Proposal to Lower Age to 12 for Big Game Hunting

[Doewhacker]

A 12 year old can bowhunt deer in NY?

 

Yes during archery season they can.

 

Are you new to archery hunting?  Not a BS question, just curious.

 

 

Junior Bowhunting 12 - 15 year old Bowhunters can hunt Deer and Bear with a Bow

Recent legislation lowered the minimum age from 14 to 12 years of age for youth hunters to purchase a Bowhunting license for big game hunting.

Here are the requirements for junior Bowhunters:

• Youth must have completed a course in both Hunter Education and Bowhunter Education.
• Youth must have a Bowhunting license.
• 12-13 year old youth must be accompanied by a parent, legal guardian, or a person who is 21 years or older and is designated in writing on the Mentored Youth Hunter and Trapper Permission Form (PDF) (24 KB). Adult mentor must have at least 3 years of experience hunting deer or bear with a bow and have a license to hunt big game in the same seasons.
• 14-15 year old youth must be accompanied by a parent, legal guardian, or a person who is 18 years or older and is designated in writing on the Mentored Youth Hunter and Trapper Permission Form (PDF) (24 KB). Adult mentor must have at least 1 year of experience hunting deer or bear with a bow and have a license to hunt big game in the same seasons.
• Adult mentor must maintain physical control over the junior hunter at all times while hunting. This means the mentor and junior hunter must be close enough to talk without the aid of a radio and must be able to see each other.
• Junior Bowhunters may hunt deer and bear with a bow during the bowhunting and regular seasons

[wooly]

Amen!!

 

Guys forget kids have short attention spans, who the hell wants to sit out in the woods and not see any thing for hours. Make it fun and don't get hung up on being successful for one day and watch the difference. When I go with kids we have a blast first and foremost, sometimes for a half hour, sometimes longer. We explore, joke, pretend there is game around and eat plenty of snacks. We small game hunt, we hike, throw rocks in the water, what ever just to have fun. Hunting is supposed to be fun right?

 

When I hunted with my sister for the first time last spring turkey and fall deer seasons, I tried to take ALL the work out of it for her!

Granted, she's 41 years old and could have done most of it herself, but I know what it's like to be thrown into an uncomfortable situation with the fear of screwing up even the simplest tasks. I tried to take all that worry out of it for her and all she had to do was show up and hike in..... and bring me lunch,lol

 

One day she even showed up early and realized when she got here that she forgot her gun!

What can you do besides laugh about it!

 

We hunted the same way you do and had an absolute BLAST in the woods even on days we didn't see or hear a thing. Hunting really is a lot of fun when you don't take it so seriously, and that's what gets newbies hooked are the good times not the kills!

[88GW]

My 12 year old has been hunting with me since she was 6 years old. We have enjoyed many hours of hunting and daddy daughter bonding, you have to remember to be selective in the days you choose to go hunting to make it enjoyable.  Remember to pack snacks and drinks for the little ones and give them a job to do while hunting with you.  I can remember a time where I gave her an estrus bleat to use and she would hit that can every 10 minutes on the dot. That particular day we had a buck walk in and several doe, she was so excited even though I never connected.  She still talks about this particular hunt and how much fun she had, she also realized hunting requires patience and that not every time you go out you get a deer.  She cant wait till she is strong enough to draw 35 pounds to bow hunt and if this law goes through I'm sure she will be chomping at the bit to get out and shoot the .243 that I keep telling her is her deer rifle.  

[The_Real_TCIII]

"Yes during archery season they can.

Are you new to archery hunting? Not a BS question, just curious."

No, just wasn't aware of the new ages. I have two kids that will be 12 this Fall, we've got work to do!

Edited April 8, 2016 by The_Real_TCIII

[Skillet]

Emails sent. Let's get on this, people!

[Five Seasons]

it's funny, down south a 4 year old can pull a trigger. Why the government feels they need to regulate the piss out of everything because they know what's best for us and our children because 1 out of every 100k hunters is an idiot is still beyond me.

