dbHunterNY

not a chance and licenses purchased would tank.

I agree with WNY Bowhunter. he got it pretty well in his first post. Also i'll add that the buck in your trail camera picture is a very nice buck for anywhere in the state. good luck and hope you get a chance at taking him. pay attention to the wind and all the little stuff. he's not young and ignorant to hunters' efforts.

this is exactly what I've seen. we had one property that had everything needed to draw deer in and did. it was larger too so we gave them I think 9 DMAPs and stressed to use them first opposed to any other antlerless permit. we track DMAPs very well and figured it'd serve us and DEC better that way. inexperienced hunter and weekend warrior fumbles led to not a single doe being shot there, with many blown opportunities. also we've got boat loads of old school hunters that won't shoot a single momma to next years buck but would otherwise be willing to shoot any legal buck. serious hunters filled all the tags they could or felt they should in a responsible way. had many inexperienced hunters of all ages that accepted a mentor and were very successful. a good number even took both doe and a very respectable buck.

I notice the same. many would care if they couldn't hunt. they take for granted that deer are just always around to a degree and assume their hunting situation can't be changed enough to warrant doing anything about it. kind of like voting in an election.

a lot. if you pay property taxes reaching five figures here in NY where everything else is taxed then people start to get tired.

they don't have the ideas or means to make it better yet so yea they tell you it's working great. why would they tell you it's broken without having a solution?? lol not arrogance it's politics and publicity control. it's best to report our kills (which is otherwise illegal). then have the DEC say hey it's great are system is doing even better due to greater reporting. so reporting does matter. this isn't reporting effects on what a hunting populous thinks about a management tool, it's getting the data for the foundation of everything you do next season.

everyone should still believe in ARs, because they're a tool that is never going to go away. whether it is applicable to an area we hunt is entirely different. ARs handled on a landowner basis don't often work well, cause frustration, and decrease opportunity. the exception being co-ops that get a bunch of contiguous landowners together, but that's different. state mandated ARs would have to be on a WMU level to be effective. Regional level I agree is a little too broad. Also if an AR is applicable there are very few bucks and they are young from a substantial harvest of 1.5 yr old bucks. You'll see more young surviving bucks from ARs and maybe a large one here or there. to get large bucks (older than 2.5 yrs old) you do need additional restraint from some in the area, neighbors that share the same interests, or a whole lot of luck. No state regs will give you those requirements for larger bucks. even then there should be provisions to get rid of them for youth during youth season.

if you're using fingers I assume you've got a longer axle-to-axle bow at least 34"+ to shoot without finger pinch. once you're that long you can almost always setup a bow with multiple good anchor points to make up your anchor. if you're draw length is 30+" then I could see maybe having problems with string angle. I'm a 29" draw for a compound and I shoot both traditional instinctively and compounds with all kinds of releases. unless you have glasses where the frame effects line of sight, you should be able to keep your draw length the same with the string passing across the corner of your mouth and touching the tip of your nose above. I don't like actual kisser buttons. a "soft nock" made of nock point tying thread serves the same purpose, costs pretty much nothing, and maintains more string speed. also releases it sounds like with some assumptions that maybe you've a buckle strap and adjustable length of the post/barrel? shorten this up some so that your abductor pollicis or crotch between your index finger and thumb locks right around the corner of your jaw. then you load up the trigger like you would your fingers and then pull through with shoulders to actually release and following through with motion just as you would shooting with fingers. you'd be sitting pretty if you had that many anchor points in your anchor but you don't need that many. out of the anchor points I mentioned some are more stabile (locking hand behind jaw) versus others that are more precise for position. it's important to have a mixture of both types, more so as you have fewer anchor points to compose your anchor. when changing anchor points with fingers versus a release you'll probably need to change your peep position on the string and get it tied back in. same when you change release types. for example peep is setup different if I use my TRU Ball Beast II index release versus my Stan handheld with a thumb trigger. ...hope that helps.

in a few areas in question you can't even use a gun of any kind to harvest a deer. so while guns might be a good option in some WMUs it can't be applied statewide and shouldn't be. there's only concern in a limited number of WMUs not throughout the state. I said based on records from my area doe harvest was different than what he believed and he said I was wrong. as far as I know he doesn't even hunt in the WMU I do. my point was what DEC is finally realizing and that's not all WMUs are close enough to be the same to apply statewide based numbers to all of them.

lol...figured that much. I've got thick skin and now I'm used to it running the co-op in my area. can't please everybody.

