Core

I assume you understand the thought process behind NY limiting the amount of DMPs you can receive? Hint: there is a pizza party and only enough food for everyone to get their fill, except fat louie sucks down three entire pies by himself. Now a few people go hungry. NY specifically limits the number of DMPs you can use to effectively give more DMPs and odds to those who are not deer-hunting ninjas. http://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/10000.html

I'm sure it's "safe", it just may be a bit annoying to use. I'm using a free harness currently. The post above about trail cams is good, too. You probably can't have too many of them.

Gonna take my eldest soon with the .22 I think to the range. Sadly, no private property for that type of stuff for me!

New York is 250 miles wide, you should say where you are I've seen a lot of threads like this (I even started one). Hopefully you have better luck than most thread starters. But, assuming you don't, if you say where you are at least people can point you toward public land if necessary. Depending on where you are in the state there are some parts of public land with very little pressure.

Most people receive all they know about the AR platform in movies and the occasional news article that probably describes it wrong, so it's definitely an uphill battle. I only bought my first gun a couple years ago. My wife had yet to shoot it or any gun at all. I may have made a mistake introducing her not to a .22 semi rifle first (which has as much kick as a nerf gun), but instead taking her to an indoor range in another state and shooting pistols. It went as she expected but she realized how much power they have. May put my hints to let me get a pistol permit in delay by a while. AR is tricky because it looks like a badass movie rifle and I've seen first hand people respond to it in that manner, even people who either own a shotgun or regularly shoot clay. But I've also yet to meet a guy who doesn't thoroughly enjoy shooting one. I also cannot think of another rifle capable of taking down deer that is also so soft in recoil.

Just saw the review, that is really impressive. I assume that in a few years the same kind of performance will be half the price.

Smartphone + data plan

Nice. I have a simmons one. I won't buy simmons products again based on the last scope they gave me, but this thing has been fine. It was maybe $80-90, but the angle compensation is a nice touch.

New bow hunter who has only a bow and arrows and a budget of $100? RANGE FINDER!!! That has to be among the top items on a list.

At the least you can get a gopro mount for your bow!

It's so true. I was getting burned out last year and the excitement I had on the first day of hunting in early October had turned into "ugh, I do not want to" a month later. I barely dragged my tired ass out of bed on that dark November morning but glad I did, as two hours later I had my first deer. I went out once with a guy last year. He went out twice, two hours at a pop, and got nothing. Asked him if he's going out again. He's "too busy" this year to hunt. I guarantee I'll be in the woods this year at some point while he's literally asleep in his bed.

I have the same bow. Mine is called the PSE Droptine, which is the name they give the stinger when they sell it as a package. In my case from field & stream. Mine is a 50-70 lb bow which I've currently got at 50 and I'm shooting 400 grain total weight arrows. I have it set at 50 basically just because it's ample for deer and I don't want to put undue burden on my joints. Since I've had mine the quiver has snapped in half. I suppose that may be somewhat related to it falling out of a tree. I glued it back together with fiberglass mesh and epoxy, so now it's fine. Also the level fell out of the sight. This might also be related to the fact it fell out of a tree (heh), so I bought a new sight because I couldn't find a spare level. The existing sight is okay but it's a three pin with large optic dots. $40 buys a nicer sight with smaller dots, but the existing one is fine. I've put I dunno maybe 2000 arrows through mine (maybe less) and the string is in excellent shape (I wax it every 200-300 arrows at the most). The peep sight has some rotational issues and when mine popped out one day I went with a tube peep. I know some people hate tube peeps but honestly I love the tube peep, I can't lie. Whisker biscuit on mine looks great except a few of the whiskers near where the arrow rubs are starting to stick out. I bet it has at least a couple thousand more arrows in it, though. I paper-tuned the bow at home. Unfortunately they probably won't have time to really tune it nicely, but it's an easy process to learn yourself.

I wanted to read this thread but wow it is long now. I think it's not that relevant to say that north dakotans of both hunting and non-hunting groups have lower than average lead levels so it's all moot, if the key finding is that hunters do have 50% higher levels. I can only hope that there was a control put into this for shooting in general. By this I mean if you're into hunting you're more likely into guns and we know that guns expose the user to a small bit of lead even just by firing it (https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6316a3.htm). Spend a bunch of time in an indoor range and your levels can go up. Hopefully the study controlled for that. I'd personally prefer to feed my kids meat taken with lead-free bullets or by bow, just to be safe. But, I would still use lead ammo if I can be reasonably sure the meet close to the bullet damage is discarded.

