So who is planning on hunting the adirondacks this year.

[phantom]

I have hunted adirondacks only a hand full of times had a good time but no luck so far . Like to here some storys you know get me  Motivated to go back up there again this year maybe . 

 

 

Edited September 25, 2022 by phantom

[ridgerunner88]

I am going up for the opening weekend of ML. As well I am going to go up later when it snows and try and find a track to follow.

Not sure how far the park is from you, its only 45mins from me... but I figure with NY having such a long hunting season, throwing a few hunts at the park is fine.. its a low percentage play but man if you get lucky, that's a deer you are gonna remember for life.

Edited September 25, 2022 by ridgerunner88

[wolc123]

I have been hunting deer near and on the NW corner of the Dacks, at least for one long weekend, for the last 20 years. For the last 10, since my in-laws built their retirement home right on the edge of the 6.5 million acre park, I have hunted it for about a week and a half every year.  My first two long weekend Adirondack deer hunts were 30 and 31 years ago, down near the SE corner of the park.  
 

Contrary to what most believe, it is not all that difficult to kill deer up there, especially now that almost all Adirondack DMU’s are opened for antlerless harvest, during the early ML season.  
 

Had I been up a week earlier, 31 years ago with my ML, I’d have had a big doe on my second hunt.  The deer might be few and far between, compared to many areas folks are used to, but there is still plenty of them up there.  You just need to figure out what they are eating, and how to get at them without spooking them.  
 

If you are in reasonable physical condition and get a some snow-cover, your chances of success up there will increase by at least a factor of 10.  The deer are way easier to see against that snow background.  Their tracks will show you exactly where they have been and will lead you directly to them.  
 

In my opinion, there is no place in the United States that has better scenery than we have right here in NY’s Adirondack park, and there is no place that I would rather hunt deer.  The only downside of figuring out how to kill deer up there, is that it takes much of the luster out of doing it at home in a less scenic, more heavily populated area (with deer and people).  

Having a little success up there (and free room and board) has effectively cured me of any desire of taking any more Western Elk hunts.  Glad I did that once, when I was young, but I would only do it again if it was free. 
 

The primary reason that I hunt deer is for the free meat.  I never had the chance to eat a deer from the SE corner of the Adirondack park.  Those that I have had from the NW corner, have been every bit as delicious, as those from around home in WNY.  

The tenderloins were a little tough on this 5.5 year old plus Adirondack ML doe from last year, but her grind was good: 

 

In a couple weeks, I will be up there chasing some of her offspring. 

Edited September 25, 2022 by wolc123

[wolc123]

Scenery pictures from the October (leaf color) hunt last year and a December (first snow cover) hunt.  Those are my two favorite hunting times and the two best scenery times up there.  So far, I have only managed to kill antlered bucks up there in the snow, but the fishing is better during the early ML week, so that is my favorite time up there:

[Robhuntandfish]

I try to get up there at least for one day of still hunting just cause I like it. But it usually depends on how my bow season is going in the south. If I tag a fairly early buck I will def be up there for a day of rifle hunting. I go to the same area. A spot deep in some state land where there is a ridge of beechnut trees. Sneak in there and still hunt really slow.

Sent from my motorola edge 5G UW (2021) using Tapatalk

[wolc123]

Here is the story of how I killed my first deer up there, which was a doe on opening day of early ML season, about 10 years ago.  
 

It finally happened on about my  last year of hunting that spot, where my in-laws always rented a little cabin on a little “off the grid” lake, for a long weekend in September and Another in October.  The October weekend hit on the gun opener or the ML opener, about every other year.  
 

I didn’t hunt as hard on the gun years, because there were so few bucks around that spot.  I only ever even saw (2) in the 10 years of hunting up there, and that was in September when I was not hunting.  Two 6-pointers ran across the  driveway on my drive into camp.  I never got to see a buck up there while hunting.  
 

That opening weekend of gun, I was out on the lake fishing.  The cabin was towards the east end of the lake and I was not to far from it, in a 12 ft rowboat, casting the shoreline, below a steep cliff.  The wind was blowing towards that cliff. I could see oak trees up on top of that ridge, that ran right up to the lake.

I hadn’t showered in a couple days. so I must have been emitting some pretty strong scent.  It was warm that morning, and the fish were biting good, so I suppose that I was generating some sweat and smell while casting and reeling them in.

That’s when I heard a deer snorting up on that ridge.  There are so few people around there, that the deer are extremely sensitive to their scent.  
 

The following year, it was ML season for our October trip.  Rather than fish that Saturday morning, I loaded my T/C Omega 50 cal, and climbed up that steep ridge in the dark.  I found white oak acorns all over up top, and a nice comfortable big flat rock to sit on.  
 

About 10 minutes after sunrise, I heard the sound of leaves crunching and branches breaking.  Soon I could see the dark shapes of a group of 5 or 6 deer, slowly working their way up from the side away from the lake.  None had antlers and the largest one was out front.

