dhuntley2

This is true, our system is extremely easy and takes no time at all. Why do you think there is such a lack of reporting?

Ok so I Just googled it and everything I read says it was a Canadian red wolf hybrid of some kind that he shot and that the wolves that used to be here were eastern grey wolves. Nothing about red wolves, they are, and were in the south east. The wolves that used to be here were Eastern grey wolves.

Does their tour cost much? I also want to plant conifers in a lot of places, our biggest problem besides lack of cover and browse is we have too many open fields near roads. Anyone know a good place to get spruce seedlings and what spacing to plant as a screen, I'm thinking a double row all along the roads.

I wonder how well a check in station would work. I know in NJ they have a ton of deer and not as many deer hunters as NY. They can shoot as many does as they want and I think it is a earn a buck state. You shoot your deer take it to the check in station and then they issue your buck tag. I wonder what the stats are like in states like this. Obviously it would not be as easy with wmus that have less does to shoot, and don't issue doe tags. I wonder why people don't call in their tags. I was thinking about it earlier and I think it is a lack of education. I don't remember a section in our hunter safety course, a long time ago, that talked about data collection from reporting your kills. If there was a section that said how important it was to the future of hunting it would stick with young hunters and I think more people would report their tags. My father for the longest time never reported, it's not that he shot more deer than he could he just didn't care to report, I think it's cause he thinks the dec will come snooping some how I don't know why. He also used to call in all of the unused dmps and muzzle tags the last day. Why he did this I have no idea, something in his little head told him to. Now I have gotten to him and he reports but I wonder how many guys just don't because they are lazy or don't care.

Well I would say I am in the Trophy stage and method stage right now. Using bow only and only shooting big bucks, but fill my doe tags, so all stages I guess. When I go duck hunting, goose hunting, rabbit hunting I am in the shooter stage. ..Ha no way around that one. When I go up to camp I am in the sportsman stage, really there for a good time, the hunting is a bonus. Can a person be in all stages? Bubba that 99 savage is a great gun, and that is a great way to honor your father. I have shot my biggest buck to date with my fathers 99 savage .300, they sure are a great shooter.

Were did you find this dna data about red wolves being in the adks? Everything that I have always read about wolves in NYS have always been Eastern wolves not red wolves. And there is an eastern canadian red wolf that is not the same as a red wolf.

I didn't know much about tuning my bow when I first got it, actually I knew nothing. There are two bow shops close by and the guys there both contradicted themselves on what I should do. I did a little research online and ended up buying Bill Winke's book setting up the perfect bowhunting bow. This book has everything in it that you could need. After following the steps and advice in it I can hit a quarter at 40 yards. I ended up going with the motto . . . keep it simple stupid. The less there is on my bow the less there is to go wrong. I got rid of my clip in quiver and now use a separate quiver that I wear like a belt. That right there made a huge difference so much less noise and weight I will never have a quiver on my bow from now on. I got rid of the top arm on my rest, that also just made noise and got in the way. There are a lot of things you can do with a bow, but for me less is more. Also on a side note if you don't know who Bill Winke is and the caliber of bucks he shoots check out midwestwhitetail.com, it will amaze you.

I don't know how the numbers could be anywhere near accurate. I sadly know way too many hunters that kill a lot of deer every year and never report it. It would be very interesting to be able to look up reporting histories of hunters I know.

A good season for me is getting a couple deer and seeing deer. It makes a better season seeing a good amount of fawns. This year we saw a lot of fawns so it was a good birthing year and the numbers will be up. I only bow hunt and have a goal of shooting at least 3 1/2 yr old bucks. But its not a bad season if I don't shoot a buck. This year I did not shoot a buck. Got two doe and still may take another. Passed a lot of 1 1/2 olds up and have seen nice 2 1/2 yr olds that are still around. That is very promising for next year. So for me it was a very good season. To make it a great season would be getting a buck and a few doe. A poor season would be shooting one doe. I don't hunt to be in the outdoors, that's what hikes are for. If I wanted to see animals i would be a bird watcher.

CulverCreek what property did you tour ? North country whitetails ? The dozer option is no good because these are 20 inch diameter trees a dozer won't push that over too hard and way too dangerous. Also the loss of money from the timber doing it that way would just not make sense. We got a good start so far and it is a mess, a promising mess. Had 6 doe in their on my last trip with the skidder eating the tops already.

I'm going to do the work myself, I am the logger. Just wanted to see if it would be worth my time, which it sounds like it will be.

So I need to put in place some kind of rotation every six years or so ?

Hey thanks guys, that's what we are doing. We are clearing some spots, taking out the big lumber and then anything that is left we are hinging it. I didn't want to do all this work and have it not amount to anything. But I guess anything will help. This chunk of land is mostly firewood anyways so its not that valuable and if it doesn't amount to good cover o well.

