pitweiler

I think the .325 never picked up because it doesn’t do anything a .300 WSM can’t. A .375 WSM would be cool.

My main hunting rifle is a .243. I have an old beater Savage 110 in .30-06 that drives tacks but is a boat anchor to carry. I’m looking to do some destination hunts next year where I’d spend 3-6 days out at a time. I think it would be a good idea to add a third bolt-action rifle to the collection. I was thinking of adding another .30-06 so I could load .243 and .30-06 and not worry about a third caliber. Not that it would be an issue, just figured it would be easier if my destination rifles were the same cartridge. While I’m confident a properly loaded .243 will kill anything I can hit with it, I wouldn’t mind a bit more punch if I’m in ADK, Catskills, or another state. (My young son is coming with me. In the extremely rare event I have to punch a bear or get an opportunity to take one, I’d rather punch it with a .308 or .30-06 than a .243. Just seems like a smarter idea.) What I don’t want is another 9-10lb .30-06 that is a lug to carry. I don’t want a rifle that uses a lot of plastic components (trigger guard, floor plate, bolt components). Plastic magazines are OK as long as they secure via a metal latch on the rifle, no plastic on plastic. I have no issues with hunting in extremely cold weather and I have experienced plastic getting brittle and breaking in that climate. By far, I prefer Ruger Hawkeyes. However, their .30-06 is heavy and the compact Hawkeye is a short action (which is fine). The new Savage 110 AccuFit stock actually looks appealing, but I’m not sure I want to lug around a ginormous Savage “Long/Magnum Action” for an ‘06. The 110 Lightweight Storm looks appealing in .308. If you were buying a new primary rifle and your back up was a .30-06, how important would it be for your primary to be the same caliber? Do you care? Seems if they were both .308 bullets that would at least decrease the amount of different components I would need. Looking for some opinions on the previous question and some ideas about what rifles could be a good fit for me. I’m very leery about a rifle that uses plastic components, especially a trigger guard, depending on how it is manufactured. I figure I’ll park the truck, leave the back-up rifle in a hardsided Pelican case locked to the seat frames and hike the broken rifle out to get the back up if need be. Thoughts?

I’ll throw mine into the mix. .45 ACP loaded with 230gr Golden Sabers or 160/185r Tac XP.

Sorry to hear that bud. I hope you’re able to get back out there! This is all in good fun. Where do you typically hunt? I know a few spots near Syracuse that aren’t far off the side roads and have a lot of heavily used trails. I’d be more than happy to help set you up if it’s close by for you.

I don’t own either. I’m probably adding bow next year.

It was over for me yesterday lol. Going to see Santa today and work tomorrow.

That’s a nice touch.

Well, I couldn’t get it done this season. Here’s my recipie: 1 Cup of Tinks 69 3 Cups of Kids 1/2 Cup of Pregnant Wife 1/2 Cup of Work 2 Tbsp of OT Work 2 Tbsp of Family Activities in the off Season 1 Tbsp of Soccer 1 Tsp of The Unexpected Combine ingredients in large pot with unused big game tags. Simmer on low heat for 6 weeks, stirring occasionally. Garnish with a touch of disappointment and serve lukewarm.

Down by PA? Any confirmed sightings?

I think bringing elk back to NY would be fantastic. Realistically it's probably only a matter time before they show up. PA's herd is growing and I imagine at some point it will be big enough to extend into southern NY.

Eastern Elk were native to the entire east coast. History of Eastern Elk

I wonder if reintroducing elk would help balance the deer population across the state. It would also give us some extra big game hunting opportunities in the future. It has been very successful in PA. I would imagine it would be successful in NY as well.

I think they're just pushing to see how far they can go. I think they are disguising authoritarian government control under the guise of public safety and the problem is that most people will find it acceptable. I don't see how that piece of legislation makes it past constitutional scrutiny. There are 1st, 4th, and 5th amendment violations written into the legislation. I understand why they think it will help stop these incidents, and, quite frankly, it actually might, but the constitutional violations and the slippery slope into authoritarian government control this could/would start is scary.

