I think that maybe we live in a world of rising expectations, maybe its caused by all the hunting shows and vidieos where everyone bags a 160 class deer after hunting for 2-3 days

When I started hunting in the late 1970's a hunter who took a deer in the Northern zone in NYS was doing well. The group I went hunting with as a kid had guys that spent 10-15 days hunting a year and hadn't got a buck in 2 or 3 years, that was normal but it didn't keep those folks from comming out year after year. In those years there would be cars parked up and down half the roads in the adirondacks every weekend in November, you don't see those numbers of hunters anymore. There are just as many deer up there and just as much land to hunt them on.

This year I saw more hunters in the Southern Tier than any time in the last 10 years.that was week one. Maybe it was the warm weather. Ill bet that by the muzzloader season and some cold miserable weatherI will be all alone on state land again.I think lots of the hunters are just soft..they don't want to walk 10 miles a day up north and after 4-5 days down south they either have thier deer and quit or they give up as "there aren't any deer".