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A crisp cool 50 degrees when we woke and 53 right now leafs have been scattering the ground and the choke cherries and ash are starting to turn...beech have been dropping for a week and the mobs of crow have moved in for that. I drove home from the gym yesterday and spotted several, yes several wild apples with the branches broken down and browning. The trees were so loaded with growing apples that they looked like a pile of apples sitting over a stump. I had to warn our daughter to start picking apples off her tree before she ends up having the limbs snap off. Apples are just crazy abundant and big this year...need to get to camp and check on those. I love Fall

So say we shoot 5k more does in the impacted WMUs. How many of those would be shot in gun by the same people slinging the arrow? Probably 90%. They issue 140k DMPs in only three of these units in '15. 140,000.....5k harvest? Not even a needle mover according to them. Dec says we need alot more does shot. How many is alot? How can we meet that goal? You are saying this is on bowhunters not shooting does? Complete BS. Tell me, has the DEC said we need to shoot 5,000 more does here? 10? 30,000? No. How can bowhunters be held accountable their actions when the DEC does not identify the number we need to shoot as bowhunter? The first rule in anything business related (this is a business for them) is to set CLEAR expectations. Shoot more does. Sounds simple right? BS. How many is "more"? Bowhunters, we need you to hit a target of 10,000 antlerless this season in 8H. That's a clear expectation set. If the DEC stated this, and said look, shoot 10k or else you'll have an antlerless season next year. Boom, I George Foreman guarantee bowhunters would let hell unleashed to fill the tags. Ohio issues WEEKLY harvest updates. This could be done to track in-season to monitor progress, too. I'm still waiting to see anyone from the DEC set a clear expectation or anyone trying to pin this on bowhunters tell me how many "more" is. This is a DEC agenda and any hunter who doesn't see that is implicit in churning our ranks and continuing to support an agency that is clearly inept.

They already do in these zones. Number of DMPs available is not the problem. Its land access.

I think for anyone that is set on taking a mature animal they will eat it as they have done in other years. It's really the guys on the fence that this may have just pushed back. IMO

Yes, I would agree with you that many "modern hunters" are most interested in big racks. And the main reason for that are those TV shows that you also mention. "Modern hunters" have been brainwashed by these programs, magazines and various other outlets to think that big horns is what it's all about. I feel sorry for all of you. Like Barnum said, there is a sucker born every minute, and that's exactly what has happened here. Just as society has been brainwashed into thinking that they have to have the latest iphone, ipad, the latest this or that, YOU guys have been brainwashed into thinking that hunting is ALL about racks. Like I said, I feel sorry for you all. I and some others on the other hand aren't as easily suckered as you guys. We hunt for the various other benefits, and big racks is definitely NOT what it's all about for us.

What the guys have said and this...If he gives you enough of a visual lead take a quick glance around . Many times it's not the deer your drawing down on that nails you...it's the one with them you didn't see due to tunnel vision...

Ha-ha-ha .... just another page lifted out of the Cuomo Book of Dirty Tricks. Page 846: " Don't give them a chance to respond". That goes along with the other page in that same chapter of the Cuomo Book of Dirty Tricks that says, "Never mind all the fuss and furor, they all have a short attention span and will forget about it very quickly". They've learned well from their political leader. And why not, he appoints their Commissioner.

Written by a non-hunter but it seems like he really grasped the concept of how hunting plays an important role in conservation. http://www.gq.com/long-form/who-wants-to-shoot-an-elephant??mbid=nl_20150804_daily&spMailingID=7959117&spUserID=MTAyNDEwNjQ3NzY5S0&spJobID=740531155&spReportId=NzQwNTMxMTU1S0

um, they're harder to butcher....did you miss that?

Hey Biz Sounds like you want him to purchase the land for your future needs and not his Too bad

seriously, how could you make a guy, who holds out for and only kills big bucks, feel bad? I've never seen it....what are you gonna say to him "maybe one day when you learn how to hunt you can start killing yearlings"? on the other hand I've seen other hunters make derogatory remarks to total strangers about the small deer they've killed.......I have nothing but respect for the real trophy hunter, more power to him, But too often that's the same guy who'll look down his nose at the guy with the 1.5 year old buck because he killed the next potential trophy.........if you can show me otherwise, please do.

I don't see an attack on horn hunters at all here. Only point some of us are making is that horns are not what motivates us to hunt. You guys have a hard time believing it for some bizarre reason. People like Four Seasons tries to bring this horn factor up in thread after thread. To him horns are obviously everything along with a source of income and he can't fathom anyone else thinking differently. What else can we tell you guys? Should we tell you that you guys are right and that we are wrong and stupid just to make you feel good??

