Doc

Can't sleep tonight. Getting a little anxious about tomorrow's hunt I guess. But while I was fighting to get to sleep, my mind took off in a strange direction like it frequently does ....lol. I started thinking about right and left handed bows. I am right handed and so I use a right handed bow .... I draw the weight with my strong arm (right) and brace the bow with my left. That really made sense back when I shot a recurve and longbow. Has made sense for a whole lot of centuries I suppose. But then along came the compound that reduced the hold weight so you don't have to draw with your strong arm. Also, the common use of sights now makes it important to hold that bow as steady on target as possible. But like everyone else, what I have found is that the bow doesn't want to hold still. The sight pin wanders all over the place. Why? ..... because I am bracing and holding it with my weaker and less coordinated arm/hand. Meanwhile my stronger arm is merely staying stationary at anchor doing nothing but waiting for that damn pin that my left arm is controlling, to hold still. Back muscles are holding the string at anchor and the strength of my right arm is pretty much wasted. So there I am not using my stronger arm for anything but a connection to the string and trying to force the pin to steady itself using my off-side arm. Why wouldn't I really want to guide the bow and the sight pin with my naturally stronger and more coordinated arm (my right arm/hand) and let my weaker arm do the light work of anchoring and pulling the trigger. Are we now doing this all backwards and not taking total advantage of what the compound is really doing for us? Think about it.....hasn't the advent of the compound and the sight pin actually reversed the whole concept of shooting a bow? OK, somebody explain to me where is the fallacy is in all this? Why aren't we right handed compound shooters using a left handed bow and keeping that sight pin rock-steady? Inquiring minds want to know ..... lol.

Old Indian trick ..... Ha-ha-ha. A lot of people tie a thread onto their bow to always have a wind direction indicator. But that only tells you about what the wind is doing right at your immediate location. Take one or two milkweed seeds out of a dried out pod, and let it go into the wind. You will see that seed start drifting, sort of airborne It will go out away from you, and then maybe start turning direction because of some terrain feature shunting the wind around, and then some unseen thermal may take over and send it in a different direction. In other words, you can trace where your scent is really going after it leaves you. It is amazing how that seed will float out there for a long distance and those white hairs on it make it visible for 20 to 25 yards and even more in good light. It can teach you a lot about what wind currents are doing in the area of your stand, and you can actually watch them work. The pods have to be well dried out, but the very design that nature supplied for long distance seed distribution can also unlock the unseen wind currents that are trying to telegraph your scent to the deer. I've been doing this for decades ever since I first noticed the amazing flight design of these seeds as a kid.

The thing is that you don't even have to be hunting over it to be breaking the law. You don't even have to have a weapon any where's near you to be breaking the law. If you put out food for deer, you are breaking the law. Deer feeding is illegal in NYS with one county exception.

You truly know how to live!

Oh really? I have tried hunting in the areas where they ride these things, so I have first hand experience with the hunting conditions while all of these circus acts go by. I can tell you that no deer is going to watch 6 guys stretched out about 50 yards along the trail yelling back and forth to each other as they go. And the hikers that use these trails sound like a bunch of old folks having a party. None of these people are just quietly riding or walking by. And then there are the joggers all dressed up pretty in their fluorescent spandex gear running along like gazelles. I have never seen a deer stand there and stare at anything that is running. I mean all this crap is going on top of a killer hill. I will give these people a lot of credit for somehow getting up there but they have just turned good hunting area into a complete riot. Now I don't have any idea whether that will ever happen to the land that Sully is trying to hunt. I hope to hell that it does not, but I will tell you that where they have let down the floodgates and turned loose the horde of health nuts, it is not a hunter-friendly atmosphere.

Here's a start for my bowhunting check list. I'll bet I have left out lot of stuff. BOWHUNTING CHECK LIST Bow Quiver & arrows w/broadheads Release Arm guard Drag rope Compass Grunt call Bleat call Range finder Milkweed pods Monocular Stool Brush nippers Camo cloth Knife License Flashlight Pen Glasses

I agree with all of this reply. You haven't told us of the stipulations of permission and any rules that may apply. So be sure not to raise too much of a ruckus. The landowner may just decide that permission for outsiders to use the land is not worth the hassle. I have to say that I have all kinds of sympathy for what you are going through. A few years back the DEC opened up the state land that I hunt to sizeable club of mountain bikers, and they did hack-in a maze of trails that is super hard to avoid. That led to hikers and all kinds of non hunting use. It actually gets downright busy and noisy up there. But I have to resign myself to the fact that at anytime while hunting I could see gangs of bikers or 20 or 40 hikers walking by my stand. It has basically cut out my use of about 75% of the land that I used to hunt. But that's what can happen when you don't own the land.