...and it's enough to make you regret the decision now. opposed to the current cost that's ridiculous, being it's the equivalent of taking the family out to a nice dinner and nothing to deter an outlaw.

either a substitute or the big can of pyrodex.... BH209 would be nice. that's stuff is hard to come by.

I typically see yearling to 2.5 year old doe and old doe past their peak produce fewer fawns. very extremes of age ranges and other factors come into play. i agree, without a doubt physical characteristics of body and face is the accepted means to age a doe. on rare occasion you can add observation history to that. you got other options when it dies. with all the constant mowing around your area I've got to think more fawns are dropping in the woods. edges of fallow or abandoned hay fields are most definitely used out this way for fawning along with the woods. farmers around here are often seeing half a dozen or more when mowing fields for 1st cutting, whether it's too late the stop or not. we usually get a few that just don't move. the haybine with sickle bar used to be more forgiving. for many years now we've used a 12' discbine and they don't make out so well.

this is what I've seen here in Rensselaer county. we mostly have fields not as large too unless they're strips of different crops. for whatever reason i'll see multiple doe groups keeping the same rotation hitting the same fields. seem to give each other space more often than not. on rare occasion, i'll see an all out boxing match.

yea I believe you about the dry doe. being the soil for the region you are I'm sure doe more often have twins versus a single that would cause the loss of one to make her dry.

that's not human activity based so much as losing large amounts of habitat perfect for fawning. I think you've got part of your answer. make sure your property has habitat suitable for deer. food plots and wide open hardwoods with nothing else isn't good.

once doe reach a certain age they're definitely not as productive. maybe that's not as much the case near the wny area, such that they have a single fawn versus multiple? where you are and the situation I could believe the success rate though. by targeting doe with one fawn you're taking out either really old doe or young doe and leaving doe most likely to be dominant or compete for it. I'd imagine they don't get along as well and keep distance. you still need a good age structure for doe so they act like doe should, among other things. I've got to imagine most doe are spitting out twins anyway so you shouldn't be concerned about productivity of a doe when it comes to harvest decisions. I'd just give equal opportunity to any doe or target the exact opposite for a season then go to an equal opportunity thwacking. maybe something else is do you have your cameras in diverse locations, like they aren't all in the middle of food plots or any single type of habitat? doe aren't venturing too far from fawn bedding areas and skirt edges to begin with rather than lead very young fawns out in wide open before now. that would skew what you're seeing to a degree. they're probably a month or so old now and fairly agile. assuming the dates and times are wrong on the cameras. also I assume you've got plenty of cover for fawn bedding areas and haven't pressured doe to leave your property to drop fawns.

you should have at the very least 25% of your doe population 4.5+ years old, preferably more. many can't be talked out of shooting bigger bodied doe for the meat versus a 100 lb yearling doe. just let those hunters (others in your party or neighbors) to what they do. effort and mentality toward shooting doe will most likely remain relatively constant from year to year. if so, you can keep track of what percentage of harvested doe around you are 4.5+ year old doe. once you're below that percentage you could be taking too many doe. I guess if you were that good and changed to focus on the oldest of doe with success, it'd instead mean you're taking too many mature doe if you're seeing the same year to year. this would be skewed if you started targeting solely young doe obviously. depending on how many doe you've got you may have to do what Phade said and target those young doe. I tend not to completely protect big old mature doe in our area. in our area we've seen them 8.5+ yrs old and dry without fawns. I tend to see them not apart of bigger family groups, which won't help your cause. I imagine a doe at peak health that's more like 6.5 could push them out of a family group. don't want to keep a nonproductive deer around that's just eating the others food, especially when worried about carrying capacity or hard winter projections in some northern areas of NY.

that's great! if only each county went by the same damn book.

