State Land Deer Hunting/The Best and The Worst

[nyantler]

At 70 fasteddie.. I think you have earned the right hunt as close to the truck as you like... usually they older guys aren't the ones complaining about the drag

[Geno C]

my dad is 55 and shimmies up a tree like no other...

[nyantler]

My kids are in their 20's and they are in great shape and they can't keep up.. they wonder how it's possible that I can be in better shape than them.. I tell them that... I'm not... I'm just tougher and more stubborn than they are!

[Geno C]

ehh well over the years you condition your body to cope with tree climbing and stalking, walking long distances with gear and so on. i know when i first started my body was not able to hand with the other guys and i didnt know the know hows and what not, as i do now. And i would assume it gets better with age? lol

[wztirem]

Wow, this thread has been hijacked! ???

[fasteddie]

At 70 fasteddie.. I think you have earned the right hunt as close to the truck as you like... usually they older guys aren't the ones complaining about the drag

Ya know , that is funny . I have hunted quite a distance from my vehicle but able to see it . And it really kills me to watch deer walk past it at maybe 10 yards or less . About 3 years ago , I was sitting in a tent blind about 100 yards down from my truck ( I now have a Subaru Forester ) that I had parked about 500 yards from the road .

I hadn't seen anything in the morning and was back for the afternoon hunt . I figured I would hang in there late as I didn't have to go very far . I was day dreaming and 3 doe hauled butt down through the field about 50 yards out but too fast for a shot . I looked up toward my truck and saw a buck coming my way . I stuck the barrel of my ML out the side window and it was so cold that the tent was brittle . I ticked the side of the tent and the buck ran and stopped at about 40 yards . I had the scope on him all the way and when he stopped to look , I fired . He ran maybe 50 yards and folded up .

On the way home , I was thinking , instead of using a tent blind , why not take a 8' X 8' plywood wall and paint a tractor or pickup truck on it with some cutouts to shoot through and have it blend into the background . I have seen deer walk past tractors and other farm equipment and not be the least bit fazed . http://www.downsouthhuntingforums.com/images/smiles/icon_smile_whistling.gif[/img]

[fasteddie]

Wow, this thread has been hijacked! ???

Oh heck , I forgot this thread was about hunting State land ! oops !!!

[Geno C]

LOL, well everyone stopped talking state land and decided to bring age into it 

[nyantler]

maybe we should talk about how old the state land is..lol

[fasteddie]

Well a couple of us are older than the dirt on the State Land !!!!!!!!!!!!

[Geno C]

no comment lol

[TH41]

I was waiting for the. I use to walk 5 miles to school barefooted,in a foot of snow. Uphill both ways. The best statelands. I have 4 that i pop into here and there. If there is a lot of people and i'm hunting in the morning I go the furthest from the main access points,and get there well before light. And if I get there for an evening hunt I stay closer to my entrance. And if there is snow. I will hunt them more than a day. The worst stateland I'm not big on hunting smaller sections of stateland. I always seem to find the bare spots at the base of trees with cigarette butts and candy wrapper's on the ground. "Man this looks like a good spot". And there sits a heap of TP 10 feet away or some sacrificial piece of a garment. ??? 

[nyantler]

yes state land is notorious for its cut off pieces of shirt tails with a few pulled of pockets as well..

[outdoorstom]

Here's a picture of the #2 deer taken in NY in 1991......out of the Brasher Forest. (19,000 acres)

[fasteddie]

Wow !!! That is one heck of a rack . Congrats on shooting that bad boy !

[sweet old bill]

wow

[sits in trees]

State land deer hunting is as good as the population of deer it holds. as far as i know deer can't distinguish wether they're standing on state land or private land. NY state has added 100s of thousands of acres of state lands in the last couple decades. so gone are the days when every Brooklyn NY hunter was hunting the Catskill Forest preserve, that along with dwindling hunter numbers in our state, opportunities on state land today are very good if not better than private land.

i personally hunt about 20 thousand acres of state land combined with hunting my own property, and i don't know of many guy's that own tens of thousands of acres for hunting anymore.

deer get moved off of an area of heavily hunted private land as quickly as any land. today deer get moved off of over hunted private land just to find security in the large tracts of state land that NY provides. there so few hunters hunting the state land in my area, i never saw more than 3 or 4 parking to hunt an area that stretches for miles.