To me, I have three scenarios that fall into the category of "Tough Stand Sets". The first one is those areas where thermals and "wind funnels" tend to mess up everything when a deer comes by. I have this one area where there is a very deep gorge (about 200' with vertical slate walls) that randomly pushes air up and out and can defeat any prevailing wind, or move against the thermals creating a swirling wind throughout the area. And guess what..... The deer love that area, and I believe it is because they get scent warnings that a hunter is in the area from just about all directions. It cannot be beat! There is no place at all where the wind direction will remain consistent for more than 5 minutes at a time. Wind will come out of the ravine behind in spurts and confound any prevailing wind or thermal set-ups causing circling and shifting back and forth wind directions. Very frustrating! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Another "tough stand set" are the pole woods set-ups. we have a lot of old fields on top of the hill that have gone into initial transition of maple thickets with all 6" (approx.) diameter trees and nothing else. Any structure that you put out there looks out of place and will always draw a deer's attention even if it has been there for decades. The trees are too small for tree-stands (even if I actually used treestands anymore). And yet the deer have some nice trails through there. It is funny how the trails bust up and scatter as you get close to the edge of this area where you could actually arrange something acceptable. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have other areas that each have their own challenges. Down in the valley bottom, the brush is so thick that in order to get any shots at all, you have to bushwhack shooting lanes and access trails that any self-respecting deer would have to recognize as sign that a human is setting up on them with some evil intentions. However, I have been persistent in those places and hacked some openings and shooting lanes and such that after enough years, they have begun to naturally stay open with minimal annual trimming. So these areas are tough to establish, but can be overcome with time. No you can't even see the stand in this picture and that is the good news about these kinds of areas. But look at the abnormal look of the place after I got done clearing it all out to even be able to get a shot. Yeah eventually the deer get used to it and use the area again, but it took about 3 years before things got back to where they would accept the change and move in there during shooting hours. These are nerve-racking set-ups though because you don't get any advance warning that a deer is coming. They can zip right across the shooting lane before you can even get ready. So I generally cut some skinnier observation lanes in a before and after fan pattern for spotting incoming deer before they get to this actual shooting lane. But without this kind of disruption, that whole area would be un-huntable for a bow or even a gun. That makes this one another very "Tough Stand Set".

Anybody got any equipment check lists that you use before heading out to go hunting, or when you are packing up the night before? I am about to construct one and am looking for some help as to what others think are good things to take. For me, I see it as three different ones. The 1st would be for stand bowhunting. The 2nd one would be for stand gun hunting (everything but the kitchen sink). And the third check list would be for gun season still hunting (light and efficient).

And again, when it comes to credibility I have to go along with those that have made a college and daily study of it and those who deal with such subjects as elements of their career, day in and day out. And that would be the DEC. I see no reason to believe that they are inherently stupid or mentally challenged because they have chosen that career. I haven't figured out any ulterior motives or scams that they would be trying to pull. But I do recognize that the biologists have devoted a certain amount of time and effort to learning and researching such things as opposed to those that just simply have a bias or nothing more than an opinion. I too have offered opinions on game management, but I do recognize that when you come down to it, my credibility definitely doesn't hold a candle to those that have the believability of their area of expertise. So we're all entitled to have all kinds of "opinions", but as readers of those opinions, we are entitled to assign credibility based on actual credentials.

Well, there are some things that have made me wonder about this question. First of all there is the re-opening of scrapes every year for several years in a row. they seem to lie dormant all year being washed out daily by snow, rain, frost, etc. and yet when rut rolls around, they become re-activated. And not always by the same deer. Then there is the new ground stand that is a disturbance of their home turf that they always seem to notice .....for a while. After some unknown period of time, they begin to accept the structure as part of their habitat. Then there is the times that you accidentally bump that buck out of his bed. How long if ever before he will re-use that area as his bedding sanctuary? It is things like this that make me wonder about how finely tuned and developed the actual thinking and remembering and learning processes that these critters are.

Any stories or anecdotes that indicate a deer learning and remembering?

I think my attitude about the DEC is based on the fact that they have biologists that are educated in the field of wildlife management. They devote their entire career to the subject of management. They have the finances and resources to at least make an educated stab at their techniques. Now compare that to opinionated hunters who almost all have never cracked a wildlife management book or received any sort of credible education on the subject, and I have to ask myself, "Which one has the best chance of actually being right?" I won't say they are infallible, but at least they come with some level of credentials.

I always have a milkweed pod or two in a zip-loc bag. I have used them for decades. It is fascinating to watch them go out and start turning and sometimes even reverse. It is a great tool for reading and studying thermals and understanding some of the movements of your scent after it leaves your stand.

