Curmudgeon

You got A right.

Airdale - You're the expert. Which of these are coyotes? Anyone else want to guess? A - B - C - D -

Dins, It isn't just internet forums where clear thinking on coyotes is hard to find. It's common in real life too. I talk to hundreds of hunters in person. Even the mainstream press has its bizarre commentary. Hancock is close enough to my hometown paper - The Daily Star, Oneonta - that they wrote an editorial. The readers comments are all over the map. However, the most nuts thing I've read there was a recent piece from their outdoor ccolumnist Rick Brockway. In his column on coyotes and the contest controversy, he cited 2 examples on why they are vicious killers. One of a deer being killed by coyotes after being disabled by a car impact. The second of a buck killed by coyotes a day after it was wounded and lost by one of his hunter friends. They found it the morning of the next day, still warm. In both of these anecdotes, coyotes were blamed for causing a cruel death. Rational thought? Hardly.

You sure they're coyotes? Looks more like jackals?

There is a large family near me that kills every coyote they see "for the deer". Ironically, one of them also complains about how much impact the deer are having on his crops. Expecting rational and critical thought when in comes to coyotes is expecting too much. I guess the same could be said for deer. Coyote hunting make no difference in my neighborhood. There are always plenty of coyotes year after year, even with the hounds running all winter. I see tracks every time I go for a walk. Shooting coyotes incidentally while deer hunting does nothing at all. With plenty of coyotes, we have way too many deer. It must be our local coyotes are completely incompetent. That is compared to vicious Delaware County monsters I've been reading about. Must be Otsego County has a different gene pool from Delaware.

I'm assuming Rattled is in the area dominated by closed canopy forests, not the more agricultural parts. I have a farmer friend in Delaware County who has too many deer and gets DMAP tags. Like the Adirondack Forest Preserve, the maturation of Catskill forests occured during my hunting lifetime. They matured enough in that time to change the habitat negatively for deer. Hunting the central Dacks - Pidgeon Lake and Five Ponds Wilderness Areas - in the late 70s and 80s, we saw deer most days. Now, you are lucky if you see one during a week of hunting. Coyotes? Probably not the main reason. Coyotes moved in 40 years before I hunted there. Do they kill deer? Sure, especially in deep snow. But blaming coyotes for low deer numbers in declining deer habitat is a classic correlation vs causation problem.

If you take away nothing else from these conversation, remember these tips: coyotes are really scary; their presence on LI is part of a conspiracy; do not let the children out; or, the pets; and, never go out unarmed, especially if you are gutting a deer. The coyotes will take your deer from you.

Why don't you guys start a Long Island chapter of the He-Man Coyote Haters Club?

This is a really funny thread. The Flores book should be required reading before anyone is allowed to post on coyotes. BTW - they are really terrifying. So much so that when they walk through the pastures, the sheep don't even get up. That actually happened. 43 years of keeping dumb, slow sheep and never a problem with coyotes. Domestic dogs on the other hand.............

If you aren't with us, you must be with PETA!

Best post I've seen on the forum in ages. Thanks Chris. You nailed it.

Sorry. Don't know who that is.

This just popped up in my news feed: NYPD I s warning people about coyotes. https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/hide-your-pets-nypd-warns-of-coyote-sightings-in-central-park/2269550/?amp Out here in the hills, we've known all along that the best and highest use of tiny dogs and free roaming cats is as coyote food.

I'm thinking the association with the soda bottle suggests road kill.

Coyotes here crew up the rib bones. Actually, so do the foxes and skunks. Is that a soda bottle?

Success. The screw hole plugs had completely fused with the melted rubber making it impossible to find them. A razor blade and a pair of needlenosed pliers revealed the screws. Thanks. Now I'll pursue getting the pad replaced.

For some reason the synthetic stock's rubber pad melted/fused with the foam covering the floor of the gun safe. It's ugly but functional. I cannot see or feel any screws or holes in the recoil pad. It came with a wood stock too. The pad on that stock has screws. Thanks anyway.

Then there was the time I dragged a deer a half mile uphill to home. I don't know what would have happened had my dad hadn't been there. He asked, where's your shotgun? A half mile walk back to where it was leaning against a tree next to a gut pile an another half mile back up hill.

I've got a Remington 1100 with a slightly loose butt stock. I want to tighten it. It's got a 3/4" thick rubber recoil pad. It appears the pad has been pushed inside the composite stock and may be snapped into a groove or something. I've tried prying it out. It isn't coming out easily. I don't want to damage it. Any advice?

Why the heck would someone pay premium prices for corn in fancy packaging in a sporting goods store? Go to a feed store for your corn. You'll save a bundle but it won't say "deer" on it. Or, better yet, buy it from a local farmer. Cut out several middle men.

I'm all in favor of feeding deer in winter. It is perfectly legal to cut trees. I've been downing next year's firewood and thinning some young stands of hardwood. I've also piled up cull Douglas fir and dropped some large scotch pine. They're feeding on my balsam Christmas trees anyway. Anything I give them as an alternative means less damage.

I accidentally bought replacements for normal Rage broadheads, not for crossbow broadheads. Is the only difference the collars? I have extra red crossbow collars. If that's the only difference, I don't need to return them.

I recently got caught up on Adrian McKinty's Sean Duffy series. It starts with The Cold, Cold Ground. It's about a Catholic detective in the URC during the troubles in N. Ireland. Enjoyable.

The reactions to this contest remind me of attitudes towards the Current Occupant: hardened positions, many devoid of facts and/or data. I see is as just a variation on the regular HuntingNY political echo chamber. All involved would benefit from reading Coyote America by Dan Flores. The world is complicated. This argument is simple. https://www.amazon.com/Coyote-America-Natural-Supernatural-History/dp/0465052991

I'm glad someone is looking at old threads. I don't keep a camera out at the pond most of the year. However, to fill some of the off season space, here's some photos from the summer. I'm not interested in only game, or only vertebrates so see what you think. My granddaughters spent a couple of weeks here catching stuff and filling a kiddie pool last summer. Among the most interesting things they found was this leech. It stretched out to about 4" long. What's fascinating is the couple of dozen baby leeches attached to its belly. They stay with the parent until the parent puts them next to a host. Then, the young attach to the host and lead independent lives.