Doc

I wonder how they fake those Saturday shows that show trophy bucks all over the feeders while the boys drink their coffee in the box blinds with their sand-bagged rifles. I've got to say that it looks damned easy to me. And it's not like those programs are rare and difficult to find, so it does show that bait works, and not just on baby deer and does. Also, why are people so darned excited to buy expensive feeders and haul all the bait out to load those feeders if it doesn't work? Do you suppose that if mature bucks never showed up at bait that the current marketing frenzy of feeders and specially concocted bags of bait would have a dime spent on them. Also, What makes you think that the ease of baiting relates only to trophy bucks? The afore-mentioned monster buck TV stars that hang around feeders are not the only deer that bait becomes a useful tool for attracting. There also are all kinds of youngsters and does hanging around those feeders who make good cheap and easy targets also. Or don't they count? It's funny how we always judge all hunting experiences, rules, and ethics with only trophy bucks being considered.

There is one obvious difference between hunting a corn field vs a bait pile or timer driven feed dispenser. I once counted 38 different entry and exit trails to a corn field that covered approximately a 1/4 mile of field edge. I never was at the right trail when I hunted there. And then too there is the huge area of bearing oaks that still require a bit of patterning to be a useful draw from a hunting standpoint. However, plopping down a single source of preferred deer food or some bag of special concocted preferred deer candy, not only places the deer in the same area that you are hunting, but even the specific 1 square foot location for the deer to stand long enough to pose for you until it finally turns enough to offer the perfect broadside shot at 20 yards. In fact I have read articles that describe timed feeders as acting like a dinner bell so they could not only provide the deer at the specific square foot of space, but also tell you when to be on stand for the performance to begin. How much of your hunting are you willing to let some deer-feeder manufacturer's engineer sitting in an office somewhere, do for you?

I'm not a big fan of neighbors seeing who can lure the most deer away from their neighbors and onto their property. I don't think that we need to begin the creation of "bait wars". Also, it is not my style to condition deer to accommodate my lack of hunting skill. I hunt deer as I find them, and have no interest in treating them like pets or livestock, training them to come to the dinner-bell so I can shoot them. Deer are quite capable of finding their own food, and I am quite capable of putting in the time to figure out where they are going to eat. I mean that is just my own personal limit when it comes to hunting. I don't really care for this recent idea that deer should be trained and used as an agricultural activity that is then called "hunting". I know that is not a popular attitude, but that is just a personal attitude that grew out of my years of hunting.......not a dictate to anyone else. To me hunting involves learning the patterns and habits of deer, not creating them. It's kind of a fine point, but for me, deer hunting is not raising or conditioning deer for slaughter. However, I am aware that others may not draw that particular line of distinction. We each make up our own rules within what is legal when it comes to what hunting is to us. So we all develop our own code of ethics, purpose and meanings and challenges as we grow up into hunting. It is just that some practices (legal or not) are things that I don't care to associate with my hunting.

Well, here's one way.......

I forgot the "big-mouth" birds ..... blue jays. No finches yet, but they'll get around to us eventually. Or maybe they were here when I wasn't looking. We are going through birdseed like crazy this year. The bird activity was absolutely nuts the past two days during the storm. It was like they were afraid that it was their last meal......lol.

At our feeder: Cardinals, chickadees, nuthatches, hairy & downy woodpeckers, red bellied woodpeckers, sparrows, mourning doves, slate-backed juncos, and titmouses (or is that titmice .... lol), & deer.

Ok, having never had any experience with bankruptcy, I have to ask. What does this really have to do with the company's future? Does this mean they are out of business and all stores will be closing? Is it just a debt forgiveness ploy so that they can re-organize and make some sort of come-back? What are the likely options and results for the company and their stores?

There was a day like that that I remember, and as I recall, the sun came out and the temperature shot up into the 60's flash-melting the snow and causing floods down my way. Meteorology doesn't seem to really have improved all that much, so maybe this storm will fizzle out like that one did.

