New York Hillbilly

Thank you! Hamilton is about 15 miles from me. I'll check them out.

Any information greatly appreciated. I typically cut my own deer, however this year I would like to have it professionally done. In the past I have taken deer to Nolt's in Lowville but the drive is 1 1/2 hour each way. They do a great job and happy with their products but would like to find someone closer. Can anyone share with me who is cutting deer in the Utica/Rome area and if you have personally used their services Thank you!

Sure thing! I'll try to send it this morning. : )

Wow, sounds like you had a lot of deer activity. Not nearly as busy here the past 2 days, but I did take the nice 10 point with that Weatherby 30.06. Finally gave it a little action, and boy oh boy is it an accurate son of a ...well...gun. lol

Welcome to the hunting world. Working as a police officer is a tough gig. Respect! 1. There are folks on this site from the city, and all seem real nice. I hope they contact you. 2. When you buy your license check the syllabus for the maps of public hunting as a place to start. You might even make some contacts here, and get an invite to go along. 3. Check online for field dressing tips. Not so hard really, just messy and takes a little time until you get experienced at it. 4. Yes the whole head goes to the taxidermist if you choose to have it mounted, Also, read up on the difference between caping a deer you expect to mount versus a deer you plan to just saw the skull cap and keep the antlers. Good luck on your journey!

Nice deer. Congrats! : )

For those interested: I posted the story about my this morning buck on the 2019 Gun Harvest thread. : )

After almost second guessing myself on where to sit, I purposely reminded myself not to do it. I decided to stick to the plan and climb back into the stand I was in last evening without seeing any deer. With all the tracks I figured it was just a matter of time, and with knowledge from so many past seasons here, I know well how bucks seem to like sneaking through this spot from feeding to bedding areas. They keep themselves under cover of goldenrod and brush as they follow the contour of the ground from a scrub apple orchard in a ravine on one side of the field to about 70 acres of much the same on the other side. The 70 acre side almost never smells of humans because I have kept it off limits even to myself as a sanctuary for them. This morning I also decided I would not make myself sit in the dark for so long waiting for sunrise. On mornings this cold it seemed pointless to sit and freeze while praying nothing comes by until its after official shooting time. I did not want to be frozen solid in the dark like yesterday, so I got on stand by 6:30. I drove my poor old 4 wheeler up to my stand and buried it head on into the about 1/4 acre brushy island that sits right in front of my stand at the field edge. I put the wheeler to the up hill side of the brush island so it would not be seen by deer if they followed the trails I expected. In the end it did not seem to matter. The four wheeler was in plain view to me from my stand being only about 20 yards from my ladder. Once in my stand I got things adjusted and in position. I broke a couple branches to make sure my barrel wouldn't bump into one when I raised my rifle if a deer cam down the trails. One branch was too big and green to snap, so I gnawed at it with my knife until it looked beaver chewed, then I broke it off with a loud snap. Now my ball cap hung on one broken tree branch and my blaze orange hat on another branch, and yet another held my grunt tube. With all my clothing and paraphernalia hanging in the tree it looked like a hunters Christmas tree meets Charlie Brown. Now I was ready for action. Nothing was going to mess with this plan. The deer would come out of the corner, follow the trail, walk broadside to my right and into my natural swing. Lucy would not pull the deer football and have me land on my back this time. Ok. Somebody forgot to explain the play to the buck! As I was all comfortable standing up against the tree, snug with rifle up, and pointed in the right direction, suddenly appears a buck. A nice rack buck by my standards! Big bodied and light colored rack that I thought was an eight pointer, I never had to ask myself if he was a shooter. This was destiny as far as I was concerned. I planned it this way and the pieces were going to fall into place. That is until he decided to screw with my plan. Instead of walking straight down the trail to my right and into my shooting lane, he decides to turn and begin walking up the field placing the brushy island between me and him. I managed to keep my cool as I saw things starting to go a different direction, but I had to tell myself to get a grip. I pulled my rifle back from where it was rested, trying to avoid being seen or heard if the barrel bumped anything. He kept walking in my general direction but diagonally and to my left. Then instead of walking around the island he takes a short cut right through it and I'm certain at this time he is going to walk right into my 4 wheeler. As it happened he cut through the island and I briefly lost sight of him. Now I was getting nervous! Trying to not get frantic searching for him, knowing he can't be more than 30 yards from me, I saw him again. There he is basically broadside, about 10 yards from my 4 wheeler, head up alert but not necessarily alarmed yet. He just had that " hey something is up" look. I knew that was going to change quickly when he figured out what was up was me! With the scope at its lowest setting I quickly put the cross hairs on his head, followed his neck down to its base as far as I could where his body became engulfed in goldenrod, and touched off the shot. He immediately disappeared from my sight. I figured he dropped from the impact, but this is deer hunting and I know too well anything can happen. I ejected the spent shot and reloaded as soon as I fired. I stood with my rifle at the ready in case I caught any movement but there was none. After about a 1/2 hour I began to wonder if he was laying there dead, laying there wounded and ready to bolt if I got down, or if I somehow missed and he beat feet out of there. I was stunned how close he came to my 4 wheeler presenting for the shot, and if dead, what good fortune to have him expire basically next to it saving me any drag at all. Unable to fight the curiosity any further I unloaded my rifle and quietly climbed down the ladder. Once on the ground I put 2 rounds back in the rifle and snuck as quiet as I could on the crunchy snow up the field edge, rifle up and in his direction, but off to the side in case he was alive and decided to head my way. It took me just a few moments to peek down into the goldenrod and see him laying dead exactly where he was shot. I walked up to him, watched for breathing, poked his eye, and confirming he was dead, knelt down and rubbed his side giving thanks. I had to count his points twice to convince myself I had finally after all these years and all these deer actually taken a ten point buck. At 60 years old I actually felt like a kid again. Edit: PS. To show the distance between deer and wheeler. If you enlarge the picture of the brush, to the left you can make out my 4 wheeler. And, further left, on the other side of the tree in the picture, and a bit higher in the frame than the wheeler you can see a yellow apple. The brush beyond the apple is where the deer stood and dropped.

