Leaderboard

Your thoughts on this AFTER the season will be telling. Luck.........................................

My one and only big buck.Opening day of firearm in the southern zone (8F) 2005. Had the antlers scored after they were mounted, 132 gross / 130 net. I regret not having a full head mount done but I didn't have the dinero at the time.My buddy likes to tell me when he comes over how I should have had a mount done.I also didn't have time to weigh him but he is the biggest bodied deer I have ever killed too.Nice bucks everyone!

If I had the land we hunt locked up, and didnt have to worry about a bunch of other guys being there, Id consider it too. I wouldnt want to do the vertical bow in the dead of winter thing, but Id do crossbow then. Seeing as I dont have nice, managed land that only sees light pressure, I drop my bow as soon as gun opens. I have switched it up and only used my Muzzleloader, except on drives. Gives it some extra challenge. The buck I shot last year was a challenge, as the first pull of the trigger resulted in a misfire and I had to push the load out of the gun and reload again. I wasnt an easy thing to do knowing there was a nice buck right out in the field, and I was on the ground, pretty much in the open. After the first shot didnt go off, I started getting the shakes and had to calm myself down again as I reloaded as fast as I could. Definitely more of a thrill than just ejecting a dud bullet and loading another in the action.

My biggest is one of these. All taken the last 5 years With how my scouting has gone this year, i will hopefully well surpass my biggest this season, as ive really been working on scouting specifically for mature buck sign instead of deer sign

My biggest by far taken last year in Suffolk County with the bow. Grossed 138".

I have been thinking for a few years that the day may come when I feel that I am a skilled enough hunter to leave my gun at home. But after weeks of seeing deer just out of range and thinking "if I only had my rifle" I drop my bow for the rifle opening day still..lol

Whatever floats your boat. I have a lightswitch effect...bow is for me and my challenge. Gun hunting is largely for family/friends and enjoyment.

When the second amendment is gone, the first and fourth will be next. There will be nothing left to give the government any pause to just barge into someone's house or prevent them from speaking out on anything. That is one of the reasons the second amendment exists.

Im not using scents any longer. Never had any luck with them, dont care to keep on experimenting. I have also given up on blind calling and rattling. Low impact is my game.

and with the smoke pole to boot! congrats amen. size of deer or antlers is just a plus. the experience is what it's all about.

I know a TON of bow hunters around here and lets just say you won't be the only one packing. I carry everyday everywhere. As far as the woods that's a normal place for guns, as well as hillbillies ,thieves poachers ,pot growers ,wild dogs. Again NYS is behind the times many allow carry while bow hunting, ya know the law is you can't shoot the deer with a gun in bow,do we need another saying you can carry one ? You really think ill poach a deer with a pocket 380 or snubby? Hell my bow shoots way tighter groups at 40 yards.... Concealed carry means well CONCEALED. Don't sweat it tons of guys are carring during bow just fine. Here ya go 32 states allow it. https://www.huntingclub.com/blogs/articletype/articleview/articleid/13507/bowhunters-do-you-carry-a-handgun#.UikKf8u9KSM

Nice Granite Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk 2

lol, gotta stop educating those deer.....

Good ...I was going to say it looked like you had gotten out of work early....lol

Being a city dweller woods freaked me out at first. Till i camped it with the family. Hiked it with my dog. Got lost at night goin up a mountain. Scouted it. Played with dear poo. Saw bear poo. Now it aint so bad.

Ground is still warm and so is water.. can't see frost except on insulated rooftops happening. Weather service says scattered frost... sounds like they are covering their butts. Personally.

They will not run me out of this state!

There isn't even an attempt at looking rational and sane anymore when it comes to some of the attitudes of legislators. What on earth do they think people are going to do with a pocketful of empty casings? throw them at somebody? Well, obviously they are saving them from a trip to the range so that when they get home they can re-load them. Why don't they use a bit of honesty and flat out say screw you and your 2nd amendment rights. We don't want you to have any guns and we are going to harass you with frivolous laws until you don't. Washington citizens have such stupid laws on the books and yet continue to vote for these idiots, then they deserve what they get. I wish I could feel sorry for them. It's no different than NYS if we don't take out these jerks that voted for that so-called Safe Act. If that happens, then we deserve exactly what we get. It will only show how little gun ownership really means to us.

