Syracuse.com - Guest columnists square off on DEC's proposed junior firearms hunt during Columbus Day weekend (includes poll)

[HuntingNY-News]

thIt would put young big game hunters (ages 14-15) with adult mentors in the woods at the same time as bowhunters who would also be out hunting for deer. Check out the poll and register your vote.

Dick Blume/The Post-Standard

The state Department of Environmental Conservation this past week released its updated list of proposed rules affecting deer and bear hunting in the state.

There were no big changes from the original proposal released last year, except for one.

The DEC is pitching a special, three-day season for young hunters. Youths age 14 and 15 would be allowed to use firearms to hunt for deer during the Columbus Day weekend in portions of the Southern and Northern zones. The aim is to get this and other changes in place for the coming fall season. If approved, the special youth hunt would be Oct. 6-8.

The changes would put junior big-game hunters with firearms in the woods at the same time as bow hunters, whose season precedes the regular firearms season. And that’s the source of some contention.

The idea is to give young hunters, with licensed adult mentors, a head start and an increased chance for success prior to the regular deer hunting season. The state already does this with special pheasant, turkey and waterfowl hunting weekends for youth.

’’The youth season will run concurrently with early bowhunting season and is not expected to have any noticeable impact on deer behavior or bowhunter success, particularly in light of the more than 100,000 small-game hunters (turkey, squirrel, rabbit, ruffed grouse, etc.) also afield during the early fall,” the DEC said in a statement.

The statement points out that youth deer hunts are held concurrent with bowhunting seasons in many other states, including Connecticut, New Jersey, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

Do you support a junior youth hunt during Columbus Day weekend?

The reason the DEC can say that the bowhunting season and the youth hunt will run concurrently is that it has proposed lengthening the Southern Zone archery season more than two weeks, having it open Oct. 1.

The following are excerpts from two hunters on opposite sides of the issue of allowing the special, three-day season for youth to hunt deer. Supporting the hunt is Lance Robson, of Sennett, a member of the New York State Conservation Fund Advisory Board, who stressed he’s giving his personal opinion. Opposing it is David Kosowski, of Avon, legislative chairman for the New York Bowhunters.

Special youth hunt

a great teaching tool

Lance Robson

As a longtime bow and firearms hunter and mentor of new hunters, both youth and adult, I applaud this proposal. It promises to be a valuable tool in the process of teaching, coaching and mentoring young hunters.

In a late 2011 DEC survey of 2,500 randomly selected households with New York resident youth hunters ages 12-15 years, 90.5 percent of respondents said they would participate if a youth hunt were available.

I am deeply concerned by some of the rhetoric in opposition. The New York Bowhunters, an advocacy group, has a longstanding position in opposition to a youth firearm hunt. In fact, they claim the defeat of such a proposal in 2004 as one of their signature accomplishments.

That group and others suggest that bowunters will somehow be put at risk by youth deer hunters. There are far more camouflage-clad hunters afield during the regular big season without any such problem.

Many years of records show that youth hunters are our safest class of hunters. As additional safety measures, junior firearm big-game hunters and their mentors are the only hunters in this state required to wear blaze orange, and they are required to hunt from the ground and cannot hunt from elevated stands.

As things stand today, without extending the bow hunting season any more, a Southern Zone bowhunter has about 42 days (10-year average) of dedicated bowhunting time when one considers the early and late seasons. They can also hunt during the 23-day regular firearms season, giving them a grand total of 65 days per year to enjoy their sport.

A hunter with a shotgun or rifle has just 23 days each fall. If you include hunting with a muzzleloader afterward, the total jumps to 32 days per fall.

Simply put, a bowhunter already has two to three times the opportunity of any other Southern Zone hunter. Many of these bowhunters want primary access to the big bucks and to heck with all the other hunters.

Bowhunters don't need firearms going off

David Kosowski

New York Bowhunters is opposed to placing any type of firearm in the archery-only seasons.

The use of firearms during the bow seasons will disturb the peace and tranquility of the archery hunt. When the guns go bang, it causes the deer to head to their hiding spots and forces the bigger bucks into a nocturnal mode of behavior for both the bow and the regular firearms season. With guns going off it will be difficult to separate the good guys from the bad, resulting in increased illegal activities.

We are opposed to placing a youth firearms hunt during the archery seasons as hunters do not need a special season to take a kid hunting. The most effective means to recruit kids is to take a youngster hunting during the existing seasons, while supporting legislation that would lower the big-game hunting age for all weapons to 12 years of age.

Junior bow-hunting license sales increased by 57 percent after the big-game hunting age for junior bowhunters was reduced to age 12 in 2010. The same will happen with the reduction of the junior big-game firearm age.

A youth weekend firearms hunt should be placed on the first weekend of the regular seasons, as is being proposed by the DEC for the first weekend of the Suffolk County big-game gun season. Another option would be to place a youth big-game firearms hunt on the first or second weekends of September. This would avoid any conflicts.

The DEC-funded Cornell University study titled “Final Report: Statewide Deer Hunter Survey — 2010” on page 16 states: “Despite majority agreement that a youth hunt would be a good idea, little agreement was found with respect to timing. It also showed that the highest positive response was to conduct this hunt on the ‘immediate weekend prior to the regular season.’”

The bottom line is that the DEC picked the Columbus Day weekend, and not the sporting community.

Time to weigh in

The DEC is soliciting feedback on this until May 21. To see more detailed explanations of the youth hunt proposal and more changes, including instructions for providing comments, visit the DEC website .

View the full article on The Syracuse Outdoors Blog