, a few hundred yards away the deer find their favorite hidey-hole and spend the day safely hiding and a long boring quiet day passes with no venison. That's not the way it was back in the day of the drives.

So, did you ever figure out what the lady was doing? Just stupid, or attempting suicide by hunter?

No, actually, I cannot bowhunt in the snow or extreme cold anymore for that very reason.

Well today brought all that clearly into focus. This was my first still-hunt of the year, and I learned a lot about how old-age can impact abilities. I was out for 6 hours today and started out walking up our "Killer Hill". That's a long hike, much of which is almost hands and knees kind of climbing.....lol. Well that's a bit of exaggeration, but it is a very steep and unrelenting climb, I got all the way back to the end of the hunting area that I used to routinely hunt years ago, and turned to get the wind in my face while I started the real serious hunting through my favorite area along the edge of the gorge in a heavy hemlock stretch of woods toward home. First thing I learned was that my hips had hit some kind of a time limit, and started kinking up. It's pretty hard to execute smooth silent stealthy sneaking when you are walking like Chester on Gunsmoke, or Walter Brennan. But I realized I had a long way to go so I just sucked it up and did my best. Then the knees started in trying to lock up. That added even more fun to the hunt. I was actually beginning to get concerned whether or not I was actually going to be able to make it home. How the hell would I ever have dragged a deer home? Normally, I would drive my ATV up to just under the ridge of the hill and then walk from there. Well, I had to put the plow on the ATV a little early this year, to check out the winch lift. The plow is not a fun thing to take off and then put back on, so I just figured that I always walked it for years and years, so why not just walk. Well, I guess I found out that a lot has changed since that much younger guy used to scamper around the hills years ago .....lol.

I love hunting deer in snow. The deer are so much more visible. Also, tracks don't lie. You actually get to see how many deer are in the area, where they are coming from and where they are going to. No doubts about where the bedding areas are and who uses them. Good way to tell for sure how many hunters are out there. Everything starts to get a whole lot clearer.

I believe that this is a much larger component in the shrinking deer hunter population than most people want to admit. Yes, we have always had pressure to target larger deer, but in this day of social media, we now have the ability to publicly humiliate hunters who started off completely satisfied with the deer that they got. And so many of us seem to enjoy doing that to fellow hunters. The pressure put on hunters to only shoot huge deer has also become a problem for the DEC too, in that they are experiencing an under-harvest of does because of this public peer pressure to produce monster bucks. And then there are the TV shows that start hunters off with the unrealistic expectations of "the only deer worth hunting is a book-buck". This crazy judgementalism seems to have taken over all aspects of hunting media to the point where many hunters eventually just drop out because of the inability to meet the unrealistic expectations put on them by this new public internet peer pressure. The internet is no friend to hunting as public expectations and standards for success continue to exceed reality. More and more people are simply saying, "I suck at this", and are dropping out.

Anyway ...... Getting back to the original topic, I will say that this year, just like the past few decades will start off like gang-busters and then after the first couple of days have concluded, you will swear that you had heard more shooting during squirrel season. Perhaps the 1st half day of Thanksgiving there might be a little flurry of activity.Then it might get a little more active on the next Saturday and Sunday, After that, you could shut the whole thing down and most of the hunting world wouldn't even realize that it happened. So the fact is that most hunters don't really want to shorten the season....The fact is they simply lose interest and don't care.

I'm hoping that the crap-weather will get people wandering around trying to get warm and perhaps they will have deer moving like never before. Of course that may be wishful thinking and probably it is more likely that they will be huddled in their cars with the heaters blasting.......lol. Actually, when you think about it, it probably will be a great still-hunting day ... right?? Wind covering noise, and maybe keeping wind direction more uni-directional and obvious. wet leaves muffling the crunch. and the splattering of the rain making even more cover-noise. So you can either take advantage of all that and join the wandering crowds of state land hunters, or get stubborn and hunker in and let them "drive" deer for you.

I think there is a small element of self-reliance and smattering of independence involved in my hunting also. It's just a hint that I maybe don't have to be reliant on others for survival.

I hate to soak up my gun, so I will be oiling up the outside quite thoroughly an sliding it inside a garbage bag. I have some pretty good heavy blaze orange rain gear so I am hoping to be able to stay dry-ish. My blind has walls that offer a pretty good wind-break. I'm only about 15 minutes from the house, so if things get too ugly, I have an escape plan.....lol.

The deer will move under any conditions if the hunters are moving. As soon as the woods becomes filled with human stink, and the sound of guns, natural feeding and bedding patterns go out the window. The movement is caused by human pressure primarily. And that will happen regardless of the weather. However with the wind howling and everything soaked up, you will have to be on your "A"- game as far as staying alert and paying attention. The wind keeps them in a torqued-up condition where they are super wary, and they don't give you any advanced warning that they're coming.

And by the way we should also be making the following plea in light of the up and coming season: Gun hunters- PLEASE Don't Take Bad Shots.

