Pics of pedals, guess its true

[Glasswater Outdoors]

The antis have succeeded at dividing us. It's pretty evident from some of the posts here.

 

A difference of opinion doesn't have to mean division. That is exactly what is wrong with this world we live in today. 

[Glasswater Outdoors]

so if a 180" 250 lb buck with a missing leg was in the area you hunt and the locals named him bucky and posted pics on face book and the news did a story on him, come open morning of season he walked under your tree how many will say oh no thats bucky I can't shoot him and let him go?and knowing he was in the area would not hunt said area for him....

Yes anyone that has lived in Pittstown NJ in the 80s remembers the big bucks old lady Hamburg used to hand feed and put orange collars around their necks during hunting season. I had the one they called Flair under me chasing a doe for about a half an hour one Halloween night. He was a mile from his home range and chasing a doe just like wild bucks do. He was an easy 150 class deer and I never even thought to pick up my bow. I am not the only one in the area. It turns out the deer was killed by some scumbag and a spotlight the following season. Just because it is there doesn't mean you have to kill it.  Like I said yes it was legal. But the bear was not a trouble bear and you had to know the shit storm that was to follow. The antis will be antis weather or not it was Pedals or any other bear. Many of my friends and neighbors in the area are NOT HUNTERS but do not dislike hunters. This animal was a type of neighborhood pet that the killing of has left many non hunters with a bad taste in their mouth. As stated earlier it is beyond me why the division said anything to add more fuel to an already lit fire. 

[JMDHunter]

Spotlighting a deer is illegal.  Issue summons and penalize.  Pedals legal so not comparable.  We dont have to ask the neighborhood for their permission to hunt a legal animal.  Again starts the slippery slope.  I try to ply neighbors with offers of venison and jerky and being nice to them in general.  They tend to react better to whatever I am doing including hunting.  Techically putting a collar around a wild animal's neck is probably illegal for a few reasons but whatever.  To each their own.

[JMDHunter]

I would also wager a few of the hunters posting negative comments are guys who have or do shoot fawns during EAB season or shoot does with fawns with them.  Personally would I do that?  No.  But if its legal its a hunter's choice of what to do and I don't call them scumbags, stupid, dumb or whatever.  People up on a soapbox.........................check yourself.

[68Ioweu1]

I understand solidarity and sticking together  BUT  just because something is legal doesn't make it the right thing to do.
​this has brought negative attention and is capable of undoing decades of hard work.
​there are ****ing idiots in our sport with massive egos and no commons sense.



I would never stand by someone with such volatile traits.

 

[newjerseyhunter]

The problem here is not just the rhetoric from the antis. We also have people like Senator Lesniak going on the radio and saying that the bear was "almost human" because he/she walked on its hind legs and that the bear was "murdered" by the hunter. This is a guy entrusted to do what is best for the state and here he is not only pandering to these people who can't seem to use their brains for thinking (saving their hearts for feeling) but worse yet, he has show himself incapable of rational, logical thought. NJ is doomed and the rest of the country isn't far behind, I fear.

[smoking gun]

[Haskell_Hunter]

I think we all agree on some very basic things:

 

1. The NJDFW Black Bear Management Policy is something we all support.  In that policy is a scientifically managed bear hunt, which some of us participate in.
2. This bear was legally harvested which required the hunter to take and pass a hunter safety course, buy a hunting license and purchase a bear permit.  Once the hunter harvested the bear, it was tagged and brought to a bear check-in station where the state examined the bear and verified the harvest.  This is all consistent with the Black Bear Management Policy.

However, there is disagreement on harvesting this particular bear.  I think this is okay and the discussion is healthy.

 

We as hunters are the only people who know what goes through our heads when we pull the trigger, and when we pull that trigger we acknowledge and fully accept the consequences of that action.  When we commit to the shot, it is a very big commitment.

 

The discussion on whether or not you would have taken that shot is a very good discussion for the community.  If done in a respectful manner, the rest of the hunting community learns a lot from it.

 

To use a personal example, I tagged a buck within the first two hours of the beginning of the season.  I had two does come in but the turkey in the area scared them away.  Had they not, I would have taken one of those two does.  I was looking for meat for the freezer.  But since I took a buck first and got the meat I was looking for, I reconsidered taking a doe.  I hunt zone 3 which has a very small herd for such a large area.  I read countless posts on this site about whether or not to take a doe and the effect is has on herd population.  I accomplished my meat goal for the season and made a conscious choice to stop hunting until permit bow.

 

Without that kind of dialog and debate, I would not have made what I consider to be an informed decision.  I also think I'm a better hunter as a result.

 

So I encourage civil and respectful debate over whether or not you would have taken the shot and the thinking behind it.  The antis will cry and moan over everything, and they will intentionally misrepresent their arguments regardless of what we do or not do.  I personally would prefer to respond to their rhetoric by showing them how these disagreements within the hunting community create a stronger, more self-regulating community, than if we all kept our opinions to ourselves.

 

As I mentioned above, at the end of the day we as hunters make a commitment when we pull the trigger.  The next hunter to make a decision like this will have a lot more wisdom before they make that commitment.

[JMDHunter]

I understand solidarity and sticking together  BUT  just because something is legal doesn't make it the right thing to do.

​this has brought negative attention and is capable of undoing decades of hard work.

​there are ****ing idiots in our sport with massive egos and no commons sense.

 

 

 

I would never stand by someone with such volatile traits.

 

 

 

That's fine and its your opinion and how you might choose to conduct yourself.  Don't go telling me or others that your opinion should control or determine what I or we should be doing.  What the hunter did is not undoing anything.  Its the liberal mainstream media, the anti-hunters and inept politicians like Lesniak.  The hunter complied with the law which is all he was obligated to do.  You want your opinions and morals to be binding on other people then how about I (or others) tell you to run your life by what I think makes sense or not.  

[Glasswater Outdoors]

In the end none of it really matters. It is my opinion , your opinion and his opinion. Opinions are like a holes we all got em. I do not like EAB and I have never liked the terms Management for any type of hunting season. That is just me. I dont kill fawns but some people do. I dont kill adult deer that are with fawns ....... some people do.  I passed up on 9 different bears this season till the right one came along. Some were too big for what I needed and others were Moms with Cubs.  My general feelings towards a management hunt is the hunter who harvests a bear forfeits everything but the meat. That takes all the steam out of the antis argument that this is a trophy hunt. EAB in my opinion should be very zone specific and should be abolished from WMAs all together. It should also be DOE only the moth of September. Or just reward the guys that shoot multiple does throughout the season with discounts on doe tags. All I am simply saying about the pedals ordeal is in my opinion (which I am free to have) is the bear should of been left alone. I already know of one 47 acre piece of property over in Jefferson that will now be shut down to hunting over this. Again it was well discussed amongst most of the hunters in that area and all were in agreement to leave the bear alone. There are tons of bears there. Multiple bears hitting everyones baits 24 hours a day. This was one animal IN MY OPINION  that should of been left alone. Everyone is absolutely right. They dont need to check with neighbors, It is well within the law , but again it should NOT of been talked about by the hunter or fish and game. This animal was world famous and the last thing we needed as NJ sportsmen and women is our own Cecil The Lion.