Hence why I am moving to North Carolina.$5 for a pistol permit and you can carry it anywhere you want as long as its not concealed. Oh yeah and they cant be carried into a bar. Really people why are you still in this looney state.

Bow or gun it doesn't matter to me,its the time in the woods.Sure would I have more bucks on the wall if I had a gun during bow season.But I wouldn't have ONE on the wall except for last years if I were a bow only guy.With that being said I applaud your decision and hope you have a great season bow hunting,but if it comes down to it don't be beating yourself up any if you reach for the Ol' bangstick.Deep down we are"hunters" doesn't matter what implament we use.Good luck bud!!!

Checked my cam out at my sisters property, couple walking thru.

Obama chooses which laws he wants to enforce. Cops have discretion when it comes to enforcement too. You don't have to be a constitutional scholar to know when a law is clearly a violation of the law of the land. I guess when they pass a law saying cops should shoot anyone they see in possession of a firearm, you want me to do that without question too.

My brother's dog brought in a newborn that still had it's umbilical cord attached several years ago in CT on August 31st.

Last year I hunted bow straight through(a lot of time in 3s) and never took out the gun. The larges buck I saw all season stayed 50 yards away from me during gun season and there I da with my bow (between my legs!). Still worth it for me

It's a coin toss Grow . Suffer the physical pain or suffer the mental pain of not being in the woods for deer season . I suffered the physical pain and then had my knee replacement in the spring . That gave me over 6 months to get the knee in shape for the next season . Do what ya gotta do !

How many pre-cooked meals can your freezer hold?

Thanks ! Our Town even put up a sign for me .......

Laws ...Just last week Mr. B came home and said he saw a set of very tiny twins on the way home...and in the field there has been a small fawn with lots of spots along with the other fawns that have very faded or no spots now. and are 2x's it's size..it happens around here every year...just like the very early occasional doe being bred about now...by the way my clover still looks like that...

I think of something different with Mr. Winky than Mr. Winke. Big difference.

So go find a telephone pole !

The spray is my last line of scent proof. All clothes are washed scent free and stored in bins. I shower scent free, don't eat or drink stinky stuff, brush my teeth with scent free toothpaste, etc. I can't cover my natural human scent 100%, but I believe there is a difference between my smell and the guy who wears cologne and drinks coffee and washes his clothes with fresh linen scent. I've had deer eating the bushes I'm sitting against. I always sit on the ground and have had many encounters with deer at arms reach. I'm sure it helps that I don't move much, but I think scent free helps too. Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk 2

I didn't read many of the posts in this thread but that sums ALL of it up right there for me.

I have friend in Colorado in the same boat growie.....He hunted elk this past weekend with the bow and it was painful to say the least. His Dr is pretty insistent that he gets the surgery done sooner rather than later but he'd sure like to go until the middle of November when all his tags will be punched, hopefully! Only YOU know what is best for you. Good luck..................................

Doc, I never attacked those who respond to my posts, only those who sink to low levels to post insults to my posts. You never seem to understand what I mean in my posts. As far as a nation of laws go, I say again, if the laws are constitutional, I will support them. If they are unconstitutional, I will not. I took an oath to defend and uphold the constitution, and that is exactly what I intend to do. And many of my peers are of like mind. Would you expect me to support a law that passed saying, "In order to prevent rapes, all American males must have their penis removed."? How about, "All Jews are to be rounded up and sent off to prison camps."? That law was actually enforced by LEO's in a certain country once upon a time. I would never have gone along with that, but I hear people saying they would always follow the law, until they could work within the system to change it. How did that strategy work out for those people? It's not legal to pass a law that isn't constitutional. But our legal system has become an obstacle to removing bad laws that trample lives, and the government is using that legal system to trample your rights. That is where the law is being broken. I can't make it any plainer than that. I'm flabbergasted folks don't understand this or see when their rights are being violated by "laws". Our public education system has done it's job over the last 50 years. Americans have learned what to think, not how to think.

One year prior to Biz - 2006 also in Putnam(3n) - my first harvest of any big game.