I realize that on an internet forum, we can say anything and claim it as fact. However, pure BS is usually pretty easy to spot. When I read things where it is claimed that bowhunting is "too easy", that starts to flunk the BS test and just like all the other anti-hunting organizations and individuals, it reeks of just some more anti-hunting propaganda. I remember a few years back when animal rights organizations announced that their primary target in their anti-hunting campaign was going to be bowhunting. Well, it sounds like we are hearing from one of the infiltrators now.

Of course, what you are conveniently forgetting is that most of us bow hunters are gun hunters also. Actually, if you read your own post, I think you will see where the real divisiveness lies. You seem to have a bitterness toward bowhunters that probably has no place in the world of hunting. I mean, I have heard less anti-bowhunting rhetoric from PETA publications.

Keep your eyes open for a milkweed pod. Dry it out and put it in a zip-lok bag and keep it in your pack. When you are in your stands, turn a few of these tings loose, and answer all the questions you may have about how certain wind directions react at your stand and beyond. Usually you will have some surprises. Try it in different atmospheric and weather conditions.......more surprises. Back before I finally came down out of the trees, I found that there are some damp or rainy conditions when the wind at certain stands started right out blowing almost straight down to the ground. It always seems to be an education in what happens to scent after it leaves your immediate location. A small notebook to record these revelations can always serve to answer your own question in the future.

There's an old saying that "Figures don't lie, but liars figure". Heck we had old Chuckie Schumer and Pelosi whining about the damage to the middle class with these tax cuts even before the first word of the bill was written. And how the hell do you expect any credible comments to come from the "fake news" people in the mainstream media. Haven't you caught on to the media bias against all things Republican? It might be prudent to at least have a reconciled tax bill constructed by both the House and the Senate before we start flipping out about the content of a bill that isn't even written yet.

Well, probably what you should do is throw down that other "weapon of challenge", the crossbow and wait for the season where you can use the most effective and humane weapon .....the rifle. I'll bet crossbows are subject to deflections too.

I am seriously thinking about performing a Moog-ism, and pulling out my old Damon Howatt recurve, and going old-school. I also have a Bear Mustang take-down recurve that I might mess around with. That is if I can still pull either one back. I'm thinking I might try full instinctive, the way I started bow hunting way, way, back in the old days before I got led astray by the lure of technology.

Cut the tags into small pieces. Using a small pot, fill it with water and add the tags. Put a pinch of salt and seasoning as required. Bring to a boil for 15 minutes and serve the tags over a bed of noodles covered in tomato sauce. One season's tags will provide 1 serving.

This is the most interesting reply in the whole thread. I believe this just might be true. A shorter season would put a bit of urgency and intensity back into the season. People have become so comfortable with having an almost unlimited amount of time to get their deer that they seem to lose complete interest after the first couple of days. I think a lot of hunters suffer from burn-out long before the season ends. And then I have to wonder how that burn-out impacts their desire to go out in subsequent years. Yes, it is nice to have so much season that you can fit hunting days into a tight schedule. But when you can postpone your hunting almost indefinitely, you have to wonder how that effects the dedication and intensity and motivation. How does that translate into deer movement? I know there are days after opening weekend where it is hard to remember that deer season is even open. It gets to a point where you hear fewer shots than you did back in small game season. Just enough hunters to keep the deer aware that there are still hunters out there, keeping them in survival mode. But not enough to keep deer moving through the day to offer actual opportunities. I don't know, maybe deer hunting would become a lot more active, exciting, and intense if it were shorter.

In fact, I was directly responding to the previous posts that were talking about: "HUNTING with a crossbow is MUCH more movement, than a vertical bow. As it sits in your lap, the limbs flop side to side on the forend with the slightest nudge. Crossbow is also much heavier, and almost clunky to carry and handle. It seems to catch every limb and vine, on the way into the stand. And with the wider profile, deer pick off the crossbow, much more so than the slim vertical profile of a bow." and "Let me tell you, getting the crossbow off the hook is harder than my vertical bow, and getting it on target is not as easy as you seem to think it is. The scope is actually a bit of a hindrance at 20 yards, as it took longer to get the deer in the scope than it does to get my vertical bow sight on it. I also had to double check that my limbs were not going to smack the tree next to me (stand is in a clump tree), and had I not leaned back a bit, it would have. Sorry, but there simply was more movement involved than with my compound. Laying the crossbow on my lap the whole time? No freaking way, its too bulky and awkward." Perhaps characterizing all that as "whining" was not exactly the right term, but it sure seems like a bunch of good reasons to leave the damned contraption at home .....lol. Having been blessed with a healthy sense of logic, I think that I don't really have to experience everything to be able to figure out the basics of what it is like to actually use it. But perhaps there was something in my reply that was actually untrue that maybe having a crossbow in my hands would have cleared up. Did I actually say something there that wasn't true?