who hunts state land?and what have you killed on SL?

[arrow nocker]

do you hunt state lands and what have you killed while hunting on state land?

Also.

Do you concider your kill luck or skill?I mean did you put a lott of time in scouting and knew that the deer might be coming through at a certian time.Or did you just find a nice spot that looks kinda nice.Maybe some oaks and just sat and got a lucky passer by.

I know that state lands i hunt can be tuff to hunt.Alott of hard woods and rivines with valleys with hemlock.Food and bedding everywhere.Hard to hunt.Takes a lott of time and scouting.Most deer i have seen have been just by accident.After hunting a scrape line for a couple days i see nothing.but sitting on a log on an edge of a hill looking down through some hemlocks i see deer.I have yet to shoot one on state land.But my son has.Go figure.Which was luck.Since it was our first time at that spot.

[sits in trees]

i have taken several nice deer on SL, bucks and doe and have seen some nice deer taken on state land. mostly during rifle season and yes mostly by pure luck.

i hunt my own property in Ulster but during rifle that can become boring so i head over to nearby SL just for the vastness and being able to hunt without having to see the same patch of land for as long as i like to hike.

i try never to head in walking down hill, always flat or slightly up hill.

you can own 200 acres and even that will become old hat after hunting it for a while, SL give me the chance to hunt thousands of acres and a differant thousand acres every year if i so choose. alot of hunters missing out on some great hunting and then sit there and cry about awwwaaa no place to hunt when in fact NY is covered in SL..and we as hunters have paid for most of it.

[erussell]

There are no deer on stateland so stay home and watch football There are deer on stateland , I find it advantageous not to talk about what I see or even what stateland I hunt. Ive learned the hard way when I was younger that loose lips sink ships. All I can say is scout every last inch in the off season preferably with snow on the ground. You will be able to see where the deer are all the time. Know where the other hunters park and access the land and use this to your advantage, even if you have to walk the long way around in the dark to get to it. Stay off the trails and I dont mean parrallel them either. If a walking or snowmobile trail go's through it hunters will use them, I find the deer know this to and avoid the area.Though I have seen exceptions to that rule 99% of the time if you are within 300 yrd's of a trail you probably won't see deer. Get a topo map or google map the areas and look for areas with limited access and evil terrain and you can almost garrentee it is only hunted by the most diehard of hunters. And once you find a good spot it doesnt hurt to get a little mischevious and redirect everyones attention to the other side of the stateland with fake massive rubs, and scrapes along the road and off through the woods in the opposite direction. Not that I would do that

[WNYBuckHunter]

Ive taken deer on state land plenty of times. Some spots Ive been hunting for years and know the general travel corridors, etc. Other times, it seemed to be pure luck, but I dont set up on areas that have no type of sign around. Trails, rubs, scrapes, food sources, funnel areas, thats where you concentrate, just like private land hunting.

[Four Season Whitetail's]

With 700 acres to roam in my backyard to hunt,I still take 5 to 6 trips a year to letchworth state park. I think all but one of the 8 that are on my wall from the park were scouted and earned. Sat one stand,seen buck movement down the river bottom farther,moved stand and killed said buck. I have no problem showing and telling where my 120 to 150in bucks come from. I have even brought people down with me only to pull a buck out on a sled where as you are pulling on the sled up the steep parts sometimes the sled is just hanging in the air.not touching the ground only to hear them say yur freakin nuts and will never see me down here again..lol..Gotta do what ya gotta do if you want a chance at real success every year..Oh and for the guys that cant or dont want that kind of hunting..There is plenty of room on the uphill side of the road!!!!

[ny hunter]

I hunt mostly private property,But state land is behind it,There is also state land on the other side of the mountain.After opening weekend we might try still hunting and stalking after all the gunslingers get cold and tired......

[otis2]

I’ve hunted many pieces of state land my entire life. I have also hunted private land just as much. Personally I add a new piece of state land to my hunting every year. It usually takes me a couple years to truly learn the piece and to be productive on it. This increases my opportunities in case I get to one particular piece of state land and it’s loaded with hunters, I can confidently head down to the next without worry. I have harvested quite a few deer, bucks and does, from state land.

[BizCT]

Many nice bucks are taken every year on state land and/or watershed land in Putnam County and Catskills

[apertureguy]

I've always hunted a local WMU and have found it to be pretty successful for me.

When I hunt small game I get a wide variety, when I hunt Big game, I choose by what I'm willing to drag out on my own...and have passed on deer that were too large for how far I had gone in that day.

I like them.

Edited October 7, 2011 by apertureguy

[campstugots]

There are deer on state land. It takes skill and a lot of luck. The smallest parcel I've hunted on was 600 acres and as large as 10,000 acres. It requires lots of scouting. You need to look at the topography and learn to map the deer. Ultimately you need to find the food sources (i.e. acorns, soft mast). Once you find the food and and the right topography, luck enters the equation. Over the past 20 years, I've seen a handful of hunters. The more you get away from the hudson valley and catskills, the less hunters you will see. Try it, but you can't just park the car and walk in. You need to do the work.

Edited October 7, 2011 by campstugots

[the blur]

I hunted state park land for 4 years. and I have seen 2 doe in 4 years. I've seen rubs, and I have heard stories of other hunters dragging out deer. But I have been unlucky.

