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luck on the last afternoon! I've been reading on here for quite a while thought it was about time to join and start posting. Good info here - thanks to all

My nephew and I with opening day does. His first deer.

If a deer is poached at night what difference does it make that it isn't tagged? A deer is going to die anyway... what does it matter who killed it? Okay... are we starting to see where that logic is going? I think if someone would tag a deer with someone else's tag... that person wouldn't have a problem looking for a way around other laws as well.. JMO... we don't get to create our own rules based on what we think.. we get to follow them as they are written.

My second weekend doe

Nope - I want a mature buck as much as anyone, but think the hunter should make that call. It would not have been nearly as fun my first season hunting if I had to wait for the right buck. I do now, but that's by my choice. I do believe ARs MAY result in more mature bucks in an area (statistics in some southern states I read seem to confirm that), but don't think that should be decided by the DEC or legislature.

You would never achive the necessary population control that way.

I personally would welcome a season more like Illonois longer bow shorter gun ...

The old saying that 10% of the hunters kill all the deer holds true. I have deer around me all the time and i have people on the land with me that only see a few. Just because your dad has a tag does not mean he will kill a buck and if you kill it for him that is one more that would not have been harvested. Now times that by the hundreds of hunters that do just this every year and you will see how many bucks may have lived to see their next birthday!

You guys are starting to show signs of reverse hunter evolution,lol

Trolling alert...

As I peruse joe's nyantlersoutdoors page ,I see a lot of nice bucks killed in counties without antler restrictions. Granted they may not be "book" bucks but it seems that most or all of us would be happy with them,as the hunters smiles show they are. I don't see a reason to expand ar's as it zseems there are good bucks out there without them.

If you DON'T feed the troll, they will die. Starve this one......................................................

Its a non-transferrable tag, so yes, its illegal.

Let's put my season on the FEMALE scale... A perfect season would be a Halle Berry... The worst possible season would be a Rosie O'Donnel... My season was a Marylou Fernbender... You probably don't know her...She wasn't all that great but she had a couple points of interest...

I've been preaching to my dad for years that we need a serious food plot on our 90 acres with no luck. Our piece is all woods and so is everyone surrounding us. There are a couple crp fields. I would probably have to drive a few miles to find a corn field. Well I finally got the go ahead. I think will be looking around 2-3 acres (id do more but this is a big step for my dad). The area im looking at is 2nd growth maple/ash trees all medium to small diameter. So the plan is to cut down the trees for firewood then have the dozer come thru to clear out the stumps. Gosh I hope its easy winter to get a big jump on this by spring. Maybe ill start a journal and post the progress once started.

So I was sitting in my double stand on the the edge of the wheat field and my buddy was sitting about 600 yards away in a stand that overlooks my food plot and corn field. He sends me a text about 8:40 and says "hey can you see that guy?" I respond with "no." He then says "There is a guy walking down the edge of your cornfield and is headed into your woods." At this point I put on my orange, unload my gun, and climb down to confront this guy since he is only about 200 yards away from me. I made my way towards this rather stout guy who was in full blaze orange. He saw me coming and initially tried to hind behind a tree...dumba$$, you're in blaze orange, good try though. So he notices that I see him and I am on a b-line for him and takes off on a dead run through my open hardwoods. Needless to say I am in my early 30's and in pretty good shape. I quickly unbuckle my backpack, lean my gun against a tree and sprint after him. He notices me chasing after him, drops his gun (a Remington 870 wingmaster filled to the gills with Remington sluggers, by no means a deer gun), collapses onto a downed tree, and puts his hands up. I stopped about 10 yards from him and asked him why he was running? His response, "cause you were chasing me"...seriously man? I laughed and said I was chasing you cause you were running from me, on my Posted property. He says "yeah, I guess that's true." I asked him what he was doing trespassing and what made him think he wouldn't get caught. He fed me a bunch of BS and it basically came down to the fact that he and his friend had seen a nice buck in the cut corn field a few days ago and thought it was their friends property that said they could hunt there. So I took his name, number (called in the woods to verify), address, and followed him to his truck (where his friend was waiting) wrote down his license plate number and make/model of vehicle. I told him if I ever caught him again I would be pressing charges. Now this guy and his partner were from Lyons, in their late 40's to early 50's, and clearly thought they would get away with this. I am hoping I scared them enough that they won't return, ever. So after trouncing through the woods after this guy I figured I would go pick up my cameras. I gathered them up and was happy to see this young buck made it through the gun season. I think he is 1 or 2 year old. In the second picture I think he was watching me chase the guy through the woods since we were only about 100 yards away from him at that point. I am not sure this is the buck they saw in the field, but it could be.