I'm sort of in this camp. Even if it was legal, I don't think I would do it with a feeder type system or corn piles. I just find humor in they roundabout way NY goes about deer feeding/baiting legality. Bait sites are illegal for you and me, but a planted food plot is completely legal, and feeding deer in Sullivan County is acceptable, but not acceptable in the rest of the state. With all that said, a municipality can hire USDA to cull their population and baiting/spotlighting is totally acceptable for that practice. I just find it completely hypocritical. If I was someone who was relying on killing a couple deer to feed my family I would throw some bait down without hesitation if I needed to. I think most of the displeasure stems from what someone said about one property baiting and pulling deer from adjacent property. No one is on the same page. Baiting happens in NY. The bait is sold in pretty much every sporting goods store and they always run low by the time hunting season starts. People ARE buying corn salt/mineral licks, etc. Maybe NYS should regulate it instead of banning it. In certain areas of the state where deer population is too high I would think baiting would be an acceptable form of hunting. Especially when hunting harvest numbers aren't great enough to control the population and culling has to take place by the USDA. It's also interesting that baiting coyotes is legal but baiting bears is not. Baiting bears is not an uncommon way to hunt them. I don't see how bait left out for coyotes would not be eaten by bears since bears eat pretty much anything they can get their paws on. I just don't see a difference. I say regulate it and put some stipulations in place like a lot of states have. Maybe increasing their food sources in more rural areas will help draw deer out of suburban and urban areas. I'm not a biologist so I don't know the answer to that.

I don’t understand the disdain for baiting. A lot of states allow bating and feeding of deer. What’s interesting is some of the states that allow it are the same states that produce big bucks. I wonder why? I don’t understand why it’s perfectly acceptable to bait a coyote but not a deer. There are more deer/human interactions than coyote/human interactions. Besides, municipalities across NY will pay the USDA and whatever subcontractors they hire to bait, spot light and cull deer at night. I don’t see how baiting is a terrible thing. If you stay within your tag limits what is the problem? It’s not for everyone, but for the people just looking to put food on the table. Just food for thought.

I don’t think requiring people to pay a small yearly fee to access public land is outrageous. I think the main issue would be how do you enforce it? Do we really want a family of 5 getting a ticket for casually hiking without their proper stamp? I’m not sure that would be the best way to go about it. Some states do have similar fees for public land use. As for the 1 buck per year limit, I’m not opposed. I think instead of getting an antlered deer tag you should get an antlerless deer tag and the antlered tags should be issued like DMPs. I estimate that out of 580k hunting licenses sold 95% are purchased for deer hunting. Out of those people deer hunting probably 75-85% are going to exclusively hunt public land. Outside of the ADK region most of the state land is small. Because of this you end up with heavy hunter densities in some areas. I also don’t think the current hunting regulations are doing anything to curb the deer / human population conflicts in some areas. Most car/deer accidents are does outside of the rut. I work nights and I see 4 does to 1 buck, if that. Does are protected while bucks don’t get much protection.

I say get rid of the Bowhunting Course. There are only a handful of states/provinces that require it. I’m going to take it this coming year, but I don’t see why it couldn’t just be an online thing. Especially since you don’t need it for crossbow.

That could be an issue. It would have to be addressed in the legislation.

That is why I would want to carefully read the legislation before I supported it. If done properly NYS could end up with some really nice public land as the program evolves. FatBoyD- Their taxes may be lower, but they get you in other ways. Honestly man it all works out to about even. I was living in Metro Atlanta for a while and moved back because it was too darn expensive.

Some southern states (Georgia for one) make you pay $10-20, I can't remember what it was, to access their public land. I think it would help fund conservation. ETA: I would want to read the legislation very carefully before I supported it. If it looked like it had a lot of grey area to steal this money away from conservation, I would oppose it.

My licenses print just fine. I think there are plenty of states that have far more complicated hunting processes than this. If it is so easy, doing this would allow you to theoretically kill 4-5 bucks and 2-3 does, depending on what you took during the either-sex season. I am by no means an expert or even close to it, but I can tell you that I don't like trying to be serious about this and getting to public land and I see XX amount of people there. It isn't safe and it isn't productive. If you read about a lot of the land NYS owns, they own it because no one else wanted it. They own it because the soil wasn't able to produce crops or the land was too wet. Some of the large expanses of state land are not accessible because they are swamps. I do a lot of e-scouting using On X Hunt Maps. Other than the ADK there isn't much state land that isn't within a few hundred yards of a road. Now, you can go through a find examples that prove me wrong, but this is by far more common than finding a large area of land that isn't close to roads. If people want to hunt casually, that is totally fine. I completely support that. However, I don't see any reason why the people who are serious about it, or want to be serious about it can't have a 5 day archery and/or a 5 day firearm limited draw season before all the casual hunters hit the woods during regular. In fact, instead of adding a tag, just make it a privilege. Make is $5, put it in a lottery and then issue out the stamps. I don't see an issue with that.

