Doc

Re: Just How Many Of Us Are There?? Well, like I said, you can accept these numbers or make up your own. I tend to believe those who have actually put some effort into some sort of scientific study rather than someone who just simply says, "oh gosh that can't be right". There will be some who understand this as a warning and there will be some who simply don't want to hear it. What I would suggest for those that are skeptical is to do your own search. The links that Luckyman4 came up with tend to agree with those that Alt was quoted as saying in the article. It's hard to find exact comparisons because Alt was talking about deer hunters only in the article, and most of what I've seen on the net refers to total hunters. But if you read the material on those links that Luckyman4 provided you will see a very close correlation to the numbers quoted by Alt. Also, I have not seen an article yet anywhere that does not claim significant losses in hunter numbers. I'm still waiting for someone to point out, from any source, that the national hunting numbers are not declining significantly. There may be individual state numbers that might be temporarily bucking the national trend ( may be), But I'm very sure that you will not find any info that claims that overall national numbers are not declining, and in a significant fashion too. At any rate, don't be just sitting on your duff claiming the numbers are false without at least making some effort to find out if your claim holds any water. It's not like the info is some kind of secret that can't be accessed by simple internet searches. Oh yes, for those that simply don't care I've got to tell you that I am surprised that there would be anyone here who would actually admit to that. There may be a whole lot who secretly feel that way, but that really is not an attitude that I would be bragging about. Doc

Re: Just How Many Of Us Are There?? I hear a lot of people in denial, but I do not hear them quoting numbers from other sources. I suppose it is just easier to say I don't believe it and stuff your head back under the sand, but I will tell you that the figures were spoken by a man who has little to gain by fudging data, and his source of data was the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Now, if you want to dispute that without any concrete information to the contrary, I guess you are free to do so. But your basis for doubt stands on pretty flimsy ground. Now just a few more numbers to mull over that were included in that article: "The estimate of deer hunters in 1975 was 12.4 million. In 1985 it dropped to 11.9 million, and in 2001 it was 10.3 million". Now these numbers don't really require rocket science to come up with. Hunters are licensed and do show up in state databases. Accumulating the nation's hunter numbers really isn't all that mysterious and difficult. The reply I like the best is the official, certified accurate survey that went something like this: "There are 13 homes on my street and I know of hunters living in at least six of them the other neighbors I don't really ever talk to. Based on that and the fact that all my friends hunt leads me to beleive that report was a little skewed." That's like saying I only saw two deer last year so the whole state's herd must be in trouble. According to that scientific survey, 46% of all of the US population hunts. Is there anybody who seriously believes that???? ........lol. I will tell you this, it is this kind of denial that has always been the source of difficulty for the survival of hunting. I suppose it's human nature, but I guess we all tend to discount any news that upsets our little rose colored view of the world, but the very first part of solving a problem is to first be able to accept that there is a problem. Now here's the deal. All you who think these numbers are a bunch of hogwash, please supply me with the real percentage of the US population that hunts and let's hear your source. On the other hand if you are willing to ignore warnings simply because they upset your idealistic view of what you want things to be like, don't be too surprised to see a whole lot of reverses in the future of hunting. Or perhaps you are content with the knowledge that you'll be able to hunt for the rest of your lives and the heck with future generations. If that's you attitude, then I suppose the discussion is finished. Personally I hope that there are some people in the game management business who will make this issue a top priority concern and will be convening studies and devising programs to reverse this trend. Doc

Re: hunting when very windy I haven't had great luck hunting when the wind is up. Most of the deer that I have seen have been super-spooky and quite often I've seen no deer at all. Now that's not to say that if the wind is blowing I am completely wasting my time. It just makes things a bit tougher. I have taken deer during high winds......just not that often. Doc

Re: tracks can you tell the difference?? I believe there are those who can reliably tell a buck track from a doe track, and I'll bet they don't simply rely on one feature of the track alone. One thing I can say for sure is that I am not one of those people. Sure, I can make a general call on the likelyhood of a huge splayed out monster track being a buck. Would I bet the farm on it?.......not on your life....lol. With my luck it would turn out to be some fat slob of a doe with big feet. Doc