I had no problem passing last year after I shot one in Ohio... Nobody would've heard me shoot either. But I would've known. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mG5939stZvw

Lucky Last Day I had a little extra luck on Sunday. I was hoping to get up to the Adirondacks for the last day of gun season but personnel circumstances prevented me from getting away. So I thought I would hunt locally although I hadn't seen a deer in the last two weeks. I wasn't able to get to my stand until 8:30, climbed the tree and pulled up my shotgun. Within 30 seconds of untying my shotgun from the haul line I heard something then saw a deer creeping through the brush about 80 or 90 yards away. The deer's track would result in a CPA of about 40 or 45 yards directly upwind of me if. I took the shot as soon as he walked into an opening. Photo below. Just lucky, pure luck. Not a huge rack but he had some heft. Right beam was partially broken off due to fighting. The phrase "timing is everything" comes to mind.

I tell you, I just can't stand the derogatory talk against weekend warriors here. Aren't we all weekend warriors in one way or the other? How many here don't have to work and can devote all their time to hunting only? Just because some of you spend some extra time scouting or setting up food plots or cameras makes you somehow think that you are superior to everyone else that hunts? That's BS. Some of you guys are legends in your own minds, and that's about it.

Many states have the 1/2 hour before/after rule. It seems like this is just another case of NY failing to fall in line with best practices and the law is what it is because there is no traction to change it. I compare it to the rifle vs. shotgun. Ten years ago, rifle talk in new rifle counties was cut off at the knees. Now with more support (probably based off of the gun control issue) it gained traction. That's just an observation, but seems pretty clear that the law could be changed with negligible effect on safety based on the fact that many states have the 30 min grace period.

I finally got my first deer. I'm pretty excited since and just had to post. Sure it wasn't the big 8 point buck but it still very exciting. I was lucky that guy form my gun club happened by and guided me through the gutting process because that is not the easiest thing for a newbie. (Sorry the picture is sideways, it is right side up my computer and I have no idea hot to rotate).

I would like to see the fines help fund new officers and patrols.

Your Tundra wont go over 65 anyway, so why worry about it?

Look up some of the bigger bucks poached in states like Ohio or IL, or Iowa, or Kansas. Shoot a whopper...enjoy that $30,000 fine....$30,000......kind of hard to not pay the government. Garnish wages, eat up tax returns. It hits the wallet hard and gets press.

I suspect both. The greater the penalty, the greater the deterrent IMO. Some will poach regardless, but those on the fence may very well think twice if they know they are out of the game for a few years.

Agreed, Here is you buck tag, use it in any season you wish. But they do need to really ramp up the fines associated with taking multiple bucks on others tags and other forms of poaching. Otherwise it just creates an environment to breed more of the use of others tags.

Agree - but I would like to see a one buck limit per year.

I would be in favor of a sliding fine scale similar to what Midwestern states like Illinois have. A base fine for illegally killing a deer and then additional $ for different levels of rack score. In addition- the fines would be applied the same way to ANY illegally killed deer, whether it be spotlighting or simply shooting a buck you don't have a tag for...

the argument is that if I cross several of our borders it's 30 min before and 30 min after. Are their "roads" any different than others. I do not believe hunters push the rule more if they go to 30 and 30. I believe anyone who shoots a few minutes before legal light is taking a perfectly safe shot that would be legal in many other states... and in many of those states you can own the gun you want too. It's a BS law and that's why people argue about it. Nobody here argues spotlighting and not tagging your deer. Why? Because those aren't stupid laws. A law is the law is spouted by the same guys I can guarantee you violate the safe act. So that's why the speed limit analogy is used.

Better analogy, what about playing on a softball league and when you get to the plate, you decide that YOU will get 4 strikes and not the 3 that everyone else gets? You may have team mates that wouldn't mind but how about the other team? Since you can make the rules on the amount of strikes for you , a guy on the other team decides he should get 5 then. Then your shortstop wants 6strikes? Where does that leave the integrity of the sport when rules are just a guideline?

So the fine isn't enough of a deterrent? I personally don't know what the fine is for shooting bucks I don't have tags for, I just figured that I wouldn't do it because it is illegal. Finding yourself 5 MPH over the speed limit is a lot different than pulling the trigger one more time...

