steve863

You obviously both did plenty of things RIGHT! It is those people who are bullheaded and have the "my way or the highway" mentality that are the ones that end up in divorces. People need to approach marriage with an attitude that it CAN work and then it will.

No, the real issue is your failure to understand why this biology you keep touting was ever developed in the first place. If it weren't for the greater benefits that the hunter might potentially get from it, it would have NEVER even been devised. So maybe you ought to "read, learn and understand" with a more skeptical mind.

Do you really think bucks will reach their full potential with AR's? All AR's do is allow them to live one more year, and then an awful few hunters will be passing them up once they have 3 points on a side. You might get to see full potential in a vast private expanse of land or an enclosure, but you will never see it in a state like NY where most of the land has different ownership every couple hundred acres or less. You also need to have a hunting populace that hunts extensively and has unlimited time to hunt to be passing up the smaller bucks for the biggest ones. Maybe you have an unlimited amount of time to hunt, but that is not the case for most hunters today and I doubt that it ever will be in the future.

I've got nothing against the guys who want to hunt for the trophies. They can hunt for them with the way the regulations are currently. No one is stopping them and that is there free choice. AR's however takes away the choice from the guy who is happy with the spike or forkhorn, especially in the areas where doe permits are not easy to get. To me this is unfair and it gives preferential treatment to one group over another. If hunters hunt for many different reasons, then ALL the reasons need to be considered and none of the reasons should be given priority over the other. Keep AR's out of the picture and everyone will be able to hunt anyway they want.

This is a monumental moment that I am in full agreement with Dave here. The supporters of AR's however will NEVER admit it. When we corner them on this they will usually tell us "but who wouldn't prefer to shoot bigger bucks?", which brings us back to what we were telling them in the first place that AR's are there primarily for bigger antlers. AR's, QDM's, all this was concocted by biologists who were paid by trophy hunters to come up with some ideas on how they could get bucks to grow bigger antlers, period. You guys can beat around the bush all you want, but to many of us it's as clear as black and white. At least if you guys told us that you like to hunt trophies and thus think that AR's should be implemented, we would give you the benefit of the doubt and respect your opinions. Sugar coating things with this other mumbo jumbo about herd health makes you guys sound like typical politicians trying to sucker the masses into believing things that aren't true.

Congratulations. 49 years is a good long time! I once heard a comedian say that you can usually tell a married man from a single man when you see them getting in and out of a helicopter. The single guy slouches over afraid of getting hit by the propeller blades while the married man walks straight up.

The healthier herd theory is what is most laughable here. Absolutely NO reason why a herd can't be just as healthy if you kill the 1 1/2 year olds or let them walk and kill them next year. A 1 1/2 year old buck will pass on the same genetics at this age as he would at an older age, so why does letting them walk make things better for the herd? What this theory does is make some hunters happy way more than it will actually benefit the health of the herd, but of course you guys will never admit it. As I said, all of this is being rehashed again here. This AR nonsense has been argued enough times already here.

Flawed and biased to you perhaps... Yes, to me and many other hunters also. And on the other side of the coin, the majority side according to every survey done that I've seen, support is there for AR. I wouldn't argue that the support isn't high for AR's. After all we live in an age where there are channels on TV dedicated to hunting and you can watch hunting shows 24/7 on them. Many people have obviously been brainwashed into thinking that big racks are what's most important in hunting, which is quite sad. Even if there are majorities supporting AR's the DEC has still been very reluctant to implement them in any other areas besides the few in the Catskills. Why? Because they realize that if even 30-40 % are against them, that would be a very LARGE segment of the hunting populace to offend and potentially lose as license purchasers. While if up 70% of the hunters are truly trophy crazed and want AR's implemented, the DEC's thinking is that most of these people will still buy licenses and hunt no matter if AR's are implemented or not. So my hunch is that they weigh all this and come to the decision which will be least costly to them, and that so far has been NOT to implement AR's in any new areas.

Flawed and biased to you perhaps... Yes, to me and many other hunters also.

"Everyone hunts to get a buck! if deer didn't have horns how many would still hunt as hard as they do or at all?" The horns don't go into the pot, so I could care less how big they are or if the deer had them at all.

