WNYBuckHunter

http://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/28605.html

The black lumps are warts, lots of deer get them, and they fall off. Nothing to be concerned about. The antler growth is most likely pedicule damage, or possibly an old injury to the opposite side of his body. There is nothing genetic going on here. Even if there was, you cant control genetics in a wild herd anyway, so dont bother "culling" him. If he floats your boat, kill him with no excuses and be happy about it.

This reminds me of the people that buy a full size truck and then complain about getting bad gas mileage. Duh.

These are all gone BTW

I wont be one to jump to any conclusion so quickly. Ive heard enough reports that detail what went down and they all seem to point the finger at the guides. Ive also heard alot of stories that tell a different tale. What ever happened to giving people their day in court before you publicly string them up for something they are accused of or charged with? Lets say you paid a guide for a hunt, and something the guide told you to do broke a game law, and you didnt know it, and you got charged with poaching. Would you want everyone to call for your head, make death threats, destroy your means of income, etc? The thing that gets me about most of the stories I hear that are saying the Dr is at fault, is that all of them contain a ton of anti hunting, animal rights rhetoric. It makes it so they sound more emotional than factual. Like I said though, I wont jump to any conclusions about the situation until all of the facts are laid out and the court hands down its verdict. It amazes me how people can behave this way.

Mismanaged deer? The Whitetail is probably the biggest success story of wildlife conservation and management on the continent. In just over 100 years we have gone from around 500k deer on the continent to over 20 million.

Ok, so the map you are talking about has to do with yearling buck protection strategy, not population control or doe permits. The WMUs are not being changed as far as DMPs go. They have already released the allocation numbers for DMPs this year. The NH stands for no hunting btw.

Go over to AT and hit this guy up, hes looking for one.. http://www.archerytalk.com/vb/showthread.php?t=2698729&highlight=pulse

I just dont get what is blocking your brain from understanding that the new zones have NOTHING TO DO WITH DOE MANAGEMENT, NOTHING TO DO WITH POPULATION MANAGEMENT. So stop trying to insinuate that another population management change (doe only season) has anything to do with these zones or buck management. It is not a redundant system, they are now putting more into managing yearling bucks, so its a new management system. I never said there wont be increased costs to implement the programs to manage yearling bucks, of course there will. I said it will be more efficient to manage a smaller number of zones. Costs be damned, the zones make sense, they follow the same boarders as WMUs, you just dont need to manage yearling bucks in areas as small as WMUs, so they group a bunch of them together into a zone that includes areas with similar habitat features. What is so complicated about that?

Never trust a fart

When did the current WMU system begin managing bucks (besides when ARs started)? The whole AR zone thing has prompted this, because they are seeing that the small WMUs arent as effiecient for them to manage as larger habitat based zones. You dont manage herd population with bucks, you do that with does, and population has little to do with this. Im claiming to manage YEARLING BUCK HARVEST (something new on a statewide scale) it will cost less to manage 9 zones rather than 89. Do I need to get my crayon out? Because the logic behind that is astoundingly simple. BTW, the boundaries of the new zones follow the boundaries of the WMUs they contain. Gathering data is easy, just add up the old data from the WMUs in that zone and viola! And I need to correct our conversation here, its 7 zones, not 9.

You cant base what happens across the state upon what you see at your particular location.

If theres a snowmobile bridge crossing a ravine in that creek, I would have a stand on the downwind side of that immediately. If the boards are close enough to support a sled, deer are using it. Put a camera there and watch all the action that gets.

Practice practice practice. Slow down, pay attention to everything you are doing and you will get it. One thing I did when I had mine was to add some camo tape to certain areas where the two pieces touch to quiet things down. I also had a bungee cord that was tied to the platform that held the two sections nice and tight while I had it on my back walking in or out.

This week has panned out just how my weather app said it would. The next rain isnt predicted until Saturday afternoon, so we should be able to get a few plots done and in between Friday evening and Saturday morning.

Sure sounded like you were worried about it when you said... "I'm simply concerned that we will be losing a more closely controlled existing zoning system (WMU system) for another band-aid that is by design worse and less finely married to habitat and local conditions than what we already have." In any case, as has been explained already, the new zones are based upon similar overall habitat characteristics. In other words, the average yearling buck in the area that I hunt, is larger than the average yearling buck in the Dacks or Catskills, and it is mostly due to soil quality, forage quality, etc. If you want to manage things to try and protect the yearling bucks, the rules you make down in the Catskills arent going to work very well around here. The rules they make in my area, will generally work in Monroe or Wayne county though. If you dont understand how it is less expensive to manage 9 zones vs 89 WMUs, especially when there is no need to, well I dont know what to tell you. I really think the zone layout is fine for the purposes of buck management, Im just waiting to see how they intend to do it.

Few other spots Id be looking at as well....

Some are, some arent. Theres a min width (uncocked) and a max draw of 200#

89 here

The two just look so different in size due to distance from the camera.

I dont see anything stating that they will do away with current WMUs. This is all about buck management, not herd or doe management.

Ive heard a certain store in Rochester still has some packages of Arrest Max that cover 1 acre at $40 a pop. Ill be picking one up tomorrow to hit our plot with. Im sure Ill be able to get regular cleth down the road. Just wont be as easy to get.

Do those cams allow the use of a cable lock? Kind of like the Coverts? I cant find any pics of the back of them anywhere. **EDIT** Found pics of the back on trailcampro. They are setup for cable locks. I might have to scoop one up.

11.50 a bag for 10-10-10 this year. Basically for their typical rape/turnip mix, its $27 an acre.