If you had the money and the time, where would you go deer hunting?
06-14-2009, 04:17 AM
#13
Dominant Buck
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: On an Island in Vermont
Posts: 22,605
RE: If you had the money and the time, where would you go deer hunting?
Nothing quite like the big woods of northern Maine. Not a lot of deer but when you track one down it is a big one. Wild country that is all open for hunting. No towns, no poster signs and not many hunters. What is not to like? Give me that any day over sitting on a food plot in the mid west.
I have to add this after the initial post just to clarify myself. In Northern Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont the land is all mountainous without many roads and few towns. Fully forested land runs for many miles without any break and there are no ag type fields or farms. It is all woods, swamps and mountains. The few roads are mostly dirt access roads for the timber industry who owns the land. It is private land but the public has access to hunt, fish and hike. In the area of Northern Maine you can go in one side of the Allagash Wilderness area and drive on the paper company dirt roads and come out the other side after over 100 miles of never seeing a town, farm or paved road. There aren't even wild apple trees there since the area was never settled like the rest of New England. These large tracts of land hold huge deer but hunting them is mainly done by tracking in the snow when it is there. In my mind this is real hunting and it presents the most challenging hunt that I have been on. Even if you don't score you are in a wilderness setting one on one with truly wild animals of all types. That experience alone is worth the trip. I have to laugh when I see the TV shows mostly made in the mid west or south on game ranches or over food plots. It is hunting and I am not saying it isn't sporting but the type of hunt I enjoy comes in the remote areas where you have to hunt them not have them come into a baited trap or food plot. My latest hunts have been for elk in the remote areas of the west. It presents the same type of hunting that I enjoy the most except for elk.
I have to add this after the initial post just to clarify myself. In Northern Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont the land is all mountainous without many roads and few towns. Fully forested land runs for many miles without any break and there are no ag type fields or farms. It is all woods, swamps and mountains. The few roads are mostly dirt access roads for the timber industry who owns the land. It is private land but the public has access to hunt, fish and hike. In the area of Northern Maine you can go in one side of the Allagash Wilderness area and drive on the paper company dirt roads and come out the other side after over 100 miles of never seeing a town, farm or paved road. There aren't even wild apple trees there since the area was never settled like the rest of New England. These large tracts of land hold huge deer but hunting them is mainly done by tracking in the snow when it is there. In my mind this is real hunting and it presents the most challenging hunt that I have been on. Even if you don't score you are in a wilderness setting one on one with truly wild animals of all types. That experience alone is worth the trip. I have to laugh when I see the TV shows mostly made in the mid west or south on game ranches or over food plots. It is hunting and I am not saying it isn't sporting but the type of hunt I enjoy comes in the remote areas where you have to hunt them not have them come into a baited trap or food plot. My latest hunts have been for elk in the remote areas of the west. It presents the same type of hunting that I enjoy the most except for elk.
06-14-2009, 06:04 AM
#14
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: elmira ny
Posts: 1,676
RE: If you had the money and the time, where would you go deer hunting?
Champlain Isl.: Agreed! That is also what I love about Maine , above The Forks, Golden Rd. etc. Same with the High Peaks region in the 'dacks in the primitive areas. While much of the remote lands in the Maine, NH mountains allow motorized vehicles, not so in the designated primitive areas of the Adirondacks. 20,000-100,000 acres of such land really gives you, as you stated, an appreciation of the hunt, not just the kill.
Frankly, in those areas, if the kill determines success of the hunt, you'll be disappointed more often than not.
My choice in the poll has more to do with fantasy than reality.
Frankly, in those areas, if the kill determines success of the hunt, you'll be disappointed more often than not.
My choice in the poll has more to do with fantasy than reality.
06-14-2009, 07:44 AM
#15
Dominant Buck
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: On an Island in Vermont
Posts: 22,605
RE: If you had the money and the time, where would you go deer hunting?
I agree with you crokit. I live within sight of the northern dacks right across the lake but the only NY hunting I have done was 4 years in Steuben county with some of my buds on some private land. I have been itching for a crack at the dacks and might try it out this year. The guy I like to hunt the big woods with always likes to head east to Maine or northern NH. I might convince him yet to try northern NY.
