HounderEmily

You don't often see them in daylight. Real nice pic/video.

one coyote can't do much to a bruiser like that... That yote is looking for easier prey, even if his friends are around.

better put something aside for the taxidermist... He's a beauty!

That memo didn't say anything that Grannis hadn't already said to the Conservation Council at the September meeting, and probably other places as well. Who knows what Larry Schwartz was thinking--probably that he can save two months' of Grannis salary--not insignificant. It was a "principled" stand on Grannis' part, but not very costly to him--he was planning on leaving at the start of the new administration. Meanwhile, Howie Cushing (NYCC president) has already met with the deputy commisioner who will be in charge for now, Peter Iwanowicz. "President Cushing has been in contact with the newly-appointed DEC Commissioner, Peter Iwanowicz, and has discussed issues concerning sportsmen with him. A follow-up meeting is scheduled for later this week at the DEC office in Albany. If you have any concerns that you would like addressed in upcoming meetings, please contact" Howie Anyone know anything about [/size]Peter Iwanowicz?

For those of you that are sensitive to it, like me, or are just cautious: grease up potentially exposed flesh, like hands, face, ankles, etc. Because the problem is an oil, another oil can keep you skin safe--cold cream, vaseline, mineral oil, bear grease--whatever's handy. I used to get poison ivy very badly, but since I've been doing this, I'm good as long as I take a shower as soon as I get home and am careful how I handle any exposed clothing.

Hop vines are also used as an ornamental, but they are notorious invasive. One good source for amateur brewers: Nichols Garden Nursery in Willamette, OR: http://www.nicholsgardennursery.com/store/product-list.php?pg1-cid111.html http://davesgarden.com/products/ps/search.php?search_text=humulus&submit=Go

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/30/after-bedbugs-here-come-the-raccoons/ [/size] [/size]I do have a friend with a nuisance trapper license and a coondog in Brooklyn. pm me if you need help. btw-there isn't anyplace where its legal to release them, and a large proportion in the city are rabid. When handling a possum, use heavy gloves so you don't get saliva on you.

unofficially, what I heard was that there was a very high turn out by Farm Bureau people who want fewer deer around.

They actually eliminated coyote reporting a couple of years ago. DEC does not want a year round coyote season because it considers coyotes a "resource." As long as they are a resource, they have to be allowed a respite in whelping season. The reason for rapid reporting is that if for some reason there is a sudden change in the take, they may have to close a season early to meet objectives. That doesn't apply so much to something like deer, where a lot are taken, but with scarcer resources--say bobcat--DEC has to make sure nothing results in overharvesting befiore its too late.

My place is a log cabin, about 25 X 30, open plan. I have a woodstove in the basement. I do have baseboard electric heaters as a backup, but I think they're dangerous and rarely use them except to speed things up when I've been away. I just replaced the woodstove this summer. The leaky old one with warped everything took about 3 1/2 full cords per winter in a cold winter, less in a milder one. I expect that will go down with the new stove. Once the place is warm, I rarely need to run the stove during daylight hours. My basement is wet, so I don't have a problem with the stove drying things out.

I've never run mine in Delhi.

The press announcement copied below was released by DEC's Region 4 office to highlight the outcome of recently completed Citizen Task Forces (CTFs) in WMUs 4F and 4O. You can read more about the CTF process at www.dec.ny.gov/animals/7207.html The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) announced today that two of its deer Citizen Task Forces have completed their work and made final recommendations to the Department. The task forces convened for wildlife management units (WMU) 4F (which includes most of Otsego County and a portion of western Schoharie County) and 4O (which encompasses the northern portion of Delaware County and small portions of Broome and Chenango counties). The task force for WMU 4F recommended a no net change in the estimated deer population, while the task force for WMU 4O recommended a ten percent increase in the current estimated deer population. DEC will estimate the current deer populations for the two units at the conclusion of the fall hunting season and will then adjust the number of available deer management permits accordingly during the 2011 season. DEC manages the deer population in a given WMU through the use of deer management permits, formerly called doe permits, thereby controlling the number of female deer available to reproduce. "The two task forces did an excellent job and are to be commended for their efforts," said DEC Region 4 Director Gene Kelly. "Members of the task forces were able to weigh a number of competing interests and come up with fair compromises, ones that effectively balance the need to ensure the viability of the region's deer population with the legitimate interests of the hunting community." The two task forces received input from more than 300 citizens who had an interest in local deer populations. Representation on the task forces included hunters, farmers, forest property owners, conservationists, resource-based businesses and public safety personnel. Citizen task forces were first formed in 1990 to actively involve the public in DEC decision making regarding deer population levels in the various WMUs.