Ok the answer is "yes". I just checked the wireless thermometer, and it did automatically change the time for Daylight savings time.......I'm impressed! Apparently it is an evergreen-update devise that is never wrong. It is in perfect synch with the computer and the TV. Absolute perfect time, temperature (indoors and out), and date all for less than $20. Put all that into a wristwatch, and you would have a cheap durable and reliable watch at a price that is super-cheap.

This is the exact sentiment that I have everytime the hunting elitists among us try to force further regs and restrictions on the sport. Right now the individual hunter is the master of his own needs, with very good control of customizing the activity to suit their own abilities, wants and needs and reasons to stay in the sport. That is the best of all worlds for keeping hunting a solid well-participated activity that remains healthy off into the future. We don't need anymore of this regulating hunters out of participation. But is it the best biological approach for the critters living in the habitat? Well, as a matter of fact, I believe it is. Already we may be seeing previews of what can happen when hunter numbers dwindle and hunter populations and participation becomes so small that hunters are an insufficient force unable to adequately control deer populations in some areas. I don't think we need that trend to continue if we are going to stand a chance of remaining the prime deer population control off into the future.

Depending on how tough a drag it was, probably my first call is to my chiropractor to set up an appointment.

We will see pretty soon. Somehow they account for time zones and that sort of regional variation. I would think that daylight savings time would be a piece of cake. I'm thinking they do, because I haven't seen any way of changing the time on the thermometer.

Somewhere buried deep in the archives, lives a thread that I posted here about this very problem, a year or two ago. As sportsmen/women, we understand the importance of oaks in the animal habitat and diet. If this stuff effects even a majority of oak trees, the results will be disastrous. I hope Cornell or somebody is working on a disease-resistant variety of Oak trees right now, because it sounds like they will be required.

I have to wonder how much of the diminishing hunter population is due to these kinds of arguments about what size or age of a deer is adequate for taking pride in a harvest. So many people think it is their duty to tell you what is a trophy, or what deer you are entitled to feel proud of shooting. I'm thinking hunters are getting tired of constantly being told that the deer that they were so proud to take is really more of a thing of shame than something that they should be proud of and enjoy the meat from. The sport is being taken over by elitist that are only too ready to criticize you for shooting this deer or that deer and then explaining to you, on and on ...ad nausea, how bad a hunter you are to take a deer that size. We used to do a version of that back in the old days, but it was done in a teasing and light-hearted way that was clear to be all in fun. Today these elitist hunters are quick to explain, in all seriousness, what a piece of crap you are for taking a small deer and then explain in detail exactly why you are to be considered to be scum. Frankly, I am getting sick and tired of it and I'm sure there are many who simply threw in the towel in disgust and left hunting completely. Who really wants to take up a sport that can in most places be damned tough at best, and then when you are finally successful, you are mocked and ridiculed about what a bad hunter you are for shooting the deer that just a few minutes before you proudly thought represented success? Yes, some are more than happy to be driving hunters out of the sport with this nonsense (more deer for them), but they are taking a very short-sighted view of the phenomenon of shrinking hunter population and the political ramifications of the future of hunting.

So, I guess my idea wasn't as dumb as it sounded...... I'm just a little late with it ...... lol. Ok then, how about the satellite wall clock then. I haven't seen any of those around. The idea of a clock with no moving parts that are simply driven by satellite signals and always with the perfect time has to have a good market. And apparently the technology must be dirt cheap. That thermometer that I bought was only $17. Imagine a clock with a couple of small batteries and a pc card. You can't get any more simple than that. And it's always right with no setting or problems when the power goes off.

Ok, I bought and installed a wireless thermometer and noted that it had a time and date display on it, and yet I had to set nothing. So apparently it picks up on some signal that automatically sets that info right out of thin air from a remote source somewhere........WONDERFUL! I noted that the display box that sits on my coffee table is not really huge, and so I began to wonder what size the receiving and interpretation unit is in there. Of course I didn't pull it all apart to find out, but it did get me to thinking about a watch that is never set and has absolutely no moving parts. So my question is, why can't you make a watch using this technology and create the perfect watch that is always right and never needs setting. Just a digital display of what is coming in over the air waves. In fact why don't all clocks use this technology? What am I missing? Is the receiving technology not sufficiently miniaturized to an extent where it could be used for watches? It seems like an invention whose time has come. And for wall clocks, I don't see why they are not already marketed. Powered by batteries (no cords or outlets) and always undisputable correct time displayed. Yes we are talking about a technology that I know nothing more about than what I saw on this wireless thermometer. But some of you may understand it more sufficiently to explain why this stuff can't or shouldn't be done. Inquiring minds want to know.

