beachpeaz

And I am an avid bow hunter. I will pick up a bow over a gun any day. So I am not speaking from a gun hunter mentality here. I completely understand how close you need to be to the trail. As I just mentioned though, try putting them down the trail further and you woudl be surprised at the results.

Agreed. To each their own. I have acutally move more and more away from trail cameras the past 2 years. I still use them very selectively, but when i first started using them a few years ago, I was the guy putting them on the trail and then hanging a stand next to it.......and never saw those bucks again. I've have learned to be much more strategic in using cameras...and in some cases not even putting one up. Again, just my opinion.

It can be on the same trail, just not right in front of your stand. Put the camera's 100 or 200 yards down the trail in the direction that they most often travel so they hit the cameras AFTER your stand location. I think Phade already said this, but it won't do you any good to have a picture of a buck on a camera that doesn't walk by that spot again because of either the camera or your scent. In fact, last year I didn't even put my cameras up in my main hunting area. Why? I KNOW there are some trophy deer every year. I trust my field skills enough to read sign and understand there travel routes to give myself the best chance at getting one each year. I will take my best chance at those bucks without even a 1% chance of spooking them (because I have had that issue of deer being spooked). Cameras have only been around for a decade. Before that, hunters have shot trophy deer for hundreds of years without them. To me (and this is just my opinion) the cameras can cause more harm than good sometimes. Thats just me, doesn't mean that works for you.

The answer is absolutely yes if they are not used to them. If you manage a large plot of land and have 100 cameras all over like you see on a TV show, and the deer are used to getting their picture taken day and night everywhere they go, I am sure they start to get used to it.....eventually. However, for us amateurs, who throw up just a couple, do so only in the fall, and then check them once and a while, you will 100% without a doubt effect the deer movement. You leave scent no matter what you do. if nothing else, just the scent of you being there and the scent from you on the camera will make the deer weary. I tend to put my cameras in areas I know I can get pictures of the bucks, but not near any of my tree stands. Even if a deer shifts its pattern by 100 yards to avoid a camera, that can be detrimental to hunting. Use cameras as a generic inventory of what the property holds, use your brain and the sign to narrow down where they are and where they move to effectively hunt them. Be smart about them and they can be used to your advantage. Be careless and the only thing you will ever have hanging on your wall are pictures.

You absolutely need to call the DEC. They could be known guys in the area that have been busted before. Usually law enforcement knows EXACTLY what door to knock on first. Regardless if they shot or not, it is illegal to be doing anything associated to huntiing out of season (AKA: carrying a gun and a decoy would be the same penelty as if they had shot the actual turkey). If nothing else, it sends a message to people when the DEC do start knocking on some doors (and they will if you have proof on a camera). Do not let it go un-reported. If everyone who encountered the same issues you did reported it, we would have a much better hunting experience. Unfortunately, most people turn a blind eye which just reinforces bad habits!

Because you mentioned lubing the tip....

I was mad the first year the rolled that out and muttered as I went through the online training how stupid it was. However, stepping out of my shell and looking at the big picture (and the issues i face in my area here in NYS with shed hunters), I could see the value in doing it and understand why they decided to do it. Our DEC is WAY less active in enforcing anything than these western states (like UT) that have HUGE crowds come in for the limited draws so this would another responsibility for them to be out in the spring checking certificates and writing tickts....which, we both know will never happen. If you can't enforce it, don't create it. I can wish upon a star though. Even if it helped 10% and weeded out the 1%, i think it would be benefitial. If nothing else, it would remind people some common sense things that would help deer survival rates comes late winter.

I couldn't agree more! Personally, i enjoy my walks. After a long winter, there is nothing like getting some old fashion excercize and walking miles and miles. And, the reward when you do find one is awesome because they are so hard to find.

LOVE this little article!! I wish it was required that you take a course on shed hunting and need a certificate to do so that includes information like this. If you think that is far fetched, states ARE doing that. I have to take an annual online course to get a shed hunting certificate for Utah now. All shed hunters have to. It reminds even the most moral of us hunters about habitat destruction (when idiots drive their wheelers and snowmobiles over the limited browse feed the deer have left at the end of winter), chasing deer out of areas and exhausting energy they don't have after a tough winter, obtaining the antlers ethically (without traps), and, in Utah, you can't pick up antlers still attched to the skull plate (dead heads) due to poaching issues. You have to leave them, and report them! I know people will be mad at me for even bringing this up, but I would love for NYS to make everyone who plans on picking up even a single shed to do a 15 minute online course every year and carry that certificate with them.

You are required to use their online system to put in for draws for whatever hunt you are trying to do. In order to create that account, you have to enter you hunter ID from whatever state you obtained it. It is then permanently on record for you to succesfully draw a tag and hunt. The regulation may in fact have some ridiculous old verbiage about having that on you, but it would never, ever be enforced. I would presume that is from teh old school days before computers when people had to literally carry all sorts of paper around with them because nothing was on file. Not arguing the regulation. I just know from experience that having your number is needed to even be in the CO system, which then allows you to hunt legally with or without actually have that certificate.

I am surprised that someone isn't all over the Mylar balloon issue. For how sensative the EPA is now days (most of it total politcal BS), you would think having these things littering the world and NEVER biodegrating, should be an issue. 1,000,000 years from now, some advance race is going to find human skeletons, living cockroaches and f'n mylar ballons....lmao. Not to mention they are a major fire hazard when they get hung up on power lines!

