i am fortunate to be self employed , and my business is "nocturnal", so i get lots of time to hunt.

by lots i mean that i hunt EVERY SINGLE DAY from september right on through to the end of small game. 75% of the time it is from sunup to sundown. throw in a couple of unaviodables (doctors visits, broke cars, etc) , but i at least take a quick hunt on those days. i have not missed a day of deer season in nearly 14 years.

i get lots of critters, take lots of pictures, scout year round, i am a hunting idiot. (ask my first wife)

so i think i "hunt hard"....

please explain to me where the abundance of deer in NY is. I'm sure that there are good herds "localized" in certain areas, but they are not in the "home base" i mostly hunt in .

i know the routine about food sources, going nocturnal, etc.., but the numbers are down.

i hunted through the "haydays" when deer were like rabbits, and i never saw a sickly one, or carcasses from winter kill, or any other indication that the herd was over its capacity.

see, now i've rambled so much i don't remember what we were talking about...

DEC has just reported the take this year was down 40%. i read this in a magazine is it true?

besides declining license sales, no new hunters, ticks, Scott Peterson, lack of food, nocturnal patterns, SUV's , Solar flares, etc....what is the reason?

I write an outdoors column for a small town newspaper, so i get to talk to LOTS of hunters, and when HUNDREDS of people (in my area) say they havent spotted hardly any deer, well, i gotta question whats going on. and i don't think the answer is "Hunt Harder".

my .02
-moose