Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Arrows => Topic started by: Shooter_G22 on October 17, 2008, 12:21:01 am
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ok gents,
i know i have been asking alot of questions here lately and most about arrow and or arrow making... but that is kinda what i have been focusing on here this past week or soo...
and with that being said, obviously its been on my mind and even while i'm at work or on the drive to and from jobsite and what not, i obviously am thinking on how to's and planning and gathering idea's and then all of the sudden out of the conner of my eye i see something on the side of the High way with a wing sticking up flattering in the wind .... sooo i slow down and look all ways to get a better glimps of it as i pass it doing 65 mph... so i didnt see what it was but i was sure it was there and it was dead... soo i travil bout 5-6 miles or so to the next exit and i turn my truck around and head back and then bout 7-8 miles i find the next turn off to come back to where i saw the feathers...
well i find them and i get off the truck and i look at this dead bird that is sitting on a ant pile and the bird part is allmos completly decompossed... so i start to look at this thing ans soo i decided to take out my trust blackjack camerra phone that i have been talking all my pics on and i shoot a few shots of this bird to see if you guys can help me figure what this is????? and if these feathers would be of some use????????? i know it is eithere an eagle or hawk or maybe a buzzerd of some sort... i know it is really decopmpossed but i treid to take as many pics that icould itn the little time i hade to snap the photo's ...
soo any help and advise would be appreciated...
i know i had asked about leagle feathers but i dont know what are the rules about road kill???
anybody... i will pos pics usually on or two at a time so bare with me...thanks....
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try agian....
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trying again..
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pic
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BUZZARD
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Yep, the head gave it away....buzzard.
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Not sure what the laws are where you are,you ant supposed to have them here in TN. but if
I need them I dout anyone will be checking my arrows as long as I don't try and sell them
or take them out showing them off. ;) ;D ;D
Pappy
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Buzzards, like all raptors, are federally protected and even road kills are protected. A found feather is illegal to possess so you best leave that one alone. Pat
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Thats good to know Pat.
Don
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Many songbirds are also protected. Check your DNR website for your local laws about all birds. Some you can posses but you can not buy or sell them. Pat
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Yep, buzzard feathers apparantly make good fletchings, they were used a lot by the tribes in this area. But, as others have said, it is illegal to possess any kind of feathers from birds of prey, including hawks, eagles, owls, vultures, kites, and falcons, etc.
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I am like Pappy If I need them and know I did nothing wrong except salvaging some feathers, I would feel moraly ok with it. Like Pappy said I doubt my arrows would ever be checked. But that is just me, never did like the feds telling me too much about what to do. I will get you some goose feathers off to you and better ones when the season starts back up. Kenneth
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Looks Like a road island red to me. >:D ;D
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Thanks for posting.....confirmed my thoughts that goose feathers look a lot like buzzard.
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Yep, those are some "go straight to jail feathers," unless you hunt by yourself and hunt private property. And they look nothing like Goose feathers, the light shining through is making them look light gray. I have had a Wildlife Officer look at my arrows with White Pelican feathers, the primaries are dark black and irradescent green, thought they were cool looking and had no clue what they were.
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ok gents,
lets just say " hypotheticaly Speaking" if one found a couple of what maybe "but not sure" buzzerd feathers... ;) ;) would they be able to be died a differant color "not for" camouflaugeing, but for a prferred color of feather... ( i know a bottle of Rit liquid die is only a couple of bucks at walmart) is this possible to do ??? how would one do this???
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Well, to tell you the truth. I've never had anybody get real curious about my feathers. But I hane dusted them before with a light coat of spray paint. And saw a fellow at a rendevous selling Eagle, Hawl and Owl feathers that were nothing more than white turkey feathers airbrushed to look like the real thing. I couldn't tell by looking at them.
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i wouldn't worry about it. gateway makes feathers in every color. it would take a dnr officier with a phd to tell the difference.
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thanks thanks Little John...
i really appreciate it... and i feel the same way about certain things with this is illegal and that is illigal... hell its everyting is illegal these days cant even cross the street unless they say its ok and only here. here and when they say... with out getting a ticket...lol.. and cant pick up that dead birds feather cuase its a fedarl offense.. wow... served eight yrs of my life for this country and i love it and would die for it and have and will kill for it... but god forbide i pick up a feather or cross a street... lol... ;)
i love my country.. and im a patriot but sometimes... well i cant into it.. cant speak of politics right... soo i wont...
sorry i almost went there... my bad...