Re: how do you scout I suspect that glassing of ag fields probably comprises the bulk of scouting methods used by most hunters. fields provide a natural magnet that showcases all or most of the deer at one time or another, whether it be day or night. Unfortunately, not all of us have that luxury. To put it simply, agriculture has been dead and buried in my neck of the woods for many decades now. So my scouting methods and herd and deer size assessments have to be done with a whole lot more up-close-and-personal scrutiny. I have learned a long time ago how to read the subtle signs of browsing and deep forest feeding. I have also learned to pay a lot of attention to oak and beechnut crops and the crunched up shell droppings from feeding deer. I have also learned to find those one or two heavily bearing white oak trees. Those faint deer beds in the deep woods that most people walk over without even recognizing them are also good pieces of info to tuck away for future use. Not that they ever bed exactly in the same places, but it does indicate that they bed in that general area. Of course there is always the rubs and scrapes to find each year, but barring some horrible habitat changing storms, these rubbing and scraping areas generally are tarditional and much of that kind of sign occurs in the same general area if not the exact same spot. We do have some traditional deer trails that can be examined for quantity and quality sign. There are also general feeding and breeding areas that can be carefully observed, trying real hard not to disturb any current natural patterns. And then there is the reliance on 40 years of experience hunting the same hunting grounds. Although care must be taken to not rely on past experience too much. You've probably all heard that disclaimer by financial institutions that goes something like, "past performance does not necessarily indicate future results". Well, the same thing can also apply to hunting areas. I have been messed up bad with gradual maturity of old openings or brushlots that used to be great magnets for deer, often relying on these old traditional spots long after the habitat has matured beyond being much of a deer-draw anymore. I also have had severe ice storms totally change the nature of some excellent feeding areas in one day. I've seen trails that have existed for decades all of a sudden become completely buried and barricaded by fallen trees and limbs. I have seen some great old white oak trees simply blow down and remove the primary reason why deer always seemed to be in that area in previous years. So for me, it is always a good idea to at least take a quick scouting trip or two to some of the old areas that I normally take for granted as being hot deer spots. Also, as somebody has already mentioned, if you are hunting pressured areas of state lands, other hunters get to be a concern. Unfortunately, many of the disruptions caused by other hunters aren't usually apparent until after the season has commenced, but here again, past experiences may help you pattern hunter movements and concentrations. Just don't count on them. Also, I have on occasion gone to one of my traditional stands that had been real producers for decades, and found that mountain bikers have spent the whole summer parading back and forth on a new bike trail right in front of my stand. I have also found that some of the more well used deer trails seem to have been taken over by the mountain bikers, and usually find the trail covered with bike tracks and absolutely no deer tracks. These are good things to find out as early as possible. Yes, for the deep woods hunter, it takes a whole lot more than just glassing a few fields and checking a few trails around the perimeter of farm fields. Scouting gets to be nearly a year around activity with a whole lot of scrutiny of some of the tiniest details. There is a whole lot of shoe-leather that has to be used too. Doc

I just finished an article in the latest New York Outdoor News that claimed that 92% of the US population do not hunt..........92%!!!!! I knew that we were in the minority, but I had no idea that our numbers were that small. No wonder we have no political clout with the legislators. Who is going to worry about a crummy 8% of the population? Oh and by the way, when it comes to specific issues such as deer management it is also worth noting that only 79% of all hunters in the US, hunt deer. This article also quoted numbers that show a 17% drop in deer hunters in just 25 years. Gary Alt, retired bear and deer biologist for PA also said that Pennsylvania predicts that if current trend continue, its number of deer hunters will drop by half in about 25 years. Now there's a sobering thought! Some of these numbers are real eye-openers as we watch our political clout fade away to nothing. Doc