I am no expert on the matter by any means, but I do think I recall reading that bears are often full of trichinosis, and cooking is the only safe protection from that scary disease.

Yeah, I see it as trying to drag a few hundred pound of jello in a bag with no handles.

That thought kind of crossed my mind too. I am a ground stand hunter, and aggravating a short tempered big meat eater that would be on me in a second or two with a weapon that has zero stopping power does kind of make me think twice about what kind of weapon I would consider poking at him with.....lol.

I have seen automatic timed feeders that people invest big bucks in, and I logic tells me that like a lot of things, if they didn't work, they wouldn't be manufactured or sold for very long. Also, those TV programs where the guys are sitting in the elevated box-blinds sipping coffee waiting for the huge bucks to come out into the openings quite often slip up and show glimpses of the feeders that these huge bucks are heading for in full daylight. Also, I have seen the pictures in magazines where bucks are wandering around feeders eating bait. and those pictures were daylight pictures. I have also read articles in hunting magazines talking about baited hunts, and there is no talk about how it doesn't work on mature deer. So the conclusion that I draw from all of this is that baiting has no age barrier. And even if it did, the reasons for making baiting and feeding illegal have nothing to do with age or gender of the deer. But even besides those points, are we really such pathetic hunters that we have to train the deer to make themselves available for easier hunting. I have no problems with scouting and learning the food source part of a deer's movements and patterns. But I personally have no satisfaction, need or desire to condition the local herd to pose for my shot.

Sometimes understanding thermals can save a hunt. Back in my younger days, I had a lot of hunts that had a good wind blowing up from a trail to my face only to have them reverse when the sun went down behind the hill on the other side of the valley, and the cooling air turned the wind right down the hill from me to the trail. Traditionally, that time toward the end of the day when the sun went behind the trail was always the most productive time of day for me, and when the wind betrays you like that, the whole afternoon's hunt is screwed because it is too late to change stands.

That is the question. So Now that bear season is coincident with deer seasons, I guess I should be thinking about what I would do if a bear comes wandering along while I am on my deer stand. I really haven't considered it before because we don't really have a lot of them around where I hunt. But, it is always possible. Frankly, I still haven't got a clue what I would do. Like I say we don't have a lot of them around, so I'm not sure I would like the idea of thinning them out even more. Also, I am not sure what I would do with a bear if I got one. I don't even know if I could stomach bear meat. So I guess a bear-skin rug might be a possibility, but of course that would go with nothing in our house. I'm thinking that a picture would be better than shooting the damn thing. So, what do you all think? If a bear comes by will you shoot it?

I always threaten to build an Excel check-list to use for each kind of hunt. One for bowhunting and one for gun season stands and one for gun season still hunting. Maybe this will be a good year to do that. I'm not getting any younger you know and the old memory isn't as good as it used to be.

FANTASTIC! You broke the ice. The weird thing is that my first bow-killed deer looked exactly the same and I mean exactly, right down to the length of the spikes. In fact I mounted the antlers on a plaque and have it hanging in the center of all my other mounts. And of all of them, that is the one that brings back the most fond memories. It was 7 seasons in the making.

Hey, that's kind of neat. I like it.

Well, I don't pay a lot of attention to "Harry Highschool" cutesy sayings. The fact is that we are too damn cheap to hire enough law enforcement personnel to enforce the NYS Conservation Law. So if we give a damn about poaching or any kind of lawbreakers thumbing their noses at the law, it is up to us to give the DEC a helping hand when we can. We whine about how ineffective the DEC is at enforcing the law and then we come up with these kinds of childish attitudes regarding lawbreakers. They are not Robin Hood, they are simply game thieves and we need to start getting a grown-up attitude about that.

Here's my problem with baiting. I don't want to be forced into baiting myself because a neighbor has changed patterns and movements of the deer with his feeders and bait. I have no interest in participating in "baiting wars" trying to see who can train the deer the best to compensate for their lack of hunting skills. I try not to train the deer or condition them to develop patterns that make my hunting easier. I hunt the deer as I find them, and I would not appreciate anyone arranging those patterns against my efforts. I also do not like the mentality behind the idea of trying to draw deer away from a neighboring hunter's property. There seems to be a bit of "good for me and the Hell with you" attitude in that kind of thinking. The other thing is that we pay the DEC to manage a healthy herd of deer (you can agree with that or not, it doesn't really matter). They have stated that their biologists believe that baiting and feeding pose a health hazard to the herd. I, nor anyone I know, has more credentials than the DEC to credibly make those decisions, so my attitude is that it is the law and needs to be abided by.