Syracuse.com - Readers submit interesting stories from past CNY deer hunting season

[HuntingNY-News]

The best was the tale of two bucks. Second and third place recounted the stories of an opportunistic harvesting of a black bear, and an unexpected surprise for a photographer snapping a shot of a buck and a doe. These were the top three stories submitted by readers from the recently concluded deer hunting season. For his winning submission, Kevin...

The best was the tale of two bucks.

Second and third place recounted the stories of an opportunistic harvesting of a black bear, and an unexpected surprise for a photographer snapping a shot of a buck and a doe.

These were the top three stories submitted by readers from the recently concluded deer hunting season.

For his winning submission, Kevin Shaughnessy, 19, of Minoa, will get “The Hunt, Trophy Showdown,” which is the newest Wii computer hunting game from Bass Pro Shops.

The authors of the second- and third-place entries — hunter Isiah Toner, 35, of Holland Patent, and photographer Bob Walker, 67, of Syracuse — will get their pick of more than two dozen books related to the outdoors.

Submitted photoKevin SHaughnessy (left) and his uncle Lawrence Vielhauer teammed up to harvest this buck in Pompey on Dec. 11.

Now that’s teamwork

It happened on Sunday morning, Dec. 11, the last day of shotgun season. I was with my uncle, Lawrence Vielhauer, and his buddies on our annual “Bucks and Ducks” weekend, which is always on the last day of shotgun season. We split up and I hunted with one of my uncle’s friends, Joe Budzich, in Pompey. My uncle and the rest of the guys took the morning to hunt ducks.

I got a call on my walkie talkie from Joe after hearing a couple shots from his shotgun at around 9 a.m. He said that he had a small buck down and that there was another larger buck right by the smaller buck’s side. I snuck through the woods toward his stand and saw the buck. I crept to about 50 yards from it.

Knowing I had only a couple seconds before the deer ran, I aimed and pulled the trigger. He appeared to have been hit well and ran away. Joe got down from his stand and went to where his buck fell and field dressed him. We called my uncle and he came within 10 minutes to start tracking my buck.

We figured my deer would be down somewhere close. That wasn’t the case. We spent the next hour and a half tracking him. We got to the end of our property line and decided to take a break, have lunch and then asked the landowner if we could go on his property. The landowner agreed, so we headed back into the woods.

We followed the blood trail to a thick patch of saplings. My uncle went around one side, while I stayed on the blood trail. When I was in the middle of the thick patch, I heard a shot. A call from my uncle followed saying my buck was down. I ran over to my uncle, who had a big smile on his face.

“Good job, buddy. Now that’s teamwork!” he said, offering me congratulations for the seven-pointer on the ground.

— Kevin Shaughnessy

Submitted photoIsiah Toner poses with the bear he shot while deer hunting on state land in Brookfield.

Opportunistic harvest

A couple of hours set aside for an afternoon hunt on a piece of state land in Brookfield were aimed at filling (a doe tag). Regardless of the outcome, it was another blissfully warm day that would make for a pleasant evening in the deer woods.

A small, nearby spring brook had risen a bit from the snow melt and was playing perfect music. Other than the trickling water, the woods was very quiet.

Excitement and anticipation were turning every little sound in the dry leaves into an incoming deer. On several occasions, my heart was fluttering and my hands were gripping at the gun, only to realize it was songbirds and chipmunks that I was hearing.

Just before the sun began to set, the undeniable sound of something big could be heard up above my location. It certainly wasn’t a chipmunk or a tweety bird. When the animal came into view, I was hit with a lightning bolt of shock and awe.

It was bear! A large, black bear! Fortunately, I was aware that a couple of years back the bear season had been expanded into the 7M area I was hunting. Never in a million years did I dream of actually seeing one, though.

I lined up the crosshairs of my rifle scope behind the bear’s shoulder and slowly eased back the trigger. KA-POW! A clean shot provided for my first black bear harvest. It was a dream come true.

The bear dressed out at 225 pounds.

— Isiah Toner

Submitted photoA couple of decoy deer were almost enough to fool photographer Bob Walker, who shot this photo in Allegany County.

Too perfect

Last weekend, the wife, nephew and I were down in Allegany County looking over property our nephew had recently purchased. He had told us there were quite a few deer in the neighborhood, and signs of that were evident on his property.

So we looked around but didn’t see anything. Our nephew suggested he could show us around the area.

Following our nephew, we used two-way radios in case we got separated. Not far from his place and just around a corner, we saw our nephew pointing into a field.

There stood a six-point buck with a doe laying down on posted land. I instructed our nephew to pull up the road, out of sight, so I could load my camera. I backed up along the shoulder of the road to where I could get a clear view of the critters.

After a short while, I was almost sure they were decoys set out to nab illegal hunters. My wife couldn’t see them very well from her passenger position in our vehicle so I told her to get out and take a look. She hadn’t been out of our SUV but a minute, and up pulls a Jeep Cherokee with no markings on it.

I looked back in my rearview mirror and saw a DEC environmental conservation officer approaching us. He looked at my large lens sticking out the car window and told us to move along in an abupt, rude manner.

In my 46 years of doing photography, I have never come upon a scene such as this.

— Bob Walker

View the full article on The Syracuse Outdoors Blog