Well said patrkyhntr everyone that is crying" NO DEER "should read your post.This may be a little off the subject of the original post, but these guys crying there are no deer have been driving me crazy. I am not good with words so I don't post to much on that subject. What they don't realize is that there should be less deer in most cases. In my area the winter brouse has been devastated by to many deer for the past fifteen years or so. Sure, everyone loves to see alot of deer but sooner or later it will mean trouble for wintering deer. It's not how many deer canthe land support in the summer, it's how many deer can the land support in the winter. Alot of guys are not thinking about wintering deer becausehunting season is over.

The reply was to something germain posted. If you consider it a sermon, you haven't been to church lately. JMO.

Sounds about right to me.

IMO what happens here in the syracuse area is houses are being built all around the suburbs and then the deer move into or stay in the populated areas. We have a doe last year running through downtown syracuse.Just this yr we had a 10 point buck standing in shoppingtown malls parking lot. If you know this area there might be 2 arces of woods there. I believe waht happens is the deer are spotted or hit by cars and then everyone says there are to many deer. We as people started totake over thier lands and then when they get to close to our houses cars etcthe DEC decides there are to many.I hope this post doesn`t come off wrong.



Dam it I didn`t answer the ?. I`d go with the bigger deer herd.

I'm not sure who MD was responding to TH.I don't see any sermons just a discussion involving the topic of the thread.
Anyway,I don't take your posts as an attack.Although I disagree with 50% of your posts I do enjoy reading them.
I understand the different carrying capacities of different stage forests.
But if the forest is in bad shape we should try and repair it.Without sunlight hitting the forest floor that's pressed to happen.
As for the environmentalists they are blocking productive cuttings on nation forest land like the ANF but I see that coming to a state level also.
I appreciate your well thought response.

The reason here for the discussion is that the original topic is more complex then just a yes or no answer.

I'll just say I agree with what you posted but it was not an answer to the questionraised by the thread starterand somewhere you said the question should be reprashed. No harm intended, I just don't like seeing threads getting hijacked as this oneseems to be. No one is answering his original question. If there is another view to be spawned off of this thread it should have it's on thread, JMO, and I meanno harm.

No harm done, sir. It was not my intention to hijack Jimmy's thread. I was only commenting on what seemed to be a loaded poll question. If I were to be limited to only those two choices, what I would like to see is a large herd of deer and see lots of deer, if all things were equal. They seldom are. When he phrased the original question, it was very leading, and I didn't think it should go without comment. For example, if I opened a thread with the question: "Do still you beat your wife or your dog?"
( ) Yes. ( ) No.
Now, should that question draw a comment or two? I would certainly hope so, and I don't think I should be required to answer only yes or no. To answer NO would be to admit that I did so before and don't anymore, so in effect there is only one answer possible, that being YES. By the way, I beat neither my wife nor my dogs and never have done so.

I appreciate the thoughtfullness and intelligence of the opinions expressed!These are challenging issues and it seems as if many of us are having to deal with them.In the catskill mountains of New York we have over mature forests,no logging is permitted on state land.The sun doesn't hit the forest floor so there is very little browse and cover.In addition to that we have suburban sprawl where there is more and more land that is not huntable but because of vegatation and security from hunters and coyotes we have the vast majority of our deer herd being artificially supported in and around lowland residential area's.There are very few deer in the mountains because of the food and cover being in short supply and where the majority of the deer are you cannot hunt them.It is messed up.
I would much rather see fewer deer and see the forests be healthy than the other way around.
The Manitoba example is similar to what I experience every year hunting in northern Idaho.Very healthy forests,low deer densities but still quality hunting.