For a long time, you couldn't. The NY Houndsmen worked hard to get a season back. Right now, we have a "training season" which requires a special license and you aren't allowed to carry firearms, which makes it pretty exciting sometimes. This is "catch and release." The hounds run the bear up a tree. Then the hounds are tied back and the bear takes off. DEC does issue kill permits occasionally for repeat nuisance bears. Usually, you have to report that the bear has been run with hounds 3X before they will even consider it.

I drive through there all the time. There are definitely deer crossing the road.

a good bear dog pulls fur on the bear. the bear is almost always a lot more interested in the dogs pulling its fur than any humans that are around. A good team of bear dogs works together with one disracting it from the front while others nip from behind. My dogs would protect me if they could, same as I would protect them. Of course, my husband has a fit every time I cut the hounds loose--he thinks he's never going to see our pets alive again... But the dogs want to hunt more than anything. So far, I haven't lost any, but that's because I haven't been doing it that long. Ask beardog--he's been doing it way longer than me and has had a few hounds badly beaten up by bears.

Bears aren't too delicate about where they walk--they just sort of plow through the brush. If you're patient, they are pretty easy to track by the mess of knocked over stuff they leave behind. They do like to leave scratch marks on trees in their territory, and the higher the scratch marks the bigger the bear. Bears also like to leave scat on trails, logging roads, and power lines, especially near the edge of their territory.. If you want to know where the bears are nesting in your hunting area, start scouting now. Find a nice big blackberry patch--bears love blackberries. Look for scat. Look for trampled down areas. If you can, backtrack on the trail to their night nest. Nests tend to be under rock overhangs, big fallen trees, etc. In season, set up near where you've found the nests.

I don't know how far behind that wheelbarrow he is, but he sure looks big and healthy! And a sow with four healthy cubs is pretty unusual. I'd love to see a pic of that!

According to NY law, "pursuit" IS hunting. You don't have to take the bear for it to be considered hunting. You need a hunting license even to chase a bear or a raccoon with hounds. Hound hunting is mostly catch and release. My hounds are trained to completely ignore deer, as are any decent bear hounds. My hounds have free run of fenced yard when home, and the deer jump the fence regularly and graze in the yard with them. DEC considers it important to have trained bear hounds in this state for management purposes. They give the names of people with bear dog training licenses [including beardog and me] to local farmers and others with bear problems for "aversity" training--teaching the bears to leave particular areas important to humans alone. It isn't the most effective tool in the world, but it helps some. One place I run bears from is a summer camp. The kids are always leaving food around and it is like a giant bait pile. VJP--hound doggers don't like to run their dogs across private land they don't have permission on, but dogs can't read no trespassing signs and will go where the bear goes. As long as the dogs were turned out where the hunter had permission, the hunter hasn't done anything illegal. The humans can't trespass though. We have to ask for the right to go on your property, even to retrieve the dogs. If the dogs tree on your land and you really don't want the hunters there, we have to call an ECO to go in with us, or you can bring the dogs out to us--but you probably aren't as foolish as we are and don't want to pull excited hounds out from underneath an annoyed bear. By the time the ECO gets there, chances are good the bear has rested up, jumped out of the tree and moved on. I would hope as a fellow hunter you would give permission to retrieve the dogs. If I think my dogs are in imminent danger, I will risk a trespassing charge to save them. Most of us that do this do it for the dog work, but its great getting up close to bears like that too. Its definitely action packed. Since we aren't allowed to carry until a nuisance permit is issued, which never happens until the bear is run at least three times, its gritty dogs against a very big predator, and a lot more evenly matched than an armed hunter against a vegetarian prey. JMO. If you have a big game license you're welcome to accompany me on a run and see for yourself.