Pic 1 Best Buck with the Bow - 8pt Halloween 1997 Cohocton, NY Killed just after 7 am at 30 Yards with my old Bear Whitetail II After I hit it it ran back at me, right under the tree and dropped dead 15 yards behind the tree. Pic 2 Killed this 8pt out of the same Tree 2 Years later at only 7 Yards. Arrow actually pinned him to a Tree for a quick second. Pic 3 Best Buck with the Gun - 7pt Opening Day 2011 Avoca, NY Killed at 3 pm

I think we can all agree that the shot window in this case is pretty small. What always crosse my mind in a scenarion like this is what can take place as soon as we release that arrow. There are many on here that can put an arrow in a 2" window every time at 15 yards...20...30 maybe even 40. But we are talking a small window. I know the bows out now are very fast and the time to target is short, but not immediate. Even if we do our part nd the hold is steady, pin placment is on the money and the release and follow through are perfect, we can't control what he deer is about to do. A twitch, a step or a shoulder shrug can change the outcome. Heck it can happen with higher percentage shots. I am not saying to not take this shot but I am saying to consider the possible outcome before you do.

I'm thankful my area isn't hunted much (if at all) for turkey or small game. The possibility of tresspassers are always in the back of my mind though, so I am mindful of that. I remind the kids to be aware and not just assume...

Human presence does not do as much damage to an area as you guys think. You must be forgetting about small game hunters, hikers, trappers, nature walkers etc. I have a couple spots where I hunt that get all kinds of human activity and can still kill a deer. If your thinking you're going to run off your 150" B&C buck, well maybe but not the rest of the herd.

In my opinion, a lot of laws are setup so that the government can use it at their discretion but they don't enforce it otherwise. Most of the time it's because someone did something stupid and sued the city. For example, j-walking. How many people j-walk right in front of cops and probably don't even realize it's illegal and the cops never do anything. I'm sure most of the cops don't even know climbing a tree is illegal.

Was the friends last name Chaney?

For those of you who think I'm talking B.S., I was born in the US to a Hungarian immigrant father and an American mother in 1955. In 1956 my father and grandfather, who were both Hungarian nationals and politically connected in both the US and Hungary, returned to Hungary to revolt against the Russians and their occupation of Hungary. I'm not going to go into a lot of details about their revolutionary connections, but I will tell you both of them died fighting the Russians. They had NO firearms to fight with. Firearms had been BANNED AND CONFISCATED! My unarmed father was killed throwing a Molotov cocktail into a Russian tank in downtown Budapest and my grandfather was cut to pieces by an AK-47 while trying to get the gun out of the hands of a Russian soldier. If you want to learn more about the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, just Google it and read James Michener's novel, "The Bridge at Andau". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bridge_at_Andau By the time my uncle got to that bridge fleeing the country, the Russians had killed hundreds of people trying to cross it, and then blew it up. He survived by swimming that frigid river at night in the dead of winter. The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 failed because those brave men were promised help from America by the CIA if they started a revolution. The United States let them all die, or get imprisoned, as they waited for help that never came! A similar disaster happened a few years later at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba. My grandmother, aunts and surviving uncles have schooled me in the history of government oppression and resistance. I've also learned what it was like to live without freedom. When this is the topic, I know what I'm talking about. What I see happening in this land is following the same plan the Hungarians experienced in the 1950's. The wimpy complaining and legal wrangling gun owners in America are employing will not work, because that has all been anticipated by the government and measures have been put in place to insure they will fail. Don't insult me with childish comments about militias and fertilizer bombs being employed to fight this crap. That is not what constitutes a intelligent revolt. Hunters and outdoorsman may be apathetic for the most part, but there are many gun owning men in this land who didn't buy their firearms to hunt. They bought them for the specific purpose of defending themselves against a government that turns on it's own people by violating the Constitution. The REAL reason the 2nd Amendment was put into the Bill of Rights in the first place! What we need now is a change to the mindset of patriotic Americans. We need people to wake up and realize what is happening, where it's taking us, and what we need to do about it RIGHT NOW! And that is not armed rebellion....yet! If Americans don't show a major non-compliance attitude right now, the infringement of rights, and I mean ALL rights, will begin to accelerate at an unprecedented rate and eventually all will be lost. I'm not talking about bombs, battles and assassinations here. I'm talking about people convincing everyone they know, on the left or the right, that the change this country is experiencing is not a good change, and the only way it will be reversed is if the majority of Americans refuse to accept it. Anyone who is arrested and prosecuted for a violation of these unjust laws is perceived by the government as a threat to the status quo and the government, not because they are a threat to society or innocent people. Once you have been identified as such a person by the authorities, you are either silenced, or you get off the radar and become an outlaw. What drives you from then on is JUSTICE, in spite of what the Fed says is legal and not legal. This is what made men like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Lech Wałęsa, Mandela, TuTu, Patrick Henry and all of the founding fathers. They even warned us one day this would all be necessary to continue living in a free land. The government propaganda machine has been working overtime in the last decade to convince most uninformed Americans resistance is a felony that comes with dire consequences. That ought to tell you something about the government in itself. But it should also tell you what is in store for you if you comply. Sadly, I don't see a lot of intelligence in the majority of Americans on this subject, and I wonder if enough of them will ever come to their senses before it's too late. But I can assure you, I know what the future of America will be like if they don't, and I'd rather not be a part of it. You can make your choice.