I agree with your Dad. There is nothing like having your own land to hunt, work and relax on. My place is in Delaware County also, I'm 57 years young and will buy more land if any becomes available that abuts mine. My neighbors think I'm nuts because I work dawn to dusk on food plots and forest improvement every time I'm there. I tell them the outdoor work is my mental therapy and that's the truth. Encourage him and help with what ever he wants to do. You only get one father in life. Maybe your father and I have evolved into having the satisfaction and pleasure of not needing to see herds of deer and 180" bucks, but knowing there is not another hunter sitting behind the next tree. There is nothing stopping him from hunting on his own land and taking trips also. It will also be a great place for grandchildren to bond with Grandpa

This is the best response I've seen. http://themeateater.com/2015/thoughts-on-african-lions-big-game-trophies-and-hunting-in-america/

jjb4900 No you’re not I choose to pass on small bucks the key word here is choose. But I don’t have a problem with whatever someone else shoots. I’m going to shake their hand whether it’s a spike or a 10pt. if you’re happy with it I’m happy for you. You’re the kind of guy I would hunt with. I won’t hunt with a guy who is only after big racks and then bitch that he see no bucks when he lets a 120 or 130 walk because he won’t shoot anything under 140. Then the guy mocks someone who shoots a deer smaller then one he would shoot. hunting not fun for guys like that they spend more time bitching and complaining what someone else is doing then hunting. their the ones who should get out of the sport.

Your ether sex tags or gun tag the way I just read it is still ether sex in the late season unless you are hunting in one of the antlerless only wmu’s. so if you choose to hunt one of those wmu’s then yes it’s does only. So it’s up to you move or hunt does.

Really depressing when The group that I am in, in the effected areas, have been trying to use education to show the benefits of letting 1.5's walk and then in the swipe of the pen it is back to ground zero.

So this is supposed to be a reason to make hunters kill more does ? Who in their right mind thinks that this will happen ? For one why not just issue doe permits for FREE ? That would be an incentive to harvest a couple more every year Secondly stop building on all this open country land pushing the populations into other areas I know that I will now not hunt for the 1st 2 weeks of bow season, I will not even step into the woods no big deal. But I will not muzzleload anymore so I guess when they get a hit in Albany on cash flow from a lot of western NY hunters that will do the same we will see what they think then. Where do they actaully think this stuff up

Where did I say that I was for this law or said that I didn't care because it didn't effect me?? I don't support it, but at the same time I won't lie and say what some want to hear around here, which is that I don't support it because I can no longer kill a buck. Which according to some of you is the ONLY reason why ALL hunters go hunting. That's the BS part that you guys are injecting into this conversation.

I didn't hear anyone say they were quitting. Just spending less time in the woods. Therefore less chances to harvest deer... and the regulation change totally backfiring on the DEC.

I'd really like someone to name these people who are supposedly crying over not being able to kill a buck? Most of the people who might be complaining have made it no secret that killing a big buck is what drives them in hunting. Who are the rest of the complainers here? I didn't see any. Getting some meat is what drives me, and this new law has ZERO effect on me since I've never hunted in that area. My complaint would be that this law will do absolutely little to nothing to bring down the doe population since bowhunters kill very few deer. Not being able to kill a buck would get NO complaints from me if someone handed me a handful of doe tags instead. Some here are desperately attempting to get their lame point across that the biggest motivation for ALL hunters is to collect antlers which is BS. You guys have completely FAILED in trying to convince anyone that this is true.

I will be 74 this hunting season .... There is no way in hell that I wouldn't be out there on October 1st after a doe .

When the deer is coming in and the bow can be drawn unnoticed ( deer passes some bushes , tree , had head down , etc ) .