Yes, the devil is in the details when it comes to new technology, and no one wants to get into these details. We have a special kind of driving condition here in the northeast that involves snow ...... and lots of it. And so when car manufacturers begin stripping away every last pound to achieve high mileage or allow marginal technology to even work, my mind immediately flashes to driving through a foot of snow up my 1000' driveway, or trying to make enough speed along ice covered roads to beat the draining of batteries before I even get home. It is a unique driving condition that is not exactly unheard of in our area that no one seems to want to rate or even talk about as they brag about their ecological successes. But to me, I rate snow performance right up there with mileage, cost, and reliability.

That sounds like the same quote twisting that the fake-news media uses. I didn't read any of that into the response but let's twist it any way we need to support our anti-business agenda. It is so funny listening to all this anti-profit and anti business rhetoric from those that have no problem sucking up their share of business generated cash.

When green transportation can compete in cost, reliability, maintainability, and performance, it would be dumb not to support the industry.

I'm pretty sure that if the deer "takes a knee", it is the only humane, ethical, and sporting thing to do to deliver the coup de gras and put the thing down the rest of the way......lol.

I agree that the statement does not say that there are no peripheral benefits at all, but My interpretation of that Hurst statement is that he feels that all the fuss and feuding about the importance of AR is simply not worth the frantic demands and significance that some attach to it, and compared to other challenges that the DEC faces, it should not be very high on their priorities. In other words the whole issue of AR is merely a tempest in a teapot. And I agree with that. There are losses and negatives to constantly strapping restrictions on hunting as the knee-jerk reaction to every issue that comes up. And with the diminishing hunter numbers and participation, there had better be some very real and measured and studied reasons that are not riddled with a whole lot of unintended consequences. Especially when adding severe restrictions for some very questionable purposes. As far as Hurst being "called out" on that statement, I have not personally read any of that and as far as I know, he may actually have more support than critics from his associates. At any rate, I feel he is much more qualified and credible than any of us are on the subject, so I tend to take his words as being an opinion by a credible biological expert. And that is good enough for me.

Basically a home run! One thing that people lose sight of is that this guy has not come from a life of politics. And so may not have all the polish. But he is a quick-study apparently and is moving into this presidential stuff amazingly quickly. It sure did leave the Democrats nearly speechless as they tried to unsuccessfully respond. Every day I get more and more impressed with the growing skills that he is developing that already surpass most career politicians. Regarding support from the dems, remember legislation does not require unanimity. I did notice some of the Democrats that were bucking the party line there and were standing and applauding many of the things that Trump was saying.

I do have to say that the only time I have spent 2 hours preparing a cooking fire has been when I am doing a larger outdoor family event and decide to use a full wood fire reduced to coals to do the cooking. That is a serious attempt at putting out the best flavored food for a large group of people. However, fast charcoal cooking takes no where near that amount of time for a quick meal. In fact, I have a gadget that I bought that holds the charcoal with paper underneath and has the charcoal lit and ready to dump into the grill in about 10 minutes. Not really a problem. When I don't have 10 minutes to get the fire prepared, we use the gas range in the house.

Whenever these discussions get going, I am always reminded of the following quote: "According to DEC big game specialist Jeremy Hurst, while the DEC supports voluntary antler restriction programs, it does not see a critical biological need or compelling management advantage to mandate such restrictions, adding that agency biologists see no specific management benefit associated with the AR program and do not consider antler restrictions as necessary to improve herd condition."

I'm not familiar with this SportAccord outfit, but that odd-ball criteria about living creatures that they awkwardly just threw in there certainly does look like they have an anti-hunting bias and agenda that shows that they are not exactly impartial in their definition. I think they lost their credibility when they tossed that in there.