ORIGINAL: kotten
Thanks to all who offered their opinions on this matter. For those of you who read this thread & didn’t offer any opinion, you should be ashamed. Those who don’t say anything before things change are the first ones to complain when they do.
How do you know who read your thread??..........Maybe a lot of people from outside the state read it who have no interest either way what happens here in NY.
You are VERY judgemental of others........and it shows throughout your posts. Just because someone thinks differently then you doesn't make them wrong
There has been a positive feed back on antler restrictions & for lowering the youth age to hunt.
Sure there has
Not many have liked the idea of an early muzzleloader season or for shortening the regular gun season. What I would suggest then is to incorporate both seasons into one where you can use your muzzleloader tag during the regular season. NYS does not have that in effect now.
The whole point of M/L season is for people to be able to hunt and AVOID the orange army...........not only that how could you prove that a deer was shot with a M/L and not a shotgun???............people would just kill another deer with a slug and tag it with their M/L tag. BAD idea.
The second thing is that some people say that if they buy a license it is their right to shoot whatever they want.
They do...........as long as they have a legal tag for it. You hold people at fault for hunting legally??
The thing that they have to remember is that hunting, like driving, is a privilege and not a right. The idea of hunting is a management tool to control the deer population. The state owns the herd & it is up to the hunters to keep it a healthy one.
The hunters are only allowed to kill what the state gives them tags for. You cannot fault a hunter for legally taking a deer YOU don't think he should.
Third, most are saying that the herd is too small & that too many does have been shot.
It is.........and too many does have been killed. We will feel the sting from this mess for years to come.
I spoke to a biologist & he said that to maintain a healthy deer population there should be about 11 deer per square mile. On agricultural areas, he said about 16 deer per square mile would be sufficient. NYS has a land area of 47,379 square miles. Of this there are many city & urban areas where deer would not exist. If you do the math for 11 deer / sq. mile, the herd count for the state would be 521,169. For 16 / sq. mile it would be 758,064. Even if the state is correct with a deer population over 900,000, it is overpopulated.
Those numbers are meaningless. You have no way of knowing the deer population dispersal within the "huntable" grounds of the state. I have over 200 deer within 1/2 mile of my home verified by aerial photo that can not be hunted..........does this mean there are too many deer in NY?? There are pockets of deer in NY that are very overpopulated.........and there are places that are very underpopulated. What the DEC has to figure out is that you cannot use the same herd management for ALL these areas. They are very different and need to be addressed differently from year to year.
Ask any hunter that has been in the woods over 25 years if they saw more deer back then or now??.........they used to run in packs of 20-30 as a common sight.......now if you see 3 it is rare.
I think a lot of people are missing the point. The idea is to have a healthy herd for now & for future generations and not for everyone to shoot anything just to say that they got something. Let’s get rid of that “If it’s brown, it’s down” attitude. If it’s meat your after, do everyone a favor & shoot a doe. Thanks.
There is your whole problem in a nutshell...........all you care about is bigger antlers. Why is it so hard for you to understand that not everyone shares your personal desires? I myself for example like big bucks as much as the next guy but I love hunting DEER. I don't want to sit in my stand for 2 weeks and see 1 deer if I am lucky. I (and many others) would like to see more deer. Did it ever occur to you that MORE deer would lead to bigger racked bucks also?? The more deer out there the more that will slip through the cracks and live another year. A big reason why guys shoot ANY buck they see is because they can't afford to pass him up because it could very well be the ONLY deer they see all year!! If they knew they would see more deer down the road then a lot more guys would be willing to let some walk IMO.
I shot a 4 ptr opening day at 7:15 am and didn't even think twice about it.............I killed the doe that was sniffing him 25 minutes later too.......I also killed a doe about 5 days later. Those were THE ONLY deer I saw all gun season and I hunted long and hard. No way I am passing those deer up........I had to work my balls off just to get those chances......Most guys I talk to rate this year as the worst they ever hunted. Thankfully I filled 4 tags and had a good year. Now in your eyes I had a BAD year.....I killed a 6 pt with my bow and a 4 pt with my gun and the 2 does.........if you had your way my harvest would have been cut in half. NO THANKS.