Re: how far wiill a slug kill a deer? My response would be that if you have to ask others, you had better shoot no farther than you have tested the gun at. The only one who can give you the correct answer is yourself, your gun, and a measured shooting range. If you have to rely on someone else for the answer, the chances are that you have not spent an adequate time shooting and familiarizing yourself with your gun. If you are asking about energy delivered by a 12 guage slug, I can assure you that it will get the job done a lot farther than you can be accurate. Doc

Re: Waxing your String He-he..... Gets hot doesn't it? I just regulate the amount of pressure that I put on the string. I've been burnt before too.....lol. Doc

Re: caged hunt\'s or in fenced area . [ QUOTE ] AS much as we, as fair chase hunters may not like this kind of "hunting"; we have to support it as long as its legal. [/ QUOTE ] No, I don't think we have to accept every hunting practice that is legal. I have opinions and feelings about the whole array of hunting methods and these opinions are not dictated by some legislators who may or may not have a clue relative to what hunting is all about. I do not relinquish my ethics and decisions about such matters to a bunch of lawmakers. I am fairly open minded when it comes to such things, but one thing I can't really support is the picture of a hunter bench resting his gun on the corral fence and shooting an animal that is laying near a feeder chewing its cud, and then calling that hunting. When these people are lumped in with all hunters, it sends an insulting message throughout the public that I am a part of that. I want everyone to understand that I am not. And I really don't care if it's legal or not. And certainly I don't want anyone to be asking me to support that. Doc

Re: do deer stay in the same spot? I wonder about areas that contain a lot of coyotes. Do you suppose that deer habits might occasionally get changed because of coyote harrassment? Doc

Re: caged hunt\'s or in fenced area . Rifleman- I learned about hunting on my own without the assistance of some canned hunt "outfitter". Let's face it, the activity is called Deer hunting, not deer killing, and in order for the sport to have any meaning at all, some loose guidelines have to be established, even for the beginner. Part of hunting includes the element of challenge. You take that out, and you have taken out the hunting. Now, regarding your question about what a person who has never been exposed to hunting is supposed to do. I would expect him to do what most hunters did to get started. Do some reading, find these others who are "bragging about their weekend trips in the woods" and get some more information. Perhaps such conversations might even result in an invite. What you do NOT do is to send them to some canned hunt where they learn next to nothing and are filled with all kinds of expectations that they will never duplicate under real hunting conditions. That's like shoving a gun in their hands and inviting them to step into Joe Farmer's pasture to shoot a cow. What on earth would they learn about hunting from that experience? Even that 14 year old with the single mother runs the risk of having hunting completely ruined for him if he is thrown into a canned hunt scenario. It is quite likely that he will come away with the sense that hunting is no big deal. He might even be extremely turned off by the notion that hunting has to do with killing semi-domesticated animals that really don't have a chance of survival. It may very well leave him wondering what the big deal is all about. I wouldn't blame him. given those circumstances, I would be wondering the same thing. Most likely, there would be a birth of a brand new anti-hunter who would have some real factual experiences to back up his new found beliefs. Doc

Re: is bow hunting better then rifle If I had to choose between the two, I would definitely pick bow hunting. Fortunately, we don't have to choose. We can do both. I say fortunately, because gun hunting (shotgun only where I hunt) is great and provides its own kind of appeal. Doc

Re: favorite/most memorable Every deer hunt has been an extremely memorable event in my life, but our moose hunt in Ontario Canada is the one that stands out the most for me. First of all, every experience on that hunt provided something completely new in terms of methods, scenery and results. Four of us packed in with two canoes, deep into the maze of swamps and lakes to the point where we never experienced a manmade sound other than our own. We saw wildlife that I will never again see in real-life. The hunt was accompanied by some unbelievable fishing during the mid-day. And, we did manage to get a bull. It just doesn't get any better than that. So while all the hunts have supplied some memorable moments, this moose hunt provided the most intense and unusual experiences and memories. Doc

