Good Morning Sylvan,
I would like to hear some of your suggestions to increase hunter options. I'm not sure where you hunt from, but like others, in my area the buck to doe ratio is low. However, I do see alot of spikes, 4 pters, and 6 pters prior to gun season, then it's a major drop from then on due to hunter kills. My concern is many hunters are seeing less mature bucks invarious areas and think an AR, one Buck or AR combined with 18" Spread rule should be impleamented to increase the buck to doe ratio and age levels of the harvested bucks.

I'm new to hunting, so help me understand your position. Some post here indicate that hunters shoot young bucks for the tender meat, but refuse to shoot young does because they feel their killing of the future deer.Some feel the experience in hunting is that they go into the woods and shoot anything that wanders by, (especially any size buck) and that consitutes a fun, succesful hunt. And I can see their point, most only get a week to hunt and can't wait to get in the woods and harvest a deer, any deer. Some only hunt for the meat, to feed the family. I see their point too. So for those of us that feel a fun, succesful hunt is in the harvest of a mature buck, how can that be accomplished if the smaller deer are being harvested at an 90% rate. How can all of us get our cake and eat it to.

Off the subject of harvesting small bucks, whats your position on crossbows in NY. I for one would like to see it as an option for our hunters.

Thanks, Rod.