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I tend to follow the spirit of the law not the letter of the law ::) :P :-X ;) :)
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I used buzzard on my first set of arra's, picked em up under the roost. Have since gathered enough turkey and goose to get away from that - just didn't like that somebody looking over my shoulder feeling ;D. Don't know how many perfectly good hawks i've passed up on the highway, feels like a crime to not use em..
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If the law was lifted, someone(or a bunch of someones) would go out and shoot every raptor they see. Unfortunately, we all pay the price for the action of a few a-holes. I walk in my woods every day. I collect every feather I find and have a jar full on my work table to admire. I don't use them on anything. There are enough legal feathers so we don't have to use the illegal ones. ;) Pat
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PatB is right, and that law does not even have to be lifted for the wholesale slaughter of raptors to take place. The is a N. A. reservation in the southwest that I will not name that has historically been a real haven for raptors but now there is not a single eagle, vulture, or hawk to be found. These birds have been extirpated to feed the "culturally significant" desire to possess raptor parts. So much for the concept of living "one with nature".
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Seems every thing I like is either illegal,immoral or fatting.Go figure. ;) ;D
Pappy
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Honestly, unless a DNR oficer is also a falconer and is VERY meticulous in his feather ID, there is very little chance that he'll be able to determine the type of bird that your fletching came from. He'd probably be more concerned about the power of your bow or the effectiveness of stone points, not the origin of the feathers on your arrows.
I've seen bald eagle feathers that looked VERY similar to canada goose wing feathers.
As far as raptors being federally protected, I don't know a single person who shoots hawks. But I've seen dozens lying on the side of the road, killed by vehicles. The problem is that untold tens of thousands of different animals are slaughtered on america's roads, left only to rot or become a smeared stain in the asphalt. Deer, birds, squirrels, rabbits, raccoons, opossums, otters, beavers, foxes, bobcats, coyotes, ducks, hawks, owls, armadillos, housecats, dogs, kingsnakes, rattlesnakes, cornsnakes, copperheads, ratsnakes, etc..etc...etc.... ad infinitum die EVERY DAMN DAY by cars. That's a list of things I've seen on te road, and that's just off the top of my head.
If it's fresh and I can use its body parts for something, I pick it up. It's such a shame that animals pay with their lives because of our need to make the almighty dollar... a sad but true reality of the cost of our "advanced" society.
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Nobody would ever know. Just don't let 'em see ya picking it up. You can always say the feathers are not the original color and that you died them. What are they gonna do, confiscate the arrow to do a DNA test? Just grab 'em and run. Besides, they really do look a lot like goose, especially to the untrained eye.
~~Papa Matt
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That's a chance you guys can take but it is not worth it to me. There are too many sources for legal feathers and if they do catch you, it is $1000 fine per offense(that could be each feather :o ). It's not your local DNR guy you should be worrying about either but the undercover federal wildlife guys that know their stuff about these things.
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That's a chance you guys can take but it is not worth it to me.
Pat, I'm glad you said that. I was starting to get the idea that most guys think it's OK to use illegal feathers. It's not so much the feathers, but the attitude as a whole that bothers me......if it's OK to use whatever feathers you want, then it's probably OK to hunt wherever you want, use whatever weapon you want, and kill whatever critter crosses your path, etc....as long as you don't get caught and that it doesn't offend too many people. I'm not offended by the use of roadkill, so I won't call the DNR guys if I see someone doing it, but I hope that people disregarding one law (and getting away with it) don't go ahead and disregard similar laws.
OK, I'll get off my soap box now. ;D
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Thanks, jackcrafty, for that no nonsense approach. I think it is best to take the high road on this issue. Ya just never know who is gonna be looking at your arrows next. I was at a muzzleloader shoot this summer and a nondescript short fat guy was looking at my arrows, he finally smiled and said "two snow goose feathers and a sharptail grouse, right?" Well, right he was. He was also a Fed that has busted poachers and similar lowlifes that we have all peed and moaned about on other threads here. I look at it this way, sure - chance of getting caught is near zero. But if it is a Statey that catches me I lose all hunting and fishing rights in the state for at least a year. Then there are the 30 some other states that hold reciprocity with South Dakota. Then there is the stigma of a conviction, every game check and road stop means a detailed search of my person and vehicle because I am a known lawbreaker at that point.