Send her this..... Winston-Salem, N.C. — MY mind was absorbed by the biochemistry of gene editing when the text messages and Facebook posts distracted me. So sorry about Cecil. Did Cecil live near your place in Zimbabwe? Cecil who? I wondered. When I turned on the news and discovered that the messages were about a lion killed by an American dentist, the village boy inside me instinctively cheered: One lion fewer to menace families like mine. My excitement was doused when I realized that the lion killer was being painted as the villain. I faced the starkest cultural contradiction I’d experienced during my five years studying in the United States. Did all those Americans signing petitions understand that lions actually kill people? That all the talk about Cecil being “beloved” or a “local favorite” was media hype? Did Jimmy Kimmel choke up because Cecil was murdered or because he confused him with Simba from “The Lion King”? In my village in Zimbabwe, surrounded by wildlife conservation areas, no lion has ever been beloved, or granted an affectionate nickname. They are objects of terror. Photo Protesters have called for the death of the hunter who killed Cecil the lion. Credit Eric Miller/Reuters When I was 9 years old, a solitary lion prowled villages near my home. After it killed a few chickens, some goats and finally a cow, we were warned to walk to school in groups and stop playing outside. My sisters no longer went alone to the river to collect water or wash dishes; my mother waited for my father and older brothers, armed with machetes, axes and spears, to escort her into the bush to collect firewood. A week later, my mother gathered me with nine of my siblings to explain that her uncle had been attacked but escaped with nothing more than an injured leg. The lion sucked the life out of the village: No one socialized by fires at night; no one dared stroll over to a neighbor’s homestead. When the lion was finally killed, no one cared whether its murderer was a local person or a white trophy hunter, whether it was poached or killed legally. We danced and sang about the vanquishing of the fearsome beast and our escape from serious harm. Recently, a 14-year-old boy in a village not far from mine wasn’t so lucky. Sleeping in his family’s fields, as villagers do to protect crops from the hippos, buffalo and elephants that trample them, he was mauled by a lion and died. The killing of Cecil hasn’t garnered much more sympathy from urban Zimbabweans, although they live with no such danger. Few have ever seen a lion, since game drives are a luxury residents of a country with an average monthly income below $150 cannot afford. Don’t misunderstand me: For Zimbabweans, wild animals have near-mystical significance. We belong to clans, and each clan claims an animal totem as its mythological ancestor. Mine is Nzou, elephant, and by tradition, I can’t eat elephant meat; it would be akin to eating a relative’s flesh. But our respect for these animals has never kept us from hunting them or allowing them to be hunted. (I’m familiar with dangerous animals; I lost my right leg to a snakebite when I was 11.) The American tendency to romanticize animals that have been given actual names and to jump onto a hashtag train has turned an ordinary situation — there were 800 lions legally killed over a decade by well-heeled foreigners who shelled out serious money to prove their prowess — into what seems to my Zimbabwean eyes an absurdist circus. PETA is calling for the hunter to be hanged. Zimbabwean politicians are accusing the United States of staging Cecil’s killing as a “ploy” to make our country look bad. And Americans who can’t find Zimbabwe on a map are applauding the nation’s demand for the extradition of the dentist, unaware that a baby elephant was reportedly slaughtered for our president’s most recent birthday banquet. Continue reading the main story Write A Comment We Zimbabweans are left shaking our heads, wondering why Americans care more about African animals than about African people. Don’t tell us what to do with our animals when you allowed your own mountain lions to be hunted to near extinction in the eastern United States. Don’t bemoan the clear-cutting of our forests when you turned yours into concrete jungles. And please, don’t offer me condolences about Cecil unless you’re also willing to offer me condolences for villagers killed or left hungry by his brethren, by political violence, or by hunger. Goodwell Nzou is a doctoral student in molecular and cellular biosciences at Wake Forest University.

I pass plenty of doe and also buck for that matter. But every year I still take 2 with one of the 3 weapons I'm allowed to hunt with. So why is the government now telling me when I should take the doe? And in fact asking me to pay extra for the privilege to take a doe? I disagree that bow hunters hunt only for an opportunity for a good buck. I believe bow hunters are just more passionate about hunting. They started with gun and then saw an opportunity to spend more time in the woods and learned how to bow hunt. It's warmer and more of a challenge. It's more peaceful and the deer aren't spooked. Not every gun hunter bow hunts, but 90%+ of us bow hunter do gun hunt. So yes, bow hunters do go after buck, but it's not because we're all trophy hunters, we're just more in to hunting than some average gun hunters. 2.5 months in the woods and if you're lucky to hunt good land you're going to be more selective than the guy who just hunts opening weekend. It's statistically impossible for bowhunters to manage the herds and expecting them to is asinine. Furthermore when and where did it become the bow hunters job? Why can't the orange army manage the herd? That's the whole argument. You have a problem with doe you say, but put ZERO regulations into affect for the gun hunter!

Seems like there was a host of opportunities to increase their doe take without screwing so many hunters. They started the license year on September 1st a couple years ago. They could have popped in a week or two in September for a gun season that was doe only. They could have done over the counter sales for these areas rather than a draw. They could have removed the Doe tag fee for these areas I just don't get why they chose the least productive weapons to put the burden on and why any change has to be more restrictive rather than increasing opportunity.

We went on a Brook trout fishing trip last weekend and had an absolute blast! The amount of Brookies we caught was pushing 300's, even though they weren't anything big they fought like little rabid great whites. You can read the full article here..... Brookie Mania

Sounds like a nice weekend. Have fun in the woods! No better place to be!

Pics or it didn't happen.

nah, actually that's not too far of a stretch..........but on the other hand, the real problem is not guns, it's the unchecked mentally ill, so you gotta control one of em............the question is, which one?

so he buys property 1.5-2 hours away, is he just gonna do day trips there? why wouldn't you want a cabin, even a small basic one to be able to multiday trips, or just to get outta the weather

Nope, didnt miss that gem.

If your crossbow is so effective and easy, with all the does running around, there should be no reason for you to be less selective and eat tag soup. You should be knocking down does like crazy.

