nyslowhand

Rob...You never mentioned why you want to change-over to shooting with a release..!?! If you have a good reason for switching, you're in for a lot of work. Bow adjustments, peep & sight pin experimenting, possible arrow length change and a lot of practice. Just to get back to where you were when shooting with your fingers! As Confucius said; If it ain't broke, don't try to fix it! Pretty sure the ideal anchor point for most archers is in the vicinity of the corner of your mouth or cheek bone area, either right or left side. That gives you the optimum line of sight from your dominant eye, thru the peep and to the sight pins. Changing this could create a lot of form issues...? Isn't a correct draw length determined by your shooting style and bow s/u. IE; D-loop or string, release or fingers and all to approx the same anchor point, while putting your DL within the optimal let-off valley? If you're looking into a new bow, better decide which way you want to shoot before getting the bow s/u!! You knew this... lol

Another very cool encounter & photo opportunity! You da' man! You're the wildlife whisperer. lol

I've brought up my concern in another similar topic before, so here goes again. The method the DEC uses to determine the deer population and density is very inaccurate. Granted, there is no way to look behind every tree and accurately take a deer census. Deer population is based on mere surveys and input from groups that might possibly over-inflate local densities due to their own vested interests (ie; crop damage, insurance claims, etc). As I sit here scratching my head, have to wonder how do they know how many deer should be "thinned out" if they don't have a good handle on how many are actually around??? This should be done on the micro level by hunters & land stewards that actually know their area, habitat and deer population! Also remember, when you're comparing the early 2000s harvest reports to the current ones, the DEC used different methods of determining actual DECAL #s and interpolating them into their harvest report #s. Fifteen years ago the assumed reporting rate was ~65%, basically adding 1/3 to the DECAL #.. Which was updated somewhere in the 2003 timeframe to the current assumption that only ~45% of deer killed were actually reported. In essence, they are more than doubling the reported # to get the annual released Harvest Report. Which reporting % assumption is more accurate.or when/how did it change..? Aren't these annual harvest #s used in subsequent years to manage the deer population?? And the # of DMPs issued?? And any proposed season dates, weapon usage and bag or sex limit changes?? Finally, have to call BS on the DEC's claim that all the above is based on "sound statistical methods" used in managing NYS deer populations!!!!

Any discussion on this topic is healthy! BUT, If you want your opinion to be heard by the DEC, below is the link. For Part #1, just below the physical address to mail in comments is an email method of voicing your opinion. http://www.dec.ny.gov/regulations/34113.html#Part1Sections111and130

I have a self-imposed policy similar to this new provision. I try to put a doe in the freezer and if possible donate another one. Typically get this done & over with the 1st week of the SZ bow season. With new proposed regulation, I can then no longer hunt for bucks during Oct 1-15...? Granted, there aren't generally "shooter" bucks criusing around during the daylight hours in this timeframe, but...... If I'm doing my due diligence, why am I being restricted or penalized? Is an "Earn-A-Buck" policy so difficult for the DEC to comprehend or implement? Not to open the flood gates, but wouldn't it make sense to expand crossbow usage over the entire bow season if getting more people out and anterless deer harvested the primary objective of this new management proposal?

Size doesn't always matter...! In case you can't view attached files, below is video uploaded to PhotoBucket at much lower res. http://s1142.photobucket.com/user/nyslowhand/library/Junk FYI - That's a racoon bullying a yearling deer. Assuming the yearling thinks it's a playmate, but coon has other ideas..! Coon after deer.AVI

Newest issue of NYON had an interesting article on how to hunt gobblers while they're with hens. I'm guilty of the old "insanity thought process" of repeatedly attempting to call in a Tom when he has hens with him and expecting him to act differently than he had in the past. Article contained novel or outside the box thoughts about overcoming this typical situation. Basically, get between the Tom and his harem before they get together in the dawn/fly-down hours. One scenario was to bust them off the roost and then get between the hens & gobbler when they're trying to get hooked-up again. Kicker with this method is that you have to hope the Tom comes into your calling before you're covered-up with hens. Other interesting thought was to call in dawn hours, pretending to be 1st hen to fly down and using super excited calling. Only drawback to this method is getting in close w/o busting them off the roost. Pretty much, get right into their bedroom and don't allow gobbler & hens to get together for the day. Otherwise an ambush style of hunt is your only hope, other than challenging or irritating the hens and hoping they'll leave the gobbler to investigate. Interesting read!

Wooly, cool photos! Although I do hate seeing pics of deer this time of year, ribs showing & scrufty coats.

