Better zones

[Woodjr55]

Anyone else feel that the state need to divide the state up in more than a northern southern and Long Island zone? Long Island has a longer bow season and the northern zone starts earlier? But here in wny there are more deer then people know what to do with. You figure areas like 9 A and 9 F would get an extend season. Just my .02 cents

[Doc]

I honestly have all kinds of mixed feelings on "zones". It seems like we've got the old "belt and suspenders" kind of thing going on in this state. We have both the zone system and the WMU system. We see some crazy things like one zone requires back tags, displayed in a very distinct way while the other doesn't need back tags at all. For years we had one zone using rifles, and the other relegated to shotguns for deer hunting. Each zone has their own seasons even though it is hard to see why the individual WMU requirements wouldn't do that even more precisely.

 

So should we add more areas for that kind of arbitrary rule-making? I don't know. What would be the criteria for new zones? My thoughts are, leave it all alone and let the WMU system handle population and climate and habitat variations. Seasons, rules, regulations are already complex enough without adding more.

[landtracdeerhunter]

They could extend the season in certain areas now, keeping the current system in place. If the DEC thought the deer population was not held in check, most likely this or similar action would take place.  I agree, the system is complex enough right as it stands.

[upstate]

You already have  DFMA areas open in January. GOOD LUCK finding a place to hunt at that time (yes, there are places but not many and not where the deer are). 

 

The deer population in NY is very diverse. An Adirondack hunt is nothing like a Finger Lakes hunt. The real issue deer hunters have is access and the fact that deer adapt very quickly to pressure.