RE: New York bowhunting season
 

twist my arm. If you insist.

Did you see Mickelson pull a classic Mickelson yesterday?? I thought he learned a little after he won last week. Apparantely old habbits are tough to break.

Now back to this deer thing. I suppose it could be a local thing here. All I know is what I've seen the last 15 years hunting the same area. The old you just don't know how to hunt or change your tactics is just goofy and simply not the case. Deer sightings are 360 degrees different then as soon as 3 years ago.
I do a lot of scouting year round and I can tell you the DEC is NOT counting the same deer I am. Not in the herd around me anyway. I can remember taking my route home from work and slowing down to look at the fields and know there were going to be deer there. EVERY single night on the way home in this one particular field I saw deer. At least 10 EVERY night. Then I'd drive to the next and next and next and see a couple here or 10 or so there. Last 2 years............ wow. Vanished. I see less than half of what I used to see.
Kinda coincides when they started this mass handing out of tag thing. Combine that with the last 2 winters we've had and now this one and frankly it creeps me out a little.
Don't get me totally wrong here, NY is a great place for an outdoorsman. There is still ample opportunity to harvest deer and mature bucks. But I don't think it's heading in a constructive manner anymore. If I did't know any better, I would say they are trying to kill every deer in the state.

RE: New York bowhunting season
 

"I have watched the numbers slowly dwindle over the last 17 years and my dad will take it back 40 years".

If you intend me to believe that there has been a overall downward trend in deer population over the last forty years you are mistaken. There was hardly a deer to see in the 70's. Your conspiracy theory is contrary to all logical and historical data. I am not saying flat out that you are wrong but the whole concept does seem flawed in some way. I have been hunting 5 years in teh same places and saw more deer this year than the previous four. I have harvested 4 deer in five years two comming this year. I have to say i saw a considerably larger # this year than the previous and so on. If teh DEC is working so hard to ruin the deer population they arent a vvery intelligent organization. THis would be contrary to their vary existence. Their jobs depend on hunters, why in the world would they jeopordise their well being?

I tend to think there is more to it than unadulterated deer extermination and herd devistation.

RE: New York bowhunting season
 

B & C... they're talking about areas in the Southern Tier. Being raised near you I know what you're talking about. I go back about 52 years of stomping NY woods with a gun in my hand. When I was a kid the guy who got a deer every year was looked on as a God. Seeing a deer and espcially a buck was an incident that was passed around by everyone. It was a big deal. There were areas right close to my house near Camden that were void of deer... totally. Now they're there in decent numbers. The swamp right behind the old homestead NEVER had a track in it. Now they're there in good numbers compared to the past. I can also attest to the the fact there used to be herds and herds in the area in 7M that I hunt. Now it just isn't that way. Far fewer deer overall.... and the State land I hunt has almost been void of hunters the past 3 years. I'd just as soon they went to an antler size and stopped the doe killing for a couple years.

RE: New York bowhunting season
 

Davidmill, I agree withthe antler restrictions and doe harvests. I hunt Italy Hill in Yates County and acn say that it has seemed pretty steady in terms of harvest and population. THe one difference i noticed was that this year there was 5 bucks to every doe harvested...im not embelishing on that either. the parking lot had 16 buck and 3 doe after the 3rd day of shotgun. i was suprised to say the least. I am just one guy with two eyes and i cannot pretend to know the health of the heard even in an isolated area. But i just done see the justification behind misleading the hunters in this state. What are they gaining? The whole 7 permits thing is simple actuarial work. It all a statistics game. They can give a 100 permits and teh harvest wouldnt increase more than 10% or so. I am willing to admit im uninformed and i dont think any of us can truely say we know the answer flat out. I know one thing for sure the number of deer in the northern tier is way up when compared to previous decades. THe south may be another story. like i said ive only been at this game for 5 or so years and by no means consider myself any sort of expert on the subject.

RE: New York bowhunting season
 

where do you hunt in 7M??

i hunt the McDonough/Parsalia area

RE: New York bowhunting season
 

I hunt up around the old Gilford Rod and Gun Club. It burned down and went out of existance years ago... but if you know where that is. We're NNE of Bainbridge off the Chas. Shapley Road most of the time. We stay in the Sherwood Inn in Greene during deer season but camp out right there off the Chas Shapley Road during turkey season. We used to have a lot of turkeys in the area but I think the ice and the coyotes really whacked them the past couple winters. I bow hunted 3 days before the shotgun season opened with snow on the ground. I didn't see ONE turkey track in 3 days. My buddies stayed over and gun hunted the opener and didn't see any either.