[skiop]

 

Fact is, most guys wont look outside their immediate family to recruit new hunters.

 

 

What is your recruitment strategy and how many do you annually get?

[WNYBuckHunter]

This is one more step toward bringing in new people to hunting. Let's keep it going with other good thinking of this sort. Instead of just sitting back and taking a beating at the hands of the antis, we need a lot more aggressive thinking and actions. We are fighting a cultural battle with technology, and while we don't want to stifle the interest in technology by our youth, we need more actions like this proposal to stem their obsessions with technology to the exclusion of all other things that could be in their lives.

 

Thats one fight you will never win. Its been proven throughout history. Embrace it and move along, or get left behind. My kids have ipads, xbox, computers, phones, etc and look at how interested in the outdoors they are. Its all about keeping things in balance.

[Five Seasons]

Thats one fight you will never win. Its been proven throughout history. Embrace it and move along, or get left behind. My kids have ipads, xbox, computers, phones, etc and look at how interested in the outdoors they are. Its all about keeping things in balance.

 

agreed. some of the old timers have this mentality that it's one or the other. I have a ps4, computer, ipad etc. My kids use the ipad. They also will spend all day outside. You can play videogames and also love to hunt.

[jjb4900]

They can lower the age all they want, but I highly doubt it will do much good replacing recruitments with drop outs.

Fact is, most guys wont look outside their immediate family to recruit new hunters.

 

It was mentioned in another post here recently by Culvertcreek. There is just to much focus on the individual hunters expectations that don't involve the tradition no more. Deer hunting used to be a social activity that lasted for days, weeks, and months. Now we get so hung up on individual deer, social media status, and self accomplishments measured in inches, and nobody cares about if the next generation follows along any more as it will cut down on the competition.

 

If you want to get the youth, or even newbies involved in the pastime, you need to make it feel entertaining, educational, and not like work.

I don't think many modern day deer hunters are capable of that, as much as I hate to say it.

Bingo!! when my kids first started bowhunting, I basically didn't hunt for the first year getting them started my time was devoted to making sure they where getting my full attention in all aspects....I would pretty much get them set up and either sit with them or go sleep in the truck after getting them set and then would go back at the end of shooting time and make sure they got out safely and were learning things every step of the way, it didn't bother me at all, but I would assume there's many that would find that a huge inconvenience.....it was pretty much the same with Turkey hunting, and the thrill of them being successful far outweighed anything I've ever done hunting for myself.

[Five Seasons]

I'm not sure anyone should be shamed for not recruiting new hunters. I'll raise my 2 boys in the sport and if they take to it, then great. If it's not their thing then I wont pressure them. If they have a friend or 2 who wants to learn I'll be glad to help. Selfishly we all live some pretty demanding and busy lives and I wouldn't look down my nose at someone who isn't out there "recruiting". We should all be advocates and correct and educate the misinformed.

Edited April 14, 2016 by Belo

[jjb4900]

 Selfishly we all live some pretty demanding and busy lives and I wouldn't look down my nose at someone who isn't out there "recruiting". We should all be advocates and correct and educate the misinformed.

yeah, it's tough enough finding time for ourselves and our own families these days......with that being said, I would do a youth hunt with someone who is interested in hunting...I really enjoyed doing that with my kids.

[phade]

As long as the fact that they are taking about heavily supervised and mentored hunting I believe that the minimum age should be abolished. However the idea and definition of supervised and mentored should be the bulk of the law. Words like "under strict control", and explicit definitions of what that means need to be stressed in any law that relaxes the minimum hunting age. Also the definition of the requirements of the mentors needs to be quite strict. If properly defined, the idea of a minimum age should be left up to the discretion of the parents with decisions based on the child's mental and physical preparedness and maturity. I do not want to see unsupervised 12 year olds running around the woods with rifles. This NYSCC proposal seems to be lacking that explicit wording and only casually mentions mentoring in a side comment.