Lets not forget that in a couple of regions where AR's have been implemented it has been quite difficult to even draw a DMP in the last couple of years. Add to this the rule that the hunter can only shoot a buck of at least 3 points to a side, so what real incentive do hunters have to even hunt these areas where most everything that moves is illegal to shoot? Might as well not even hunt. And please don't tell us that they can bowhunt, because everyone doesn't bowhunt and many people don't have the time needed for bowhunting and bowhunters alone will never control the deer population as is necessary. This has all been argued here before. I will agree that the data provided by those who want AR's implemented is very flawed and biased, yet the DEC seems to get suckered in by it over and over again. In one statement the DEC says that AR's are not biologically necessary for a healthy deer herd, and in another they are proposing to implement them in more areas. This just tells me that the DEC is talking from both sides of their mouths to try to please everyone and keep selling hunting licenses which is a significant source of revenue for them.

You can keep thinking that if you want. Your choice. All the DEC cares about is keeping the deer population in check from year to year and collecting license fees from hunters. Any other interest they might pretend to show is there to make people like you guys believe that they are really interested about any individual deer or hunter in particular. To them a dead deer is a dead deer and that's all they care about. The 1 1/2 year olds will breed just as well with the does as the 3 1/2 year olds, so they surely need not worry about deer populations not replenishing themselves.

For your information I hunt in 4P which is a unit where they are considering implementing AR's. The statement you posted is nothing but propaganda by those who want all hunters to pass up the smaller bucks in hopes that there would be more bigger bucks for them to shoot since they lack the hunting skills to kill them without implementing AR's.

The DEC is in the business to control the deer population and need NOT worry about the amount of antler points on a male deer's head when it gets taken down by a hunter. My letter has already been sent to the DEC in opposition to expanding AR's in the new areas proposed.

No, actually it's all Karpteach's fault for having a cousin named Fawn. If his cousins name was Betty, Louise, anything else, we wouldn't be in this mess!

I thought recent posts here were dealing with what we could do to get young people involved in hunting? Knowing that the majority will be young males, a few of us figured we'd start them off on the right foot here, that's all. I think hunting is a good time to talk to kids about some of the facts of life. Gosh, here we go with the "facts" again.

You can scratch me off the list of suspects, I still have all my hair. In order for me to do that, you will need to provide me with front and back photos of your head. We are cleaning things up around here as you know, and are starting to require several forms of proof to anything anyone says. LOL

Yeah, Doe, isn't it funny how I try to post something humorous and then some take it all wrong? Then they say we start trouble. LOL No, actually I don't think it's fasteddie. I think he has a bit more manners than the guy on the video. I will try to find out who he is and will post his name when I find out. I do already have a couple of hunches, though.

Again Steve you missed the point and respond with a lecture. My point was that this generation is in worse shape than our's and the one before us. This is not my opinion but medical reports on the state of our children. Most hunters are in their 50's, 60's and 70's. You don't have to be Jack LaLane to go hunting if you have some level of fitness. My comment was about the younger generation.Dave Now whose starting the argument here? I know exactly what you were trying to say and don't disagree that many kids are overweight. Although, any way you try to slice it, in general the higher probability of a hunter needing to be carried out feet first out of the woods, would be with the old timers and not the youngsters even though they might be overweight.

wz, be careful posting that as a "fact". Some here might want some more proof. Well anyway, maybe we could use this video for the nonbelievers. Actually, I think this fella is a forum member.

Maybe if the old geezers didn't "fart" so much and scare off all the deer we would take them out more often??

I call things the way I see them, so many people see this as being negative, especially those who think all hunters and gun owners should think the same on every subject on a forum such as this. So generally NO, you won't see me passing daisies around to anyone although those who get on my good side consider me a very loyal and honest friend. And NO, I do not know VJP from any other forum. I have only posted on one other forum in the past and currently don't post on any other one than this one.

I think obesity is a problem in this country across ALL age groups. Many people in their 60's or 70's probably drank too much, smoked too much, and didn't exercise nearly enough, so those that are still around aren't exactly Jack LaLane's neither.

Peta gets the middle finger from hunter even without such a law! With all the BS Peta puts out, hunting is still alive and well in NY and every other state in the union. In all truth, they have done JACK to stop hunting in this country. States like the revenue they earn from hunting and won't put an end to it just because some looney tune animal saviors want hunting to be banned. Will NEVER happen, but again some people think the sky is always falling.

Well, it WAS considered, but the DEC figured the cost of the nursing care, along with the special medical supplies needed like depends undergarments, hearing aids, wheelchairs, etc. and having paramedics on stand by during this entire special "old fart" season would be too much for their already strapped budget. At least with the young hunters the likelyhood of them needing to be carried out on a stretcher is considerably less.