[sits in trees]

the whole you have to scout thing on state land is way overated, once rifle season starts everything you scouted pre season will change, ive found the best way to hunt state land is find areas where you can post that give you a nice open field of view for a couple hundred yards if possible, ledges, hilltops, etc and snipe em as they are passing thru. get good with yer rifle, shoot out to 200 yds when at the range.

after rifle season gets into its 2nd week then its time to pattern again.

[arrow nocker]

^^^^

My uncle kills deer every year with this tactic.He likes to go back to the same spots that he shot one before or has seen deer at before.He has killed multaple deer at some of the spots through out the years.He is getting too old for the hard scouting.but years of doing it before and knowing how deer are creatures of habbit pays off.

If you find some oaks, sooner or later if you sit long enough, something will come through.Might be alooooong time,but something will.LOL.that is the luck factor.

[GreeneHunter]

I used too hunt State Land out in Schoharie , opening day it sounded like a war zone... Shotgun Country !

[Warren]

I've been hunting state land for over 40 years(Ulster and Orange County since 1984) . In that time I have taken 23 whitetails (9 bucks and 14 does).

I hunt an average of 8 days a year and usually see one buck and maybe 7 does total each season. Most of the deer I've taken have been in mid-day and later in the season.

The best buck was a 7 pointer.

You need to get back at least a mile from the road and it is getting harder as I get older.

[Doc]

I have done rather well on state land, but that is not to say that there isn't occasionally some additional problems associated with the increased human activity. Most of that kind of interference happens during bow season. We have had the state parcel that I hunt taken over by mountain bikers, hikers, and the small game season/turkey season has also presented a few challenges in recent years. We have a very dense network of mountain-bike trails that were built a few years back, and it is being very well used by huge mountain bike clubs from the city and individual bikers and hikers during bow season. It is very hard to get very far away from these human thoroughfares, but having lived in the area all my life, I have found a few spots that they missed, and with some luck, these places provide some pretty good hunting of deer that are still a bit diurnal. Many of my favorite spots of years ago are just completely worthless because a deer cannot move in daylight hours without being constantly bumped by people.

Gun season is a different story. All these walkers, runners and Lance Armstrong wannabes stay home (for obvious reasons) when gun season opens up. That is when you want enough familiarity with the land to know the traditional escape routes, heavy cover hiding places, and most importantly, hunter patterns. All those things can put you right in the perfect interception spots even in a fairly crowded chunk of state land. In fact in some cases, that activity (pressure) can make your deer hunting more active than big chunks of tightly posted land where guys have tightly restricted the number of hunters. Being hill country, I can get a pretty good sense of hunting activity around the area, and it's not all that unusual that state land is the primary pocket of shooting activity. Sometimes state land is the only area that has enough pressure to keep the deer moving while guys on private land sit there waiting for deer that refuse to move.

So state land can be a good news-bad news situation. But it certainly is not something that hunters should run away from.

[Kevin]

I would give an organ to hunt private land. I'm tired of having my MY gear stolen... hikers, dog walkers...... I'm very bitter this season. I've just had enough. I'm lucky to have a place to sit let alone sit in MY stand that I set up scouted...... PISS on you thieving scum bags.

[Doc]

I would give an organ to hunt private land. I'm tired of having my MY gear stolen... hikers, dog walkers...... I'm very bitter this season. I've just had enough. I'm lucky to have a place to sit let alone sit in MY stand that I set up scouted...... PISS on you thieving scum bags.

I feel your pain ... lol. I have seen the state land that I hunt change from a bowhunter's paradise to something that resembles Coney Island with an unbelievable volume of hikers and bikers. Also contrary to documented trends, there has been a marked increase in small game hunters in the last couple of years that seem to be more interested in just shooting up the woods than any real small game hunting. But I have found that the bikers and hikers pretty much stay on defined trails. So if (and that's a big "if") you can get away from those, you have a chance of having a spot to hunt. It probably won't solve the thievery and you may have to make adjustments to fix that problem. For example, for other reasons (a fear of heights), I have become fairly proficient at hunting from the ground using natural blinds. It isn't really the end of the world, and I have found it way more exciting to hunt deer on thier level, eyeball to eyeball.

But anyway, there are ways to make the best of a less than ideal set of conditions.

[WNYBuckHunter]

I would give an organ to hunt private land. I'm tired of having my MY gear stolen... hikers, dog walkers...... I'm very bitter this season. I've just had enough. I'm lucky to have a place to sit let alone sit in MY stand that I set up scouted...... PISS on you thieving scum bags.

Then get out there and knock on doors to get permission or lease some land. I hunted mostly state land for years, and finally lucked out and got permission for some pieces of private land. Granted, I share the land with others, but everyone is in contact with one another and so far equipment theft hasnt been an issue.

In any case, the only way to find a spot is to get out there and look. Youll get doors slammed in your face, people saying no quite a bit, maybe even be called names, but just be the bigger person and let it all roll off your back. Eventually youll find the right situation.

[Fantail]

11pnt WMA 7M 12ga smoothbore

7 pnt WMA 7M Rifle

Taken some of my best birds out of the same area, including calling in my son's 1st.