Core

IMO you're over-thinking this. Stay a reasonable distance off the road and you're fine. If you want more evidence, bring up the "DEC Interactive mapper" (google), and zoom to the Tonawanda state wildlife management area, just south east of lockport in western NY. Now bring up google and look for the "alabama swamps shooting range". It is on bartel rd AKA owen rd. Go to road view. Here it is, and here is a guy shooting. The DEC definitely know about this site

Thanks! I have a co-worker who's more than willing to share info and I spoke to him for a while, but I know better than to beg for people to let me tag along to their special hunting spots unless they offer As such, the second best is researching it. I grabbed a couple of well reviewed books and will read at least three before things get going. Keeping my expectations low and constantly reminding myself that there's a learning curve. Thanks for the tips on a bow. My problem is I know so little about them I don't know how to buy a used one. I found a nice one, I thought, on Craigslist for $225, seemed well speced, then found out it was a $350 bow over a decade ago, so not worth that cost.

Nice piece of land for that. Too many houses around me; I can't even fire an air gun in the back yard. We should have moved to Mendon to begin with

I share this sentiment. I think a person to person transfer of info is preferable. Does anybody know if adding a privilege to a license later on is just a matter of them re-printing the license with the new addition added? E.g. if you get a regular season permit and then middle of October you decide you want to do some bow hunting after all, can you add it on easily enough? I have "tentative spousal approval on my appropriations request", so am starting to look at some bows now

If he was doing that I have to think it's illegal if it can be proven to interfere with legal hunting. I will assume the guy wasn't trying to scare you off to keep ground for himself, but I appreciate the story! I noticed on google there are some fields nearby. Might be less of an issue that kind of thing during bow season. I wonder if it really hurts anything anyway; unless the hunter is doing that year long, the deer are simply going to be moving around when he does it, but they can't run forever, so I wonder if in effect he was driving them toward the rest of galen and into the arms of hunters inadvertently. What about lake shore?

Thought I'd bump this, see if anybody else has any input. Lake shore and galen are also the closest WMA to me and at least at this time I've no access to private land. Appreciate Cabin Fever's response. Anybody else have any input on these spots?

Thanks--I was surprised to see how hard it is to get into any hunting courses close by--not even just bow. The online one still requires in-person, and the in-person component is not offered that regularly. There was a great combo hunter/bow course starting this week that, as recently as last week, still had spots available, but I cannot make one of the days. The course at the GCL at the end of September has registration starting on Sept 10 and I think I can get a spot as long as they don't require a bow (assuming I don't have one) I know all states have hunting safety certificate reciprocity, and pennsylvania has an online-only hunting cert course, so this can be used to get an NY hunting cert, though it doesn't cover bow.

Western Wayne, so that place is less than 20 minutes from me. I won't have the money to go full hog with a bunch of crazy elite equipment that I've no real business using. A co-worker also mentioned a place in Phelps.

If you think Brooklyn is bad, try Canada--surprised I even convinced my wife to let me get a shotgun at all, but now she's saying I should go hunting with my dad. I guess miracles do happen! I may indeed be too late for bow. Will have the regular hunting license shortly and signing up for a bow course for next month (if I end up getting a bow in time). Entirely possible I'm just doing shotgun this year, though. If I get a bow I'll be joining a local club that's a ball's throw from me and will have ample opportunity to practice. I've gone by that place in Marion before--will check it out.

Thanks, all. This is an active forum as far as intro responses go! 40 min is not terrible, although I wonder about how many deer are left on public land and unfortunately with kids I don't have a ton of spare time. I am going to probably knock on a few doors locally of corn farmers and see if any will be nice enough to let me use their land. I've fired a bow before and wasn't horrendous (the target wasn't moving), but I certainly need practice. May try and parlay the "necessity" of its purchase into a father/daughter thing if I can get my wife to go along with that and take my daughter to the range with her own bow (which she also doesn't own yet). I'm also toying with the idea of buying a hunting rifle (only to extend range over a shotgun), but a bow is probably more up my alley because it will open up a huge amount of season and there is a range close to my work, and with a bow you don't spend $.50-1 with every shot. Yes, it would be! Sometimes as I'm waking up in the morning I can hear guys shooting 1/2 mile from me. Now that would be convenient! I fancy the idea of sitting in a stand drinking coffee out of my thermos as the sun goes up. But, as I may have alluded to, I'm a city boy and nobody in my family has ever hunted. Walking through the woods on a cool morning with even a small chance of seeing a deer sounds quite enjoyable and a nice change from the 12 hours/day I spend in front of a screen.

Briefly, never been hunting before, getting my license shortly. Only looking to deer hunt at the moment, and seeing if I can procure a bow to get a jump start on things, but if not I'll probably end up spending a couple of weeks with a shotgun staring at very little and coming away empty handed. That's my story Looking for some good land around the Wayne/Monroe area, as all the public stuff is at least 40 minutes away. Will have to step up that search soon and am not opposed to paying a small bit for the privilege.