I agree 100%. I have major problems with tresspassing and won't flinch one iota on calling the authorities. My wooded property butts up against a large field. A couple years ago some idiot goose hunters were on the field as my brother and I were walking the wood line. All of a sudden, these guys start shooting over our heads and towards my brothers house. The pellets actually put holes in his siding. They were taken away in handcuffs. I have zero tolerance for tresspassing. That is part of what pissed me off with the trap. It was apparent who and why. I probably should have called the DEC...you are correct. Hindsight is always 20/20. In the moment though, it made me smile destroying it considering the person who did it easily spent 5 or 6 hours constructing this elaborate set-up not including the amount of time carrying all that shit that far into the woods with all the snow we had this winter. If he puts it back up, i will for sure report him (after I trap him in his own trap in his own yard...lmao).

You just went off the assumption that you can trust any polititian. The sooner people realize there is no "left" and "right" any more, but one large, corrupt, self-serving government, the sooner we can take back control of this country, our rights and our freedoms.

That is also what I have been under the impression of. I hear they are realitively ineffective and that it has to be a MAJOR coincidence that the deer is there in a very short window AND hits his antler. The one I came across that I did take down was much more elaborate than someone taking that chance. It was easily 30' around. Someone wasn't taking any chances with "chance." we will see if they try to put it back up again.....

We will find out. Bail me out if they aren't please. lmao.

I should have taken a photo of the 2 I came across, but didn't. In its simplest form (and don't get any ideas...lol) imagine 3 metal fence stakes driven into the ground in the shape of a Triangle. usually a couple feet in diameter. Now wrap chicken wire around the triangle. Lastly, pour some found inside or around the base so when the deer bend over to eat, in theory, the antlers hit the fence and fall off (or get stuck and ripped off). o / \ food / \ food / \ o --------- o food You have to at least dig my keyboard drawing...lol.

Those are legitimate questions G-Man. Like I said, not trying to start a pissing contest. The first one was on private property and I presume done by the neighbors. It was in a sneaky spot as to not be seen. NO possible way it was set up for easy access. The second one was on public property, and I left it up (against my better judgement). I didn't say that I found them last week or that I though they were put up after all the sheds were off. These were deliberate attempts at knocking antlers off during the peak time for that happening AND all had food around them (cracked corn). Which, regardless of the purpose of the trap, feeding deer is not benefitial to them and shouldn't be done. There is nothing to report. Antler traps are not illegal. Yes, feeding the deer is, but go ahead and prove who put it there. This was in a large track of woods with lots of neighbors. Plausible deniabilty would prevail. And no, it was absolutely not some sting operation, lol. I have seen 1 wildlife / DEC guy in my 35 years of hunting this area and that is only because I called him due to tresspassers. Research project...lol. Even better. I know who put the one up and I know what the purpose was. If he does it again, next time I will take it down and make it a human trap in his yard.

I was going to join this fun conversation, but you took the words right out of my mouth. I could not have wrote this better had I taken the next day to organize my thoughts. The problem with Liberas are, they lack common sense and intelligence to know when they are wrong. They don't know how to change. They sure as hell don't have the best interst of the greater good in mind. Liberals only care about the 1% despite screwing the 99%. What they don't realize is no matter how much they change, bitch, scream, etc, there will always be the 1% ers. You have to accept that and move on. We are breading a society of leaches with no moral compass and a sense of entitlement. A very dangerous combination that will crumble the society if it continues for much longer. I am signing off of this topic thread because polictics is a lose lose conversation. I don't need to get aggrevated today reading the idiocy that people will type. Thanks for posting this!

I have heard people bring these up in this forum. Some people even have posted pictures. I know it is a controversial topic.....not trying to start a pissing contest. I have never experienced one first hand until shed hunting this year when I came across 2 of them! Personally speaking, I think they are unethical and they piss me off. I took extra time to take both of them down and make sure it was obvious that it wasn't the wind. Both were the fenced variety with food poured around them. What are peoples thoughts on these contraptions? I know feeding the deer in NYS is illegal, so by association the antler trap should be also since you can't possibly have a trap without food! In fact, I am surprised there are not regulations on things like this especially in NYS that regulates EVERYTHING. What pisses me off even more is I enjoy the challenge of shed hunting every year. I walk 100 hours or more in a year. It is not supposed to be easy. People looking to cheat the system....any system....I just don't have any respect for. Curious if I am in the minority here.

sweet! My type of course.

My brother-in-law who lives in Utah comes here whitetail hunting with me every year (in trade for me Mule Deer hunting). In Utah, you do the hunter safety course, and you are good for ALL weapons. Unlike NY with the absoltely RIDICULOUS need to make people take an extra archery class. So, the first time he came here to bow hunt, we had to jump through a ton of hoops. He has no "specific" archery ed certificate, just the general hunting one that is good for all hunting in UT. He needed to bring his old archerty tag with him, with a letter from the DWS in Utah.....PLUS, and thankfully for this, I know someone at the local town office where you can buy licenses and she was able to assist us in the process. NY makes EVERYTHING more difficultI (and expensive).

Shame on them then. They SHOULD have to take the class again. Cheating the system will always bite you in the ass.

Someone is trying to squeeze you for extra money...lol. I have NO clue where my certificate is. I took that class 25 years ago. I have hunted in Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Canada, etc. YES, they require you to know your hunter ID # to create an account and apply for a draw. That is 100% correct. However, they do NOT need the actual certificate, just the number off of it. You can obtain that from your DEC office, just like I did. If you have purchased a single license in NYS, then your number is on file.

No, in the middle of the stinkin woods!

He Larry.....you have some questions to answer my friend....lol. Do you ride a deer in the woods?