beachpeaz

Thats what I thought. It would appear the sentence got deleted that said: "it first came in the area at 7:15 and after milling around for what seemed like an enternity, I shot it at around 7:45." lol.

This is a loaded question quite honestly. Most people don't have a clue why they see more deer in the morning or the afternoon. They just assume that the hunting is better in one or the other based on the deer they see. What it really indicates is where your stand is located. If you are hunting a bedding area, you are more prone to have better morning activity. If you are hunting a food source, you are more prone to have better afternoon activity. This is a generalized statement of course, but much more indictive than public opinion of deer movement. 100% of the deer I have shot in my life have been in the morning. Does that mean afternoon activity sucks on those years? No. It means that my stands are strategically located. I rarely hunt food sources.

Just a heads up, the vultures in here are going to be all over you shortly for posting that you shot a deer illegally. If that was shot in NY, "legal" sunrise isn't until almost 7:30. You may want to "revise" your story a bit. Just sayin.

Too me, this is the most important thing you can do. In all my years of hunting, I would say that less than 1% of the time I have ever been able to have the luxory of rangefinding the deer just prior to shooting. I ALWAYS use my rangefinder to locate benchmarks around my stand and then field judge based on those. My buck last year was 38 yards. He walked just behind a tree I marked at 35 yards. I had ZERO time due to him sneaking in and being a second from dissapearing again. So important.

No way that deer survived. We once almost lost a deer that only went 200 yards from where he was hit. He dropped into a creek bottom and then crawled up on the backside of a huge grey rock. It was uncanny how camo'd he was from view. We walked right past him (4 of us). We eventually found him, but almost didn't. Deer find a way to get the last laugh some how.

Ya mean the deer you are hunting?? lol. SMH. Would hate to still be in my stand when they finally come out in the field.

make soup.

lol. It sure seems that way. I travel a ton for my job and seriously, I have yet to find anywhere on this continent that has as many idiots as NYS does.

So, you sat ALL day just to leave at the best possible time to hunt?? Why not just leave at noon and save yourself the trouble?

The hunters of this state lack common sense thus why our useless DEC has a "sunrise to sunset" rule. That is about as vague as saying a deer generally weighs between 10 and 500 pounds. The fact is, there is safe shooting light sometimes 30 minutes or more before sunrise and sometimes there is NOT safe shooting light 30 minutes or more after sunrise. Same with sunset. Thats why most other states are 30 minutes BEFORE sunrise to 30 minutes AFTER sunset for "legal" shooting light. They rely on common sense that if, at 30 minutes before sunrise it is not safe, you don't shoot. Without that idiotic law in NY though, people would be flinging lead in the pitch black with a flashlight (not that we all haven't heard those shots already).

My aplogies Belo. I even wrote that I wasn't tryign to go that route, but contributed to the mess. It just pisses me off when people downplay poaching. As stated though, not worth my time to argue and I am done with it. I hope this post resumes a normal intended purpose for you. It will from my side.

It was an EXAMPLE dude, good grief. And maybe they had 36 permits and shot 40 deer. You are just proving my point. The more permits you have, the EASIER it is to shoot extra deer without anyone knowing. You can shoot 12, you think anyone could tell if you shot 13 instead? Probably not with 600 lbs of venison in your freezer. If you only had 1 tag, you think it would be obvious if you had 600lbs of venison in your freezer??? That would be one big deer if that were the case.

Wow, so the moderator of this forum is saying that poaching is no big deal. You are entitled to your opinion I suppose. I believe that all life deserves the highest level of respect. Poaching is a big deal. The taking of a life illegally doesn't sit well with me. You can justify it any way you want, but that will never make it "insignificant." I'm done with this conversation. Not worth my energy debating with people on a very black & white topic.

Agreed, thats why I put in my rant that exact sentence. It isn't that simple though. They could hire 1,000 more officials, but they don't WANT to enforce the regs. Poaching in NYS is not that big of a deal (clearly). They need an actual program to stop it, they have to WANT to stop it and THEN they need to hire the people to enforce it. This is all fantasy land. I have not, in my 30+ years of being in a tree stand, ever run into a game warden. I have not once ever been stopped at any check point, I have not once ever been visited at a taxidermist or butcher shop. Not in 30 years. Nobody in my family or friend circle I hunt with has ever either. That is a testatment to the importance they put on hunting legally in NYS.

