10 Days & Counting Down

[DirtTime]

We'll be checking into the cabin in Indian Lake on the 18th. I have seriously looked forward to the trips the past couple years because I flat out love hunting up north more then anywhere in NY.

 

I think this year I'm a little more stoked then the other years because I'll be giving it a go hunting black powder for the first time. I have a couple of web harness set ups, and I think I'll be using the belt from one of them and keeping a few spare quick loaders in the pouches.

 

To all the other hunters who will be out that week good luck.

[Robhuntandfish]

enjoy it!  its a beautiful place! 

i got married there at Byron park on Adirondack lake many moons ago.  Although the marriage didnt last i bet the park is still there!  lol 

 

[DirtTime]

Thank you Rob. That might explain why you won't go far from the truck when you hunt up there, your afraid when you come out someone will have taken half of it.

[Robhuntandfish]

2 minutes ago, DirtTime said:

Thank you Rob. That might explain why you won't go far from the truck when you hunt up there, your afraid when you come out someone will have taken half of it.

if you run into any of the Hutchins clan....and you will ...... tell them i said hello!  

They are good peoples! 

[DirtTime]

I say this now, so I'll end up seeing a bunch of people as karma, but the only people I run into while hunting are at the parking areas/trail heads. Only seen one other hunter in the actual woods. But I'll be sure to mention you if I run into anyone with that name. If I get the snot whooped out of me I'm coming to WNY and drive by all your hunting spots next season blowing a fog horn all day.

[Robhuntandfish]

4 minutes ago, DirtTime said:

I say this now, so I'll end up seeing a bunch of people as karma, but the only people I run into while hunting are at the parking areas/trail heads. Only seen one other hunter in the actual woods. But I'll be sure to mention you if I run into anyone with that name. If I get the snot whooped out of me I'm coming to WNY and drive by all your hunting spots next season blowing a fog horn all day.

lol - that would be perfect.  Let me know and i will forward all my WNY hunting spots to you!  

No worries i am in good with the family!  If you need help with something up there let me know and i will send them your way!  

[DirtTime]

9 minutes ago, Robhuntandfish said:

lol - that would be perfect.  Let me know and i will forward all my WNY hunting spots to you!  

No worries i am in good with the family!  If you need help with something up there let me know and i will send them your way!  

I forget you're CNY. Thank you, I'll keep the offer in mind. I'm still hoping to not have cell reception up there, I know when myself and a few buddies camped at Mason Lake 15 minutes south of Indian Lake last May there was no service. Smoke signals maybe?

[rachunter]

I’m heading up for 9 days probably won’t hunt the opening day, but the rest of the week it’s on. I have three areas in Areitta I want to explore.
Good luck to you and everyone else heading up.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Whitetailhobo]

Good luck We will  be wandering the woods for muzz seasons week all so. Be safe 

[wolc123]

If you are looking for another place near there, give the little patch of brush, just north of galushas camp on lewey lake, on the east side of the highway from Indian lake a try. 
 

My first sighting of an Adirondack deer while hunting happened right there about 30 years ago and I know that camp is still there.

The Adirondacks are not only my favorite place to hunt deer in NY state, but also in the lower 48 or Canada.  None of those places can match the scenery or solitude that I have found up there, while not even needing to purchase a non-resident license.  
 

I too am looking forward to getting back up (quite a ways north west of Indian lake where I get free lodging thanks to marrying the right woman), in just 5-1/2 more days.
 

 Early ML is my favorite time to be up there, when the fishing is still very good.  My Mother in law’s cooking alone is reason enough for me to go, and they always appreciate me helping to get their place ready for winter when I am up there on that week.
 

It looks like almost all of the Adirondack are opened back up for antlerless deer with a ML this year, so the herd must be doing well.  I know that I have seen more than usual the 4 times I have been up already this year.  I am hoping to bring one or two, maybe even three, home packaged in a cooler, two weeks from today.

Edited October 10, 2021 by wolc123

[DirtTime]

3 hours ago, wolc123 said:

If you are looking for another place near there, give the little patch of brush, just north of galushas camp on lewey lake, on the east side of the highway from Indian lake a try. 
 

