NY Hunters; Comments on 2009 NYSDEC Deer Harvest
 

The NYSDEC just released the Deer Kill reults for the 2009 Season. Anyone buying into this, I certainly am not!

I take it you did not kill any/as many deer as you wanted to this past season.

Basically no one believes anyone killed a deer if they did not.

See unhappy PA hunters, you are not alone.

WV Gino

I did fine (two bucks).

Your assumption that I did not kill as many deer as I wanted is totally without merit. Your second statement is puzzling. All said, my point is that deer kill statistics published by the NYDEC come into question when one reviews the historical deer take data and its most recent press release concerning the 2009 deer season.

I have read the PA forums. At least the PGC publishes deer survey data and makes attempts at deer management. The NYSDEC has failed the hunters of NY in their efforts to both manage the deer population in NYS and to keep them informed of the results of such efforts.

As a very long time NYS hunter, my opinion is that newer generation of hunters has totally unrealistic perception of what hunting is supposed to be. As haphazard as it seems deer reporting is by the hunters, how are we to blame the state for underfunded and understaffed attempts to do the best they can?

I live in the northern tier but I hunt both north and south. They were right on the money as far as the northern tier being down 21%. It was the worst season I have seen since I moved up here 18 years ago.

+1 Daveboone's comments.

That's interesting.I know very little about deer management in NY or the NYSDEC.

I don't know what to think overall on DEC's #'s every year. I do imagine its hard to come up with accurate #'s when everyone doesn't report harvests as should. But I will agree Northern Tier was a rough season. I start 9/27, and had the worst Northern season ever. My sightings were way down. I did notice the news failed to mention the harsh winter we experienced in 08-09, over 146" snow in my area. I also hunt Southern Zone from archery season to end. The hunting was better for me than normal. I saw alot more deer than have past few yrs. But then again these are just the areas I hunt, and doesn't speak for whole state.

Well, here's my take on the whole thing right or wrong. I live a stones throw from Pa and many of my friends are Pa hunters. I own 128 ac.and live on the same land. Cotton-Hanlon has a huge piece of land across the road and state land boarders the back of my property. There are 5 of us that hunt my property plus a 385 ac. farm next to me along with 3,000 ac. of state land. I'm an old phart and have hunted for 50 some years so I believe I have seen most of whats going on this state. Every year for maybe the 20 years we have seen less and less hunters in the field and the ones we do see seem to only hunt untill the Sunday after Thanksgiving. People say there are very few deer. That may be true in some areas but we have a ton of em around here. All 5 of us filled our buck and doe tags this year a few days after Thanksgiving. I have seen the published deer take for 2009 but I'm like you guys, I don't know if I believe it. The money we spend for those tags pay a lot of bills in this state. I think the younger generation is loosing the desire to hunt because it's hard to pull away from Nintendo games etc. The Pa boys are telling me the same thing, they are not seeing the hunters but they do believe the deer population is down from a few years ago. I can remember the days when these roads around here and the state land were filled with trucks during deer season but I can honestly say it's not the case any more.