Granted, if you look at the historical data, things appear to be pretty good nowadays! But..You have to remember there was a change in how those reported #s were calculated using the speculated change in the reporting rate "fudge factor" when the Decals system was introduced ~2002. I'm guessing at some point in the good ole days, harvest #s were just that (kill #s) & had no un-reported multiplier factored in. Wish there were a footnote in the "NY deer history.pdf" to let the reader know how these harvest #s were calculated. Also when looking at this statistical data, you can NOT compare one year's harvest specifically to another year's. Just too many annual influences within nature, so you must look more at trends over time. This is a fact-less theory, but I believe the human (hunter) factor has a lot to do with why things in the good ole days seemed so great. Deer drives were much more plentiful, less hunting land was posted and the "brown is down" mentality was more predominant. Back in the 60-70s there was a higher % of hunters per capita than currently. Hell, they used to close schools and small businesses opening day of deer season in the olden days due to high absenteeism. More and more hunters currently are self managing the deer in their specific areas, IE; doe harvests, passing on yearlings & small bucks, more focus on mature bucks, habitat enhancement measures, more knowledgeable of whitetails, better technology, etc. Appears to be an evolution of the deer hunter, which is in general a good thing. This has to have some consideration when viewing harvest #s and trying to compare different decades. Just not sure how to make the human factor a statistical variable.

FYI - Online gestation calculator puts conception at ~Oct 20th using an arbitrary 201 day gestation peroid. Anyways...very cool to see them!

Like to think so, wouldn't ya'?? Looking for some 12-14pts bucks this year?? LOL. Pretty sure environmental/weather conditions have little to no effect on antler growth, other than habitat or food sources. If it did, there wouldn't be any of those annoying 6pts around this year. Only possible effect of an early spring might be that their racks become fully formed somewhat earlier in the summer.

Looked into a land-locked property years ago. Seemed ideal for hunting, price was right and had transferable ROW in the deed. Problem was the ROW was 1000' long to get to this isolated piece of land. Old road was overgrown & washed out, so I became responsible for repairing or improving it financially. Basically you're responsible for improving someone else's land simply to gain access to your parcel at your expense. May also be at the mercy of the land owner who is providing the ROW as to exactally what you can do with ROW. IE; cutting trees, drainage, etc. Typically these land-locked properties also come with a lot of history with neighbors trespassing on what they perceive as seemingly abandoned land or ancient permissions to access property. Best advice is to have a real estate attorney do a deed search looking for ROW rights that are transferable, before any purchase offer. As you can see, these cheap land-locked properties can turn into a not so great bargain & a legal nightmare. Not to say there aren't any land-locked properties available that wouldn't have all the above issues! BTW - Not always, but generally, any property that can be picked-up for a song at a county tax sale has issues of some form.

Why make this overly complicated? Just change current law to state you must have license on your person, but not specifically displayed in plain view. From past proposals, it was suggested to make current backtag merely a credit card sized license for your wallet (or man-purse?) with additional & separate harvest tags. Pretty sure there is NO current provision requiring a 2nd form of ID to verify your hunting license. So carrying your wallet while hunting (IMHO) is sort of foolish and unnecessary. Sounds like they're proposing a multi $1M retrofit of the current licensing system.

See in the MoJo promotional video at the 1:24min mark where the idiot actually tries to reach out and grab a gobbler? DUH...!

Same situation where I hunt, northern 8F. Fewer turkeys past 4-5 years, cold & wet spring nesting periods and mostly the nest robbers. Not so much the deep snow cover like other areas of the state have experienced. Have done my due diligence by trapping coons, not taking any opportunistic shots at fall turkeys and adopting a one-n-done May hunt quota. Hear the DEC is considering canceling the fall turkey season for at least a few years. Which isn't a bad thing. Maybe they should also consider reintroducing the split spring llimit, like it was years ago. I'm more than willing to make sacrifices to re-establish the turkey population in my area! Can only imagine the grim results if the current population decline continues across specific areas of NYS.

"I Taut I Taw a Puddy Tat", as Tweety would say! So,..this idiot got their 15min of fame with the video, still a dumb-a$$.

Wanted to put this topic in the crossbow thread, but guess it's more PC to be here. PC within a political thread, sort of a double negative..! LOL Feel bad for you Long Islanders he represented for years, but us crossbow enthusiasts are getting the last laugh. FYI - He was biggest legislative opponent to crossbows while the chair of the Enviro Cons sub-committee and chiefly responsible for its' current FUBAR status of implementation. Sadly, this is only one in a long line of (reportedly?) corrupt NYS legislators. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/02/nyregion/dean-skelos-new-york-senate-leader-and-his-son-are-said-to-face-arrest-next-week.html

One of NY's big issues with getting Xbows officially included was the lobbying groups got crossbows defined more like a muzzleloader than a bow. If you're proposing initial legislation, ensure they are defined as a form of archery equipment. This really shouldn't be in the hands of legislature anyways!