My first sighting of an Adirondack deer while hunting happened right there about 30 years ago and I know that camp is still there.

The Adirondacks are not only my favorite place to hunt deer in NY state, but also in the lower 48 or Canada.  None of those places can match the scenery or solitude that I have found up there, while not even needing to purchase a non-resident license.  
 

I too am looking forward to getting back up (quite a ways north west of Indian lake where I get free lodging thanks to marrying the right woman), in just 5-1/2 more days.
 

 Early ML is my favorite time to be up there, when the fishing is still very good.  My Mother in law’s cooking alone is reason enough for me to go, and they always appreciate me helping to get their place ready for winter when I am up there on that week.
 

It looks like almost all of the Adirondack are opened back up for antlerless deer with a ML this year, so the herd must be doing well.  I know that I have seen more than usual the 4 times I have been up already this year.  I am hoping to bring one or two, maybe even three, home packaged in a cooler, two weeks from today.

Are you talking about the area across from Mason Lake? Or in that general area? I gave turkey hunting a shot for a morning up there last May while camping at Mason. I didn't go across the road to the east though. That sides Siamese Ponds and the west side is West Canada Lake.

[wolc123]

 

1 hour ago, DirtTime said:

Are you talking about the area across from Mason Lake? Or in that general area? I gave turkey hunting a shot for a morning up there last May while camping at Mason. I didn't go across the road to the east though. That sides Siamese Ponds and the west side is West Canada Lake.

Galushas cottages are on the South east corner of Lewey lake.  They have a barn on the other side of the highway, across from the cottages.   The brush patch that I am talking about was just north of there, on the east side of the highway.  Indian lake is a few miles farther north.  I have no clue where Mason lake is.
 

It might be all grown up into mature timber now, depending how it has been managed, but there were at least 3 deer in there 30 years ago.  The two that I got my scope on lacked antlers, so no shot was taken.  I am fairly certain that the third one was a buck, based on the size and shape of the tracks in the mud.   
 

I knew there were deer in that brush patch, based on finding hair on the old barb wire fence, that was behind Galushas old barn.  My encounter with the group of deer happened  on the day we left. The other guys were too hungover to hunt that morning, after a night of drinking at a joint up near Indian lake.  I had spent the previous days of that hunt deep in the woods, finding no signs of deer whatsoever.   The only deer that I ran into were those 3, which were bedded within 100 yards of the highway.   
 

None of the other 4 or 5 guys who went on that hunt with me saw any deer or found any sign of any.  We even organized a drive of the swamp south of Lewey lake one day, turning up nothing.  
 

Another guy in camp got a small bear that week.  The owners son also claimed that his dad had killed a bear across Lewey lake, at very close range, a few years prior with a shotgun loaded with birdshot while he was small game hunting.  
 

Deer seemed few and far between back then.  I think there is a lot more around now.  Hopefully, you can get into some.

Edited October 10, 2021 by wolc123

[DirtTime]

Mason is about 5 minutes south of Lewey on the same side of 30. It's the West Canada Lake Wilderness area, same as Lewey. The other side of 30, the east side is the Siamese Ponds Wilderness Area, which you have to know where you are because some of that area isn't open to hunting though it's state land. The area where the trail to Watch Hill is there's no hunting in that area, which is about 10 minutes north of Lewey. Snowy Peak doesn't allow hunting that area either.

I'm not sure I know where the barn you speak of is, but if it's private land I doubt I'd get access.

 

A few of the locals up there have told me OK Slip Falls is a good place to hunt, but as soon as day breaks it gets hammered with hikers.

[wolc123]

It is tough with no snow, but if you can find what they are eating and where they are bedding, your odds improve a lot.    I would have never found those deer up there 30 years ago, had I not spotted the deer hair on the fence as I crossed the pasture behind the barn the day before.  I wasted lots of time that day, hunting deep in the woods, and trying to explore remote areas using a compass and a topo map.

The deer were probably feeding in the grassy pasture around that barn at night, and bedding in the thick brush near jthe highway by day.  The land was not posted private back then, but I don’t know about today.  
 

