Doc

What is it that drives you to go out in this crap weather and sit there with the rain dripping from your nose waiting to kill a critter? Is it the meat? Is it the challenge of man vs. animal? Is it just to get away from the old-lady? What is your personal reason for hunting?

Well, the turkey-bird has precedence today. No hunting for me. We'll pick up the hunt again tomorrow.

Uga Booga is right. You are pretty damn creative. Did you carve that bottom piece yourself? That may make a good winter project for me when the snow has me locked in.....lol.

Well, the feast has not begun yet, and I know that when it is all done, I will be sitting there with my eyelids half closed. I will be holding my big fat belly with both hands with an occasional moan. But I will be so happy and contented......lol. I hope you all enjoy this holiday as much as I will.

I remember when I was a kid waiting for the school bus and hearing what sounded like a war down through the valley. I remember sitting on stand 3/4 of the way up the hill watching the highway down below. It looked like a snake of headlights going south on opening morning. I remember the orange suits seemingly everywhere. I remember being able to track the progress of the deer groups just by the shots across the hill. I remember areas of the hunting spots where there were several hunters visible all at once. I remember some of those big drives that neighbors would put on that kept deer moving all day long. I remember knowing deer were coming just by the advancing pattern of shots. I remember having opening days off from school as an excused absence. I remember my hunter safety course being held in the school bus garage. (imagine that!) I remember State parking lots being filled up with cars lining the sides of the road because there was no room to park. I remember our driveway being full of hunters cars. I remember the large groups of us hunters gathered every Monday morning at work talking about the deer we saw or got. I remember seeing all the deer hanging from trees in the yards. I remember the deer that were proudly strapped on the cars instead of hidden in the beds of pick-up trucks. I remember when posted signs were a rare sighting. All the land was open and farmers were damned glad to see you. I remember when during Thanksgiving get-togethers the primary discussion was all about hunting adventures. I remember when hunting leases that locked up huge areas were unheard of. I remember when so many of my hunting spots didn't have houses on them like they do now. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oh gosh, these memories just keep flooding back into my 80 year old brain. They are remembrances of times when hunting reigned supreme in the rural areas. Times change, and not all changes are for the better.

I have noticed big changes in hunter participation. It seems that opening day is the whole season for many hunters. Even opening day seems to be a 1/2 day event. If this trend continues, we may see gun season resembling bow season conditions as far as un-spooked deer. Right now we have enough people to send the deer into a survival mode, but not enough people to keep them on their feet. The other change in hunter activity is the popularity of tree stands and the high-tech winter clothing. Guys hunker down in their stands and never move. Meanwhile the deer hunker down in their safe spots and they don't move either. Nobody is walking and forcing deer to move. That will make good hunting days sound real quiet too.

Happy Birthday

I'm usually packed up and on my way out by sunset even now, but I worry about walking out of the woods during that extra 1/2 hour that is now legal. The same feeling applies to the extra 1/2 hour in the morning. It feels a little scary that others could legally shoot in that kind of low light. But on the other hand, it is getting so that you are not likely to be walking by other hunters with so few people out there these days.

The most recent bunch of years, we have seen some pretty impressive hunter safety numbers when compared to the old days of the 60's and 70's. and we have all been patting ourselves on the back for being such good safe hunters. But the other day as I sat on the hillside, with what sounded like almost no one out hunting, I started thinking about those wonderful numbers and it occurred to me that perhaps the fantastic safety record probably is due more to the diminishing hunter participation. What do you think? Are we getting fantastically safety-minded, or are there simply fewer hunters in the woods, spending fewer hours hunting?

We have an excellent thread here on deer anatomy that is very instructive on this subject. There are a lot of illustrations and actual photographs of where the vitals are on a deer. The page is at: https://huntingny.com/forums/topic/6770-deer-anatomy/#comments I look at the size of the neck bone vs. the size of the heart-lung area, and the choice for making a more guaranteed lethal kill is obvious to me.

Yes, there are way too many people who fail to understand that marksmanship is a large part of hunting. And that is a real shame. There are so many shots that are taken that never should be taken. Shot selection is another big part of hunting. There are also a lot of hunters that think they can do much more than it turns out they can do when it comes to proper shot selection and placement. I know, it takes super-human will power to pass a marginal shot at some huge buck. I don't want to sound "preachy" here, but sometimes it is good to at least think about some of these things before we pull that trigger or loose that arrow.

My biggest problem is keeping the cameras working.

That is one of the big problems with thinking that hunting forums represent the thinking of ALL hunters and gun owners. Get outside of the forum and start talking to hunters and other gun owners. I think you will be surprised how many of them do not vote. Also, as someone already pointed out, even some of the forum members vote Democrat. To me that is unbelievable, but I have seen it here for myself. No, if we could ever get all the hunters and other gun owners to vote pro-gun, we would not even be discussing the NY ammo regulations. I spend a lot of effort preaching about the need to vote to anyone who will listen, but the way things are today even something as simple as voting seems to be too much of an imposition. It is a real shame.