All very valid points. Perhaps a better word to discribe the differing eye relief would be narrows. While low magnification will allow more leeway as far as eye relief, generaly, the narrower high magnification eye relief will be somewhere in the short end of the low magnification eye relief envelope. I set my eye relief so that I can get full field of view at high magnification & the wider range of full field view at low magnification takes care of itself. I NEVER leave my variable power setting on anything other than the lowest maginification to allow fast target aquisition on targets at close range which will likely require a quicker reaction. Shots taken with high magnification will in all likelyhood be taken under a situation where there is plenty of time to not only crank up the power, but also to snuggle up to the eye relief. Due to being caught off guard, I took this years buck at about 100yds with the scope still on 3X. That's plenty of maginifcation for that distance or even farther. The biggest advantage I find with 9X is for sizing up the rack on longer shots. Most shots from my tri-pod are in the 200-250yd range. Those long shots have alway been at unalamed deer that gave me plenty of time.

In this regulation I choose to be ignorant. I do not track the sunrise/sunset hours and do not look at my watch when it gets a little dusky. I quit when it is unsafe to shoot. I also go a couple miles over the speed limit on a regular basis. Am I wrong and should I follow the letter of the law? Yes. My difficulty is that I justify it in my mind.

I would rather compare shooting before or after legal shooting time to discharging your firearm at the range during a cease fire. Other nearby participants coordinate their actions to prevent fatalities and serious injury.

Lots of great comments in here: 1. I'm an older hunter and I still get giddy with excitement on the opening days of bow and gun, both zones. When I don't I know a big part of the thrill is gone. 2. I don't hunt like I used to, I'm not physically able to. Problems with hunting deer in NY, in my HUMBLE opinion: 1. Loss of access- places we used to are gone. Gone to development or smaller groups of hunters. 2. Loss of comradery - some of you young guys have no clue but hunters used to help each other. Help drag, help track, share information, etc. Now it's all about ME (too many examples to list here) 3. Television - has us planting food plots, hanging stands, spending thousands on scent control and most of all "growing" trophies and planting our butts in stands from dawn til dusk expecting all those deer we see on our 20 $120 trail cams all summer to come out and feed so we can "harvest" them. Whatever happened to actually hunting? Get down and still hunt. go look. That's what I do. Many of you do all the right things and have bad luck and that's why it's called hunting. I have only been skunked one year since 1988 and that was in 2011 after I was recovering from a traumatic injury to my back (3 fractured vertebrae) and we lost 200 acres of prime land in the Finger Lakes to the almighty $$. No bow hunting and new land made it tough. When I finally did see a deer, I missed. The next 2 years I was successful with all three implements (bow, gun and muzzle). This year I have a 3.5 year old 7 point and a mature doe. I will be hunting Thursday and Friday after this storm. Good luck to all of you.

Plunk some cash down on 50 acres and you'll see it first hand, I promise.

Coho Salmon Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

stuffed backstrap with bacon

Venison pot roast, mashed potatoes, gravy and carrots... try real hard and you might be able to smell it cooking...mmmmmmmmm... can't wait.

Pork roast, baked potato, canned corn and apple sauce. Maybe a beer to wash it down.............

I think its also illegal to be carrying someone else license while hunting

bow hunt, muzzleload and DMP's allow you to hunt

Yep...Thanksgiving and it disappeared from the news...you're good.

I think the real "need" is for you to find something better to do..

Think I'll go out for an afternoon hunt. Oh wait, I'm still in my ladder stand from 6:45 this morning. ....And not a creature was stirring , not even a mouse.

Connected on my first Mississippi deer yesterday morning. Overslept and was in the tree with my climber at 7:30 and instead of 5:30. Around 10:15 she came out of nowhere on a b-line to me full sprint. Saw me and froze and then took off quartering away behind the tree. I stopped her with my mouth at about 50 yards. Shot was high but worked out as I put one through the back of her neck with the CVA Optima. She fell over like a tree. Had I had better action on the public land over the last few months I probably would have waited to see if it was a buck on her but I couldn't pass up the meat. Tough drag out of those ravines in Upper Sardis even with a cart. She weighed in at 75lbs. which is decent size down here and I now have 2 doe in the freezer so it's time to hunt for horns. The rut is still 2 weeks away! It's not even rifle season yet

LMAO- yeah, I don't think you have to worry about him coming back...., especially now that he knows the property is guarded by a rabid gazelle that runs like the wind!

Nothing . We need them we should embrace and encourage them . The average joe who gets out a few times and is happy to kill any deer. We need there numbers and we need them to pass it on to generations to come .

Yeah but in these modern times, they may be on the chest of what used to be a man! Modern technology is real scary. LOL! BTW, I finished and built all 3 of those myself. Not the barrels or locks though. That's also part of the tradition.