Shorten the NY Gun Season?

[WNYBuckHunter]

Merry Christmas nyantler! 

[Four Season Whitetail's]

Fact is some people dont like change and some dont give a rats a## about antlers.I hnow you are never going to make everybody happy but i think if some of these changes did happen even for a couple years it would change some thoughts..

[fasteddie]

Merry Christmas guys !

[bubba]

Fact is some people dont like change and some dont give a rats a## about antlers.I hnow you are never going to make everybody happy but i think if some of these changes did happen even for a couple years it would change some thoughts..

yes we dont want it or need it, but if forced upon us, we would learn to tolerate it.  Sounds pretty democratic to me in a socialist kind of way.

[bubba]

I dont see where the written dec plan says when enough get on borad, we will get it, I see where they support VOLUNTARY implementation and it is not critical biological need.  How does that equate to we will have it. You sound like a politician.

[nyantler]

"DEC earlier this year indicated it would expand antler restriction regulations only if hunter sentiment was strongly - at least two-thirds - in favor of such a move. Even with strong support, if more than 20 percent of the hunting community was strongly opposed to the move, DEC officials said an antler restriction plan would be scrapped."

Sounds to me like if they had  gotten less than 20% they would have expanded to the regulations..I could be wrong.

What I don't understand is they got more than 2/3 (69.8%) in favor with just 20.3% stongly opposed and scrapped it anyway.. very confusing.

[bubba]

makes me think the 2/3 was not a realistic number.  Look at the sentiment on here. 2/3 surely are not for it. 

[SteveB]

I highly doubt the 2/3 claim usually as well.

If that many supported it, it would be in effect voluntarily since i am sure all

those supporting it would not be shooting any small buck ever. Otherwise they would not be

very sincere in their belief that ar is a sound system.

[dszymo]

I think we should have our season like New Mexico State. One tag ,one deer, buck or doe. Kill your deer and you are all done, no more tags. When you buy your license, you must pick your weapon that you are going to hunt with and that's the weapon that you hunt with all season. They don't have any individual season for any weapons. Bow hunters hunt along side gun hunters. One season, one deer.

last time I checked New Mexico has individual archery, muzzeloader and rifle seasons.  The archery and muzzeloader seasons tend to be in better times of the year like the rut.

[Four Season Whitetail's]

Thats what alot of the states have.Bow during the rut and a seperate muzzleloading and gun season with muzzle in the late season!!

[bubba]

yes the bow hunters need all the best hunting. I am sure that will fly

[Four Season Whitetail's]

I dont think they do it for the bow hunters to have the best hunting it would be more like making it harder to kill bucks at a time when they are at their weakest.Everyone cant just reach out and dump them at 200 yards.The same with muzzle you only have one shot when you do get one..

[bubba]

I only have one shot with my rifle. 

[nyantler]

Fact is some people dont like change and some dont give a rats a## about antlers.I hnow you are never going to make everybody happy but i think if some of these changes did happen even for a couple years it would change some thoughts..

I have never met a hunter that doesn't give a rats ass about antlers... and i'm sure I never will. They say that until the first big monster buck crosses their path.

[Four Season Whitetail's]

Thats what i was tryin to say when i said if change was to happen for a couple years people might think it was a change for the good.Some will still say they dont want antlers,They want meat.That would not be a problem because there still would be chances for does and small bucks..There just wouldnt be as much time as there is now!!

[Larry]

Nyantler your statement about the DEC catering to 20% may not be right. I think you should read the survey done by the Human Dimensions Research Unit at Cornell. I would read the whole thing but the stuff on AR’s is on pages 24-31.

This is off page 24: Which one of these experiences is most important to you personally.

Having the greatest opportunity to harvest more than one buck per year=8%

Having the greatest prospect of taking an older buck with large antlers=34%

Having the greatest freedom to choose which antlered buck I take=58%

This question seems to be what most of us are saying we want the choice on what we harvest.

Some of the responses were surprising and so were the break downs it makes for some interesting reading.  No ware on the survey was there any ware near 67% support for AR’s. 

[Doc]

Not sure how you twisted that around like you just did...