I do most of my hunting with hounds. Most of the coon hunting takes place at night. I wear a hunting light at night. My dogs wear lights on their collars. Orange wouldn't be visible, and I don't bother to wear it at night. When I hunt during the day, I do wear something in an un-natural color--not always blaze orange. I am old enough so that I grew up before blaze orange, when hunters mostly wore red, so sometimes its red. I have a fluorescent green jacket that I sometimes wear in the rain. What I choose depends on the weather and the season. Blaze orange doesn't always seem the best choice when the fall leaves are at their peak. I don't let my hounds out during the first week of rifle season no matter what. Blaze orange isn't enough. My hounds and I stay in my yard. It may be legal to run them that week, but very few of the hound hunters I know care to risk their hounds that way. I do wear blaze orange that week, even if I'm only walking down the road to the post office.

1) Register to vote 2) Make sure your state legislators know you hunt 3) Make sure your hunting club joins your county federation of sportsmen's clubs 4) Keep up with proposed changes in hunting policies through NY Conservation Council; CANY; NRA; SCOPE; etc. 5) Call your state senator and legislator when issues affecting you come before them 6) Consider how your stand on issues will affect other outdoorsmen--don't be too quick to condemn other hunters--seek out their side of the story before speaking out against them 7) When DEC etc. solicit comment on an issue, show up at meetings, email, and state your opinions Take a kid out hunting every chance you get

My part is now 4R, part of 4x ended up in 3A.

No. It works more like rabbit hunting with beagles. The hounds are scent hounds that find the track with their noses. The running is usuallly done on snow, where the yotes are breaking ground and the hounds are following them. Often the coyotes circle, like rabbits, but sometimes they line out for miles. Usually, the hounds catch up eventually and bay the coyote up. The hunter then comes in and takes the yote. Sometimes the yote is shot on the fly as it crosses an open area, but only if the dogs aren't close.

I write a column for the NY Houndsmen Conservation Assoc. [ http://nyhoundsmen.org/ ] I'm a coonhound person and don't have good contacts for Beagle news. The column appears in Rabbit Hunter, American Cooner, Full Cry and Hunter's Horn. Please feel free to send pix, hunting stories, litter announcements, etc. If you are not a member, NYHCA could use more members who vote downstate. We are very active promoting houndsmens' interests in Albany.

I live in West Kill, in far western Greene County--what used to be zone 4X

As someone who chases black bears with hounds during "training" season here in NY, they are really not that aggressive to humans unless you do something pretty stupid--like hang on to your food when they show an interest in it. I intentionally put my hounds on a bear trail, and they chase the bear until it climbs a tree and try to hold the bear there until I get to them. When I do get there, which can take awhile--I'm not that young and have bad knees, I tie the hounds back and the bear typically jumps out over our heads and takes off. NY does not allow us to carry firearms while we do this. I try to take someone younger and more athletic with me, but sometimes do this alone with me dogs. Sometimes the bear will not climb and turns on the hounds, but that doesn't happen all that often. When it does, we try to pull the hounds away to safety. The bear rarely bothers the humans, although we don't take chances either. We love our hounds, but they are brave and will take some injury without lasting harm. The only time that I was ever charged by a bear myself, I was picking berries and a very young cub came up to me out of curiosity. Mom charged me--I thought--but really just rushed past me and whisked the cub away from me. She actually brushed against me in the process, but did not bother with me at all. Of course I was scared out of my wits and flung the bucket of berries all over the place and got out of there pronto. Most problems with bear are caused by food. I never carry any food when chasing bears. Some of my buddies carry energy bars or the like, but only something they can quickly fling away, and in a pocket or some other place they can get to quickly--not in a zippered backpack. People who leave trash accessible, have bird feeders or cat or dog food outside, or leave toddlers with crackers confined in their strollers in the yard, are apt to have unpleasantly close encounters with bears. Same with hikers who don't hang their provisions out of reach--keep a sandwich in your tent and fall asleep before finishing it, and the bears will find you.