The battle over crossbows in this state has been waged for two decades and it hasn’t been pretty | syracuse.com

Mike Greenlar/The Post-Standard

By David Figura

It’s an emotional, occasionally insult-laced argument that’s been going on in this state among outdoorsmen for more than two decades.

It’s the debate over crossbows — specifically when, where and how they should be used.

“I went to a recent meeting up in Buffalo and there were hundreds of people against the three of us. We got bushwhacked,” said Avon resident David Kosowski, legislative chairman of the N.Y. Bowhunters Inc., a group that has been at the forefront of keeping crossbows out of the archery season since its formation in 1991. He said he’s been going to similar meetings for years.

“You get called a communist, told this is a free country and that everyone has a right to hunt the way they want. … a few years back I even had one outdoors writer come across the table and challenge me. Guys had to restrain him,” he said.

Crossbow advocates say their critics are selfish and condescending and that the abuse goes both ways.

Crossbow 101 with Dave Figura Crossbow 101 with Dave Figura A Bass Pro Shops hunting and archery expert gives some beginning tips on using a crossbow while Post Standard outdoors writer David Figura takes his best shot. Watch video

The issue boils down to this: Crossbow hunters want to hunt during bowhunting season, which precedes the firearms season. Bowhunters say they’re not against crossbows — they just don’t want to share the woods with them during that time.

The debate is coming to a head again with the Dec. 31 expiration of a two-year law drafted by Sen. David Valesky, D-Oneida, in 2010. Valesky’s bill allowed the use of crossbows in this state for the first time during the fall hunting season for big game (deer and bear). However, it restricted their use to the regular firearms season and the muzzleloader season that followed. They were banned during the regular bow season.  Click Link Below For Full Story!

via The battle over crossbows in this state has been waged for two decades and it hasn’t been pretty | syracuse.com.

Vermont Moose Hunting Applications Are Available

WAITSFIELD, VT — Vermont moose hunting permit applications are available on the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department’s website (www.vtfishandwildlife.com), and printed applications will be at Vermont license agents statewide in June.

Lottery applications are $10 for residents and $25 for nonresidents. The deadline to apply is July 5. Winners of the permit lottery will purchase resident hunting permits for $100 and nonresident hunting permits for $350. Hunters also will have the option to bid on five moose hunting permits in an auction to be announced later.

“Permit allocation numbers will not be finalized until a regulation is adopted this summer,” said Wildlife Division Director Mark Scott. “We are making the applications available now for hunters’ convenience. Hunters can look online at the proposed number of permits and Wildlife Management Units proposed to be open for moose hunting.”

The Fish and Wildlife Department has proposed 385 moose hunting permits for the regular October 20-25 moose season, and 50 permits for an archery moose season October 1-7.

The 2011 Vermont Moose Harvest Report with details on last year’s hunt, including the towns where moose were taken, is on Fish and Wildlife’s website. Look under “Hunting and Trapping” and then “Big Game.”

I Hunt, But I Oppose the N.R.A. – NYTimes.com

By LILY RAFF McCAULOU

EARLIER this month, Mitt Romney delivered a speech at the annual National Rifle Association convention, calling for a president “who will stand up for the rights of hunters, sportsmen and those seeking to protect their homes and their families,” presumably with guns. I’d like to remind Mr. Romney that those are distinct groups. Too often — especially during an election year — hunters and N.R.A. members are lumped together as one and the same.I’m a hunter and a sportswoman. I own guns, but not for self-defense. I support gun control laws. I would happily vote to repeal the Stand Your Ground law in my home state of Oregon. In other words, the N.R.A. does not represent me.Among gun owners, I’m hardly alone. The N.R.A. has just over four million members. That sounds like a lot until you consider that about one in five American adults own one or more guns. That’s nearly 50 million people. That means roughly 90 percent of gun owners do not belong to the N.R.A.  Click Link Below For Full Story!  Interesting viewpoint.

via I Hunt, But I Oppose the N.R.A. – NYTimes.com.

