Brushbuster

Steve, Horn porn sells, dontcha know (just sayin).

"Killing too many will end up with results similar to killing none at all." With all due respect, I disagree. Unless there is a heavy spring snow condition, whitetails will not starve. Also, this yarding instinct they have appears to be a throw back to when they had lots of natural predation. It serves no use now and this behavior is counter productive. If they did not yard up, they would find plenty of browse to see them through.

I wasnt joking. Did you ever do a taste test of mutton vs lamb? I like lamb and that is how I hunt locally at least. The mayor of our town asked me to give a presentation on why we needed to open the parks to hunting about 15 years ago and they eventually got that approved. I have one of the permits to hunt the parks and in order to keep car accidents down (used to be over 400 a year with two deaths), we need to kill about 250 each year. I decided to shoot skippers only and it is great. It is the best eating plus I am not killing a doe that is probably carrying two inside her. I usually put two or three in the freezer and along with winter flounder we eat some of the best fish and game there is.

NY is not making the same mistake and that is why we stopped hunting Potter/Tioga in Pa and moved over the border to NY. However, it is obvious that many here are pushing this "thinning the herd" propaganda - I dont know why but it seems to be people that work in the industry and that is the reason I joined this forum is to warn against the decimation of doe herds.

WNY, No - I will tell you what the problem is. They are killing too many does. What part of that do you not understand? Aerial surveys of Potter and Tioga in Pa where they decided to decimate the herd in the name of AR, they now have 2 and 3 deer PER SQUARE MILE. Meanwhile, the buck KILL just over the border in Steuben is 4 and 5 per square mile. Take that Mother Goose Conservation Theory and pitch it elsewhere. Like I said, I only joined this group to warn people what happened to Pa where they once had the "Whitetail Capital of the World" and now my friends who still hunt there are now seeing more bear and coyote on opening day than deer.

Shoot the fawns - the are better eating and wont be giving birth in the spring like the doe. They do have less meat on them but they taste better than lamb chops.

I know you wont be saying that to me in person. Also, I see you depend on advertisers at your website. I guess one way to get more money is to have hunters kill more does every year and buy more products from the industry that you are in.

I have hunted trophy deer during the rut and guess what - they taste like crap. I have tried everything including caping them right away and removing all fat and aging them in cheesecloth - they are still relatively tough and gamey. That is why I gladly shoot young bucks - preferably after the rut. When you kill a buck instead of a doe, consider that a doe usually has two deer in her.

"Hey Brushbuster.. if deer are so plentiful in NJ then why do all you NJ hunters come to NY to kill deer???" Like I said, I have a lot more experience hunting deer than you and have done so in many places throughout the US and Canada. I will hunt in NJ, NY, and anywhere else I want. Believe it or not, your insults wont stop me. And guess what? Everywhere I go the truth is the same - the more does you kill the fewer bucks you have. And all your "statistics" and "facts" and "experts" cant change that. Can a spring snow put a hurt on deer? Sure it can but this type of mortality has nothing to do with lack of food. Deer will yard up in heavy snow in areas that do not have much feed and no one knows why - it does not make much sense but that is why a heavy spring snow will find them in creek bottoms.

The bad lines look like pixelating from a low res phone camera. It might be legit although there is a strange blotch by the left ear.

"you don't have a clue. i have personally been on surveys int he early 80's on the tug hill plateau with DEC. stand of pines with hundreds of deer in various stages of starvation. " Culver Creek, You are wrong and this is due to the 10' of snow they get up there sometimes from lake effects. If the open water does not freeze, those deer die from too much snow cover and not because of over population. Culver, I have hunted and fished all around the world - hunted whitetails from Alberta (50 miles from the nearest paved road) to Eastern Shore to Potter Cty to the Adirondacks after backpacking 5 miles in. I might know a thing or three and killing breeding does (which is what AR really turns out to be in practice) DECREASES the number of bucks. There is no getting around that simple fact.

From the DEC website ........................ Question: When can I use a crossbow to hunt? Answer: Only during the REGULAR firearms seasons in the Northern and Southern Zone, during the LATE muzzleloading and bowhunting seasons, and during the January firearms season in Suffolk County, beginning with the 2011-2012 hunting seasons and continuing until December 31, 2012. Question: May I use a crossbow during the late bowhunting season? Answer: Yes. You may use a crossbow during the LATE special seasons (bowhunting and muzzleloading) after the close of the regular season.

"Doe numbers need to be controlled, otherwise you end up with a situation like you had in the late 80s and early 90s where deer were so overpopulated, they ate themselves out of food and began starving." Where? That never happened in this part of the world. And neither have we ever had a disease problem. BTW, I live in Morris County NJ where they have more deer per sq mile than anywhere else in the world. There is no starvation and no disease and there are many times I go out and dont see a tail either. The "need" to kill does is a myth.