Ok, I thought about how to do something like a limited draw in NY and also keep the openess (so-to-speak) that NYS allows hunters (the freedom to take a buck tag anywhere in the state). Perhaps this could give people a chance to go after "Big Hank" and also be free to hunt and shoot what they want. Move the archery opener up 5 days in each zone. The first five days of that season would be limited draw by WMU. DEC could release a specified amount of antlered deer tags per WMU for archery. The rest of the archery season would remain the same. For regular season, take the first 5 days of each season and make it limited draw by WMU, the same as archery. Extend the back end of the season in the southern zone only by 3 days to compensate for the loss of the first 5 days of general tag use. The northern zone regular season is already pretty long so I don't think taking away 5 days of general would hurt anyone that badly. Then, from January 13, 2019 to January 19, 2019 (Middle 7 days of January) I would add an either-sex season by WMU, where needed. Example: If WMU 8J doesn't reach the quota set by DEC during the previous seasons it will be open for hunting. If it did reach quota, it will be closed. Since this would be mop-up, issue these either-sex tags on a first-come-first-served basis. Give DEC from ~December 18 to December 31 to run the numbers and then issue the amount of tags per WMU. Tags go on sale Jan 1 and don't close until gone or the season closes, whichever comes first. This would be any legal implement. I would also add a Public Land Stamp. If you want to hunt public land (during Deer/Bear Season only) you have to buy a $5 stamp. NY sells on average 750,000 hunting licenses a year. If legislation was written to require a $5 Public Land Access Stamp during Deer/Bear seasons that could raise approximately $3.7M for NYS to put back into the land. This legislation would have to be strictly written so that money didn't get hijacked for other pet projects that have nothing to do with hunting/conservation, but if written properly, it could really help improve some of the state land we have now and possibly allow the state to expand some of these areas through land purchases. Cost/Tag breakdown: Hunting License- $22 Limited Archery- $10 Bowhunting Privilege- $15 Limited Firearms- $10 Regular Firearms- Included in License DMP- $10 Late Either-Sex- $10 Public Land Access Stamp- $5 Total: $82 if you bought everything If you didn't want limited draw access you don't have to take it. You're only losing 2 days of regular in the southern zone and 5 days of regular in the northern zone. I think the argument could be made that NYS doesn't need a limited archery season so that could be removed and save everyone $10.

If she isn't the outdoors type let 'er go. Even if she's a solid 10. After a couple kids they're all the same and it'll just be 40% of your paycheck if you split.

I was going to buy a muzzy, but decided if I choose another implement it will be a bow.

Well, it was a complete bust. I got stuck at work late and didn’t get home till almost 1am. We ended up not waking up until 4:50. Got to the state land by 6:45, 45min later than I wanted to. I had a bad feeling this would happen, but there were literally 10 trucks already there. There were trucks parked near every place I had scouted out. I didn’t want to be “that guy” and bust someone’s set up so I decided we’d walk in as deep as possible. Found more trucks once we got in deep. I had to guess at least 12-16 hunters in a maybe 270acre area. I didn’t want to let my kid down so I figured we’d find a spot and watch an area that was adjacent to my known trails and had some fresher tracks running through it. Well, we’re there for half an hour and i hear 3 people rip off at least 3-4 shots each in rapid succession, sounded like semi or pump shotguns shooting at a running deer. My boy was getting antsy because our spots were blown up and I was antsy because it sounded like I was around folks who would be ripping shots off at possibly running deer, which I think is dangerous and irresponsible, especially on public land where other people are hunting. It was frustrating. We were there for 2 hours. 90 mins walking in and out. Oh well. We’ll try next time. I don’t want to, but with my boy showing interest I’m seriously considering a small lease for less than a grand.