dbHunterNY

nothing near that big that i know of anymore. right now i've just got 50' bulk rolls from Cabelas with credit card points. if i didn't it'd get them from a couple different restaurant warehouses through a friend or rod and gun club i'm a member of. one we have here in albany is restaurant depot. i'm seeing them more and more they're starting to carry only the smooth vac chamber style bags versus the mesh bags used with a pump style sealer like everyone's talking about.

in all honesty, i just had a yote get to my doe seconds after it hit the dirt and i had to run it off. if i could've i would've shot it without hesitation or caved it's head in if need be and gave me the opportunity. i have a few people i'd call but chances are it wouldn't be worth it for them to come pick it up right away for the hide or whatever. it probably would've just ended up as fertilizer. i don't hate them but they have their place in the food chain.

just did half my doe last night when i got home. from fridge, to cutting board, to the vac sealer. multiple cuts of meat ranging in size. glad i had bulk rolls of different widths and a cutting bar on the sealer. i would've otherwise waste a ton of bag material. also it was good to have at least 12" wide bags (15" would be better) for doing ball roasts and other roasts. but then switch back to the 8" wide ones for smaller cuts. bulk roll bags are worth it.

perfect. probably won't be your last.

congrats to the party

i don't have a crossbow but have a little experience with them. i've watched a hunter ed instructor not seat the bolt to the string and then the string broke when he pulled the trigger. i've heard of that being a common operator error thing too.

good find. they're best served with a couple uncleaned skulls left inside on the front seat with all the windows rolled. let it set a while so nobody else needs to drive them.

scrapes get more activity pre and post breeding to let other deer who's around. it's like the phone calls to set the party. bucks efforts are best served going after the doe now as it's peak breeding time and the party's started. multiple things need to be present for the scrape to be used by deer in a way to serve its purpose. Real TCIII mentioned a big one. the scrape 25 yards away might have more deer going past it. if one's closer the other one isn't of any use to the deer who aren't settled in at the party. both bucks and does use scrapes. if a doe happened to check out one but not the other it will have that scrape draw attention off the other that's now inactive.

young bucks aren't really dumb or less smart. to what your saying you can have a young buck that's been pressured that acts smarter than and older buck that's not pressured. i tend to use the word ignorance instead. young deer and old deer both come into range can sense your presence all the same and no how to elude you just as fast too. bucks that have experienced the seasonal pressure just have experienced what they know as danger. it doesn't make it easier to kill a particular buck. either way it's a buck that's getting shot at during a particular time in its life but until then knows no different. in reality, that first bullet that travels close to them or failed stalk by a hunter flips the switch but they've already been walking the earth gaining intel and already have some stuff figured out. they just now respond to what they know differently. some bucks have a day to day pattern that coincidentally keeps them out of harms way. no less smart than another buck that unknowingly takes a different path past your treestand. it's all about what they've seen and associate with danger. older deer have seen more.

i agree that a property or even a handful isn't enough to statistically mean anything to determine stats at a WMU level. i also agree with the diploma and work history posturing usually ends up distasteful. like wise to write off someone's degree, whether or not it brings any merit, is an a** thing to do that's only going to get someone else on their heels the same. we all know damn well they aren't given out for free and without effort. walls have long been kicked down and bridges burned by both sides of the AR fence. i don't have the time or care to fix any of them, despite i hope it happens. predominance of any attitude seems to be subjective based on what side of the fence you're on. don't know how i come across and if 'you' means me but my efforts and what i volunteered my free time to do are to educate people on deer crap that they seem to truly care about only a month or so out of the year. any time an AR thread comes up it's this all out war about which side you're on, that's riddled with BS facts or myths like a political election candidates history. any productive conversation is then lost. present real facts and leave it to an individual to decide if it's best for them or not. back to what's been posted, in some places well over 60% of yearling bucks getting taken happens. right around 75% is a real thing if you look through the whole deer harvest summary (including what's posted) and regardless of where that happens it's bad. it's not a social issue. it's a deer management issue. will the sky fall? no. does it mean things could be a lot better and worth the effort for both people and deer herd? yes. if a majority of yearling bucks are being taken in any frequency then you're not meeting a basic requirement for deer management. antler restrictions whether voluntary or otherwise might be a solution. if it seems like you and others around you more often than not pass yearling and maybe a smaller portion of 2.5 yr old bucks then antler restrictions might not help you meet the goal you're after.