 

Unsupervised 12 y/o with rifles out hunting? Pretty much commonplace across several parts of the nation and no measurable detriment to safety. The safest people tend to be the ones mentored and the ones who recently took the hunter's ed course (12 y/os).

 

Unlike most hunters on this site - I cut my teeth in a state where we didn't have these restrictions and the fear-mongering is so far off the mark its not even funny.

 

I moved to NY at a time where I had already been hunting for several years, ran point on dog running (with the warden's personal dogs no less), and then had to sit out an entire season of deer hunting in NY because I was too young according to the Nancies in charge. Give me a break Doc.

Edited April 14, 2016 by phade

[Culvercreek hunt club]

As long as the fact that they are taking about heavily supervised and mentored hunting I believe that the minimum age should be abolished. However the idea and definition of supervised and mentored should be the bulk of the law. Words like "under strict control", and explicit definitions of what that means need to be stressed in any law that relaxes the minimum hunting age. Also the definition of the requirements of the mentors needs to be quite strict. If properly defined, the idea of a minimum age should be left up to the discretion of the parents with decisions based on the child's mental and physical preparedness and maturity. I do not want to see unsupervised 12 year olds running around the woods with rifles. This NYSCC proposal seems to be lacking that explicit wording and only casually mentions mentoring in a side comment.

Doc,

 

How old were you when you got into this? 

Edited April 14, 2016 by Culvercreek hunt club

[buckman4c]

They removed the age requirement in Pa and left it in the hands of the parent. All in all it's been a good thing for

hunting here in Pa. I haven't heard many complaints.

I didn't read the NY proposal but in an earlier post many of the requirements were referenced. There very similar to

the laws in Pa, however, one thing I know for sure here in Pa is this: For any mentor youth hunter under the age of 12, the parent, guardian etc. must carry the weapon for the youth while moving. Once you are in a stationary position, the

mentor youth may handle the weapon.

When a youth reach's 12 years of age, they must complete the hunter safety course and have a youth license. When they are 12, they can handle the weapon during the entire hunt but must be within arms length of the mentor at all times.

NY is behind the eight ball on this law along with a "Right to hunt". JMO

[Doc]

Doc,

 

How old were you when you got into this? 

I believe that my first hunting experience was at age 9 or 10 ..... somewhere in that area. I was hunting pigeons up in the hay loft of the barn with a homemade long-bow that I fashioned out of hickory with an old draw-knife that I found in Dad's shop. My Mother cooked up the harvest of three birds and I ate them.....lol.

 

Legal small game and deer hunting was 16 years old I believe. I'm not sure because that was a pile of decades ago ..... lol. Actually, I don't remember any problems with that age. It was the law and simply accepted, and just like driving a car and voting, there was a certain age that you had to wait before you could do certain things. It was simply the accepted way of life. Things are a bit different today in that we find ourselves in competition for kids attention and incorporation into hunting. The future of hunting and game management population control seem to be at stake. When and where I grew up, hunting was just an assumed activity and it was just expected that you would be a deer hunter when you got old enough.

[Bowguy 1]

Think the minimum archery poundage is actually 40 not over 35 lbs, could be wrong but don't think so.

Kids are the future of the sport, they can archery hunt deer and bear at 12 so why not use a gun if they can handle it?

My kids have me right next to them as a mentor should be. I don't think many guys are just gonna cut 12 year olds loose.

Any dads or moms live near NJ n wanna start off kids at 10 n need help pm me. I can help you with hunter Ed which is transferable in NY and elsewhere and give you ideas of where to look closest to you.

Nj is a youth hunter friendly state as I hope all states are

Edited May 9, 2016 by Bowguy 1

[SteveB]

35#'s is the minimum.

[Bowguy 1]

You guys are correct. Weight is greater than 35. My younger daughter barely made 35 lbs last year at 12 n only hunted NJ w bow. This year she is stronger

[stubby68]

35 is not minimum. The words are it is unlawful to use a bow with a draw weight of 35# or less which would make the minimum more then 35.