I was wearing full camo and the wind was in my face as I watched them get closer and closer.  I shot the leader, broadside on center thru the lungs, at about a 20 yard range.

She took about 5 steps towards me, and just stood there for what seemed like 5 minutes, staring directly at me, like she she had absolutely no clue what just happened.  The deer behind her stood there also.  This area was so remote, that it would not surprise me if these deer had never encountered a hunter .
 

Eventually, her legs began to wobble, and she fell over and tumbled down the steep rise to my left.  I reloaded and but-slided down behind her.  I wasn’t sure of my exact location, and was very surprised to see that she had landed on one of the switchbacks on the driveway to the cabin that my in-laws had rented.

As I stood next to her there, she tried to stand up and I finished her with a neck shot.  My in-laws were sitting at the table eating breakfast when I walked in, a little bloody from the gutting job, and carrying the her heart in a ziplock bag.

I asked my father in law if I could use his ATV to fetch her and I hung her up in the boathouse.  My sister in law still gives me flack about leaving that gut pile in the middle of the driveway and her having to jog past it that morning.  
 

I always like to leave gut piles out in the open, because the birds clean them up faster that way.  When we left two days later, not a trace remained l.  The key to killing that doe was knowing what the preferred food was at the time, and getting to it before she did.  Without them snorts that I heard the year prior, I’d have never known.  

[wolc123]

Here is the story of Jake, my first Adirondack buck, which I killed in 2014.  I named him Jake after a young real estate agent who sold my in-laws their place up there.  I got to hunt with him a few times up there, and he showed me the local hot-spots, saving me the 10 year struggle that  I had at the old spot where I got that doe a few years prior.  I consider him a good friend and he was very close with my father in law.
 

I was hunting another ridge top , near a spot that Jake had told me about on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  There was fresh snow that morning, and the view from up there was breathtaking.  A creek wound thru the valley below.  
 

It was late morning, and my stomach was churning thinking about my mother in laws breakfast (she is a phenomenal cook).  As the sun got higher, it started breaking up the ice along the banks of the creek down below.  
 

I was almost ready to pull the plug and head down for breakfast but it was just so beautiful up there that I decided to stick it out just a little longer.  The only thing missing was a deer, and a buck in particular (does are off limits up there in gun season).

The odds were not with me there, as I had never even laid eyes in a buck in 13 years of hunting the Dacks.  In some desperation, I said a prayer and asked the Good Lord if I could just see a buck.

When I finished that short prayer, I looked down the valley to my left and immediately saw a dark shape moving my way, along the far bank of the creek, maybe a mile away.  It looked very large and I thought it might be a moose. 
 

It kept disappearing behind pines growing along the bank, but would keep popping back out a little closer.  As it closed the range, I could tell that it was a deer, and it was also a buck with clearly visible antlers from several hundred yards away.

  I was sitting in a red folding camp chair, and I cranked the scope on my heavy 30/06 up to 9x.  My shot felt good as I had a good sight picture, from approximately a 250 yard range, with the gun resting steady on my elbows against my knees.  
 

It must have been a clean miss (the autopsy later revealed that that it was).  The buck just kept on walking.  He must have thought sound of the rifle shot was just more ice breaking.  I got up out of my chair and followed along with him, up on the ridge.  When he reached the next opening, I took an offhand shot.

Another miss but it at least got his attention and stopped him. I found a tree to rest on and let another one rip.  Then he just vanished.  There was a big pine tree right next to where I last saw him.  My plan then was to get down to that tree and pick up his trail.

Easier said than done in that steep and rugged country.  That creek was deep and there was no way to get across it without climbing back down to the road to the camp.  It was an around and about route that took a long time and covered a lot of distance.  I left my red chair up top as a marker.  
 

When I got down over to the other side of the creek, I could see my chair up on the ridge top.  I walked that bank of the creek until I got to that big pine tree.  I found Jake laying there under it in the snow, eyes wide open, and not a mark on him. 
 

Mt 3rd shot, a 150 gr Federal classic, had struck his second last rib, as he stood at a quartering away angle, and passed diagonally thru his chest, lodging in the armpit on the opposite side. 
 

He’s not my largest buck but he’s definitely my favorite because an Adirondack buck is worth at least 10 times to me what any flatland buck is, by virtue of the scenery up there alone.  
 

Sadly, the man Jake never got to see that mount, but it will hang up there in his honor as long as I am around, he passed away in a tragic drowning accident while he was fishing with his girls, before I got the mount back from the taxidermist.

Edited September 25, 2022 by wolc123

[phantom]

5 hours ago, ridgerunner88 said:

I am going up for the opening weekend of ML. As well I am going to go up later when it snows and try and find a track to follow.

Not sure how far the park is from you, its only 45mins from me... but I figure with NY having such a long hunting season, throwing a few hunts at the park is fine.. its a low percentage play but man if you get lucky, that's a deer you are gonna remember for life.

Not bad takes me over 2 hours to get there if not for that I would  go more often .