archerforever

It's definitely not a stretch- it happens every year more than you know. The map is clearly marked. I have seen orange clad "hunters" in the bow zone every season.

Opening day of the regular deer season and I am BOW hunting in the BOW ONLY zone in letchworth state park. I am all nestled into my lone wolf stand in a stellar spot and at around 7:30 am I look up the hill to see some little orange blob peering down into my valley with a rifle! Are you kidding me!!! I never got out out my stand and ran up that hill so fast in my life! I walked right up to him, before he even saw me! Some hunter... "ahh... I thought I was in the gun area", ya right buddy! Park police on speed dial! "My buddy and I will get out of here... You had better run out of here! Unbelievable- some hunters just have absolutely no respect at all! Thinking they could sneak into a bow only area on opening day of gun, probably because they thought who would be bowhunting on opening day of gun. Well, this hunter does and that's all he does is bowhunt! Alright, my rant is over- had to blow some steam off! Until next season in Letchworth- My favorite place to chase whitetails!

Wrapping up a long shed season for myself- I easily walked over a 100 miles this season alone. Here are some of my latest finds. I collected almost 30 this season, not too bad for having a one year old and having school and work!

March 13th proved to be quite the day to be out looking for some bone.

Here are some of my sheds from this season so far....

This buck came from Genesee county

After shooting the MQ-1 since 1999 and having great success, I made the "mistake" of shooting the Z7 this past winter. Not that I needed a new mathews, but I am definitely not regretting my new purchase! The Z7 is one sweet shooting bow and I look forward to the next 10 or 11 more years of great success!

Just watched the premier last night- it was really good. Wow, even in California, the fish and game are definitely lacking in man-power. They have their work cut out for them!

He looks really tight- cool buck

One of the larger rubs for my 2010 bow season, when you find one like this- you know that there is a mature buck in the immediate area.

Thanks for the response, actually I am still out there with the bow until I get a mature doe and a nice buck. I have seen alot of deer and passed up around 25 bucks, but still have yet to have that close encounter that I am looking for. The perseverance factor is starting to take a toll on me however.

This is my drop tine 10 pointer from the 2004 bow season. It was arrowed on november 7th and is still to date my largest bow kill. I heard a statistic where 1 out of every 10,000 bucks has a drop tine. I do now that in certain areas such as where this deer came from that there seems to more bucks with this genetic trait. The studies out there are pretty inconclusive regarding drop tines. I will probably never shoot another one, but I will sure be out there trying!

After bowhunting pretty hard since opening day and averaging around 3 days a week, I feel like I am just getting going. Just because the shotgun season has officially started doesn't mean that we need to put away the bows! I for one, don't pick up a gun anymore for deer hunting- I just can't stand the sound of that blast on opening day. I do realize that I am the exception to this idea, but the shotgun just doesn't do anything for me anymore. Bowhunting is simply the best! I am going to give it my all until the very last day of the deer season to get it done with my stick and string.

Here are a couple of my mounts- The droptine is from the 2004 bow season and the other mount is my 2009 bow kill. The european mount is from my brother's find from last shed season- a tremendous old brute that scored over 150" from Monroe County. The droptine was done by Dan Scorza and my most recent mount was done by Marty Karns, both did great jobs.

Since taking bowhunting up very seriously in 1999, I first purchased the Mathews MQ-1 and have had tremendous success using it. I never have had any problems with the MQ-1! When the new Z7 came out in the beginning of the year " I made the mistake of shooting the Z7", or at least this is what I said to myself as I knew what my wife would think! What an incredible all-around bow- extremely smooth, very fast, and forgiving. There is a reason why Mathews is the number one archery company in the world. It will probably be yet another 11 or 12 years before I get another bow and my wife should be very happy about that!

I shot my second largest bow buck on 11/2/09 in Monroe County, N.Y. He came right into my rattling and grunting sequence and presented a picture perfect shot at 20yds. He dropped right in his tracks. Bowhunting is simply the best!

The answer to this question is a very personal one. Since taking up bowhunting up in 1999 and killing inmature bucks for the first couple of seasons, I progressed and really only wanted to shoot mature deer. I respect everyone's view on this topic and I believe that every deer is a trophy regardless of antler measurements. It does get easier to pass up small bucks after you have harvested a few nice mature bucks and have areas where you hunt that have pretty high deer densities. I would say that in the last 3 or 4 seasons that I have passed on 20-30 bucks each season, but that takes patience and years of practice to do so.