Fairgame

Even though we are going through all these tough time it still goes up. Toughest times the nation has seen since the depression but it makes sense for license hikes.. Lets not lower them to intise people to spend more. Lets raise them loose more hunters and make more money. Good logic. When a product in a store needs to sell they lower they price of the product. DEC raises them.

Doc, If its a hardship dilema why is the dec constantly raising pricing for their hunting tags during a time like this? I know they need money but so do the people that love hunting. I can guarantee that hunter numbers will drop more due to the rising license fees than anything else. Look at how many people complain about the license fees. Every year the price goes up and up. They arent looking at how many hunters they are loosing, they are looking at how much more money they are going to make. For every 1 percent of hunters lost its probably a 10 dollar hike in fees. Everone is loosing jobs but prices for everything else goes up. How does that help in gaining more hunters. Wouldnt lowering the hunter age to any age a parent or guardian seems appropriate and decreasing license fees make more sense during a time like this make more sense. I have family that are 9 and ten years old and their parents have to take them out of state in order to give their kids the opportunity to harvest a deer. (The future of or hunting). We are only looking at what we have right now and not looking into making sure that the kids the future of hunting is started at an early age so they become interested. At 14 years old the only thing the Boy is thinking about is Girls and the Girls are only thinking of boys. How is the kid every going to be potentionally intersested in hunting when they can only start hunting at an age where the last thing on their mind is hunting. You can go hunting with me but you cant shoot. You have to wait 6 more years. How does the make the kid feel. If we want to look at everything why arent we looking at this?

I dont think any bullet or arrow ever benefitted any deer! But they look good hanging on my wall!

Another thing is that the deer behavior has changed in the last few year. You actually hear grunting and see sparing when before I had no Idea of what a deer grunt sounded like. Putting these deer in more of a natural state. Great to see. Does it help the herd? I dont know. but it sure makes for exciting hunting.

Steve, Before AR's we use to put multiple cameras out starting in july and you were lucky to see bucks. The cameras would be out there for at least 4 months. Maybee a spike and a 4 point and in the years prior to ARs one seven point. same bucks throughout the entire 4 months. Now we put out the cameras and have at least 4 to five different nice 2 1/2 and 3 1/2 year old bucks. For me thats a drastic change. Opportunity rises. I hunt hard trust me on this. Having success at my own place has been important, and yes success most of the time is to take a decent rack. There is no reason for me to deny it. They are called ANTLER restrictions. Getting a nice buck doesnt make me a better hunter than anyone else. But the sense of self accomplishment makes me feel good. You can only hunt what is there and if they really arent there there is no way to get them. Knowing that there is an opportunity to harvest what you have been hunting for feels good.

Posted by: Doc« on: Today at 02:01:01 pm » Insert Quote It's a real shame that this topic got off to such a bad start because I do believe that the subject as suggested by the thread title is a very interesting one. I believe that hunting has and is undergoing massive changes in terms of what it all means to those that participate in it and how we view hunter satisfaction and how we accept or wish to remove some of the challenges of hunting. Some changes are good and a lot of them are not so good. Some of that is being reflected in our slipping hunter population. I think it is a subject that maybe should be started over with a little calmer, less incendiary view of the subject. Have any of you noticed attitudes, methods, goals, etc. changing over say the last 20 or 30 years? If so are those changes good bad or indifferent? Doc Nice, Doc probably just asked probably what you probably were intending on doing without sounding like it was pissing him off, and without pointing fingers. Nice going DOC!