As good as I may think I am shooting foam my accuracy at deer is way less; no hail mary's.

I'm not sure about intent, but gallup tracks race relations and they are currently the worst they have been in a few decades. That is no lie. They have gotten profoundly worse since black lives matter came on the scene. One thing is for sure: the current course is a bad one for the entire country. I do actually hold obama partly responsible for stoking the flames after certain events in which he appeals to one's victim hood but then it turns out the person really did bring it upon themselves.

Considering public land is, well, public, the odds of somebody walking by your stand and subsequently snatching it seem to me to be substantially higher on public than private land. That was what I was getting at...

I didn't know that about rat-killing dogs but I'm not surprised. I won't pretend I personally hunt deer out of a particular concern for them getting in front of cars, but that is absolutely one of the reasons the state encourages hunting. And I can say I have no qualms whatsoever about taking one knowing that I'm even in an area in which the state actively wants to lower the deer population. Perception is everything because we are approaching an Idiocracy society: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy That guy who killed the damn lion a year back didn't do anyone any favors but the response to that was certainly over the top.

I recall reading that most people don't care about hunting one way or another. Then on either end of the spectrum those who hunt and those who are opposed. I seem to recall reading that in general opposition to hunting is actually going down, which kind of surprised me. But groups like PETA are like some gun control people. They will not stop until they have reached a complete and logical conclusion to what they want. In PETAs case I am sure everybody vegetarian. And half of us in any given year slamming into a deer on the road as well.

Yes, but not by me I mean if you're going to use a stand there is a stronger reason to if on public than private.

I do find it interesting that the media quite happily denigrates whites (particularly men) for supporting trump, and I've seen his core supporters referred to as "uneducated whites", yet Hillary's almost unanimous support from blacks is never framed in the same kind of negative light. Trump this week has been trying to court the black vote, knowing it's tough for him. Who wants to bet that Hillary will try and court the white man vote? She won't because she doesn't actually want it. Not a single word she has said, even a pandering word, has been to support white men from what I can garner (or any men, to be frank).

I absolutely get it. I'm actually surprised anybody into hunting or who has family into it would let a stranger onto their land. This is only my second year, but I could really see buying some land a few years out. Pretty much impossible with the kids currently sucking me dry like a bunch of vampires. The good news is western NY is growing slowly enough that development shouldn't be crowding me out any time soon. It's easy to cry, but at the end of the day the difference between public and private is basically an hour total driving each time I go hunting plus I "have" to use a climbing stand. Even if I go out 15 times, it's hardly a bunch of lost time per season to be honest.

Honestly can anybody here say they've ever seen this sticker? I read about it in the NY hunting guidelines and I'm thinking yeah right! I've never, ever seen one of these.

Seems to me everybody in this thread is a total gentleman. I can't believe none of you have looked up this lady. Let's say she hits the gym a lot and has the body to prove it, wowsers!

Seems like the stuff I read in some books and online about "just dress nice and ask!" are a little tougher in reality, based on some posts in this thread. I read something recently from some big north american hunting conference that said access to locations to hunt is the biggest problem identified by hunters. I'd definitely hold that position. It's not surprising that if you own a bunch of acreage and you have friends/family who hunt it you're never going to let a stranger do that. So in a lot of cases the only way you can gain permission to hunt property is if, somehow, the person who owns it doesn't actually have any family who hunt or any friends who have yet asked (I'm sure there are occasional exceptions to this). It's not so surprising people put posted signs up the yin yang. Sure would be good if NY had, or expands what they do have, for outreaching to land owners to let people hunt. The state could setup a system and you register within it (so that if you act the fool people know you did) and it tries to hook land owners up with hunters, with compensation for land owners. Given the hassle others experience here, I bet a lot of us would happily spend a little money to lease some land. If the state did this they could emphasize over and over that you will be completely unliable for anything on your property (unless negligent as jaeger above points out).

I never check them if I'm shooting foam unless they hit very close to each other. If they strike really close I absolutely bend them quite a lot while listening and looking for weird behavior out of them. I don't believe there's any reason a carbon arrow should hurt itself if it's only hitting foam, though.