Jennifer

Thank you, that means a lot to me. I clipped the top of his heart off, and it was as if someone went through the woods with buckets of red paint. I photoshopped some of the blood out of this photo because the owner of the old Empire Hunting site wanted to put it on the front page but didn't want it to be terribly bloody. The buck still managed to run 60-ish yards, which always impressed me. I think he is very beautiful, and though I regret I didn't have the money to get a mount, I'll cherish photos and his memory! It's a real treat to see all the other photos here. I think the memories of these hunts are more amazing than the kills.

Sorry, not so old, but I don't have any real old ones. My buck in 2008, we joked that it was well earned because it was my first buck, and second ever deer, in 10 years. In reality though not a day goes by that I'm not grateful for him! My hunting clothes are older than I am, hand me downs! One of these days I need to invest in some warm(er) stuff.

Well done, both of you!

I've done a lot of personal research into this, and have read deeply in to documents produced by all "sides" of this issue. It's not black and white, but overall I'm really concerned about it. My conclusions: It can sometimes be done with a great deal of safety to land, ecosystem, and public-- but rarely is done with these levels of thoughtfulness. Any local money it brings will not be all that much, and will be very short-term. I know how hard it is to be unemployed but this is just way too short-sighted. Most of the money and product will not remain domestic, but the futures are already sold to other countries (China is a big one). The US as a whole actually already has a glut of natural gas-- we have "too much" right now, already extracted. This will do little to help our energy independence. There is simply not enough manpower from our state to properly regulate, test, and enforce SAFE fracking. Our DEC is already drawn way too thin. If fracking is to happen, it needs to be carefully monitored for the safety of people, aquifers, and ecosystems. As conservationists and hunters all, we should really be thinking about that carefully! Drilling companies are under no obligation to disclose what chemicals and by-products they use, and are both intentionally and accidentally releasing into our state. They are also exempt from many federal regulations regarding clean water acts, and such. It does not instil confidence in me. I've written my comments in.

I treat the back straps like a filet; they are excellent. I dislike them fried, but my dad likes them cut thin and fried up that way. Everyone has their own tastes! No matter what though, they are good eating.

Those are really interesting. Has anyone tried them? My dad has nerve damage and gets really cold hands, and I am always looking for ways to help him. I got him a Zippo handwarmer a few years ago but I am really sad to say that unlike their lighters, it's not worth it at all.

Sadly this usually doesn't work, but if it does it's a bad idea. Now that we know that ticks carry disease (Lyme and other tick borne diseases), it's always a bad idea to put anything on them to force them to back out. It is a tick's natural reaction to being "attacked" to regurgitate back into the host before backing out. This is not only gross sounding, but greatly increases the risk that you will contract a disease if the tick is carrying anything. The same goes for using tweezers to pull them out. Squeezing them at all can force their stomach contents back into your blood stream, bad news!! In short, you should avoid any removal means that involves squeezing or putting something on the tick to agitate it. They both greatly increase your risk for disease. This is a bit fussy, but the BEST and safest removal system, if you don't have one of those little tools for removing them, is to use a bit of fishing line. Tie a slip knot in it, and get the loop over the tick's body, as close to your skin as you possibly can. You might have to have someone with good dexterity help you. Some people use a straw to do this. Tug the knot tight around the tick-- hopefully you are around it's head or neck area, between your skin and the thorax. Put steady, but gentle pressure on the end of your fishing line to slowly pull the tick away from your skin at an angle. The idea here is to get the fishing line tight around it's head/neck area, so that it cannot regurgitate, and pull it out. It sounds fussy, I know, but it really does work well if you can get it. I'd normally not suggest something so fussy, but you really don't want to mess with tick borne disease, if you can prevent it. A few minutes of goofing with fishing line can save you a lifetime of medical nonsense, trust me! Here's a video that sort of shows what I'm talking about. If you are not dexterous and don't have someone to help, you can make something like this using a straw (this person used an empty pen) http://cdn.instructables.com/F0O/VQOQ/GTO4OY57/F0OVQOQGTO4OY57.LARGE.jpg I hope this helps someone!

Well done and congrats! I hear you on the drag. I am not a big lady and I have back problems, drags can be killer without snow on!!

I have old woolrich blaze orange outers and they were made long before they printed camo patterns on blaze orange. If you find something you like but not in camo, you can get some black fabric paint and splatter and draw lines and such on there yourself, it works out really well. Just do it months before deer season so that the paint odor can dissipate. Dad used to use a black magic marker but we discovered that the paint lasts longer and has less long-term odor.

It's depressing to read this and the turkey story. Sometimes bad things happen at the taxidermist shop; a cape is accidentally harmed or whatever. I see guys on the taxidermy forums often in the wanted to buy section looking for replacement capes, birds, etc. I feel bad for both parties; I've thawed birds before and had a bunch of the feathers slip, and it really bites because I've got a bird I can't mount to look the way it did before, and it's no one's fault really. But it is on the taxidermist to be HONEST about what happened, and offer the client his or her options as to ways to fix or at least amend the situation. It's never okay to just go ahead and complete the mount incorrectly and hope no one notices.