Your right, Doe. All the DEC cares about is that deer get shot, they don't care if they are .5, 1.5, 2.5 or any specific age. The AR people better start getting used to this. The only people who care about this age nonsense are the AR people, and we all know why. It has nothing to do with general herd health either. A 1.5 buck would be passing the same genetics on to his offspring as a 5.5 would. It's all about how big them horns might be on the ones they hopefully will get to shoot if we somehow can let them get older. That's ALL it is in a nutshell! Everything else is baloney. Whats wrong with wanting to have the opportunity to shoot a nice buck on your own property. Dont you have the opportunity to shoot what you want. You have had it your whole hunting life. Why cant the person who wants to shoot a buck at their own place not have the opportunity to cause these bucks were being shot out. If hunter satisfaction is important then why are the the majority on any poll you see for AR's not important. If the majority of poeple want something why should that be ignored. Granted not all areas need ARs and we have said it is not for the entire state. But there are areas that need it. I'm glad our area got them. I was skeptical in the beginning but that all changed after seeing the results. Not being able to shoot a spike doesnt mean that you are not going to to have the opportunity to shoot a legal buck. The DEC numbers show that the harvest of yearling bucks was down 65%, which means that there is that many more the following year walking around. I cant see how in any way this will hurt the hunter who wants to shoot for meat if there are more deer surviving. Maybee an extra few minutes or a few hours to harvest something legal cause you just let the spike walk. The first year of ARs was the hardest for me cause the chance of filling a buck tag were low. There werent many bucks around. But after the first year having the opportunity at a legal buck wasnt a problem.

Nice!! ;D

Regulations are for everyone. They are all around us. The more people there are the more regulations there is going to be. Thats just the way it is. Where do you see a problem with AR's in an area like southeastern NY where lots of land are small and almost every lot has hunters on it. With all these hunters in the area bucks were getting shot out for years, never having the opportunity to grow.They were having a hard time getting to 1 1/2. How is a hunter in that area that owns his own property going to have the opportunity at even a 2 1/2 year old buck when you didnt even have to look at what it was and someone could just shoot. Where is it fair for the person who wanted to shoot a larger buck. Did the person who pays taxes on their own property have to hunt in western NY for a nice buck? Where is it fair for that hunter? Are these ARs important in these areas? Yes IMO. By the way my shoes fit and they were too TIGHT! :-\ If you were trying to be a mediator in your post it shouldnt of been one sided. Another is that if you werent trying to get anyone upset there was no need for an appology..You appologized knowing it was going to upset someone. Me having an oppinion doesnt make me a bad guy, and from what I read in your last post your not a bad person either.

Sorry for this post but I thought that the southern zone was the south eastern portion .

Could this be the reason why bucks cant grow in the Southern zone. Are they really being shot out? Look at the numbers in the Southern zone compared to the Northern zone. http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/wildlife_pdf/09deerrpt.pdf

Coming in saying you have all this land you hunt and enough money to do what you want, At this point in your post you dont care what anyone in your post thinks. You wrote it to piss people off and you said it that it was for that reason. "GREED" the only greed we see is only what I stated at this point cause its all about you and what you have and who cares about what everyone else thinks. If you cant see where you went wrong then there is something wrong. You have no Idea of my financial status or anyone elses to even start talking like that.

noodle, put your shoes on backswards and walk the other way.

LEGAL!! Big difference

"I have 1400 acres to hunt and the time, plus the money to do whatever I want" Im happy for you! congrats! Read what bubba wrote!

He put his foot in his mouth and his own shoe is too big for him to pull out.

When did you start hunting these zone Steveb. The only thing you have is from what you read not from experience. Your opposition doesnt hold water with the person hunting these zones.

I have no shoes on, but your talking out of you know what. Telling everyone about your "1400" acres and everyone should be able to do as they please. You are blessed to have it and dont have anyone within a mile of you that can affect your hunting in any way. Looking at thing one way. I wouldnt care either if I had that much land. I could care less what everyone wants. I would close my eyes and be greedy too.

No problem Lawdwaz.

Everone jump on the internet and find some facts!!!

I'm glad you have 1400 acres to hunt. Nice manageable piece of land to hunt and do as you please. I wouldnt care what my neighbor was shooting or what he was shooting it with if I had 1400 acres. When you have a city to hunt in who cares what everyone else is doing. With that said whos greedy for not looking at everyone else.

I use to wear the cheap base layers but I honestly dont think they compare to the underarmor 3.0. Keeps the actual body very warm. feet and nose are the harder areas to keep really warm.

Its my lawn where I stand.

Thats the way it is. Its not a good enough excuse cause i'm sure it was happening before.

If a buck in a non ar zone is 3 or more inches and you already shot a buck and used your tag. Now you see what appears to be a doe and you want to fill your tag and shoot. You walk up to it and its a 4-5 inch spike but you couldnt see the spikes cause the ears were covering them. This isnt happening in a non AR zone? There are 2 ways to look at it. You need to be sure of what you are shooting whether you are in an ar zone or not.