[outdoorstom]

Wow !!! That is one heck of a rack . Congrats on shooting that bad boy !

That's not me....I WISH I shot it!

[bubba]

I have hunted th ebrasher forest a couple times.  There are nice deer there

[Geno C]

that is some deer and at 19,000 acres, WOW thats alot of land

[erussell]

NYantler - From your reply, I'm guessing that you are not from Putnum or Dutchess County. You are lucky that you have the option to move to other state land that is not crowded.

Between the stateland, stateparks, and NYC resiviours you should have lots of deer hunting to do

http://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/48261.html

[Fitzy]

I hunt State and DEP land down state in Westchester, Putnam and Dutchess. I'm retired so I only go out durring the middle of the week. I hardly ever see any other hunters. Especially during bow season. The deer aren't pressured but that can work both ways. But, I avoid opening gun week 'cause all the knuckleheads are 'out ta shoot sumptin'.

[erussell]

I hunt State and DEP land down state in Westchester, Putnam and Dutchess. I'm retired so I only go out durring the middle of the week. I hardly ever see any other hunters. Especially during bow season. The deer aren't pressured but that can work both ways. But, I avoid opening gun week 'cause all the knuckleheads are 'out ta shoot sumptin'.

I wouldn't avoid any days of hunting over fear of other hunters. I hunt stateland and use the other hunters to push the deer to me. Watch where they park and get to the escape routes before everyone else gets in the woods even if you have to walk in, in the dark. I used this approach a few times this yr on state land and one day I had 15 deer go past me befor 9 am. Unfortunately nothing I wanted to shoot. But on the way back to the car I ran into a group of drivers who were on there way out and they hadn't seen a deer all day. My reply was I hadn't either and this state land sucks, but I heard the area down the road was better. 

[courtguy2005]

I just got my wife into hunting and we live in Saratoga. Hunting state land is about all we can find, about 500 acres. Some days the parking area is full others its not. I feel it is hard to scout state land, we head in about april to early august, then map out areas to hunt. We hunt from the ground (bow and rifle, shotgun) tried from ground blinds too. We are now going to do the knock on doors at farms and such to get some more areas(private) to hunt....

[Guides ForHire]

^{that's the thing to do Courtguy, I have never knocked on a door that I was not allowed to hunt, trap or fish.}

^{almost all of my deer hunting is on state land the rest of my hunting, which is 99.99% of my hunting time, is on private lands.}

^{one major thing that has changed on streams and in the woods is when I was a little kid everyone left a note on their windshield stating what direction they were headed, you pulled in and there would be a note on a truck ahead of you saying " fishing with nymphs from truck to Iron Bridge, left 9 am" and you would walk the road to the Iron Bridge and then cut in to the river., tipping your hat as you saw the fella down stream coming up.}

^{same hunting,}

^{pheasant stocking would draw lots of people and when I went ot Clarkson there were always cars parked in the state land pull offs, the notes would say " hunting the rdige from here to the pole line, hutning grouse" or " kicking brushpiles no dog, between here and boundary"}

^{and you knew where to go to either catch up to the fellas or avoid them.}

^{last week or whenever ny south ml closed there was a MA truck parked a mile from where I have a stand, I walked intot he stand and put a fella in it and as I turned to leave saw 80 yards away mvoement of orange, the MA guy hunted the field edge right up to the stand and had settled in opposite the stand for the rest of the day. If he had left a note saying that was what he was doing we could have walked up the river opposite sides and likely bumped deer to each other, and if I knew he was going to end up there I would ahve hunted another stand on the other ridge.}

^{odd how the more people there are the less communication takes place....}