Doc

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.

I get up early to make those 6 cold fried egg sandwiches that I take with me for breakfast and lunch. That an making a thermos of very hot coffee will keep me on stand for opening day of gun season. For bow season, I have a tradition of snapping on the lights on my lighted archery range in the woods and taking a shot at 20, 25, and 30 yards just to be sure that all is well with my shooting. I turn the lights off and head up the hill to my stand. That happens every morning that I go out.

When bait materials are not being used for illegal hunting, it then becomes another prohibited exercise which is known as "feeding" the deer. The only justification possible for selling those materials is when they are legally used out-of-state. And like you have mentioned, that probably is not what is really happening at all. The real answer to your Dad's question is, "Because it is a legal loop-hole, and they make plenty of money from the illegal use of bait materials."

I don't delete anything....

There was a few years (during the mid 80s) that I had my bow set at 72#. The reason? We had a couple of moose hunts planned, and I mistakenly thought that the heavy poundage was required. But with that successfully completed, my attention went back to whitetails and I dropped the poundage back to 60 pounds. There were some joint and muscle problems developing that encouraged me to do that. I am convinced that if I had continued at that higher draw weight, I likely would not be bowhunting today. Now, with advancing age, I have knocked a few more pounds off the 60#, and I still have penetration to spare, and a shallow enough trajectory to satisfactorily handle my 25-30 yard maximum hunting shots. In hindsight, there probably was never any good reason to ever exceed 60 - 65#, and most of my hunting could likely have been just as successful at 55-60 pounds. In my opinion, anything beyond that for a male with an average frame, only risks potential damage and a shortening of bowhunting years. Archery does stress human joints and body parts in many unforgiving ways.

My bow is set for 57#

Our NYS tax dollars at work. This creep never saw a photo-op that he didn't dash in front of.

I'd have to put on an addition just to have a place to hang the mount.

Not going to last very long in Honeoye ...... If you believe any of that long-range forecasting, check it out: https://www.wunderground.com/forecast/us/ny/honeoye

Wasp is still in business: https://www.wasparchery.com/

I got to say that anyone who pays any attention to a forecast that is for 5 days away has to be reminded that these meteorologist clowns are doing well to accurately forecast the weather for the next day.....lol.

Ha-ha-ha-ha..... I would not be sitting in 110 degrees in Arizona hunting Coues Deer. That just would not ever happen!

I have been noticing that a lot of flowering crabapple trees are looking the same way in and around Canandaigua. I'm wondering if it is the same ailment. These are all good mature trees that are just croaking, or nearly so.

For bow season: I want days with the highs in the 50's for the first part, and a good steady predictable wind direction. And NO rain or howling winds And: Toward the end of the season, I want snow but not the kind of bitter cold where I have to dress like an Eskimo and wind up with shooting problems. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For gun season: For opening day, I want a nice comfy day with the sun shining and a whole bunch of critters to look at while I'm waiting for a deer to come by. And: For the rest of the season, I want about 5 inches of good tracking snow covering the ground for a good bunch of days of still hunting. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For both seasons: I want to see a lot of deer. Any deer. Even if I don't get a shot. The season is always a lot more exciting for me if I just get to see a lot of deer. Oh, and I wouldn't mind getting a poke at a coyote.