I have a certain bond with the kestrel. Used to have a tail feather from a young female, used it as a bookmark for years. I gave it back to the prairie years ago when I thought about what severe consequences I would face if I was busted with it. It wasn't worth it.
If you want cheap feathers there are other sources, some good ones mentioned earlier in the thread. Use your imagination and grit you teeth as you pass up the raptor feathers on the roadside. Now, as for the roadkilled turkeys...better hope I don't see 'em first!
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This isn't an easy one, it is similar here in Oz as I found out when I posted a pic of a crow-fletched arrow I was soooo proud of making, and when I was told I could get fined $4000 for killing a venomous snake that struck at me twice and wouldn't retreat! I understand and support the law in so much because despite my own feelings and personal morality, it is a very sad and bad world and in the end there is little sane choice to do otherwise, at least until it all finally lets go and we have anarchy. (not long now). :(
I hate waste and could protest truly it is part of my own personal spirituality to respect the death by using the carcass. I don't know if it would be the same for you there but I went so far as to get an email from our local game-rangers dept. equiv. that said it was OK to use shed, found feathers .... so it stretches the point but satisfies me. I don't like stretchy morality but I don't like too much oppression of my rights as an intelligent and responsible adult either!
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I think when it comes down to it, what we have a problem with is the government telling us, as grown men what and what not to do, with a few simple feathers that we find on the road. But if we're really gonna complain about the gov't telling us what to do, we should complain about a whole lot of other things first. For example, how the government can force me to wear a seatbelt in my truck, supposedly for my own safety, but then the guy that pulls up beside me riding a Harley that weighs 1/4 as much, doesn't even have a helmet on, much less a seatbelt. It comes down to cowardess and theft. The gov't knows that they can pull over the average car or truck with no problem, but as soon as they try to pull over the Hell's Angels and tell them to get off the Harley because it's not safe to ride since it doesn't have a seatbelt, they're likely to get shot in the face by one of the other 20 or 30 riders in the gang. They leave them alone and go after us individuals. I don't want to jack the thread Im just giving an example.
But in this case, I think the government has a reason for putting this law in place. to possess a raptor feather is to value it, and to value it is to make use of it whenever you can, which means constantly being on the look out for some. And as usual, a few idiots ruin it for everyone. Example: What would stop someone from seeing a buzzard or other large bird, on the road, and being slower to take flight and perhaps preoccupied with eating their roadkill, speed up and cream it, just to get the feathers? Basically, if you possess a raptor feather, there's no way of proving if you did or did not kill the bird to get it, in whatever way. And I think that's where it comes from.
But we'll each do whatever we do when the time presents itself. Hopefully we can all find a supplier of wild turkey feathers and get enough that way to where we don't have to resort to picking up feathers with maggots crawling through them anyway. :)
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Don't think of 'em as maggots....think of 'em as "happy, wriggly rice".
There are many sources for good quality feathers, I personally like the guy I found thru P.A. magazine advertising, Custom Feathers out of Chillicothe, Mo. Speedy service, reasonable prices, and an honest guy making an honest buck.
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I'm sorry guys but it is illegal whether you get caught or not. Forget the fine for a minute and think about what the publicity would do to the primitive community if it made it to the national news that we were using raptor feathers. I guarantee every news outlet in the country would make it their top story.
Kenneth has all the goose feathers he needs and plenty to trade. Lots of other guys have turkey feathers to trade. If those two options don't work for you go to the golf course pond and gather up all the domestic goose feathers. Justin
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Shoot G-22; Yeah the best bet is to just let it go back to the earth. Like it was said, you know you would'nt have done anything wrong, but if the public found out, and as the PETA, other nut cases, go they would love to twist that out of proportion.
Yes they would make excellent feathers. In a real survival situation go for it. Other wise leave it. As for if certain feathers would make good fletchings, if it is a feather, and of sufficient size it will make good fletching. Some of the original Indian arrows, had everything from crow feathers, to blue jays. I don't know how well the Anhinga ( Water Turkey, Snake bird etc. ) would do, due to the lack of an oil gland, on the bird to oil the feathers. As long as it is dry it should work just fine. Heck chicken feathers work fine. Look at the oriental fletchings. Pheasants. Just a chinese chicken. Got a feather? Try it.
Wayne