New York Hillbilly

Going to spend my season with my grandfather's Savage .300 Model 99. It became mine last year when my 80 year old uncle, my hunting partner for the past 30 plus years, came to the house and surprised me with it saying, "I know you always wanted grampa's rifle and I think it's time for you to have it". This rifle has not been in the woods since the old days when my grandfather used to go with his buddies, and pack supplies by mule and wagon back into the Adirondack's at McKeever. To the best of my knowledge he only killed a couple deer in his lifetime and only with this rifle. He was always so busy working hard to take care of his family it left precious little time for him to pursue the sport he loved so much, hunting. Nothing would please me more this season than to take a buck with his rifle. Grampa........this one is for you!

Have 7J will swap for 7m.

Yup............Waterville is my hometown and neighbors say bears showing up on their trail cams,

Sogaard, I hope someday you get to live out your dream and retire up here someday. Heck, I would be happy to even show you around or buy you a cup of coffee if you decided on this area. And, you are right that "vise versa" part. But where I don't agree is backed up by the very population fact you correctly point out. 2010 Census numbers (according to my quick check just now of Wikipedia) reports about 64% of New York is in the five boroughs which means "all in favor say aye" and the rest of the state has no way of ever being represented. So in my humble opinion what we have up here is the good old taxation without representation. Anyway, enough about the political side of life and back to more important things like hunting talk. Good luck this season, bag the big one!

Dakota Dog, "And our one hour of driving is not 4 city block neither it is 40 - 55 miles woundering if a deer will run out if front of your truck. " Yeh this always cracks me up when I hear the talking heads on tv business shows on the weekends saying it doesn't matter, and people don't care if gas goes to 5 dollars a gallon. Their reasoning is: "well in Europe it has been 5 dollars a gallon for years". Hey news flash you jerks, in Europe you drive a couple hours in any direction you end up in another country. Here we drive two hours and get to Walmart! Theres nothing worse than a bunch of NYC business people/tv celebrities who have no clue what it is like to live in "real upstate" dictating how we should live or how much we should pay to survive. I'm all for as many from NYC as possible moving up here so we may eventually have enough swing in population that we might even realize what it is to have a vote that counts. This state is the classic example of the tail wagging the dog. On the other hand, I have heard all the wise cracks about "the guys from the city coming up here" and doing all kinds of stupid things like shooting cows, goats and each other, and can tell you some of the best guys I ever met were from "downstate". The issues I've had over the years have been with local people, not hunters from "the city". The best neighbor I could ask for for the past 15 years is from NYC. He is a real quality guy and I wish all my neighbors were like him.

Yup!

Happy birthday!

Sogaard My hats off to all you guys that put in that kind of effort to go hunting. It shows a lot of commitment. I guess your right that when it comes to hunting some of us have it easy but it is not without it's costs. Think about it. Water downstate comes from the faucet, waste down the sewer, garbage picked up at the curb, paid fire protection and medical emergency and for some even if the light bulbs go out or heat goes off you call maintenance. Have you ever pulled a well pump in the middle of the winter or have the well go dry in the summer? Ever have to dig up a septic tank or pay to have it done when everything that is supposed to go down does not? I pay to have my garbage picked up, haul my own trash to the dump, clean and fix my own boiler, sharpen blades, fix chain saw, cut trees, plow snow, mow fields, and weld stuff when it breaks. And I pray I never need the volunteer fire department or EMS, but thank god for the good people who put their lives at risk to be there if I do. We have to worry that the land we "own" and pay taxes though the nose for, with no public services, will either be contaminated with chemicals to extract gas from shale, become the home for foreign owned windmills that tower over our homes, or be taken from us outright through eminent domain. I drive an hour each way to work every day with gas prices four dollars plus a gallon and have no access to public transportation. With that said, we're a hardy bunch up here for sure and pretty self reliant and I wouldn't have it any other way. Yup, I can literally wake up in the morning, get my hunting clothes on, be out the door and on my stand in less than 30 minutes. But with all there is to do and worry about to live up here sometimes I'm so tired I just look out the window convince myself why "they won't be moving today" and snuggle back to sleep. LOL!

Aaron, finding public land in the northern zone is easy enough, but it for sure is big woods. Did you plan to wander about by yourself up there? Also, what about southern tier? Are you keeping closer to home or coming upstate?

Holy crap that cat cracked me up! He looks like he ate a mouse laced with bath salts. LOL!

Welcome to the site!

Looks like a good one to me! Think you might get a whack at him?

Yup, I say Fallow deer as well. And as far as what to do when it walks by your stand when you are standing there with a bow in your hands......."Fallow your instincts!".......LOL!

Another beautiful morning..........but I stayed in. I cleaned my boiler yesterday (have to finish today) and the soot raised heck with my nose and lungs. And after last night on stand, I figure I have to reposition my stand, because another buck walked down the same trail and was looking right at me. The way the stand is currently, it is perfect (and always has been) for gun season, but for bow it does not provide the right angle. It was a nice wide four pointer and there was just no way to get a good shot on him. Good luck to you guys on stand now.