I will say, I found a honey hole in the woods those 3 days of bowhunting. I saw more deer than I have in the past 3 years put together and screwed up 3 chances(that's another story I've already related back in the fall)[:'(]:eek: I put my buddies onto where they should sit opening AM. I walked them in Sunday at midday and showed them their trees. ONLY ONE saw a deer, a 7 point that he blasted. The last afternoon I hunted in one of the spots where nothing was spotted I saw about 15 including 4 bucks......including one I screwed up on.[:o][:'(][:'(]:eek:[X(] I was hunting from a climber... they were ground hugging with their shotguns.

RE: New York bowhunting season
 

sounds like you saw quite a few deer for there not being many???

anyway, I live about 7 miles south of Greene. Couldn't you find any quality lounging in Bainbridge??? :):D

good luck this turkey season - I have a hard time judging our population - didn't see any this season but saw some tracks. Some deer seasons we see many turkeys. Some turkey seasons we have them gobblin' all over, some years nada. Go figure??

RE: New York bowhunting season
 

We're going to check out the rooming situation in Bainbridge when we're turkey hunting this spring. Greene used to have a few restaurants etc but they're drying up. About all that's left is the Silo, Bonnies and the Hotel. We did find a decent Italian place south of town on Route 12 last year. The hotel really rips us for what we get. We feel we're paying top dollar for what we could get in a flee bag. Every year we reserve our room a year ahead of time. We've been doing it for years. WE tip well, don't cause any trouble, but the last two years they've tried to screw us out of our room. One time they had it held in a block of rooms for some company(we finally got them to give it up) This year they lost our reservation(we called a week ahead to confirm we were still coming. Took some bitching to get our room) We spend several hundred dollars a piece on the local economy with no parking and if you park on the street they give you a ticket. The hotel has their little mistery stories etc and the lot fills up before we get bck from the woods. They got everyone of us one year. They post a sign at the city limits that tells you no parking on main street after such and such a date. Just so happens it's the weekend before Southern Tier opens. They get all the out of towners. And me with a Maryland tag.... well hell... it's automatic. We learned our lesson after the first time but it's one of those things that urks the hell out of me. So anyway, Chuck and I are coming turkey hunting/golfing for 4 or 5 days this spring. Checking out additional lodging is on our list. We could do a big camper(Chuck just bought a big new Winnebago type thing) but we don't want the hassle.

RE: New York bowhunting season
 

How am I mistaken?? The deer numbers have consistently decreased in that time span without question. Anyone who has been in the woods that long will tell you that. The deer used to travel in groups of 20 on a regular basis. seeing a large group or multiple groups was not unheard of. Today you are lucky to see 3 deer together and if you do at least one will be a fawn/first year.

Sure the numbers fluctuate from year to year depending on weather, food, hunt success, cars etc............no one said the numbers dropped off a cliff.......it is more like a constant erosion over the years. I have seen it first hand for the past 17 years. This is the culmination of many many years, not some sudden event.


Please tell me you are not gullable enough to believe that the only money the DEC gets is from hunters. Do you think for one second that is car insurance companies dump truck loads of money on the DEC that they will get nothing in return?? You don't really think the DEC cares where they get money from do you???........as long as they get it I'm sure they couldn't care less. If hunters started shelling out double what we pay right now I bet you would see some magical changes in our favor.........funny how money has that effect.

If the DEC cared so much about hunters or hunting in NY we wouldn't have such silly seasons and our tag system wouldn't be such a joke.


What other reason is there to give out potentially 7 tags to NY hunters that allow you to kill 5-6 does per year??

Say you kill 4 does this year. That is up to 12 deer you just removed from the herd for next year...........now multiply that in the hundred thousands and you may start to get it.

As long as NY hunters continue to believe that our herd is healthy, growing, and in fact too big this trend will sadly continue.

RE: New York bowhunting season
 

THose numbers are a bit high. Hundreds of thousands of hunters killing four doe each? I know some people have great success but how many people took 4 doe last year. I personally know at least 100 hunters and not one harvested 4 deer. Its more realistic to assume that out of 7 issued tags the average hunter probably fills .75 tags. Im not sure on the numbers but i was under the impression that only 1 out 4 hunters even harvest an animal and 1 out of 8 harvest a buck. That came from new york fish and game a while back if im not mistaken. Like i said i dont pretend to know it all but assuming a harvest of four deer per hunter and hundreds of thousands of hunters doing so is a bit unrealistic. I know what you mean about the DEC and money, but in the end we will win because hunting is truley the best (most Lucrative) form of population control available at this point. It will be up to us as individuals to rally other hunters to become resposible land stewards. I for one will not ever harvest 7 deer asmy wife and I cannot consume that much venison.

Ohh by the way can anyone help me with my slice?