Don't discount state land on opening day. The hoards of hunters will have the deer on the hoof all day long. Try to find a safety zone and get in early. You may only be able to see 40 yds., but that's where they will go to hide. The smartest buck and the dumbest fawn alike will beat feet to the thick stuff when the bell tolls!

Hey Rustin, I am/have been in the same situation as you for the past couple years. I've been up to the Dacks public lands in search of deer and bear. Last year I did an exclusive early bear hunt with the bow. The problem I found was that in Sept 14 which is early bear opener, the woods are still too thick. I mean I couldn't see past 20-30 yards in most places. This is a tough way to stalk anything with the bow. I've scouted plenty and found trails and scat but doesn't mean I would see a bear with their range and the amount of land. Food sources are extremely hard to find up there. Forget about Acorns depending on where you go, very little. Beechnuts not easy to find at least for me. I still need to work on finding good food sources up there. It is definitely an adventure and I did it by myself. However, I did my homework in the areas I went to and did not venture past what I knew. 2-3 miles deep max for me and I had printed out topo maps of the areas I was going. I had a gps with an extra battery and a compass of course. I studied google maps/earth/topos and did scouting on late spring trips. Coming from Queens so its not something I can easily get to and its costly. Spoke to locals and other bear hunters who were going at it with rifles and its just really a tough hunt that could be like finding a needle in a haystack up there. However do not let that deter you because like it said, its an Adventure! I am considering doing a rifle hunt this year for the opener or second weekend but not decided yet. You can see my boring bear hunting video on my youtube page in the link below. Btw, I found this video that helps you learn how to properly skin/quarter out a bear for a rug. You would definitely have to quarter it out depending on the size, distance and help you have. I go at it knowing I am going to quarter it out in multiple trips. Not like I am going to get one Video to skin: Being in your same shoes, I would definitely recommend going at it with the rifle your first year. I also wanted to get one with the bow, but with the thickness of the foliage, it will be extremely difficult and frustrating, from my experience.

Lick it clean.

I got mine today. Who really gives a hoot what color it is? Make the damned thing pink and I'll give Breast cancer research a 20 spot each year for all I care.

Anyone know where he is from? You do realize there are states with no closed season for them, one being directly to our south.

So a farmer sees a fox walking into his chicken coop.. He doesn't have a nuisence tag.. He lets it walk in. Get a free meal and go? I don't think so. If the coyotes chasin ur kid around in the back yard.. But ya don't gave a nusience tag.. Ya let em walk. I don't think so.. Now people on here are tracking this guy down... Really what's this world come to. Your lives must not be as exciting with out getting others in trouble for protecting his property from vermin. Can't wait till a coyote gets one of your little fluffy lap dogs and all of a sudden your attitude changes real quick. Trust me IV seen it time and time again. We kill 80+ coyotes a year. People complain we kill em and wont let us hunt there landm till fluffy ends up missing then its kill all the damn things.

http://www.dec.ny.go...door/45415.html This is a great tool on the DEC site that can help you find WMU boundaries if your property is close to the line, state land in the area you want and alot of other good info. You can even look at topo maps and areal photos.