The 35 Best Hunting and Fishing Towns in the US | Outdoor Life

by The Editors

Now in its fifth year, our annual “Best Towns for Sportsmen” feature is an OL institution. Readers love to argue the merits of their burgs based on our rankings; local newspapers crow about the inclusion of their town; and realtors call to ask for extra copies of the issue.This year we’re forgetting all the socio-economic data and focusing on what matters most: hunting and fishing. In the next few pages, you’ll find the 35 towns in the U.S. where we would live right now, based solely on the outdoor opportunities there. Some boast bass and deer, others elk and trout or ducks and redfish. Regardless, each of these towns is an outdoors mecca in its own right, and from sea to shining sea, they offer the best hunting and fishing in America.  Click link below to see who is number one!

via The 35 Best Hunting and Fishing Towns in the US | Outdoor Life.

Another permit will not help save the endangered oryx- statesman.com

By Mike Leggett

Sometimes it’s funny when animal activists put on bunny suits and hop around courthouse steps to get themselves on television.

I admit that.

And it’s funny that there’s always a camera around when they need one. Fast and foolish. My Twitter can outrun your fact every time. That’s the way of our world.

But this new rule on scimitar-horned oryx, for which the group Friends of Animals takes credit, is just wrong, and it’s going to cost lots of the animals their lives. At least their lives as they knew them.

It already has.

If somehow you’ve missed it, FOA sued the government to stop hunting of oryx, which are on the endangered species list in their native African desert habitat. In the wild, they are officially extinct.

Except in Texas. Here they survive on private ranches where private citizens pay to keep them and maintain their numbers.

The issue is that some of these ranches permit limited hunting of these animals for a fee. These fees, which can be quite steep, provide some money to offset the cost of maintaining herds.

FOA says that’s not acceptable. In an Austin American-Statesman story, Priscilla Feral, president of Friends of Animals, was quoted: “If an animal is an endangered species … they shouldn’t be tormented and killed in the interest of some trophy tourism industry. That is unjust. That is not what the Endangered Species Act allows.”  Click Link Below For Full Story!

via Another permit will not help save the endangered oryx.

Turkeys not observing their normal mating patterns this year | Outdoors | Macon.com

By EMORY JOSEY — bobcat6440@windstream.net

My trail cameras generally tell me the same story about the breeding habits of the wild turkey.

Usually, the gobblers get interested in the ladies around the end of January, especially if the weather is a bit warm. They are seen strutting among the hens during the month of February.

Neither the hens nor the gobblers seem to know that breeding just one time is sufficient to fertilize all the eggs the old girl will lay for the next four months. Or perhaps they do know — and just ignore the facts. The real fact is that the gobblers breed the hens many times before her biological clock finally tells her that she should begin laying eggs. She will lay the first egg, skip a day, and then lay an additional egg each day until the nest contains from 11 to 13 eggs.

She still goes to the gobbler each morning and continues to breed, slipping away from him before high noon to deposit an egg in her secret nest. Even then, after the laying mission, she returns to the gobbler to spend the rest of the day with him for — you guessed it — more breeding.

This continues until sometime in April, depending on the age of the hen. It is only after the nest is full that she fails to return to His Majesty. At this point, she has no use for him because she incubates the eggs approximately 20 hours a day until they hatch.  Click Link Below For Full Story!

via Turkeys not observing their normal mating patterns this year | Outdoors | Macon.com.

Application Period for Tennessee’s Fourth Elk Hunt to be Held April 1-May 31, 2012

NASHVILLE — The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency will accept applications from April 1 through May 31, 2012 for participation in Tennessee’s fourth managed elk hunt. (Persons can begin applying after 8 a.m. (CDT) on Sunday, April 1).

