This past year was hard for me to find hunting spots, my grandfather passed away and we sold his land. I ended up finding some decent land to hunt. But where are some of the great spots to deer hunt that are public? Mainly around CNY, wouldn't mind it being out of Onondaga county so I can use rifle.

cicero swamp is closest but that has a million guys hunting it. I travel to redfield and hunt the state land up there for northern tier. There is more state land up there then anyone can hunt.

Contact your DEC Regional Office. They have a booklet of maps for region 7 on all the state lands. I've had one for few yrs now. Its just basic black, and white map of each area. But it shows every piece page by page in each county. Its a good reference booklet. I use mine alot.

NY has some great hunting lands
and lots of info and maps to those lands on DEC website,
from small lots of just a few hundreds acres to +100k acre state forest, and lots in between
http://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/45415.html

http://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/347.html

Thanks for your help. I did do a little research and found a great place right down the road from where I hunt. That places gets a little crowded on the weekends. I will contact the local dec office and request more info. I just get nervous with hunting state land because of the amount of people and the shot at anything that moves hunter. Guess I have been spoiled hunting on private property.

nyoutdoorsguy28:
Your are right about state land being too crowded but I think you are wrong about the "shot at anything that moves hunter" comment. I have been hunting state land since 1968 and I have never been shot at by another hunter. I agree that the large number of hunters will mess up your well thought out plans but it has been my experience that you are not in danger of being shot by one of your fellow hunters. It seems like most hunters that are shot, are shot by someone in their hunting party.
Good luck in your search.

Just north of Syracuse off the Parish or Mexico exit heading east is the Happy Valley WMA. I spent years hunting there, and it can be very productive...if you put your time in. It has a good deer population, along with alot of grouse. The DEC can supply a pamphlet on the area. It is a very large area, and seldom gets much pressure anymore.

Hey guys, even though my location says "Richmond, Virginia" I go hunting in central New York, just a little south of Utica in between Route 12 and Route 8.

DEC area: 7M
County: Madison
Town: Brookfield

My sister & bro-in-law have a real nice 125 acre farm and let me come up and go hunting any time I want. Besides the farm/private land, there is a bunch of state lands and state forests around the area too.

http://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/34531.html

I also found this excellent link on the DEC website that shows a big breakdown on the 2009 deer season. Total deer, total harvest, deer per sq. mile., and even starting on page 14 of the .pdf file, it breaks it down further by county and city/town.

http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/wildlife_pdf/09deerrpt.pdf

Hope this helps!

New York is a lot better than Virginia, in my opinion:
- You guys allow hunting on Sunday.
- Your deer are bigger bodied.
- And you guys don't hunt deer with hound dogs.

Small world. I live about 15 minutes from redfield, and go there often. Hear of the High Braes Refuge up there? I am doing mu internship for my outdoor rec major there.

there is quite a few spots that I have found on the dec website. I am going to request information from them and see what its about. Thanks for all your help guys!