nyantler

For me it's about the ultimate competition... I have always been very competitive... sports, martial arts etc. The experience of testing myself against something or someone in a challenge of strength, wit, and skill. What better than the challenge of man vs. beast where the opponent has the home field advantage, is faster, stronger, has keener senses and is a master at surviving under extreme and dangerous conditions? Then throw in the experience of being out in nature and the serenity of the outdoors... and I'm thinking the better question is "Why not?"

See that's where you go wrong... you actually think what he said and what you said are even close to the same.

Not only do I shoot feathers, but I shoot them on a cedar shaft

For those who want a shorter season... you do realize you can always voluntarily not hunt the whole season... you don't need the DEC telling you how little to hunt. Seems like with all the support we have for that on this forum more of you would be cutting your seasons short for the cause.

all the seasons are long enough... I'm so lame by Dec 20th from all the walking I'm glad when it finally comes to an end.

I'm sure that there must be a reason they are former cops if you know them and they still speak to you... you could always take a shot at the job if you're so up on how they should do the job they were trained for and you weren't. Maybe you could try talking nicely to the thug trying to grab your gun and kill you with it... let's see how that works for ya. Now back under the bridge with you.

...and I rest my case.

Well it hasn't worked with you so....

Success has a lot to do with where you hunt and how you hunt... the term "good hunter" is very subjective and has a different meaning to different people. For example the guy who sits in a stand all day and kills deer would have a tough time doing that in the middle of the Adirondacks... just as the Adirondack tracker might have a hard time being successful from a treestand and neither is necessarily a "good hunter"... they may just be luckier than the next guy. A good hunter in my view is someone that hunts for the right reasons, cares about conservation, knows and follows the hunting regulations and safety procedures, and most of all is enjoys all his hunting experiences... Although there are many skilled hunters that are successful, some fall short of being what I consider a good hunter.

May God bless you and your family. Very sorry for your loss.

This is so true... I missed a chip shot a few years ago with my 870... before that day I had never had to so much as rack another shell with that gun... it's a tack driver. On that particular day I tracked this buck and got the drop on him walking broadside to me at less than 40 yards... The situation was so exceptional I got complacent and had that buck in the freezer before I pulled the trigger... I forgot to bare down and concentrate... and after the shot caught myself having already peeked over the gun thinking the buck would just drop. As he ran off I wasn't even thinking that I missed. I just thought I'd find him around the corner piled up in a heap. There was plenty of fresh snow and easy to see any blood trail. When I walked to the spot that he stood at the shot there was nothing.. no blood, no hair, and most of all no deer... I tracked him until dark and never caught up to him again. Lesson learned... there is no such thing as a "chip shot"

Think about it... a 7 foot hairy giant that has supposed to have been seen all over the world for the last 50 years by 1000's of people and still not a single bit of credible evidence of it's existence... no dead bodies, no trail cam pics, nothing... it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know it doesn't exist. Just like wolves in NY that were supposed to be introduced 40 years ago, but somehow have not populated enough to see any evidence of a pack or pack kills anywhere in NY... use your heads people.

For me this is where the whole "buck management" thing falls apart... I am not of the opinion that there is such thing as a "poor" rack on a mature whitetail deer... beauty is in the eye of the beholder. One mans perfection is not necessarily another's. This is more "rack' management than buck management... my view is that there is no good that comes from rack management as it pertains to free range, fair chase hunting.

Agreed.. over the years it seems that we have gone from a really good buck being a handsome 100 class 8-point maybe with a spread out to his ears. Now hunters poo-poo that nice buck as a "not shooter". The whole new age idea of what is a mature deer leaves me a bit uneasy...

The science of buck age structure goes back to the 1950's and your theory has no merit as it relates to age structure and having future older bucks... maybe some merit in relation to culling for more perfect racks, but only in a controlled environment where certain bucks are selected for culling from the herd. Plus, not all spikes and 3-points are inferior deer... most eventually catch up as far as rack size in their 2nd or 3rd year... studies have even documented exceptional rack growth from spike bucks that have been allowed to reach maturity. Nothing personal... even a good guy can be wrong sometimes

So if your killing the 1,5 year olds to let the 2.5 year old grow... Where do the 2.5 year olds come from? The truth is there is no merit to his opinion... I will agree it is an opinion though.

Exactly! I would have told the management that they better call the authorities or I would. I would have never let those people out of the store before the authorities arrived.

True hermaphrodites are almost non-existent... it is way more likely that the deer has a testicular abnormality or injury to the testicles. Hormonal imbalance is usually the culprit in these deer. Deer born with both male and female genitals is EXTEMELY rare!

My knife was made in the Adirondacks... antler is from an Adk buck.. steel was hand forged. You can't see it on the sheath, but there is a stamp shaped like a deer's hoof that was punched into the leather that was created using an old adk railroad spike. An awesome example of custom craftsmanship... it's been bloodied up pretty good since this photo.

I feel that everyone should do what they enjoy... my view on deer management and conservation does not enter into how I enjoy my day in the woods... how someone else is hunting and what they are shooting never enters my mind... because I don't care. Not to say that if I caught someone being unsafe or doing something illegal that I would turn a blind eye... I just don't concern myself with what others do to make their experience in the woods enjoyable. If a hunter wants to hunt button bucks only, I don't care. If he doesn't believe in shooting does, I don't care. If he fills every tag every year, I don't care. None of it stands in the way of how I spend my day hunting. I don't care if someone loves the way I hunt or hates it... don't care if they like my weapons of choice or not.. none of it concerns them as long as I'm doing it safely and legally. I can't ever remember coming home from hunting and being depressed or discouraged about the day, whether I see a deer or not. I have opinions about conservation and management but not to the extent that I would push those opinions on any other hunter.. I may speak them but only as a point of conversation or information... other than that I believe it's always better to just " shut up and hunt". I save all my BS for this forum

I don't think they would have him... he is a liberal ...not mentally stable and shouldn't own a gun.

Bob is a great guy.. I have read all his books... they are especially exciting for me because I personally know many of the people that he has written about and have hunted in many of the camps and places as well. He has another one he is working on as well... should be ready soon.

I usually find that the guy who screams the loudest about hating big buck hunting is also the guy that is pissed that he doesn't have the ability to hunt and kill the biggest, baddest, most elusive whitetail in the woods... so he cries about those that choose to. He starts to blame other hunters for his inability to see and kill deer, or he blames the DEC for the lack of deer he's seeing, too many doe tags, too many buck tags etc. etc. He doesn't like the fact that there are some of us that simply enjoy hunting and don't look at it as a contest. I hunt for the excitement and enjoyment. A big buck gives me the most challenge. He is not my trophy... he is the bonus at the end of an exciting day in the woods... me against him... the ultimate game of hide and seek. I often say that some of my best and most exciting days of hunting didn't end with a kill. It doesn't matter to me how many deer there are or how many big bucks there are where I hunt. I only need one big buck to hunt... I will walk miles until I find him... and if I find him and kill him and hang him on my wall... why should you care that I killed him or that he was big? Stop worrying about how and what kind of deer the rest of us hunt and start concentrating on what you're doing... stop your pissing and moaning and start enjoying yourself. Your hunting experience has NOTHING to do with the size deer I'm hunting.

I would definitely still hunt, but with much less enthusiasm. To make it more fun I would probably hunt with longbow from the ground the entire deer season. Not being able to hunt a mature ADK buck would ruin hunting for me.