Backyard

It was pretty gross but I couldnt help but watch the whole thing! Figured it was probably a rendering plant or something.

My concern is that the nice calm, quiet, enjoyable bow season will become the annoying, frustrating, busy type like gun season is around here. It is easier than long or compound bows in regards to the equipment itself so that will draw in that many more people. Kinda hard to hold your bow at full draw for too long waiting for that perfect shot but just rest your crossbow on a gun rest and you can hold it all day. Shooting a gun is easy and thats why there are so many more gun hunters. I am sure I am not alone when I say I enjoy bow season a whole lot more than gun season and would like to keep it that way. As far as using xbow during gun season I have no problem with that.

The last day of bow season for me, Nov 16 I guess it was. As daylight broke I saw a big 10 come out at about 100 yds+ sniff around scrape then back in the woods. Long about 9:00 I was thinking of getting down out of my stand because I had some work to do in the AM but just then the big 10 stepped out again. He came across the field then back the other way and turned towards me. He came to about 60 yds then turned and made a perfect half circle around my stand. He stayed just out of my comfortable bow range and headed down the trail right towards my house. No amount of grunting even made him look my way. After my heart stopped pounding and I calmed down a bit about a half hour later I was going to get down again. This time a nice six point came out and did just about the same thing. I tried to grunt again but had left the tube outside of my jacket and is was froze! He stayed just out of range too. About the time I cooled down again and was gonna go back to the house a 4 pointer came from directly behind me and stopped at less than 20 yards and looked right at me stomping and snorting. I wasnt ready for him so I had to stand up and draw while he was looking. I went as slow as I could but he spotted me and ran about 30 yards and stopped again. Since my grunt tube was still froze I tried the deer calls on my cell phone and the little buck looked interested and came back a bit then turned and walked away. It was the most exciting day of bow hunting I have ever had and after being away from hunting for 10+ years and coming back this season, it made it all worth it.

Welcome Metalslayer! I actually found a spot on state land where you could do both but would get some wierd looks walking in to the woods with a gun/bow, tackle box and pole. Maybe try it next year.

I wont argue with you 1 bit on that one! At least not 5 during hunting hours anyway. Since the beginning of gun season I saw exactly 2 deer. One running across the field just after I unloaded my shotgun to get down out of my stand and the other was a big 10 that waltzed across my front yard a few weeks ago. During bow season I saw deer every day though.

Does anyone leave a stand up all season on public land? I read in the regs for a couple spots by me that said stands need to be removed by the end of the following day the season ends. Dont think I would be too keen on doing that as you never know who will get in it or take it.

Since the season ended yesterday, I was out in the shop working on my snow plow tractor because someday we may get snow. I heard about 5 shots coming from different directions towards sunset. Now this may be illegal hunting or could it be guys unloading their muzzle loaders? Not too familiar with them so I dont know if it is standard practice to shoot the gun to unload it or do you remove the bullet and powder manually? Maybe folks didnt want to shoot in the woods after sunset yesterday or what.

Pleasant last afternoon in the stand with the bow. I got out just as the rain stopped and I stayed dry. Saw a couple squirrels and that was it. Havent seen a deer since the gun season opened. Still have 1 in the freezer though. Cant wait until October 1st 2013!

I'm all for the youth hunt too but I do think the timing could have been better. I think a better Idea would be to shorten the bow season by a weekend and have a youth only weekend. Putting youth hunters with guns in the woods at the same time we are in full camo just doesnt make sense to me. As a bowhunter thats been away from the sport for 10+ years or so and just returned at the beginning of this past season I am not familiar with the stance of NY Bowhunters. Did they want to eliminate the youth season all together?

This is what aggravates me about governtment. Why does the youth hunt have to be put into this bill anyway. They are 2 seperate issues. Does this veto mean no crossbow at all now? I have no problem with crossbows during gun season but not really keen on use during bow season but thats beside the point.

Shame on them. I am sure there are lots of folks wanting to take up arms now to protect themselves in that area and they wont get the business because of thier own stupid decisions. I bet all of the black market dealers stopped selling too right?

Nice job with the pics! and the deer of course! I was hoping that could be me this morning but looking out the door to a steady fairly hard rain and no good news on the radar I just went back to bed. I hope the rain lets up for the afternoon and I can get in my stand 1 last time for the year.

Me and a friend of mine bought trees for our parents houses when we were in our early 20's. The one my buddy cut was too wide to fit thru the tree baler and it totally filled the back of my Ford Ranger I had at the time. When we got to his house it took both of us to push it in the front door as it was a mighty tight squeeze. His Dad didnt say too much about the gouges in the paint/wood of the door frame. This year I am going out with my 2 little ones and cutting a tree off of our own property as we have a bunch of them perfect sized for Christmas trees. There is one good sized one that got rubbed pretty good by a buck that might be kinda cool to have in the house and it has a big sparse area for decorating. Merry Christmas everyone!

Well I hunted Darien Lake SP yesterday afternoon and had no luck. I believe I was the only guy in the bow only section so it was pretty quite. I only saw 1 other hunter in the distance on the gun side with a muzzleloader but that was it. There was a ton of deer sign and some trails that looked like they were used ALOT. Even the mowed paths looked like they were heavily used by deer. Having never hunted there before I basically stalked around as quite as I could and then would sit for a bit then move on. It appears there are alot of deer there but unfortunately I didnt see any. It was nice for a change of scenery and nice to see fresh deer sign which has seemed to almost vanish from my property at the start of the regular season.

I think if I stick to the bow only area in theory there should be deer there. I wouldnt think too many guys were using bows during gun season but some of the gunners may have wandered there but we will see.