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the trophy hunter still will. Average joe wont. Do you not know the same hunters I do? Need to shoot horns every year no matter what?

use it or lose it. that is exactly what it is. not only does this regulation remove some of our rights, it sends our age structure plummeting.

Finally got them where I want them..... these aren't all of them but it's got the ones from last years trip... First should be the huge blue wildebeest I took... Second one from left to right is Gemsbok (2012), Springbuck (2012), wife's red hartabeest, wife's impala and my black wildebeest Third pic is the Kudu pedestal mount... has the back skin in the base...

A guy like that oughta be happy if another Hunter tags out on a small buck anyway!

Kind of sort of. What they do is cap how many dmps you can get in that area. Makes zero sense.Also, they lowered the allocations for dmps from 14 to 15 in most or all of the wmus impacted. We have a problem, but its not as bad, but were still going to implement a season like this...to do what? Its much easier sell if they had raised allocations and removed limits. Instead there are limits and a reduced allocation. Not consistent with their story.

Honestly, I never found it to be very different shooting seated or standing other than trying to shoot to my right seated. That I cannot do.

I think this is more of the problem. And personally I wouldn't mind it as much if it was presented and adequate opportunity was given to debate it. Hell, I don't even remember this being a considered option in their very expensive hunter poll. If I believed for a minute that this would actually work I could swallow it easier but I can't see a scenario where this achieves the desired results.

That is exactly the kind of hunter the DEC believes we all are. They continue the war on bowhunters and we have all been conditioned to obediently fall into lockstep and wait for the other shoe to drop. Yes they have reason to assume that everyone will simply take it. That is our history and they know it. But, maybe not all of us.

I don't know what the logic is behind this. It is very rare that I get to the cabin in early October to hunt. Of course this does not come into play in 8P. There was a post about why you deer hunt. Just being in the woods is great, so much for killing a buck until the two weeks are over for some of you guys. There is no logic here in the decision and I would just move on until you are really poked in the eye! lol

Consider this: 2-3 miies is really nothing for a big buck to travel looking for doe. I understand your point of view but those unusual bucks might have been kicked out by a more dominant or bad tempered buck if you can believe that. Sometimes just down the road has better deer due to agriculture or urban landscape and again soil is usually the reason. The other issue is some genes are passed on by the doe. You could see a similar rack with no brow tines from all her offspring as a trait. Or all the doe in the area could have a no brow tine as a trait. Then the buck from 3 miles down the road comes to bread them and his brows are over 8 inches. Yet her offspring still have no brow tines. Until 2 more generations are breed with the bucks down the road. Maybe? Or the doe with the trait is remove? One thing is for sure good soil with good nutrition equals healthy deer. Large forest do not usually provide the food deer need to thrive. As a hunter of public land you are right on the money for the most part. Large heavy canopy woods are poor deer habitat. The rack deformities I believe are from poor food quality and abundance plus genes will dictate shape unless injured. No brow tines is a quality in a specific area and I would believe it is from the doe if consistently seen. Just a theory...

Lot of compounds can be turned to 10% hold or lower. Even at 80% let off, 12# on a 60# bow is the holding weight. Easy to hold a minute or more. If seated, draw, rest the cam on your leg and several minutes is possible to hold and still make a good shot.

Oh Man!!!! Be Careful where you tread. I believe i have been saying this all day and i am the biggest SOB around...Some have pretty short memories thats for sure. Antlers mean everything to 99% of the hunters out there but they are just afraid to admit it for some reason. Sad Really!

Hell, then they don't even have to wait for hunting season to start or even buy a hunting license if they want to do whatever they please on their own land. That's BS. Many of your posts point to landowners doing whatever they want in terms of game management on their land, but once they start violating the law, then we are talking about something completely different. Free ranging game is NOT owned by the landowners in NYS or any other U.S. state that I am aware of. There is a difference between free ranging and game farm animals.

If genetics was first then releasing a huge buck in the wild from a pen would result in huge racks in the wild,if a penned deer escapes it rack will diminish in size every year it lives in the wild assuming it was mature when it escaped,as stress of breeding, and lack of nutrition take its toll on its health. Though the genetic potential is passed on it does not appear due to nutrition defencies

Maybe it was a goat because she wanted kids.

That is the key right there. Don't move so much! It does not matter what camo you use if you are adjusting your hat, swatting at bugs, standing up and sitting down, whipping your head around with every noise you hear, the deer will pick up that movement every time. I hunt 90 percent from the ground now, mix and match light, dark, and different patterns depending where I'm going to set up. I don't get too concerned about the camo, as just sitting still and being quiet will make a bigger difference. And if still hunting, same thing. Move slow! When you think you are moving too slow, move slower. Pause by a tree or brush to break up your outline. You are doing it right, when you see them before they see you on a consistent basis.