Agreed... my dad was standing next to me once a few years back, when a buck danced into view, chasing a doe. I didn't have an angle, but dad did, and he shot the buck; the deer didn't act hit at all and ran off a bit, stopped, goofed around a bit and walked off casually. Snow was on so we were able to go to the exact spot and search for blood, hair, etc.. didn't find anything! We followed his tracks a ways to see if there were any blood drops, and no. None! Dad was baffled how he missed, but I was stubborn and stayed on the track. After about 80 yards I found little flecks of dark red blood in the snow and we pulled out for a while because we weren't sure how the deer was hit. We went back in later and tracked it for about a mile, out and off of the property where we were absolutely forbidden from going (privately owned "nature preserve"), even to retrieve a deer. We were pretty sick about it, and when we were out there post-season doing some work we talked to one of the people that was allowed to do land work on the property and they said they found the buck about a hundred yards in, lung and liver shot. Poor dad still gets sick thinking about it. If you can, it might be worth going back and doing a bit more searching tomorrow. Misses do happen, but you might've hit him. Either way I am sorry about the situation! Bad stuff happens to us all in the woods, sometimes. I missed a deer cleanly once, though I found the sapling that I blistered! He was at the edge of my range and I didn't see the sapling, somehow. I was a bit relieved, to be honest, to walk up to that broken beech sapling, because I knew that I missed clean instead of having the situation above.

Well done! I've hunted in Cuba pretty often, was it the Reg 9 DEC folks that weighed it for you?

Agreed, around here you are lucky just to hear a few gobbles all season..! I've never hunted eastern turkey in this part of NY that runs right in opening day or otherwise.

Oh my goodness, what a can of worms! I'm not sure if you are here to stir up the hornest's nest but I can see this thread getting ugly, quick. If you are genuine in your post... I'm sorry that you are feeling frustated. I can understand-- I haven't actually been able to take a deer in a few years now, despite hunting heavily and putting a lot of hours out there in the woods. I'm also sorry to hear that your facebook friends seem to be posting photos of deer that may have been illegal. If you really feel that they are taking deer without tags, you might consider reporting them. I know it seems like a jerk move, but the DEC only knows about it if people report it, and they do investigate things even if the only 'evidence' is online (I've had to turn in folks that bragged about shooting hawks online before). If they aren't taking the deer illegally, it can be frustrating when you aren't having much luck, but there isn't much to be done except learn and apply it for next year, or the rest of this season depending on your location. That's what I do! I do everything in my power to abide by the laws, yes, even the ones I think are a bit silly. I don't want to personally debate morals/ethics though, so I will leave it at that.

Same here Doc, I was unable to pattern anything this year (I normally love to pattern turkeys) and feeding has been sporadic and random for both turkey and deer. No mast on anything, locally.

Your memory is correct, I recall it too. I think these are the series you are talking about? http://www.deeranddeerhunting.com/coyote-kill-310

The only deer I've seen since the opening of gun here was a white butt rocketing away from me before legal sunrise. When we had snow on last weekend I spent the entirety of both days still hunting to see the story that tracks told, and 90% of the tracks were down low near houses (where we cannot legally shoot), with only two lone sets that passed through the woods at night. I see groups of 10-18 deer in my back yard/woods every night after legal sunset, in the twilight. It's a little discouraging because they seem to mostly nocturnal right now, but their bedding appears to be around houses, so we can't even gently bump them out of bed if we wanted to to get them moving. I hope things change next week, as I have the whole week off to hunt.

This is a grey area for me too, and I've asked different ECOs and had different answers. I have a few friends that are interested in what I do and might like to walk with me a few times to see if it's something they want to get into or not before they take classes, buy equipment (which isn't cheap) or purchase licenses. They'd be 100% NOT assisting in any way in the hunt, only observing. I've been told that it's illegal simpley because they are they are accompanying me from one ECO, and have been told it's okay as long as they are not assisting by another. I'd love to hear if there is actually anything writted about someone accompanying but strictly observing only.

Well done, and congrats! Real women go hunting with their partners!! No, I joke, but I suspect you'll find a relationship will work much better with someone that accepts your activities. Maybe you can explain hunting to her. Does she eat meat? Your venison had a much better life than anything that she could buy at the grocery store. I've found that being thoughtful in how I talk to folks about hunting can change their outlook on it.

For whatever it's worth, when I was on a deer check station with the DEC about 10 years ago, we never checked for corn. We DID pull a tooth to take back to the office and check the age, health, etc... of the deer. This was used for research into deep population, health, age, sex, and other data that the DEC wanted to collect from samples. I'm not saying it never happened... But we were never instructed to look for corn when I did it. This was in Region 9.