Well then try reading the quotes that you posted for crying out loud. What the heck is the matter with you? Don't you understand what it means when a guy says he, "supports voluntary antler restriction programs but does not see a critical biological need or compelling management advantage to mandate antler restrictions”? The only twisting going on is when you try to turn that into meaning some form of DEC support for state AR.

[Larry]

Hey Doc if I were to draw any conclusions from the Cornell survey is that most hunters like things the way they are. With only minor changes like earlier start to the bow season or the x-bow thing well maybe the x-bow thing isn’t a minor change. But I think if no change to the season were made most would be ok with it and only that small vocal minority that complains about everything would be speaking up.

[bubba]

politician spin. It sounds like an omaba speech.  Unemployment is up to 10 percent, but we saved or created 100,000 jobs.

[Doc]

Hey Doc if I were to draw any conclusions from the Cornell survey is that most hunters like things the way they are. With only minor changes like earlier start to the bow season or the x-bow thing well maybe the x-bow thing isn’t a minor change. But I think if no change to the season were made most would be ok with it and only that small vocal minority that complains about everything would be speaking up.

I don't know. maybe there are a lot of things that would make big improvements to deer hunting here in NYS. Probably is, but I haven't seen any of them in this thread. I know we all think we know a lot more than the DEC (it's too bad those guys wasted all those years in school) and we are all convinced that they don't know what they are doing, and we all think that improvement is not taking place unless we totally uproot everything and place all kinds of restrictions everywhere and shorten this guy's season and stand that guy's season on it's head and just work like crazy to irritate as many hunters as possible. At least that is what it appears as I review all the stuff in this thread and a few others. It looks like we are all willing to spread the pain to all aspects of hunting, but every suggestion certainly does seem to involve spreading pain.....lol.

I'm kind of the opinion that things are pretty good as they are. Let the DEC do a little tweak here and a little tweak there as they deem necessary and then just go hunting. What's wrong with that. They don't have any money to implement any big changes anyway even if we did all agree as to what changes were necessary (which we don't). So we can all pretend to be experts if we want since none of it will ever get implemented anyway and I guess there is no real harm in that ....  ;D

[nyantler]

See now here is an example of you Larry and Doc not paying attention... the cornell study was done on the entire state.. the 20% I am talking about was the extention to 8WMU's which is what Hurst was talking about and what the DEC was refurring to... now i know how you guys get things so twisted... yeah twisted doc.. support for voluntary AR is support for AR... just because they are afraid to mandate it doesn't mean they don't support it. You can keep spinning it anyway you like if that works for you.

[nyantler]

And by the way I would have answered the survey with the 58% based on the 3 choices.. but that has nothing to do with the fact that I would support some form of AR to create a better age structure in the buck population. By choosing to shoot only bigger bucks I am excercizing my right to shoot whatever buck I like.. just like the rest of you.

[bubba]

See now here is an example of you Larry and Doc not paying attention... the cornell study was done on the entire state.. the 20% I am talking about was the extention to 8WMU's which is what Hurst was talking about and what the DEC was refurring to... now i know how you guys get things so twisted... yeah twisted doc.. support for voluntary AR is support for AR... just because they are afraid to mandate it doesn't mean they don't support it. You can keep spinning it anyway you like if that works for you.

umm support fpr voluntary support simply says if you want to do it on your own property have at it. is says absolutely nothing supporting mandatory ar

[Larry]

I am more likely to believe a state wide survey then a hand raiser in any one area. In region 3 & 4 there is probably a large influx of hunters from down state that did not go to any of the meetings but hunt there. Just think what would of happen if 300 or 400 of them came to the meetings when the AR WMU’s were set up the percentages may of been a lot closer.

Back to the Cornell survey does say that hunters state wide do favor AR’s slightly (48%to45%) but nowhare near your 80%  you can’t just ignore a state wide survey because it doesn’t  say exactly what you want it to say

[Nomad]

BTW, dont preach to me, I hunt 8h as well and spend more time in the woods than the average guy. 

There lies the problem, most guys don't have much time to spend in the woods, and cutting it won't make them happy.  Me I can hunt 22 days a month without taking time off,yet I take at least 4 weeks off for bow and gun. btw nov.20 th to dec.12th is not 4 weeks........