Dumb question - how do you measure this new restriction as it is pretty vague.

The road kill count is up here in NJ - they are chasing for sure. A nice heavy 8 - probably a 4-5 year old deer is laying on the median on Rt 206 right in the town of Somerville. Love Stinks :-)

"...if the right number of doe are being taken from the herd. This allows more does to get bred..." Nyantler, HaminahaminaWhat? ??? !!!?! Shoot more does so more does get bred? Hah! Is that how they pitched AR in Pa? If they believed that, they deserve what they got. All you doe hunters - if you shoot them later on in Jan, you can actually see the fetuses and the buck fetuses will have little buttons on their heads. Hang that on the wall ;-)

"Uhoh. here is the type of hunter that got us into this mess in the first place. Hate to tell you that when you shoot a buck you may be killing more than just one of next years bucks. Especially if you kill him on opening day at 7 am like you probably do." nyantler, Did you read my post? I suggest you do and then you can comment on the fact that Pennsylvania's deer herd is decimated in areas where it was once known as the "Whitetail Capital of the World" By the way, bucks tend more than one doe and that is why they call it a rut. Your comment that does will go unbred if a spike is shot is laughable but not unexpected given that industry people like yourself often have a hard time understanding that AR and ignoring habitat has ruined hunting in former meccas like Potter and Tioga counties. Industry people have a hard time understanding that where drives used to put up hundreds of deer, now hunters will see more coyote and bear than deer on opening day. Nyantler, why is that so hard for you to understand - that millions of acres in Pa. that were once thriving with deer herds are now devoid.

I live in NJ so the best indicator of deer movement is the morning drive. Here in Somerset and Morris county, all you have to do is count the road kill in the morning and evening commute. You always see a spurt in that first chilly night in Sept when it gets into the 40's. And then it seems to happen according to Alsheimer during seeking/chasing. However, I did not see that much activity in this past seek/chase phase and I think it was because of the warm and windy weather.

Around home where I have permission to hunt in the park lands, I am in the ladder stand 30 minutes before daylight and out at 9 or 10 depending on how much wind, sun and hunters pushing around there is. I also like getting in at 4:00 and hunting just as late as possible. I am usually in thick stuff so that means it is pretty dark. But I only do this with firearms and my big Leupold - I dont want to stick a deer with a bow in the afternoon because that means the yotes will probably get it and not me (I think crossbow should be MANDATORY for afternoon hunting if youre going to hunt with a bow)

I hunt mostly alone and not by choice. All my hunting buddies have passed away or moved away or have health issues and their kids (and mine) dont have the interest.

Models dont work. "Experts" dont know what works either. Pennsylvania is proof of that. The only thing that works is no doe hunting, no Big Woods, and lots of grain production and that is based on the very great hunting we had in the 50's and 60's. Again, if you shoot a doe this year, you killed this years buck, next years buck, and the buck for the year after.

Sometimes a deer will get close without scenting you but if the wind swirls and they get a strong wiff, they are gone in a NYC second. Its like trying to sit upwind from a camp fire. Sometimes the wind swirls and you get a nose full and the deer reacts the same way.

I joined this forum just to warn everyone not to do what Pa did. I started hunting there in 1971 and our camp had some old timers that hunted Potter and Tioga when they took a hundred grouse in a day...and the trout limit was just about that too. Any ways they knew in the 70's and 80' and 90's why things were going downhill and there was two basic reasons. First was because this whole area was pretty much clear cut in the last century and during the 1900's you had lots of farms with lots of grain production that fed lots of deer. Even the areas that were not farmed grew over with thick, secondary cover with lots of browse. Second was because of doe hunting. In the 70's none of these men who were all WWII vets would even consider killing a doe. They never posted their land but when the doe carnage started, you would see either no posts or you would see "No Doe Hunting". So by the time 2000 came around and most of the old timers were gone, so were the bucks because the corn was gone, the browse was gone , and the does were gone. And all these storie of bigger racks is nonsense. Look at some old time meat poles in these camps. No one shot spikes cause they looked like does which no one shot. All the bucks were nice 6's and 8's or better. We quit hunting there but some of our acquaintences are still sticking it out but they are seeing more bear than deer on opening day as well as more coyote than deer on opening day. That is not deer hunting - that is a waste of time. So there you have it. Kill a doe, and you killed next year's buck, and the year after, and the year after. Also, we need to promote logging and corn production. We need secondary growth next to fields of crops if we want to see a healthy herd. There are too many fields that have gone to seed. We need a program that will provide an incentive to land owners to really make them want to return these fields to production. Corn is over $5/bushel and I hope that helps.

Hard winds make for a noise - and the deer rather hunker down that look at every snap that happen in the woods.