Here's some more confusion for NY hunters to contend with... This is one we debated at camp this year.

According to the Big Game regulations, hunting hours are sunrise to sunset throughout all Big Game seasons. You cannot hunt with ammunition in firearms that are loaded with anything other than single projectiles. In rifle permitted areas, you cannot use any rimfire rifles (such as .22 cal LR) and you cannot use shotguns smaller than 20 gauge.

HOWEVER..... I love these howevers... According to the Furbearer Hunting Regulations, you MAY hunt day or night (except you must wait until sunrise opening day of the season in question, like coyote, sunrise on Oct 1, then day or night through the balance of the season, which runs through March 26.) You may hunt with any legal implement for small game, including .22 rimfire LR, AND you can use any shot in a shotgun, such as 00 buckshot. You may hunt using lights, and, other than the restriction of no riflesbeing permitted during Big Game season in areas where Big Game hunting is limited to shotgun only, that is the about it. I also believe you cannot hunt at night for coyote or fox until after Regular Big Game opens (so you're not allowed to hunt the night before regular season opener).

Now, my feeble little tells me this is an opportunity for poaching, is it not? Opportunity for jacklighting potential? It used to be, eons ago, when Regular Deer season opened, that was all you could hunt. ALl other seasons were effectively suspended (waterfowl not withstanding) and you couldn't even go afield with shotgun ammo other than deer slugs (if you hunt pheasants and had #4 shot on you, you were illegal afield during regular deer season.)

Many of the regulations serve to confuse hunters, while also inadvertently providing legal "cover" for potential poaching, meaning, hey, I'm hunting coyotes - never mind the crumpled heap of a buck out there, I didn't shoot it, must have been wounded during the day...

We have so much work to do, and quite frankly, some of this is exactly related to hunters and their respect for the law, never to be solved by simply passing a new law.