steve863

The DEC put out a video about this. I still say that this will pretty much allow people to kill as many deer as they want. Most people have to drive to their hunting spots. Some like myself a good distance. You would take a big risk not filling out your tag to transport the deer back home with the old tags. You voided it once you filled it out. Who is to stop someone from filling out this printable paper tag and then just printing out another one (or already having a bunch printed) to use next time?? The only way these new paper tags would work effectively is if people had to call in or post in their kills via DEC website immediately after a kill. Giving people several days to call it in with these new tags will in reality give hunters NO bag limits. Yeah, some will claim that many killed over their bag limits even with the old tags, which is true. But why the hell make things even easier for these type of folks?? And don't tell me that this new system isn't going to be tempting for many others out there also. Huge blunder here by the DEC in my opinion.

Climbing up into trees can be dangerous no matter what type of stand you choose. Someone getting up there in age should wise up and hunt from the ground. That's my take on this subject. Hard enough for a young person to recover from a fall nevermind someone 60 plus.

I saw that Spomer video. Doesn't really surprise me. I surely wouldn't go that cheap on a scope but one surely doesn't need to spend $1000 + on one either. I honestly never had a scope fail no matter how cheap or expensive it was. Maybe if someone is putting several thousand rounds through a rifle a better scope would be beneficial since it should be built better but most hunters don't shoot anywhere near that much. A scope costing $200-$500 will last the hunter a lifetime.

Wounded or not I find it very bizarre that a truly wild wolf would be so calm to let a human put his arm around it in order to have a picture taken. Is that a beer can in that guys hand? Maybe he got the wolf good and drunk to calm him down?

Interesting take here. You are blaming other hunters when the problem may be that the landowner just doesn't want you to hunt there anymore. These days you pretty much have two choices when it comes to hunting. You either own or lease land or you hunt public land. Not many landowners will be letting you hunt for free anymore just because they've known you for years or because you have a nice disposition. These are just the facts of hunting life today. There are a fraction of hunters hunting these days compared to 30 or 40 years ago. Yes, some may be slobs but I think the percentage of slob hunters is way less these days compared to the old days when you had way more hunters out there and it was more likely that some would be slobs. So, unless you have some real evidence that slob hunters have changed this landowners mind about letting you hunt his land I don't think it's fair blaming other hunters for you not being able to hunt his land anymore. I would bet that most of us if not ALL of us here have lost hunting opportunities on land that we used to have access to. That's just the way it goes these days, unfortunately.

I never realized how fun fishing for catfish could be. I'm not much of a fisherman but I never fished for them until last year. The neighbor across the road from where I hunt has a nice sized pond and it's got a ton of catfish in it. He's kind enough to let us fish his pond. My son caught these in a couple hours of fishing back in July. We tried hotdogs as bait as some recommend but it seems like we caught more with plain old nightcrawlers that we bought at Walmart. Surprisingly they aren't bad to eat either.

Another vivid memory from yesteryear was seeing hunters transporting their deer outside their vehicles. Don't see that very often anymore. People went hunting with their everyday cars or stationwagons in those days. These days most have a truck or large SUV of some sort so most deer are getting put inside the vehicle. The only thing hauled on the outside these days might be the $10K 4 wheeler used to take the hunter the 300 yards or less to their treestands and then hopefully help haul the deer back out if they get one. Seems like all you needed in the old days to drag one out was a rope that only cost a couple of dollars. LOL Things were much simpler then and the hunters a hell of a lot tougher.

Yes, even into the mid 70's when I started hunting tree stands were barely ever seen or mentioned. Sitting with your back to a tree or still hunting was how it was typically done. Hunted a good amount from treestands through the 90's to up to a few years ago. Now I hunt from pop up blinds or occasionally still hunt. Don't care to risk breaking my neck falling from a tree at my age. No deer in the world is worth that. Seems like these days shooting accidents are way down compared to the old days yet a good number of hunters get seriously hurt or die falling from trees. So don't know which is better or which is worse.

OK, so if we can print these at home wouldn't one be able to print his tags 10 times and if they were up to no good be able to use as many as they want? I think there is an added level of control with the tags that the DEC used to give us. Those were not easily duplicated unless you went back and claimed that you lost your tag and were given another one.

Well said. On this board if you weren't on the side of the fence that many here seemed to think was mandatory on all issues you were immediately deemed a libtard socialist democrat (see the post above yours for proof of this). This in a nutshell has been the main reason for the demise of this forum. More so than people not being able to register. Some of folks that remain seem to love it now that anyone with contrary opinions to theirs are gone for good. This just proves that not everyone was welcome on this forum. I guess they now have the type of forum they wanted. The three or four regulars remaining can happily continue talking with each without anyone else having the nerve to interject an opposing view.

Same here. Seems like MOST of the hunters I know have kids and hardly any of them hunt. Looking back on things I don't remember these hunters putting any real effort into passing on the tradition to them. Makes little sense but I guess everyone puts more importance on the other sports/activities you listed. There is time for only so much I guess in a kids life and the parents. The kid scoring a goal in soccer or hitting a homerun in baseball will give him and the parents more bragging rights to everyone around them hunter or non-hunter than killing a deer or a couple of rabbits would.

Great post. Hunting isn't going anywhere anytime soon in NY. We are being given more hunting opportunities every year so it's highly unlikely that it will all be taken away overnight. It's always easier to blame politics or everyone else for hunting's demise but the real problem is probably closer to home. Hunting has become way more of a selfish pastime compared to what it was when I started hunting, so this alone hasn't helped matters.

Highly unlikely that you will get a pat on the back from a non-hunter. Maybe if the non-hunter happens to like venison and you share some with them you might get a pat on the back but otherwise don't be expecting one. Trophies on the wall or you telling them that you shot a huge buck that you were after for a couple of years will be of absolutely NO interest to a non-hunter. Only to other like minded hunters will big antlers be of interest. Most non-hunters can accept hunting for meat but it's a whole different story when the emphasis is put on hunting for trophies.

Some of you are just noticing this now?? This has been discussed numerous times around here for a good while now.

Yes, and whichever way one chooses to go about it it's still called "hunting". The meaning of the word doesn't change. Hunting has been around forever and I'm sure the hunters of 1000 years ago weren't challenging themselves and holding off for the biggest or best. They killed what they could to survive. We obviously don't need to hunt to survive these days but again the concept is the same as it always was.