nyantler

While you all were thinking about whether you'd shoot it or not... I shot it... I'll post pics later of the mount.

I'm sure there is plenty of time during your many 8-9 hour sits in the woods throughout the year... you'd have to be numb from the neck up not to give it some thought when you're in the midst of it all... and I'm thinking you still have some feeling up there.. you're still young!

Definitely fair game then!

The only reason I'm not 100% confident is because I didn't see it personally... there is a .000000000000000000001 % chance that I'm wrong, but I don't think so

Been devoted to studying the biology and traits of whitetails for nearly 25 years... I may not have the white coat, but confident in my knowledge of this subject.

So what you're saying is blow smoke up their ass... so they don't take their ball and go home... even if they're full of crap? We're talking about challenging a newbies BS on a forum... Not mentoring them in the field... if a novice asks a question that's one thing... if they're spouting crap without knowing what the hell they're talking about.. that's another... and they're fair game just like the big boys.

Yeah that would be an option... it's legal there... whether they get it or not... better yet, lets just give all those hunters that can't do it legally in NY a deer so they can show there friends... they could make up a story just like the one they tell when they kill one outside legal time... You know the story... the one about all the hours of scouting and practice they put in to finally have it pay off... just leave out the part about poaching it outside of legal shooting hours.

I'm sure you are sold out... with guys that have trouble killing a deer under fair chase rules... or inside NY legal shooting time... just like many of the NY hunters who find it necessary to kill deer outside legal shooting hours. I never said hunters didn't do it... just giving my opinion why... their lack of ability to kill a deer during the legal time. Glad they can find a shooting sport they enjoy... Just think how many more deer we could kill after dark.. just like coyote hunting... the safety record there is even better than deer hunting.

Who do little for gun rights...

Maybe the after hours shooting is a winner/loser mentality... kind of like the guy that thinks the basket ought to count after the buzzer goes of in basketball when clearly the ball was still in his hands when time expired... the last resort to being the winner of the game when you are unable to get it done during the regular game time... maybe those hunters should resign themselves to paying for one of those high fence deer hunts where they are guaranteed a deer... then they can "win" every time and aren't tied down by the idea of fair chase.

Looking only at a photo I could be wrong... but from my experience tracking all kinds of deer... this is typical of buck urine this time of year... a buck this time of year is the one with a highly restricted diet due to his concentration on breeding and little else... a doe may forego food for the short time ( couple days at most) that she is in heat, but eats normally the rest of the time and will usually still have food in her stomachs... I have never seen evidence of doe urine being anything but yellow to light orange. I have seen this darker color urine nearly every time I've tracked a buck any distance. Actually I should say not always reddish, I have seen it from a dark amber to almost a brown, but always darker colored than a does, which is usually yellow to a light color orange... and yes, I can tell the difference between a does urine stain and a bucks urine stain based on position in the track.

Looks more like the heavy amber urine bucks pee this time of year... hard to tell from that photo but the pee of a doe will be in a different spot relative to the tracks than a bucks because of the difference in anatomy... I have seen this many times while tracking bucks. I don't think it's blood at all... that would be uncommon for a does pee to mix that much with estrus blood... both come from different spots in the does... um.. you know...female area. This is one of the signs I look for when confirming that what I'm tracking is a buck.

That's just it... I am enjoying my NY deer hunting, no complaints here...you haven't said anything about what exactly the downward spiral is... and how your idea is going to fix it. Attacking my wit and class still doesn't explain how your plan would work ... pointing out an article written about an opinion of deer hunting States by a particular group with a particular idea of how deer hunting should be (be it good or bad) is not an explanation of how exactly your idea makes NY hunting better... please enlighten us. Please try to use the personal wit that helped you come up with the idea, and what determines your downward spiral.

Are deer populations too low now? Please explain how 2 weeks of hunting only doe with bow would significantly "level out" the deer population. Start by explaining exactly where the populations are now then show how your idea fixes things... please use population numbers for each DMU, then overall State numbers so I can understand where we are at this point and what is driving the low populations, then go through how your idea will affect each area of NY to make that areas population better... please include the projected amount of deer of each sex that will be affected, along with how extreme weather patterns might affect those two weeks of hunting. Lastly, what is your idea for stopping trophy hunting... What would be the criteria determining a trophy buck? Would this be a challenge for the hunters that believe every buck is a trophy? This whole idea is very interesting... I'd like to hear more.

Disclaimer: There is no single category that makes a state “bad” or “good” in regards to whitetail hunting, nor does every hunter in a given state share a similar experience. The data used below was compiled from the Quality Deer Management Association’s 2013 Whitetail Report. This pretty much explains everything... and I think I was right about your plan being a bit self serving

Which is usually a reflection on their ability to kill the bucks that we already have... be kind of like lowering the rim so 5' people can dunk a basketball

My guess would be to have more bucks to kill... that's all that I can see that would happen... for a little while until all the deer began starving to death.

LOL.. actually those are pictures when it was brand new... after gutting several deer in the past couple years with it... it's not so shiny any more... Dan Denn is a talented guy... he hand forged that blade and did all the polishing... it was the first knife of that type with the burr left on the antler that he did especially for me per my request... since then it has become a very popular knife for him.

Populations would explode... unless of course we doubled the number of hunters... which I don't see happening if you take away tags and hunting days... adding more bucks to the equation and having less days to hunt with the ever diminishing habitat.. would be horrible for NY deer hunting... it might create bigger bucks for a while until there is no food left for the deer to eat because of over population. We are not other states... not the same types of habitats, not the same amount of habitat, not even the same kind of hunting in some cases, deer densities are different... we could go on forever. I'm guessing that since you didn't mention bow hunting anywhere...you're for filling in the voids made in the two gun seasons with more bow hunting... the whole thing sounds a little self serving to me.

Knife I had made for me by Denn Handmade Knives in the ADK's... every part of the knife is from NY... ADK deer antler.. hand forged and finished blade.. the handmade leather sheath even has a stamp of a deer hoof made form a 100 year old ADK railroad spike.

Yup.. the old "WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU LEMONS, MAKE LEMONADE" approach.

Here is how cockeyed my mind can get sometimes... I wonder if there exists a hunter that strictly meat hunts, who fills his freezer each season, but does not enjoy it at all and rather looks at it as an annual necessary quest to feed his family. My thought is probably not... but you never know.

So it's about everyone's different prospective?... which I believe is the same thing as everyone's "individual" prospective... and I believe the word you're looking for is perception, not prospective... or maybe you meant what everyone expects to happen in the future... not sure.

Something like this little guy would do just fine...

I guess my point was that the hunter is the only one that can change a bad season to good... as hunters it is for us to try and find the deer, not the deer to find us. Those who play that in reverse will usually be sadly disappointed.