Re: When is too much enough? The only equipment that ever had much of an impact on my shooting abilities was my first compound and my first dozen aluminum arrows. Oh yes, I suppose my going to a release was kind of significant too. All those fancy bows hanging on my wall and that shop full of gadgets and toys are merely mementos of a lifetimes worth of involvement in the sport. But the deer killed with the old Bear Whitetail really did wind up just as dead as the ones I have taken with the other dozen bows that now hang on the wall gathering dust. My new Mathews certainly out-performs that old Whitetail, but I must admit that every deer that I have taken with it could have just as easily and humanely been taken with that old clunky, heavy, slow, ugly Bear Whitetail. So why do I have a room full of contraptions, bows, and arrows of all kinds? It's because I was completely imersed in the activity of archery and had to have the experience of shooting as much of it as I could. Yes, and I could quote all the scientific purposes of each new toy and rattle off all the performance specs that supposedly made each purchase something that a true archer really couldn't live without. And if you think hunting equipment is bad, just take a peek at the toys involved in tournament shooting. Well, each little trinket resides in my shop now and serves as a memento of each stage of my lifetime's archery activity, and I am glad I bought each item whether it worked or not. Well tines have changed now. Being retired, I have to watch the pennies a whole lot closer than I did before. This kind of brings a sense of reality to all that stuff that I bought over the years along with the realization that 95% of it really didn't have to be bought, and very little of it ever really was necessary to kill a deer. I suppose if I had only bought those things that were necessary, I would probably still be shooting my old Bear Whitetail. And you know what? I would be getting just as many deer and they would all be just as dead. On the other hand, I would have missed out on trying out all those nifty gadgets and being in-the-know on all the latest developments in archery over the past 40 years. I also wouldn't have all those great gadgets to remind me of all the great times that archery has provided me over the years. Gadget accumulation is also a very important part of the sport too....lol. Doc

Re: Hind Sight Years ago, I cobbed up a version of a front and rear sight and it worked fairly well. The element of shooting form that it will help you with is bow-hand consistancy. Torqueing problems get real obvious. I stopped using my version of a front and rear sight only because my design was not all that robust and was fairly fragile in brush. of course I had no real machining tools so the thing was really a rather poor prototype, but it worked. The versions that I have seen on the market look like pretty tough units, but the price tags are way out of my league and cost far more than I'm willing to pay for that particular function. Doc

Re: Bowhunters thoughts on the WHA? This topic has been pretty well put through the ringer here. I really don't have anything new to add. Do a search on the term "WHA" and you will find more discussion on it that you'll have time to read. Doc

Re: trapping [ QUOTE ] Personally I think trapping is (ok start to flame I dont care) A lazy cruel method of hunting. Get out there and hunt, Dont let it suffer in some trap. [/ QUOTE ] The anti's sure have made an impression on you haven't they. You even got the terminology down pat....lol. Well, cheer up. I think that your people are winning on this issue and will have trapping effectively outlawed in the near future. Then they will be able to spend all of their time working on hunting and fishing. Doc

Re: Tired of hearing PA Hunters complain! [ QUOTE ] And now we see why. It's g-r-a-m-m-a-r. I won't extoll upon the incorrectness of the run-on sentences. [/ QUOTE ] Ha! You caught me. Would you believe I inserted that mis-spelling simply as an example? .............I didn't think so.............lol. Well, I guess my spelling is not perfect either. That is why I seldom complain about such things. Also, who really expects or demands such perfection on the internet? However, when that message beccame so garbled that it had to be re-read several times just to hope to understand it, I finally gave up in frustration and had to comment. Certainly, there has to be some middle ground between the occasional error and a completely unintelligible message. Doc

Re: Tired of hearing PA Hunters complain! I seldom comment on spelling, grammer and all that, but that last reply really took me about 5 times as long to read as it should have, just trying to make out what the guy was saying. I'm not much of a stickler on such things, but maybe it would help get the point across if a little more care was taken by trying to communicate in something that looks a bit like English. Honestly, I almost gave up on trying to fight my way through that message. Doc