I wonder if the deer even know there's a deer season going on. Things are really quiet out there. Where are all the hunters pushing deer around? It seems that if there are actually any hunters out there they are all sitting (or sleeping) out there sitting at the base of a tree. I suppose the deer are all doing the same thing......lol. Nothing moving. What's it like where you're hunting? Are you seeing or hearing a lot of hunters this year? I've heard more shooting when only small game season was open.

That is exactly the way I do it, except I don't quarter them. I think quartering them may be a more neat way to finish them off, so I guess I will start doing that. By the way, just a word of safety now that deer season is open. Don't forget the blaze orange outer clothing. I don't think it is required for us small game hunters, but safety is always more than just what the state mandates.

Hunters do not vote, and the NYS politicians know it. It will only keep getting worse as long as hunters and gun owners stay apathetic and refuse to vote a bunch of our ultra-liberal politicians out......Starting with Hochul. We hunters are an apathetic bunch and get exactly what we deserve. We only know how to whine and complain about being abused. Too many people refuse to put their votes where their mouths are. I do my own reloading and so I am pretty much off the grid as far as the state government is concerned. To me part of the cost of any guns that I buy are the price of the dies and whatever reloading equipment that pertains to that particular caliber. I have a lifetime supply of powder and components, so I am not affected by their silly laws. But that is only part of the battle against those that would try to harass us out of gun ownership and hunting (and believe me NYS is just full of them). We have to stand up for ourselves at the polls. Nothing else will slow this steady growth of abuses.

I specifically took note of the shooting conditions in the evening. Sunset was at 4:47. Add the half hour makes quitting time at 5:17 PM. I was hunting in a section of woods with a heavy hemlock overstory, and I have to say that if I had been shooting at anything at that time, it would have been difficult to even see the crosshairs in the scope. Yes, I could walk through the woods without bumping into trees, but a deer at any distance would have looked like a fuzzy shadow. I am happy that they made blaze orange/fluorescent pink mandatory along with this change in hunting hours. Walking out of the woods would be pretty scary without my blaze orange coat and hat. I also wonder about finding first blood with a marginal wound in that semi-dark time of night.

I generally have all that stuff cut out weeks or days before I intend to hunt those areas. However, I have noticed that the deer do not take inventory of what vines and fallen limbs are missing. Also, they don't seem to worry about residual human scent from such activity. Perhaps there is some cowardly old buck who might be bothered by such things. I doubt it but who knows.

Okay, so now you all have had an opportunity to experience the new hunting hours of 1/2 hour before sunrise to 1/2 hour after sunset. What's your opinion on on the safety aspect of the level of daylight at the two extremes of the hunting day. Would you feel comfortable taking a shot at the very beginning or ending of the legal shooting hours?

It has been real quiet here in Bristol. I am hunting state land and feeling pretty lonely up there. Where the heck is everybody? I always thought it would be nice to have all this state land to myself, but there seems to be just enough people to put the deer in the survival mode and not enough people to get the deer up and moving.

I have to say that the morning hunt usually seems more productive. Also a deer that is badly hit in the morning gives you immediate daylight to locate the first blood and the rest of the day to locate the deer. That can be a a great advantage over relying on a flashlight to try to find that first blood or your arrow. However getting up in the dark and climbing up that killer hill is something that gets harder and harder to do as age keeps creeping up on me. I have to admit that my early morning hunts are usually now limited to opening day of gun season. It's not the way I want it, but it's getting to be the way that it has to be. Regarding the part of this thread that deals with hunting alone vs. hunting with someone, my hunting is done alone now. The people that I used to hunt with have either stopped hunting, or moved away, or died. Yes, at my age, hunting alone is a gamble, so I stay pretty close to home and carry a cell phone for any sort of emergency. The good news is that the deer drags are usually downhill to the house......lol. No more wandering all over the hill and valley to hunt for me anymore.

An observation regarding age vs. still hunting: Nearly 81, and my favorite way of gun hunting is still-hunting after opening day. That has it's positives and it's negatives. The old circulatory system likes the idea of walking to keep warmer on some of those bitter cold days. However, my stamina isn't what it used to be. Also it seems that as the years advance, I am losing my "sneak". I don't walk as smoothly and light on my feet as I used to. That causes a few more noisy steps that break branches underfoot or shuffle through the leaves a little louder than I would really like. The old eyes are probably not what they used to be, but my long distance vision is still good. That is super important in still-hunting. My hearing aids do improve the ability to hear deer coming (maybe even better than I used to). Some more of the good news is that age has naturally slowed my pace to the proper speed of successful still-hunting. So there are some pluses and minuses relating to this style of ground-hunting at an advanced age. There are some trade-offs regarding my decision to come down out of the trees years ago, but I still enjoy the challenges of sneaking around the woods trying to best the super-senses of the critters on their own terms. Just being able to get up that old "killer" hill behind the house is quite a challenge, but there is a lot of satisfaction in still being able to do it. Age has taken away some abilities, but has given a few satisfactions back as I succeed in fighting back against time.

You got your birthday wish. Good for you.....and all the rest of the country.

Well, we didn't do too good on the state Proposition #1, however the right person won the presidency, and it looks good for a Republican majority in the house and the Senate.

Same here!