I hunt in the northern zone and I hear a lot of follow up shots with rifles. I guess these guys must be hunting with those less accurate rifles. HA. What if a guy is good enough to shoot an arrow at 100 yards through a shotgun hole? Wait he shoots his arrow through the bologna sandwich then hits the shotgun hole, then the rifle hole. He wins.

I love shooting does. It is very good practice to be able to work on your form and shot placement with a real target, a lot different than shooting arrows all day into a foam one. I try to shoot the does that have button buck fawns. I have no idea the truth behind this theory but I believe that the button buck will stay around where it is familiar with the territory. And because its mom is dead the button buck can't get run off from its mom.

Me personally I would hunt how I hunt now. I won't shoot a buck unless it is 3.5 or older, and I have the opportunity to kill many does. This is my choice to hunt this way, I am also in a very heavy rifle area, (northern zone) and I will hunt with my bow all year long, except a few hunts with the rifle. These are all my choices that I make for myself, why should our extremely regulated lives be regulated even more? However If the two options are hunt every year and only see 1.5 year olds or hunt every other year and see good quality and quantity, then yes I am choosing the same as you. But my hunting now is on a decent chunk of land and I see many deer. And judging by your picture you have good hunting opportunities now too. For me, with some hard work and a few years, our decent hunting ground could turn into great hunting ground.

Yes this is true, But this also brings me back to my point about there being so many hunters in this state, and how you can't compare this state to others in that sense. If there were the same number of hunters as in IA there would only be two hunters per square mile state wide. These low density deer areas would likely have one hunter per many square miles. With that few hunters there would be no reason to have to limit tags. Imagine having only one hunter border a 330 acre chunk of land. You would not have limits at all.

But here is the problem with that. These guys go up to camp and have a great weekend. They hunt hard during the day, when done hunting they have even more fun at night. If you limit the tags or even shut it down these guys are not going to pay the membership fees to go to camp to drink and play cards, you can do that at home for free. These guys, and many like them, love the hunt regardless if they see 20 deer on watch or none. You start regulating like that these hunting camps will shut right down.

Sorry i did not see your whole post about the numbers. Cut out after the first paragraph. But these areas where guys are lucky to see one buck a year have bad habitat. What are they supposed to do in these areas give no tags? Either way you still have to have the habitat to be able to hold and feed deer. There is club in Clare NY that has about 100 members on 16000 acres. Back in the day they used to kill over 100 bucks a year easily. Until about 8 years ago. Today that group is lucky to kill about 20 bucks. What changed? The loggers stopped coming in and logging big sections. In the years that they used to kill a lot of deer they were always logging somewhere on this 16000 acres. Therefore there was always regrowth coming in, thus their was enough food for the deer. The logging stopped so did the regrowth. Now the numbers are down. 100 guys are taking about 20 bucks, usually less. In your theory they should have less tags? So say they only kill 1 buck. There still will not be any more deer because the habitat just cannot hold more deer. Again without the habitat you cannot have more deer.

I'm talking huge regions like the ADKs not just my land vs my neighbors land. There is just no food for more deer in these areas. Also its hard to compare a state to another state look at how many hunters nys has. Some 700000 how many does IA have? Something in the 100000s. There are so many hunters per square mile in NY. I would kill monsters every year if their was only 100000 hunters here. NY does have potential for huge bucks throughout a lot of the state, but it is going to take a lot of people passing up the younger bucks for a while to get the age structure to what these other states have.

Yes NY has great deer habitat in some areas and horrible deer habitat in others. Like many people here have said it's a big state the whole state is not the same habitat where one person hunts. What I was getting at is if you have bad habitat that's your problem right there. It does not matter what you do to regulate the antlers you still will not have more deer.

You can regulate antler restrictions until you are blue in the face, it still won't change the habitat. If you don't have good deer habitat you won't have many deer. Simple as that. There isn't an AR out there that will change that fact.

Jennifer you are right you are taking a young deer out of the herd. The argument for an AR to increase the numbers would be not shooting the 1.5 year olds and then they would live one more year, thus more deer. That is if the 1.5 year olds do not have 3 points on a side or better, which in that case the AR does nothing to protect that buck. If you are in a low density area with good habitat do not shoot the doe. Shooting the doe really kills her and any of her potential offspring. To increase deer numbers you would have to pass both the doe and the young buck. If that young buck is a 6 point with the proposed AR he is going to get shot so in that case the AR does not work to allow that deer to age one more year.

I'm not sure what the fascination is with them but I think its the same fascination we get about catching big fish. It's true you can't eat the antlers but I bet their isn't a guy here that would pass up a 180 inch ten point to shoot the 3 pointer behind it. There just is something about a mature buck that makes you start shaking uncontrollably and you don't know why, even your toes are shaking. I haven't had a small buck give me buck fever, don't know why only the big racks do it.

Do bucks still have their antlers in march? my guess is the dates are just wrong. He looks like a 4 1/2 not sure about the score.