Made in China! Like any other clothing or footwear items made in Asia, there's a huge disparity in sizing and quality. Pretty sure Rocky boots falls into this category also!

It's no so much the trail cam itself as it has more to do with the plastic housings. They probably go thru 2 processes to mold & inprint the camo effect. Each process has inherent chemicals & odors related to it. Injection molded parts will continue to exude an odor for some time because the raw materials used are basically oil based utilizing chemistry principles. The parts are by no means produced in a clean-room environment. Probably handled by numerous employees at various locations. Washing or spraying with any scent-free products might temporairly mask the odors. Believe the height placement has as much to due to the dissicipation of these odors as the visual recognition by the deer. Want a more prcatical analogy? Do you spend as much time & effort removing odors from a new cam as you do a new pair of rubber hunting boots? I don't, but still hope for the best from my cam shots! Don't be a fool like the self-proclaimed expert on the YouTube video and place a cam in or directly along the side of a travel route, naturally the deer will notice its' presence. Night time photos & vids will get a deer's attention mostly due to the cam's recording indicator light. I've had deer change their travel pattern thru a pinch point after a cam was put in place, but only by ~15-20yrds.

Wooly, it always amazes me the situations you get into to take these excellent photos!!! You're the wildlife whisperer! lol Anyone that thinks these pups are too cute & so cuddly and may want to adopt one,,,DON'T. There's a reason fox urine is such a great cover scent, it is putrid!!! Trust me, been there & done that! Adoption only lasted a week before my Mom laid down the law. Kind of a shocking lesson about the cycle of life for me as a 10yo.

Okay, the simple answer to your question and the one you don't want to hear is that experience will dictate how to hopefully draw a Tom in to your calling. Basically, over-calling isn't suggested....generally. BTW, this is the opposite of what happens in nature, when the hens typically go to the Tom's gobbling. Turkeys, specifically gobblers, are wild animals and they all have different personalities. An older gobbler will react to calling different than a jake. Almost every situation is unique and must be handled differently.Then you throw in the variables of terrain, habitat, weather, time of day, progression of the mating season, turkey population, near-by hens &/or other competing Toms. There are a lot of "rules of thumb" for calling, but they are merely generalizations. The one that is most helpful is that there are many calls a hen makes other than the basic yelp. Learn what they sound like, what they mean and when to use them. From experience you'll learn there are times to be silent & other times to be very vocal! Best advice is to learn to use a diaphragm (mouth) call, the benefits out-weight the learning curve. You can "throw" the sound of the call to make the Tom think the hen is losing interest & moving away. You can also get them excited by using a mouth & friction call at the same time to mimic multiple hot hens. Most basic rule is that you'll almost never be able to call a gobbler in that is already with hens! Learn how to call-in the hens, the boys will follow the girls! Text book scenario is when a Tom flies down into your lap or comes running in gobbling all the way. Life is good! Another situation you'll learn to dread is when they approach without gobbling. Worst case is when they stand their ground (hang-up) within sight, strutting & gobbling at your every call. Pretty much just teasing you & testing your patience. So...this is what makes it fun & frustrating, all at the same time!!! Hunting and calling to gobblers is an ever evolving experience, which you'll gain knowledge from each encounter to be used in future hunts.

Warning - If you have high blood pressure or any heart associated problems, AVOID this topic!!! lol

There's NO way to get any where near 100% harvest reporting! Hunters that do not report, will never go thru a check station, use a local processor or fill out a "no harvest" decal. They don't report them for obvious reasons! Which is a pathetic fact if the 45% reporting rate is even semi-accurate! Like other members, the guess-timated deer population is also a pet peeve of mine. Granted, there is no way to do a census of the deer in NYS. But, to guess-timate and then use those fictious #s for management purposes is ........ bogus! Wish there were a better way!!

The DEC uses as a "fudge factor" to determine the released annual harvest report. It varies periodically, but generally runs in the 45-60% range, decal reports vs assumed harvests. Believe it was ~45% estimated for the 2014 report. So..The DEC uses actual decal numbers of hunters harvesting deer and applies the fudge factor multiplier for their released reports. Supposedly this is a sound statistical methodology..!?! Explanation from their website: http://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/47738.html Anyways..some interesting data within the new report. Basically, same news, different year! Theory I don't understand is just how the DEC coorelates pts/side into an age bracket. A big generalization or "rule of thumb" assumption, at least for the habitat I hunt..! Slightly off topic....Anyone remember the circumstances during the 2000-2003 reporting years. Huge spike in harvest report. Mild winters, decent rainfall, good agr crop years, late winters, 2k scare, baby (fawn) boom, too high a fudge factor applied,...?