phade

Her name is Kinley. We likely will be able to go home tonight. I already have the 870 and 500 ready along with the necessary cleaning items, so I can start teaching her how to breakdown and make them pretty. Probably wait a few days before she steps up to the plate at the range, lol. Unfortunately, she's going to have to wait a few more months before learning how to field dress deer.

ha, thanks everyone. ill post pics in a.m.

crazy. last year there were several tasteful vendors with ar gear. not being allowed now. ficg released a statement on it.

at least mine was a nay.

Sad day.

Ny game and fish. I forget the issue number off hand, but im sure you can dig it up. I also covered the group in the finger lakes that were trying to push the ar pilot for another publication. I spoke with mickey hellickson (sp) and others about it. Read the nys dec report on it. Its a long pdf.

Refuse? See this pic? That doe, shot this year in ohio, is his first deer in 40 seasons. Thats right. 40. Refuse all you want, but if he shoots a spike, its probably going over the fireplace in the living room. Thats the thing, trophies are in the eye of the beholder. I know all about ar. Ive published articles on it. Heck, people who have replied on this thread have been sourced in the article. Writing that piece forced me to really research it. Bottom line, after all that research, i never came to the conclusion that it was worth it to limit a hunter more via law/regulation. If you want to do that on private, fine. Education is the answer, and nys dec shows that its working.

You are not getting it. Any buck is a trophy to them, and to many people.

I think everyone knows someone like that. My FIL is such a person.

Sounds like a good dad. Rare these days.

No problem. Your words do it for you.

You should be fine with Travelocity. The packages are pretty straightfoward and calling them is fairly easy.

Again, you are taking a long jump off of a short bridge. Bringing up trespassing, holding no values, etc. and calling them slobs. What does trespassing have a thing to do with the definition of a legal buck? Worse yet, what in God's green creation would cause these people who tresspass, to follow AR laws...they're breaking one law already. There's a big difference between slobs, "brown its down" crowd, and recreational hunters/weekend warriors/opening day only Elmer Fudds. A decision to shoot a legal deer, legally, is not a slob hunter. You pretty much are saying that hunters who do shoot young deer are slobs, despite your contesting it. Might want to bring a few Kleenex with you up there, nose bleeds are common on a high horse.

I tend to have better luck with Travelocity overall. There are also better times of the day and days of the week to search and book travel (ie not the actual trip, but when you are looking on the sites themselves). I believe it is best to look on Tuesdays at some point.

No, that was just this year's NY bow buck. I got it back recently and had just hung it.

Down state I presume? There's quite a few members down in that area, maybe some can chime in? No need to pay an outfitter. Hard work will pay off.

Worry about what YOU and your Pops can do to kill those nice bucks. If we put a 4pt side on, this guy would have lived, too (back wall buck). 8H buck. He was a 3.5.

For seven hunters with aspirations of taking mature bucks, you are going to need lots and lots of good quality ground. If there are mismatched goals (ie not all 7 looking for wall hangers), then there's a bigger issue at hand than AR. If you have lots of ground, and all 7 are wall chasers, then why aren't you all shooting more of them? Get my drift? You have a lower hole in the bucket than a points-based AR mandate. Don't read into too much the fact it only had 5 point or that it was poor genetics. Worrying about genetics is pointless. I've shot enough 1.5 y.o. bucks in my time to know that 150lbs is not all that uncommon in 8F, 8H, 8G, etc. There's so much science and at the same time, stuff we don't know that goes into antler development, body development, etc. Worry about what you can control, your trigger finger. Stop shooting 5 points (unless that makes you happy, which is A-OK) and baskets. Seems to be those baskets were one year (maybe two) off from being a potential wall hanger, no? Your neighbors didn't shoot them.

That's a radish.

You'd need some serious acreage there for that. Either re-examine goals, or figure out a better solution other than AR. Ouch. There's also no reason to settle for shooting a mature buck once every 3-4 years between the two of you. Absolutely none, unless it is self-imposed. It's not the people around you that are preventing it, it's you. You decide what you shoot, how you hunt, etc. You seem to have the drive, so why not go and do it? It took me a few years to figure that one out too, and once I did...wa-la!

I hunt the same unit as you. I see plenty of mix of mature buck hunters and recreational hunters. It is not a "potential" area...it's a defined, well-documented producer of big bucks, some of the likes of the best in the state. I hunt Ohio and NY. Every year. You think Ohio has different "caliber" of people than NY? Heh, good one. You implying people who shoot small bucks are slobs, tells everything about you, in my opinion.