One shot one kill! : ) At 7:18 this morning. 10 point. Will share cool story in a bit.

Stood in a different stand for the afternoon hunt. Saw zero deer while on afternoon watch, saw one as it stood in the brush and watched me ride by on my wheeler on way back to the house. Saw the first gray fox I've seen in years. It was eating frozen apples off the ground for probably 20 minutes before it wandered off. Back at it in the morning. This time at my uncles old stand for old times sake.

It sucks that my phone carrier from Alaska is so bad here. I can't even call or text from my stand to the house just down the hill from me while I'm up there. I can't read this site or post from my stand so I need to get caught up when I get back to the house. I came off my stand at 10:45 to check in at the house so my wife didn't get worrying. Plus, my feet froze so badly with these Alaska boots against the metal of the stand, when I got to the house and checked my toes, not only were they painful but 2 then felt numb as they warmed and stayed white colored. Nervous! First shot heard was at 6:15 (single) followed by 3 more quick shots one minute later, 6:16. Bunch of nuts! Saw one button buck at 6:45 or so, about 20 yards, and watched him quietly walk through. Then at 7:30 3 does followed by a steady stream of more does that I stopped counting because they were trotting around in the bushes and I couldn't keep track. Then in the same group one definite buck chasing a doe in big circles until they went down into an orchard. Just before going down I had three nice size does walking single file straight to me until about about 20 yards. The lead doe caught my scent, stopped, and looked directly up into my stand. I didn't make I contact and she stayed for a couple minutes before turning broadside and then stiff leg walked back where they came from. Her partners got the message and turned and walked away as she took up their lead. Back at the house worrying over my toes, and thanks to my wonderful Mr.s I'm eating the delicious sausage gravy over toast she made me as a reward for coming to check in.

He's got the right idea! Just remember, wasn't it you who said there are no deer in Bristol anyway? lol

That's hysterical!

No! I wondered about that when I was buying it the other day because they didn't have any specifically marked .300 Savage. When I was uncertain at the store, I googled what others recommended for their Savage 99 .300, and several talked about having excellent results with the Remington .300. Learned 3 things in this deal. 1.they don't fit...lol. 2. Those guys I think may have been full of you know what. 3. I should have tried to ask someone here when I was in the store. : ) I was pretty sure I remembered buying Hornady .300 Savage specifically , must have been at least 6 years ago. Even seem to remember it being a sort of orange box. Anyhoot...thanks guys. Lesson learned!