It might not be a bad idea to drive the highways, looking for a similar spot (grassy area with adjacent thick cover).   You don’t need to go deep to find deer up there, especially antlerless ones.   Highway shoulders are usually mowed and that grass feeds deer, even without a pasture.   

[DirtTime]

I have a few areas that I have always seen fresh tracks. The past two years up there it rained almost every night so it was muddy and tracks were easy to know if they were fresh or not. I would set up somewhere in those areas and sit the first hour or so of daylight then I was up and slowly moving around. They aren't close to any main roads though. It's take this road to that road, then that road to the dirt road, then park.

Last year the one deer I saw while actually on the hunt was about 20 minutes after I heard a car/truck come down the dirt road, that sound travels far. It strolled through about 60 yards in front of me and never came into the open enough for me to even see if it was a buck or a doe. I just made out the shape as it went through the brush. I'm almost positive the noise from the vehicle on the road spooked that deer and got it up and moving.

 

I plan to hunt the same way this year. After we get unpacked and the cabin in order I'll drive out and have a peek around. Then I'll devise a game plan of sorts and go from there.

 

 

There's a few hiking trails just outside of Indian Lake Village going towards Blue Mountain Lake. Man, there was all sorts of sign in those areas, but you can't hunt any of them.

 

I don't stress it up there, I don't go to give myself anxiety. I know the odds aren't in my favor and I fully accept that, and is part of the reason I enjoy being up there.

[wolc123]

1 hour ago, DirtTime said:

I don't stress it up there, I don't go to give myself anxiety. I know the odds aren't in my favor and I fully accept that, and is part of the reason I enjoy being up there.

I know what you mean by that and that is part of the attraction for me also.  It is hard to beat having nothing much to I worry about for over week, but hunting and fishing.

I am gathering up my gear for my trip up now.  I will probably bring my in-line and side-lock ML’s, my smaller crossbow, a side by side I6 gauge (for grouse), and my open sighted 30/30.  My father in law lets me use his scoped 30/30 when the weather is nice.  
 

I have a couple of spinning rods up there but I am bringing up a fly rod to try for my first ever stream brook trout on a dry fly.  They just legalized “catch and release” for them using “artificials only” after October 15.

I will hunt mostly just the mornings and evenings and fish the middays.   Most of that will be out on the lake for smallmouth bass, and I will only keep one of those if it is over 22” (father in law wants one to mount).  I released one that size up there a few years ago and he was not too happy about that (he likes to decorate their place with “native species”. 
 

I set him a up with my first Adirondack 8 point buck in 2015 and am still working on a bear rug.  They have been seeing a few this year so this might be the trip.

Edited October 10, 2021 by wolc123

[DirtTime]

We're taking fishing gear, how much fishing we do depends on how much the wife wants to hike and where. I get the mornings to hunt and she gets the afternoons to do her thing.

 

I haven't seen a bear in that area yet, or even any sign. I hear Indian Lake is the Moose Capitol of NY and haven't seen one of those either. I think I'd be happier seeing the moose even though I can't hunt it, then killing a bear being out there solo. The private land we hunt in the lower ADK's has had a bear roaming on it the past few years. I was given the green light this year to take it if I see it, that I'll do as I'll have help getting it out of the woods.

[wolc123]

A bear shouldn’t be too much trouble for me to get out, because there are lots of old logging roads near where I hunt, and my father in law just got a new loader tractor.    Three of the 4 deer that I have killed up there died within 10 yards of a logging road.  

[Paula]

Have fun and good luck. 

[wolc123]

The main area I hunt up north consists of two mountain ridges with a wide valley in between.  A creek winds through that valley and it often gets dammed up by beavers.  
 

Much of the valley is swampy and overgrown with thick brushy cover.   I often hear deer snorting from there, when I am walking the ridges above and my scent drifts down.  More often than not, whenever I spook a deer up above, they run to and disappear in that swampy valley.

My father in law has shot a few of those beavers, and a professional trapper has taken out many more.  The creek was flowing pretty good when I was up there this summer.