By the way, check first to make sure you're permitted to keep chickens. Some townships have strange laws about when, where, and how many birds are allowed. Sometimes you are only allowed a set number of hens per acre, or that the coop must be so many feet from a property line, etc. Some areas just ban them. It would bite to get into chickens only to be told you can't keep them.

Read into which hens are not as chatty-- I have several breeds and my Faverolles are the most noisy. They really get to singing sometimes! Try backyardchickens.com if you can stomach another forum, haha. You will be buried in information in no time. If you are getting into it for the first time I'd suggest chicks in the spring, yeah. They have to be kept warm, indoors, at first... approximately 95° the first week, then 90 the second week, 85 the third... shave off about 5° each week as they mature until you are close to outdoor temperatures. Unless you want rowdy teenage chickens in the house, it's best to do it when you can put them outside quickly. They make a lot of dust in the house!! You will be excited to get them outside by the time they are ready for it, haha. You can also buy "started" pullets at shows, meet-ups and so forth if you don't want to mess with chicks. Started pullets are generally just old enough to be laying eggs, or will start soon. Chicks are great if you have kids to teach or want to raise chickens that will be friendly with you, but if you are not concerned with this you might want to get them started. I don't recommend started birds from a hatchery as they are almost always beak clipped (this does not grow back and is arguably cruel as it causes permanant nerve damage) and sometimes come with parasites and/or illness. Find someone local you can trust that has healthy birds. Beware craig's list, sometimes you hit a home run but a lot of people unload unwated/sick birds that way. The chicken forum above has a thread just for NY chicken owners and an entire classified section to get you started. No matter how you raise them, I guarantee they will lay you better tasting eggs and that their lives will be better than anything you get at a grocery store. Give them acess to some grass, weeds and bugs and they will further reward you with eggs that are very tasty, have more nutrition, and are lower in cholesterol than confined factory soy-fed birds. If you have a bird that doesn't work out, you still gave it a better life than a supermarket chicken and they make fantastic soup. You can use all parts of the bird, including feet, to make a fantastic chicken stock that is easy to do. If it interests you, they can actually make fantastic pets, too, depending on the breed-- Mine are better pets than my parrots. I have one faverolles hen that jumps into my lap and sleeps. She purrs/trills too, it's pretty cute. But I understand if you just want them for lifestock-- nothing wrong with that!

Keeping it clean goes a long way toward odor. One thing that has saved me a LOT of work is to create a poop board. Don't laugh, it's really useful. Hens tend to do something like 60%+ of their business while on the roost in the evening/overnight/early morning. I cut a flat piece of chipboard and put it about 6" below the roosing board and covered it in flashing, it cost me perhaps $8 to make. Then I just use a drywall scraper ($4) and scrape the waste into a bucket each morning, and dump the bucket into the compost pile. That worked well for a year, but I got tired of scraping frozen poop in the winter, so I modifed the poop board so that it has 2" walls on each side, and fill the whole thing with Sweet PDZ (this is a horse stall freshener, I get mine at Tractor Supply, get the grains and not the powder), and now I can scoop the dropping out with a cat litter scoop. It clumps up like cat litter and has no odor. Really easy and takes me maybe 3 minutes in the morning since I have only 7 hens. I have had people remark that my coop area doesn't smell at all because of this. Hope these ideas help!

I'm a bit of a chicken nut, I admit. When my hens get to singing the "egg song"-- the sterotypical buck-bagawk-- it's louder than my rooster. Just a warning that hens can be loud. Some breeds are genrally less chatty than others. Whenever getting into any critter, research is in order. Some breeds are not as cold hardy either, but many do great in our winters. I never provide heat as it actually makes it hard on their systems to go form warm to cold, back and forth, each day. Just keep their water from freezing over so they can get fresh drinks. The manure smells but no worse than a dog's... what you put in is what comes out. With no disrespect intended, some of the commercial, cheap chicken feeds on the market are not the best, and makes the manure smell much worse than it has to. Like dog food, it can have a lot of junk filler. If you want to raise birds on the cheap that's fine but I am really picky about what goes into my food. It's best to compost the manure for at least a few months so that it cooks down some-- otherwise you can burn your plants with too much nitrogen. After it cooks down it's great on gardens. I can tell you the grass and weeds that grow downhill from my chicken run is the most lush, green grass (and weeds..) I've ever seen! If you want better production all year, folks often provide lighting in the winter so that the birds have a longer photoperiod, which causes more egglaying. I prefer to let mine go through natural cycles, as I prefer less eggs over many years (rather than a ton of eggs for a year or two then a burnt out hen..). Heritige breeds and good genetics will give you more production and larger bodied birds, at the cost of slightly slower growth. Hens, like many other species, ovulate just fine on their own. Roosters only fertilize the egg. As in all things, these are general observations, and your mileage may vary. They are all individual birds and can have a lot of personality. I take a lot of joy from them.

I will be so jealous of you folks this weekend. I have madatory travel and won't be back till Tues... save one for me, okay?