you seem pretty bothered by the post I made. Apparently your situation is different in Wyoming. I can except that. I said what my experiences were and that's in Rensselaer county (4C). unless you hunt and talk to those who do out here I'm not sure how you can tell me I'm flat out wrong. also you're sounding like hunters use either one or the other. probably 95% of the people I know are both gun and bowhunters. come gun season they just pick up a gun. maybe there's a further disconnect there to compare apples to apples. whole lot of stereotyping in your post and I'm not sure I've got an answer for you, as it wouldn't be something you'd want to hear as an answer to your rhetorical questions.

definitely a lot of ways to do it. I think a form of earn a second buck will have to be tuned with trial and error but would be effective. not that they would actually take two bucks in the end but the opportunity would seem sweet to be in and enough of a driving factor to harvest more doe. for goals of protecting young bucks it's a crappy management tool as many don't kill multiple bucks often in the same year. for doe take I feel it'd work well enough to implement.

not sure why the two would be compared as the same... we've had enough threads debating differences among other management related stuff. DEC has goals and co-ops have goals. in the simplest form we're both managing deer. DEC has to sustain a reasonable huntable population of deer statewide, while keeping people statewide mostly happy. I agree co-ops can't and won't do this. however, a co-op also can do "what the DEC can't or won't" and that's micro manage local deer to an optimum level with more focused effort. it is limited to a minority of the state sure. I assure you though insignificant is a very wrong word. requirements for deer management permit application, the annual hunting guide, and lots of other DEC resources are influenced by co-ops. we work and talk with the DEC much more than other hunters. They don't need to figure anything out about the deer in the area of a co-op because they're already filled in on the situation whether it be from management plan application info or other correspondence. Co-ops are growing each year at a rate that will inevitably increase their significance or relevance. also when it comes to DEC squeaky wheels get the grease and we're are right up there with the squeakiest. each serve different purposes but are meant to work together by design. neither are meant to replace one another.

based on my experience the only reason they're dumping burden on bowhunters is because you can get them to shoot more than you could with a gun hunter. it was twisting someone's arm to ask a gun hunter to pull the trigger during the first couple weeks of gun season. it's prime time and they don't want to ruin their hunts with loud bangs and trampling through the woods just to get a doe. also they think that doe is better suited at the time for bait to lure a buck out of cover. this is the reasoning I got from them aside from the simple unwillingness to shoot a doe at all. I agree though.... putting the burden on bowhunters will have some but most definitely limited success. pressure to make harvest happen and putting the squeeze on a hunter during late season is also asking to fail. snow impedes access, deer are now on edge, it's cold, and effort is diminished from a long season away from family.

you can't just make all bow season a gun season even temporarily. a big portion of hunters that hunt with a bow you'd piss off to the point they'll hunt elsewhere. then where the doe numbers are the most problematic is urban or close to it areas where you can't hunt with a gun ever. DMPs and DMAPs are issued every year in much larger quantities than there are deer needed to be taken and they're good throughout the season. I'm sure the numbers are out there for the state but we did the best out of multiple counties for filling % of DMAPs and we didn't fill more than half. I'd be surprised if it was much more than that. We've just got to get people to squeeze dang trigger if they hunt one of these areas. it's that simple. DEC has even said so that we're beyond creating more opportunity and permits. Also, being proposed is increasing the quantity of antlerless management type tags like DMAPs from 2 to 4 per hunter. So those who are willing to fill them can do so more than before, that includes with a gun. Also they aren't for any specific hunter. This is huge as bonus DMPs are a pain in the butt to get with limited DEC manned check station hours and the effort and time it takes to get one. Now you've got more tags in your pocket from the start and ready to be filled.

if someone uses those terms and can't give multiple pros AND cons for those being used, I would worry. if they can but can't tell you how it applies to the deer they're hunting/managing then I'd be worried. if they didn't have any thoughts on what effects it might cause or changes that might be made in future years then I'd be worried. I wouldn't simply write off the conversation once one of these is brought up. I think we're seeing that DEC is acknowledging areas within the state are different. I'm opposed to EAB in the all but the most extremely populated areas. this would do the most damage when applied to the wrong area, I could lower the population well below what's needed, decreasing opportunity, and creating law breakers.