What a morning! Didn't have enough battery on the phone to do a play by play so here's a brief summary. Putted up the hill on my four wheeler to the same brushy island I use as my parking spot before walking to my stand. I no sooner started walking in the darkness (of course without any flashlight) and and got that "what the heck is watching me feeling". Needless to say, I wasn't wasting time getting to my stand when all of a sudden a coyote started barking at me/ four wheeler or both. It was REAL close!!! Way too close!! So I shift into fourth gear and must have looked and sounded like a semi-truck coming up that hill. A feeling of relief as I grabbed the rungs of my ladder and scampered (as much of a scamper a guy my size and age can muster" up the ladder and into my stand. After getting settled in, I turned on my phone to record the continuous barking from the coyote. And then much to my unhappy surprise this foolish thing had followed me up the hill. Now it was directly in front of me on the ridge and opened into some of the loudest, spookiest howling and barking I ever heard. I wish I could figure how to put it one here for you all to hear. I played it for my wife and pretty much sealed the deal that she will never go hunting with me no matter how much I beg and plead at this point. LOL! On the deer note: two fawns walked under my stand and stood broadside in front of me. Their momma came through about thirty yards away and passed by quietly. Then a four point buck came through the woods, walked up to one of the fawns and sniffed it, then turned came directly to me, stood at the bottom of my stand looked up at me as I stood there with my bow in my hands helpless to do anything. As he was looking at me I watched him (out of the bottoms of my eyes) trying to avoid that eye to eye thing from happening but no deal. I watched his facial expression go from clueless, to "huh...what's that", to "oh $&!T...I know what that is .....I'm outta here" And as he was leaving, I drew back just in case he stopped as he was now quartered away from me, but when I drew back he and then fawns all bolted up the hill. A few gray squirrels, one noisy red one, two female grouse being followed by a male grouse who was all puffed out, fanning and right behind them trying to impress them with his good looks. An excellent morning on stand!

Heyyyyyyyyy. I finally figured this out from the phone thing. Sitting in my pine tree in the corner of the bedding area, golden rod field and hardwoods. Kicked up five does total as I crossed the fields on my way up the hill to my stand. They were all bedded in the golden rod. I may have to rethink my strategy since this place has changed so much over the years. Ok.... Time to turn this thing off and settle back. The smell of deer is heavy out here today. It's funny how I have come to really notice that musky smell over the years. To all you on stand today.... Good luck....shoot straight and be safe!

Ahhhhh Nuts!!!!! I knew I shouldn't have tried this. Or deer on other side....."hey buddy how they hanging?"

Heck by the time season is over half the time I cant find my gloves or mittens, and I even wear socks on my hands. It sure makes pulling the trigger tough though. Tell you what, it's a practice that keeps my hands warm but you have to remember to only hand wear the clean ones or you can't stand to wipe your nose on them when the cold gets the nose running..........lol!

Hey Dave6x6 quote "maybe a traffic light at these crossings with a button that the deer could push before they cross would help. " No can do because it would only be used by "button bucks"....lol!

Hey..was that in the woods? Well, I guess that answers that age old question!

Congrats on a nice deer!

Just can't do it! Hell, I still fall apart when I watch "Old Yeller" or "Where the Red Fern Grows". LOL!

Geno I think you hit your deer harder than you think. The idea that the deployed blades striking the ferrel makes some sense. But, to see something like that would indicate to me anyway some pretty low light conditions so I bet when you go back in the morning you find much more sign in the light of day. The deer standing around with tail down is also puzzling. A deer that big would have headed for high timber at the first sign of trouble in my mind. The gargling noise sounds like lung filling up with blood. You might have caught him high in the lungs. Good luck in the morning. We will all be pulling for you!

I need to figure how to do what you guys are from the stand. Not sure how to post from my stand. I would like to post pics of my spot too. I sat from 6:30 AM till 10AM and it was a beautiful morning although I darned near froze to death. I forgot one of my gloves, and the frost was HEAVY. It was better than last night though with the wind pushing me around, snow flurries blowing all around me, and I FORGOT BOTH GLOVES............LOL! Man am I getting old. Saw one spike about thirty years away, broadside but alert and out of my range. One deer not sure of it's sex, passing through the thick stuff, and then a young doe walked right up to my stand and past me quartered away. It was an easy shot but she was not for me this early in the season, and lives another day. The best thing today was on my way down the hill back to the house I jumped a nice doe and a MASSIVE buck out of their beds together in the golden rod. He was as nice as any I have ever seen on my place and just seeing him made my morning. Hope to have him standing in the same spot that little doe was in at some point this season.

LOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm in tears over this one. We then need to do something about those damned wet paint signs. Why would they encourage painters to put wet paint where I like to put my hand down?