Re: Is nicer always better???? My very first year of deer hunting with a gun, my highschool buddy and I climbed our hill and built a lean-to style shelter that was completely enclosed, out of saplings and pine boughs. We spent opening week in that thing even though the weather got pretty cold and snowy. Of course back then we didn't have the fancy space age sleeping bags and fancy camping gear, but we made do and that week of hunting ranks up pretty high on my list of great hunting experiences. Well, that was a whole bunch of years ago, and I am not quite the rugged tough guy that I was back then. Today, I like my accomodations to be a lot more comfortable and I do appreciate some "creature-comforts" in my hunting camps. I will say that over my lifetime, the best hunting and camping experiences were coupled with some pretty primitive accomodations, but eventually we reach a stage where just getting a good night's sleep is a challenge....lol. Doc

Re: Snow??? The fact is that once an arrow gets under the snow, no matter what color it is or what kind of flashy fletching or cresting, you are unlikely to find it without a metal detector or a good spring thaw....lol. Doc

Re: Tired of hearing PA Hunters complain! By the way, for those of you who are getting tired of hearing hunters complain, understand that just because things may be just ducky where you hunt, there is no state that I am aware of that is simply a homogeneous chunk of real estate that has identical habitat, and deer densities. Lighten up a bit. There may very well be pockets of very low deer densities, and they may not really be all that far from where you are finding heavy populations. I generally place some credibility in hunter observations. After all, they are the ones who walked their particular piece of hunting ground. Before I imply their dishonesty or lack of hunting capability, without any more data than the fact that I see plenty of deer, I think I would make allowances for the fact that they might be exactly right about the particular area that they hunt. Actually, if those kinds of complaints are coming often enough and from enough different places, maybe it is something that should be complained about loud and long until some of the wildlife managment agencies start to pay some attention. You never know, some of these "whiners" just may be doing a real long-term service that points up some systemic problem in the way the herd is managed in your state. Doc

Re: Tired of hearing PA Hunters complain! Harvest numbers really would not be a part of the problem if state game agencies would simply come into the new millenium. Here in NY, our licensing and harvest reporting system are completely computerized. I'm not sure how many other states have advanced to that point yet, but if you are not there yet, I'm sure it's just a matter of time. With these features totally computerized, a wonderful tool is now available for ensuring nearly 100% compliance with harvest reporting. Even though NY is not using their own system in this fashion yet, the bones are in place for implementing a completely foolproof system of harvest reporting. Simply, all that has to be done is to make it mandatory that harvest results for all licenses be reported whether successful or not. A simple computer comparison between licenses sold to licenses reported could be performed and the violators who do not comply would be instantly identified. Further, violators could be flagged in the system, notices sent out in the mail, and licences denied the following year if the reporting failure was not rectified. Fines could also be levied if it were deemed necessary. Within a very short time, you would have 100% (or nearly so) compliance. Doc

Re: buck to doe ratios I must agree that a general perception of buck to doe ratios can be achieved, but when I start hearing people reduce this perception to actual numbers, my skepticism antenna starts to get activated. My thoughts are that even the experts (those trained in the area of whitetail biology) can not even get the total population numbers right in a totally wild herd. Trying to be even more exact by assigning specific ratio numbers to gender dispersal seems a bit ridiculous to me. Yes you can be accurate by saying that the buck to doe ratio seems a bit high or low, but to try to get anymore precise than that is kind of a losing battle unless you have a fenced domestic herd. Even a camera survey is "iffy" at best given the fact that buck and doe habits and travels are not always in synch. Perhaps with enough cameras and that being your full time job.......lol. So, when you hear people talking about exact ratios, be a bit skeptical and understand that the odds of them having a real number for bucks vs. does is probably almost nil. Therefore, any other theories that arise from such numbers are probably equally suspect. Doc

Re: all white arrows? I am still using the XX-75 shafts from thirty years ago. I have piles of them. They are in a color called "autumn-orange". I'm not sure whether these are still available or not. I have never lost one of these in the woods, and the color shows up with or without snow. And yet I don't believe that I have ever spooked a deer because they were too bright. They also show up well against the brown of the deer so that hit location is made a lot easier. Actually, I haven't seen these on the matket in a long time. That figures. They always discontinue all the good stuff....lol. Doc