I gave up on hunting NJ during the firearms season, too dangerous. Too many clubs "hunting" with 80-100 man drives, firing buckshot every which way. Guys get shot every year.
In MD, I hunt private land, but it's the same type of thing. The stand I'll be in Saturday is way back in a marsh along a river, and I hear the same guy every year across the river with a full automatic. He fires about 10 shot bursts out in the marsh, probably just spraying at deer hundreds of yards away, I must hear 4 or 5 bursts from him every year. That's why I hunt opening day, and that's it. Any vacation I use during bow season, and blackpowder season.


"In heaven, even the fish have antlers"

The first day of rifle season last year had heavy fog here in central PA. So between 9am and noon I counted every audible shot, and it was over 150 in just three hours. Some people close by were hunting down in the creek bottom and were setting off volley after volley of shots. You'd think they were fending off the Mongol hourdes or something. By 12:30 I did manage to bag a doe that had slipped by their gauntlet with a single shot as it stopped running for a second while she checked her backtrail. I dragged it out of the gamelands only to realize I had the only deer that day. Makes one wonder where all that lead went. Multiple shots are just irresponsible fools putting holes in trees or making cripples, hear just one single shot and you know that fella got his deer.

Antler restrictions will help reduce that nonsense as far as buck is concerned, but have a group of doe run through and it's back to BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

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try being on a PA state game lands this coming monday! slugs dont go 1/4 as far as a 300 mag will..me and my dad were talking to a guy on our way to our setup and he had a pump gun...he was standing there deciding where to go and still was when we left...we go about 50 yds..just out of sight around a bend to hear him dump his magazine and hear the bullets ripping through the sappling thicket...i love listening to them guys on the first morning...i just know more deer live than die and i setup so they make the deer run to me...last year i quit counting at like 65 shots and that was when my dad got a doe at like 8....this year i will try to remember and count..last year we didnt see anyone else dragging out(we have like a mile and half drag) and seen no drag marks or anything...camoe back the end of the week nobody there but us and not much drag marks still! i love the PA war!



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We haven't heard much shooting in my part of Delaware County. Opening day was really nasty with high winds, trees falling, and blowing snow. I took a large doe opening morning and another doe and a 5 point Saturday afternoon. I am proud to say that they were all one shot kills. I am lucky in that I am the only one allowed to hunt on a 200 acre plot of mixwd woods and pasture.

I hunt in Pa and even on private property you hear repeated shots with rifles with scopes.When I hear a single shot I figure one harvested deer.When I hear a group of shots close by I am looking for deer to harvest let them keep throwing the lead at them sit tight and use them to your advantage because you won't change their habits.

I think the 3 shot plug rule TreestandEd mentioned in Ohio would be an excellent idea to help control the Idiots here in NY. It wouldn't bother me in the least to see a QDM program implemented also, like a 6pt restriction. Of course I think the DEC is way too concerned about killing off as many as can to help control the so-called over population of deer to ever do such a thing. But we can certainly dream!

The plug your gun to three shots would help. I don't know to many folks who have hit the deer with the 4th or 5th shot. I did use 3 to put down the 8 pt I shot this year, it was a drive and the guy below me jumped the buck and shot at him three times and didn't cut a hair(It's what he gets for hunting with somebody elses gun and not sighting it in). The buck ran back through the line of drivers and after he was well clear of the drivers below me I shot 3 times, missing the first, hitting with the second and breaking both front shoulders with the third and final shot. This drive was in mixed hemlocks and beeches.