I am going to try something new this year on early ML week.  I bought a pair after camouflaged chest waders.  I am going to wade that creek with my carbine sidelock ML and a telescoping fly rod.  If I can’t find a brook trout, maybe I will be able to surprise one of the deer that always seem to be down there during that week.

[wolc123]

My wife and I did a couple shopping trips this afternoon, and I think we got everything that I will need for 9-1/2 days up north starting Friday.  The in-laws haven’t been able to find any Modelo Negras up there, but she scored (2) 12’s at Wegmans in Amherst.   

I did ok at Runnings in Lockport, finding a nice soft gun case for my shotgun and light weight camo pants on sale.  I also picked up some scent free body wash/shampoo and deodorant.   My in-laws have a great shower and a tankless water heater, which I use every other day up there.  Hopefully, that and some Evercalm on my boots will get me closer to deer that might be downwind. 

Two years ago up there, I used that method of scent control and it fooled the heck out of a big coyote.  I was walking up a steep ridge on a deer trail and the damn thing nearly pounced on me.  I was wearing full camo and had applied Evercalm on my boots. 

I first saw the yote about 30 yards away and it was headed right for me.  I raised my ML and it bolted away as fast as I have ever seen one move.  I was not able to get a shot off.   I am quite sure that it thought I was a deer, because of that Evercalm, and it was hoping for  a big meal.
 
I have also had good results with Evercalm and deer at home, taking 3.5 year old bucks on three consecutive years while using it.  I did without it last year, and had to settle for a 2.5.   

Edited October 13, 2021 by wolc123

[sbuff]

Good luck !! What bullet did you end up settling on ? 

 

[DirtTime]

30 minutes ago, sbuff said:

Good luck !! What bullet did you end up settling on ? 

 

Thank you.

I was surprised all three bullets were hitting the same place when I got the scope issue sorted and re-sighted the rifle, seeing the difference in caliber and grain weight I really thought there would be a difference. Once it was dialed in I shot two of the Power Belts and two of the XTP's. All 4 were inside a 3" circle and I sighted for 1" high at 75 yards. The 4th and final shot was a PB and it was an inch left and an inch low. That was all on me! I knew as soon as I pulled the trigger I had pulled the shot. For hunting I'll be using the XTP's with 2 50gr pellets.

Edited October 13, 2021 by DirtTime

[wolc123]

Same as Dirt Time is using for me.  I will be using 240 gr Hornady XTP bullets in my (2) 50 cals with 100 grains (2 pellets) of triple 7 powder and a 209 primer in my inline and 75 grains (1 pellet and 25 grains loose) of triple 7 and a #11 cap with my sidelock.  My crossbow will be used only in real rainy conditions during ML week with 100 gr NAP spitfire broadheads.   Opening weekend of gun, it will be 150 gr Winchester XX 30/30 soft points.   

I have yet to kill a deer with my sidelock ML or 30/30 but have taken quite a few at home with the inline ML (two up in the Adirondacks) and 5 at home with the crossbow.   I will have (3) tags that I could use in those 9 days up there, including an archery/ML either or, a archery/ML antlerless, and a regular season antlered (last 2 days only).  It sure would be nice to fill one with the sidelock or the 30/30.  

My standards are significantly lower in the Adirondacks, where the deer gain much more value to me because of the beautiful scenery and the solitude of the surroundings.   For that reason alone, if I get a good chance at a 4-point, 1-1/2 year old buck, even in the first hour of my first hunt on ML week, I am probably going to take it. A spike will be safe though, as will a 4 pointer on opening day of gun up there.  I would be very thankful for a mature doe during ML week.                   

 

 

Edited October 13, 2021 by wolc123

[Daveboone]

On 10/10/2021 at 4:28 PM, wolc123 said:

A bear shouldn’t be too much trouble for me to get out, because there are lots of old logging roads near where I hunt, and my father in law just got a new loader tractor.    Three of the 4 deer that I have killed up there died within 10 yards of a logging road.  

The problem with bears is they always die in the most godforsaken impossible to get to locations, and are a rolling flopping blob to get out of the woods. A tarp makes it much easier...