Essence of hunting and TV garbage | The Jamestown Sun

By Bernie Kuntz The Jamestown Sun

His name was Jack O’Connor, a native of Arizona who received a M.A. in journalism from the University of Missouri and in the 1930s and taught journalism at the University of Arizona. He began writing for Outdoor Life magazine in that same decade, and was paid $200 a month.

O’Connor became shooting editor of that magazine in 1939 and held that post until his retirement in 1972. He is still adored by those who have read his writings, including this humble columnist. Here is an excerpt from a wonderful piece he wrote following a hunt in 1946 for Stone sheep in the Prophet River country of northern British Columbia entitled, “A Day in Ram Heaven,”

“…we came out on top the world, in a land of rolling arctic sheep pastures — soft and spongy underneath, clad in a thick, damp carpet of mosses, lichens, grasses. These pastures were really a series of hilltops that formed a shoulder of a great mountain. They were cut by deep canyons, black with shale, formidable with cliffs; and behind them rose a mighty series of crags black as ink, crisscrossed with the glittering white of everlasting ice that clung to their crevices.

“All around us were other upland pastures, tinted in yellow, rose, and umber by the frosts. We looked down on great black canyons, purple timber, and the blue Prophet River meandering through yellow muskeg meadows and dark forest. The great mountain peaks across the river were powdered white with snow, and on their lower slopes patches of golden aspens glowed bright like candles in the night.

“We saw sheep almost the instant we put the glasses on the grassy slopes that were still above us…”

That is the sort of marvelous writing that O’Connor exemplified, but nowadays the focus is on outdoor TV shows on the Outdoor Channel and the Sportsman’s Channel. And 90 percent of them are dreadful!  Click Link Below For Full Story!

via Essence of hunting and TV garbage | The Jamestown Sun | Jamestown, North Dakota.

Knight and Hale Witchy Woman Turkey Call

Back in 1994 I took my first turkey.  I had never turkey hunted before but the night before opening day I bought the Knight and Hale Fighting Purr System.  This came with two push/pull calls made of plastic.  I still have them but they have a spring in them that make a helluva a lot of noise.  Despite that, on Opening morning I made that first call with one of these push/pull calls.  I heard something almost immediately but it took a few seconds to realize it was a turkey gobbling.  Forty five minutes latter I had my first turkey on the ground.  Twenty three pounds with an 11 inch beard.  Obviously have been hooked ever since.  Knight and Hale made it easy.

The Knight and Hale Push Pull Calls have come a long way since 1994 and they have just introduced the Witchy Woman Push/Pull turkey call.  This call is made of walnut and is one of the easiest calls to use.  It makes great yelps, purrs and cuts.  It is my opinion if I was only allowed to take one call out in the woods a push/pull call would be it.  For beginners this is the call for you.  Easy to use and effective. Made in USA. Retails for $29.99.  Click here to purchase this call and learn more!

Fish and Game official draws support from hunters, anglers – latimes.com

By Phil Willon, Los Angeles Times

By firing a single rifle shot at a wandering mountain lion during an Idaho hunting trip, California’s top fish and game commissioner has inflamed the political divide in a state where hunters and advocates for the hunted alike feel under attack.

The National Rifle Assn. put out a nationwide alert for members to support Daniel Richards, president of the state Fish and Game Commission, after photos he posted with his dead quarry in Idaho launched calls for his resignation from a commission that oversees wildlife policy in California. John and Ken, the popular radio talk-show hosts on KFI-AM (640), have expressed support, and “tea party” Republican Tim Donnelly of San Bernardino called him the “target of a modern-day witch hunt.”

The Humane Society of the United States, Audubon Society of California and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, the former mayor of San Francisco and a darling of California’s left, have demanded Richards’ ouster.

The controversy is the latest flash point between the red and blue Californias, which were on full display Wednesday.  Click Link Bel0w For Full Story!

via Fish and Game official draws support from hunters, anglers – latimes.com.

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