Ha, talk abouta re-hash. Trust me man, don't worry about a BB or two getting grounded...in the real-world NY application, it ain't doing anything but hurting your neighbors. You may get retention from shooting the mother of BB, but that's really about it. Facing the music, the large majority of 1.5+ bucks on your ground come from your neighbors. Dispersal is nature's mitigator.

You build a coalition. If you cannot, you manage otherwise, and understand that some of the bucks you pass will be shot. I also think many QDM practitioners have a poor paradigm. I think the misconception is growing within QDM. And, it's not QDMA's fault. You and your father would like to kill mature bucks, no? So you practice QDM, and how often does he/you shoot 3.5+ bucks (using mature loosely here, really 4.5+)? Is it one every other year, one every three years? Think about most of the QDM practitioners you know. Chances are, very few of them kill mature bucks every year or at least have a shot opportunity at one. I believe in QDM, no doubt, but the common practitioners make mistakes in their belief system. They tend to worry more about management than their hunting skill development. If that is the goal, then fine, but don't complain about passed bucks being shot. Most of the mature buck hunters I know fall into two categories. 1. They own significant acreage, have more disposable income to devote, and are sound hunters first, and then managers second. The ground is almost always primely managed, but in comparison, it pales to their skill level as a hunter. 2. They own negligible land, maybe one small parcel, or they don't own land at all, and they shoot mature bucks (often on highly pressured ground), as they are great hunters. This compares to the average QDMer, who wants to have that balanced herd, sees some good bucks on game cams, and then sets up on a food plot edge. The land looks great, the bucks are likely there, but there's also a reason why they don't shoot mature bucks. Instead of looking critically, they react to others shooting young bucks....they should instead be figuring out why THEY are not shooting mature bucks, which are most certainly there based upon the game cam pics and sign. Talk to them, they have great plots, spent a ton of money tilling the land, fertilizing, doing some TSI, geting a B:D ratio, surverying via cams, etc. But, you almost never hear of them saying, I went out in March and spent a weekend burning up a set of new boots, and I finally found that big guy's bed. I now know why I only saw fleeting glimpses of him in-season, and I'm going to get a set placed on a good wind entry and exit, in a spot he cannot see me. If I am quiet and smart enough, I'll kill him this season on my first-time-in. Let's be real, you simply don't hear that out of a QDMer for the most part. They say "I do all this work, pass young bucks, and people shoot them." I can say I know many of those types of managers. No doubt, most are happy, but they could be happier. I cannot say the same about the hunters who target and kill mature bucks...they wouldn't trade it for a thing hunting-wise. They're not bothered with people passing young bucks. Instead, they're worried about killing the big ones they know about.

Believe me when I say I understand. There are things in one's life that often pops up that become a factor. I just don't see how such a regulation would improve anything. You know as well as I do that 8F produces good quality bucks as is. Heck, I would argue this year, that 8F was THE top producing WMU for mature bucks in the entire state. It's not about the perceived benefit of making it better, it's about taking choice away from the hunter. Eliminating freedoms such as this are just a poor step. You'd have to put a 4 pt side in that WMU to get anywhere in protecting close to two-thirds, and honestly, that's ridiculous. Have we reached that point in hunting, that we need to have a 4 pt a side rule that may barely cover the majority of 1.5s? Seriously just think about it for a moment. To me, it's yet another reason why you shouldn't set the base on fire. People that live and breathe hunting are completely different that the recreational hunter, the weekend warrior, the opening day-only, the time deprived, the "I'm going to go back and sit in the one stand I own and have set in the same spot for the last 20 yeaers", the ones who just join the sport as adults (not young/old excluded), the plain old, I want to build up my skill level, the "I don't have a DMP in my unit" crowd, and the list goes on. The best thing to do is to leave it up to the string puller or the triggerman. Education is proving to have an effect - looking at the DEC's report shows that 1.5 harvest numbers have declined in their representation of wNY harvests, year after year for the past 5 or 6 when the big push started to take place. Restratint should be a personal thing, not a regulatory act.

We agree on much and disagree on much, as well. But, didn't you shoot a 1.5 or something this season? I forget, honestly, but I thought in a seperate thread we had going back and forth that you shot a 5 point or some 1.5 y/o. Agian, I may be wrong, but I could have sworn you didn't shoot horna nd the big/bad buck this season. I'm nor tossing stones, either. I have shot my share of 1.5, and on many levels, it's quite OK in my book. We just cannot have both sides of the fence with AR.