Well, I had to change plans due to an ammunition issue today. Grandfathers Savage 99 .300 will be sleeping in and my Weatherby Mark V 30.06 is up to bat. The Remington .300 ammo I bought would not chamber and I'm not sure why. I'm wondering if it is because it is .300 Mag? I did have ammunition for this rifle a few years ago that I used later in the season to take a deer, but can't find it in my stuff that was packed away while I was gone. No worries though, because I sighted the Weatherby in this afternoon, if you want to call it that. Required no adjustments, as it was dead on with the shooting stick at 110 yards right out of the case. At about 50 yards freehand the one and only shot was still perfectly dead center. I bought the rifle 5 years ago off this site when I first moved to Alaska, and never had an opportunity to hunt there with all the hours I put in at work. It is its maiden voyage with me tomorrow. A beautiful rifle and feeling confident! Good luck everyone!

Poor little puppy. Get well soon Luna!

Me too! Grandfather's Model 99 Savage .300 will be spending its first opening day with me.

Thank you. Our NY property is in the town of Sangerfield. 7M

lol....good try! Actually, this is an even harder move for me because my dream hunting property is the one I own now. I'll never be able to duplicate what I did 30 plus years ago, starting with the purchase of our almost 180 acres and building our home. Contrary to what everybody selling their property says, "this" property "is" the hunters dream. Deer, turkey, grouse, squirrels, rabbits, even the occasional woodcock are found here. But, my family grew up and moved away, my hunting partners moved away, and in the case of my closest hunting/fishing partner for 40 years, retired army Major Uncle Bill, died last November. There was nothing we did not hunt or try to hunt all over NY, and even bear hunted several times in the 90's in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan. Many of the stories I can tell would have you laughing to the point of splitting your sides! Trout season with Spring and Fall trout derbies at our game club, Pike season, Bass season, Woodchucks all summer, took us all over NY, with a favorite fish stomping grounds being "Up North" on the St. Lawrence or any of the many lakes there. His death was extremely painful for me for a variety of reasons that I won't go into here, but suffice it to say my decision to work for the VA was made out of respect for him. Also, now since my daughter and her husband blessed us with our first grand baby, a son who shares my first and middle name, soon to turn three are living in Webster, the Finger Lakes VA became the likely choice. We will soon put our property here on the market but have started our search in Western NY now.

Thank you for the input folks. I appreciate it! A big decision in front of me for sure because we'll be selling the home we built and some of the best deer and turkey hunting land in Central NY as we move ahead to be closer to family.

I feel your pain! A couple weeks go I hauled a two man stand up to a tree on my property using my 4 wheeler. I decided to assemble it at the base of the tree, rather than dragging an assembled stand through the fields and woods as I have always done in the past. What the instructions said was supposed to be a 1/2 hour job was actually 2 1/2 hours just on the first day. lol. 3 trips up and down the hill over 2 days, I was able to finally complete the job after losing tools, sweating profusely and exhausting myself. Amazingly I was still able to muscle it up into the tree by myself as I slipped around in the mud. Then, I admit I really unwisely put myself at risk as I climbed up the ladder to secure the top as it kept fighting to come away from the tree. Even though the ladder was secured around the tree midway and planted in the ground, the top is scary when it pulls away with me trying to strategically time the maneuvering of the top with my leaning and pushing it against the tree. In the end I have a real nice setup there, but at 60 years old I'll never do it alone again.

So, just a quick question for anyone who might care to chime in with some information. After 5 years living in Alaska, the desire to be near our grandson (soon to turn 3) has become overwhelming. It appears a strong likelihood I will start working at the Finger Lake VA soon with Canandaigua being the place I will be assigned. I may request a change of location to the Bath location before I get started because I prefer a more rural setting, and because that is where I initially planned to go if I returned to the Lower 48 . I read so much here about deer hunting in Bath, but can anyone tell me how the deer hunting is in the Bristol area? What I have see during my drives through the Bristol area is some massive, steep wooded hills on one side of the highway and what looks like a river bottom on the other side. The hillside looks like pretty difficult terrain to try to hunt, more appropriate for mountain goats! lol

Stuck to a high heel shoe? lol. Do you use them to mark your "shoe-ting" lanes?

Sucks! I totally get the "family" thing! ! Where abouts are you located if you don't mind me asking?

I went to the hardware store one day to pick up a file, and the clerk asked me if I wanted "this bastard" as he pointed to a file. I thought he was being a smart ass so I said "no" and pointed to the one next to it and said "gimme that mother f-er there". lol