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Fly-fisherman turned Hunter-new to hunting and to NY

Dr Ignominious Death

By Dr Ignominious Death,
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Dr Ignominious Death Newbie

Dr Ignominious Death

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Hello everyone! (I hope I didn't lose credit starting off with an exclamation). As the title suggests, I recently moved from the great northwest to Rochester. As I make this transition in my life, I've decided to graduate from what my brothers and I call "the poor man's sport" of fly-fishing; so I am hanging up my fly rods (temporarily-but they'll be handy in case I get the itch) and I'm moving on to something I have wanted to do my entire life--hunting.

As I hope to make many acquantiances and potentially a few good friends, I'll share a little about myself. I'm 30ish years old, husband and father to a 4 mo son. I moved from Washingtons state to Rochester to begin working as a resident physician. I grew up with fly-fishing all over the great northwest, Utah, Montana and Idaho and love spending time in the outdoors. I've always enjoyed firearms and have done a fair amount of pistol and clay shooting, but never had anyone to show me the ropes of hunting and thus I have been a hunting "virgin", perhaps "greenie". However, I have since obtained my hunting lisence in NY and am the proud owner of a .22 rifle. Oh yeah, the big caliber. As I didn't know where to start, I started with squirrels. However, I wish to broaden by arsenal and pursue a variety of game. So as I researched which rifle to purchase in preparation for deer season (next year) I asked the only hunter I know in the area and he informed me that I need to purchase a shotgun as in the part of the country (the majority) deer cannot be taken with rifles. And thus, thankfully I was able to avoid spending upwards of one thousand or so dollars on a rifle that I could not use for deer which leads me to one of the many reasons I decided to join this forum...to tap into the endless fountain of knowledge and years of experiene of seasoned hunters.

I plan on purchasing a combo field/deer shotgun tomorrow and hopefully this firearm will allow me to pursue many different critters. I hope to hunt everything from squirrels and rabbits, potentially ducks, pheasants all the way to deer (I even bought a deep freezer for hopefully deer meat in the future). I beg someone to help "edumacate" me so I can bag a deer otherwise that freezer will end up full of my wife's veggies and other rabbit food.

So, I welcome any advice anyone has to offer. If anyone wants someone to go hunting with, to split the gas bill and have a meal or two on me, I'd be happy to go. Plus, it may not be a bad thing to have a doctor along on a hunt, I'm sure I have a few stories that could shock any seasoned hunter.

"some catchy sign-off"

D

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wdswtr Newbie

wdswtr

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You move to NY and hang up the flyrods??????????? I question your sanity at this point. LOL Its flyfishing time on the tribs for steelhead one of the best times of the year for a flyfisherman in NY. Spent last 3 days on the Salmon River throwing flies for chromers. Its one of the best things about NY a very diverse sportsmans paradise, lots of land, lots of water, lots of fun to be had. Welcome to the land of high taxes and some of the best hunting and fishing in the US.

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wdswtr Newbie

wdswtr

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OH and the majority of deer hunting in the state is now open to rifle hunting for deer. The best thing to et started is get yourself a syllabus from your local outdoor store that sells license and read it from cover to cover.

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shawnhu Newbie

shawnhu

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How's it going Doc? Using an exclamation mark is better than no punctuation at all; seems like no one in the states know what they are anymore.

In regards to hunting deer with a shotgun or a rifle, it all depends on where you are hunting in terms of county. The general trend is that counties are going towards of rifles.

If you were to get a shotgun for waterfowl, upland birds etc, I'd recommend a 12 gauge.

Most on here will tell you different opinions on the rifle necessary to take deer, but legally, any centerfire is suffice.

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Elmo Rookie

Elmo

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Don't scuff at the 22LR. My 12 gauge and my 22 leaves my cabinet over 80% of the time. Deer hunting takes a ton of patience. Unless you have access to acres and acres of private land or a farm, you won't see too many deer when hunting. On top of that, gun season for deer is such a short season. Where as, small game season starts in September and runs pretty much into March. I also do a lot of deer scouting while out squirrel hunting.

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Elmo Rookie

Elmo

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Also, 12 gauge give you more flexibility and room for error when shooting upland birds, turkey, etc because it packs more pellets in every load. 20 gauge is lighter in recoil (if you're recoil sensitive) but there are less pellets, you need to have a better aim and a tiny bit closer. But when it comes to slugs (which is what you need for deer in NY...buck shots are not allowed for deer in NY), the 20 gauge is more accurate than the 12.

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moog5050 Mentor

moog5050

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Welcome Doc. You may want to consider a dedicated deer gun if you will be hunting region 8. I have the Savage 220f and its almost like a rifle out to 200 yards. Very accurate and more than needed for the types of shots you will likely take around here. I just started myself this year and had tons of fun. Lots of good info on this site. Feel free to PM me if you have a questions specific to the Rochester area.

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Guest Buckzone1

Guest Buckzone1

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NY is aso great for fly fishing. I live between Rochester and Syracuse and attend New York Chiropractic College, and there are a lot of nice streams to fish. As for hunting, a 12 gauge will work just fine but in most areas of NY you can use rifle now.

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Dr Ignominious Death Newbie

Dr Ignominious Death

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Yeehaw! Got the 12 gauge! What a world of temptation I live in. Took my shottie (haven't given her a name yet) out of the box and in the next hour or so, I saw a few squirrels running around in the back yard, one in particular which I feel was trying to commit suicide by eager gun owner as he kept roaming around easily within range. Unfortunately, I have neighbors on nearly every side of me and despite multiple attempts of the little devil on my shoulder telling me I could get one shot off without arousing enough neighborly concern to call the police, I restrained myself and resorted to swearing an oath to the little squirrel that I would find his friends and family on another day when the law was on my side.

I'm happy to see all the enthusiastic fly-fishers on the site. I have heard/read a lot about the great lake tribs, especially the Salmon river. From what I can tell about the Salmon, it seems to be more of the "combat" fly-fishing flavor. I understand the payout is huge pigs, however I have always tried to avoid these types of fishing scenarios. Most of the fishing I have done in the west was on fairly remote rivers, lakes and streams that required some effort to access and thus was rare to see other fisherman outside my party. I do recall one occasion where I was caught in the middle of a combat fishing scenario. It was on a lake that for 2 weeks of the year-fished amazingly and you could easily catch your fair share of 6-10 lbs Lahontan cutts. Despite it being a fairly large lake, all the fish congregated in one end of the lake and thus so did the fisherman. Despite being the first people on the lake that morning, several hours later I found my brother and myself had eventually been surrounded by about 12 other pontoons in a perfect circle and everyone casting into the center of the ring of about 30 ft diameter of water. We were having a little success prior and all the sudden, everyone feels that they should be casting right where we were since we had already caught a few fish. Lines starting getting tangled, people started moving closer to us and interfering with our casts. Just not my style of fishing. However, I would be remiss not to dip my line in the Salmon at least once. Anyone ever fish it with a 5wt rod?

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Nomad Grand Master

Nomad

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Welcome as well from me. Now my friend from here moved to Seattle years ago,kind of the reverse of you. He's a lawyer and lives out on Bainbridge Island, big traditional bow hunter,friend of the St Charles family.

He got a Browning Shotgun as a bonus the first year at his firm out there....

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