ORIGINAL: Airborneguy

Steve863,

What it comes down to is money... I spend a lot of money on hunting every year, thousands. I do it every weekend from September to January, and now switched to working midights so I can hunt certain areas right after work in the morning. It is economically infeasible for me to hunt in NY where I haven't tagged a deer in almost 10 years. Why bother? I make 3 trips in NY each year: opening day bow, gun, and usually one more weekend of rifle. I basically ONLY hunt NY because I still like to get my rifle out once a year or so.

MAYBE if I had private land, I would be there more, but considering I get to have practically free, poor-man's trophy hunts in NJ, why waste all the gas and time going to NY where everyone has already shot up everything in sight?

And yes, since I am not poor and dependant on venison for my diet, once I get a doe or two for the freezer, I am trophy hunting... and there is nothing wrong with that.

As far as hunting being easy anywhere, I have never heard anyone else say that except for some wall street people I know who like to take trips to Texas. I don't bait in Jersey because I hunt public land, so I lose out on that benefit. But, I scout and can actually decipher deer patterns there which they tend to follow... unlike public land in NY where no matter how much you scout, opening day is totally different because 25,000 orange suits are there for a few hours until the card games and drinking start.

Maybe I am looking to AR as a means to turn the public NY woods more into a hunting environment as opposed to the wild west shoot 'em up I see now. Maybe I am completely wrong with what I have seen over the years, including an actual shoot out 3 years ago between two guys with rifles at Mongaup in Sullivan County. But either way, NJ has been getting to bulk of this hunter's money for the last few years, which is a lot.