Not by the definition of our DEC. I know that sentence sounds counter intuitive, but it is a reality. People like me, who get to shoot 2 bucks basically (bow and gun) its not hard to track. 2 deer, 2 tags, 2 phone calls. Done. If a DEC official ever wanted to check my freezer, or garage, or trophy room, it would be very easy to count and verify. On the flip side, I run into people who have nuisence permits, dmp tags, their family have tags that they "share," etc. What happens, is people go out and shoot as many deer as they want. I have an acquintance who, between him and his 2 sons, shoot probably 10 deer every year. I promise you they don't have 10 tags, maybe more like 6 or 7 total between them. They shoot so many deer, half of them are cut up in the freezer before they are ever tagged. Sure, they use their 6 tags and make it look legal and nobody knows the difference. There is no way in hell you could ever really tell if they shot 7 or 8 or 9. They know it and the DEC knows it. This is rampant in NYS.

And other states ACTUALLY enforce the laws. Some states poaching is a felony offense punishable by serious jail time. If you read the entire post and not just pulled a sentence out of it, I said coupled with a lack of enforcement it encourages poaching. What stops "dad" from shooting a buck with his kid next to him for the "youth season" with no enforcement? The answer is the actual enforement of the law and knowing it will be enforced. And way to equate NY's lack of enforcement on Poaching with the Middle East. Are you not ending the life of an animal? This isn't a small offense. You equate that to stealing a candy bar. Come on man. We are not talking about accidently shooting at 450' verse 500' from a dwelling. It goes without saying that it should be done legally and humanely!

Wow, a golf reference. There is a first for everything in this forum. lol.

And no chance that deer scores 120". Not that score matters, just stating a fact. A trophy is all in the eyes of the shooter. I am sure you will get 100 opinions and arguments, but if you shoot him and score him, you can come back in here and settle that argument once and for all, but I am taking the under for sure.

Lol. Fawns are born anywhere from April all the way to August. Depends when she got knocked up. Do some research.

There are probably a handful that are the worst of the worst who don't give a hoot about any laws, regs or licenses. However, I would bet that a vast majority of poached deer are taken by "legitimate" hunters who buy a license to be less conspicuous. I think the fear of never being able to legitimately hunt again would discourage A LOT of people from pulling that trigger a day early, an hour late, a mile in the wong direction, etc. It would at least be a start! What we have now is a joke.

When they change the speed limit on the road, do you get a year to do the old speed limit? Since it is new and all?

NYS = the biggest poaching state in all the land. Period. The DEC practically encourages it with the ridiculous amount of permits handed out, "youth" gun hunts during bow season, now "Units" where you can and can't shoot deer, zero field personnel monitoring laws then, Throw on top of that the fact that you don't even get in trouble for breaking the law......disgusting. I'm all for a lifetime ban. Jail time. Hefty fines. All of the above. You break the law, you pay. You are the one responsible to know the law. Ignorance as a reason doesn't sit well with me.

This was already said....many times.....but to reiterate before you start overthinking, getting frustrated, losing confidence and worst yet buying new equipment, do NOT drop your bow arm at release. Sounds simple, but we all do it. I caught myself doing it a couple weeks ago. I started shooting low so I was checking my sight, my peep, etc and everything checked out. Realized I wasn't watching the shot hit the target before I lowered my bow. That split second was causing low shots. SOOOOOOO common!!! Shooting from a tree stand, at a close range target will amplify that even more. Watch your arrow hit your target from the same shooting position where you let it go.

Mock scrapes to me are more of an inventory tool than a hunting tool. Early season you may be succesful in finding a deer working a scrape line, but more than likely at night. I've found more frustration in hunting a specific scrape than success. They do however give you good intel of the area to locate bedding and food sources if you do your homework. That is where the money is at! I have a set of pictures from a scrape that has at least 7 different bucks visiting it daily. They are a major communication piece for deer. We set a stand location about 30 yards from it and I put a friend in that location. He hunted an entire week without a single sighting of any of the mature bucks that visited it (yeah, he could have shot a 1.5 year old 4 point, but I assume that is not what you are after). Don't get caught up in a single hunting sigh, but use them all to your advantage.

Yeah, without turning this post the wrong direction, there isPLENTY of chatter going around about this. I know a lot of people who are reporting doe harvest even though they are not actually shooting one just to appease this ridiculous DEC reg. There are people who will shoot a buck and just mark a differnt "legal" zone on it. There are people who will shoot it early and mark it 10/15. Watch in amazement as 10/15 is an all-time record buck harvest! That is because a crap ton of deer will be shot before then and just called in on 10/15. Nobody in my inner circle because I wouldn't tolerate any illegal activity, but plenty of chatter around town of it going on. Goes to show how incompetitent our DEC truly is.