pictures aren't the best but from what i see it's 5.5 yrs old or older. respectable buck to take anywhere. skull and skeletal frame seems fully developed. first picture even having that roman nose look. deep filled out chest even down low with neck that blends into it seamlessly. neck filled out right up to the head and has what looks like wrinkles. antlers aren't exactly small either. one of you shoot it and i'll age the jawbone for you and also help you extract the front incisors. i'll send them in and pay the cost for you. i work right in Albany.

no need more will fall.

make a decision to shoot or not shoot and then focus on the task or process not so much what you're shooting. then after let it sink in and cause you to be a mess. sometimes you can't help it and you do the best you can to block it out. it just happened for a second with the doe i shot yesterday morning and that's something i've taken boat loads of.

do you over think things with one or just get it done? lol

may have been based on his own observations. i don't think it's info that should be discredited and compared to something coming out one's a**. dozens of instances have been reported by DEC were a particular aggregate composed of multiple WMUs have had a yearling harvest of 70+% including some aggregates coming in right around 75% multiple seasons showing no clear trend indicating it's in the past. while not much better and a lot of work to stay ahead of the average, i'm glad i'm in an aggregate that's not that bad.

i'll have to look into that. our treasurer is a hunter ed instructor and works for county 4-H. he must know about that. i do know we needed a bare minimum and then he could hold a hunter ed class.

fun thing we have them out this way too. lol

95% bred is an educated guess from DEC that varies based on the info they get which can lack luster in some areas which cause people tend to question some of that data. the fact is that statewide we're most likely fine but that doesn't mean some areas are not. fact is joe hunter doesn't give a rats a** how the rest of the state is doing, he really only cares about the area he hunts. some areas the buck population gets annihilated and there's little of any age structure or balanced sex ratio. protecting bucks to live and do as they do in this will change the health of the herd for the better, whether that means ARs, one buck rule, or whatever means floats the general publics boat with less torment.

pocket full of DMPs is helpful too. we've got co-ops with DMAPs but DMPs are in short supply out this way. good to hear it's going over well. some other states definitely make it easier to recruit hunters. Georgia seemed to be well setup from the teleconference. it's a process and commitment for someone to get into hunting here in NY.

sounds like you gave them great advice Bob. still a little disheartened our branch couldn't make it work this year. our branch should've not gotten so hung up on making the farmer's market work and "going by the book". you guys are doing great!

you can try and swing it either way but we as hunters each have our own set of standards and thus as a group do not take any one particular group of deer other than what's available. hunters themselves are unnatural. from your weapon of choice to your printed tags, they were all determined by us and not "nature". history has proven that if we left it up to a free for all and will power then we'd just about wipe out a species of game. when game becomes scarce predators move or nature reduces their numbers beyond their control in sometimes brutal fashion. maybe if we want to be natural we let things run their course and then start restricting numbers of licenses available to reduce the hunting population as required? doesn't sounds like a good plan to me.

traditionally DEC has done tag allocation based on buck take and whether or not the number they expected where taken, along with DMP or DMAP tags that were filled or not. buck take objective is more or less based on opportunity of any legal buck without restriction so AR's make things complicated. DEC would rather hand out less tags than too many to be safe. I've talked to the "big unit" people about it.

that could easily be fixed but any AR legislation or reg is like hot lava now. nobody in albany cares to touch it because they don't want people from both sides kicking down their doors and making phones ring off the hook. DEC or legislative bodies both. not good as any AR or deer management tool should be monitored and revisited.

that's something totally different. when they did ARs they also handed boat loads of doe permits with intention of lowering the population. ARs didn't do that alone by any means. DEC surveyed the AR WMUs here and found ARs to have much less of an impact on doe take than people think.

internet doing some weird sh*t. replying a second time. i don't think is was second fiddle. is that canned or tap too? i think it was their american ipa. didn't get any pine in there. plenty of citrus and dank. light though and really not that bitter. definitely balanced and easy to drink. didn't get your attention like a double.