NY Hunters--->


Turkeygirl

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I found this article on a local newspaper website. Thought you all might want to see it.

"The column that has everyone talking: Why we're not seeing the deer out there"

A column by Oak Duke

"Some deer hunters evidently felt this past deer season, a bit like the mythological character Sisyphus. This guy had it pretty bad to say the least. He was condemned to push a large stone uphill until he reached the crest of the mountain. Just as he reached the top, the rock would roll all the way back down, and he'd begin again to roll, push and pry it up to the top, time-after-time, again and again throughout eternity.

And it's pretty bleak when you go deer hunting day after day, climb (or now ride up) the hill again and again and never see a deer.

Many hunters are saying with almost one voice, "The deer aren't there like they used to be.

And it's the DEC's fault for giving out so many doe permits!"

And while that may be the case in some DMUs (Deer Management Units), there are some other significant reasons, besides this perceived low population of whitetails as to why so many deer hunters in 2004 were disappointed.

Overall, some of the following musings undoubtedly are more significant than others, depending on the specific localized deer herd, hunter patterns, land-use patterns, terrain and antlerless permit allocations.

Some of them are:

The ever-increasing use of the portable tree stand has changed hunters' patterns. The significance of this is vastly understated. More and more hunters are literally strapping themselves into a tree and hunting in one place. They worry about pushing deer out of their hunting territory, and into someone else's sight or scope. Hunters are moving less and pushing deer less than ever before.

It may seem ironic but the portable tree stand, while giving the individual hunter a tactical advantage has just the opposite effect overall.

When hunters move deer by kicking them out of their natural behavior patterns and into a flight response, the hunter who "kicked them out" doesn't get the direct benefit. But he hopes, sooner or later, someone else will do the same thing on an adjacent property and the wheel of good luck clicks his way and he's all of a sudden holding the lucky number.

Secondly, the exponential increase in food plots, land, and brush lot management specifically for the whitetail deer keeps deer from moving. Food plots hold deer all right and hunters who intensely manage their property for deer, know that they do not want to kill off or push out the younger bucks (unless culls.)

Younger hunters may find it difficult to comprehend, especially with the current rage and science of food plots and land management stewardship, but not too long ago nobody invested time and money in food plots for whitetails. Deer were hunted by reading sign; where they ate wild food such as wild apples, beech nuts, and acorns, where they ran and where they rutted.

Thirdly, deer will move miles en masse at times, and not just to winter cover. This fact has been proven by comprehensive radio-tracking studies. Therefore we find whitetails dense in one section of a valley and almost impossible to find just a mile away. But the population is determined and managed on a broad scale, not at the individual property level. Usually, when someone is feasting someone else is having a famine.

Also, hunting properties are being broken up into smaller and smaller units. Hunters can't or are not allowed to go where the deer are bedding or "holed up" because their hideouts are posted and closed off, both by landowners who allow hunting and those that don't.

Add on top of that, everyone has their own management philosophy, regardless of what the government allows. One property is "does only." Another may be "if it's brown it's down." And next door, No Hunting at all!

And deer hunters are getting older. The age of the average deer hunter in Pennsylvania and New York is almost 50. Older hunters do not run up and down the ridges, moving deer like they may have when they were younger because their legs and lungs are not as strong.

One could probably say that as a hunter ages, the miles he travels through thorn-brush, swamps and steep sidehills, decreases in direct proportion to the number of years he or she has hunted.

The summer of 2004 was one of the wettest on record and the fall of 2004 was very mild. Those two climatological facts conspired to create a unique scenario in the deer woods of Northern Tier counties of Pa. and the Southern Tier counties of NY. Deer browse in the woods was lush right through bow season and into gun season. Deer did not have to move to eat. Most years, especially with snow cover, whitetails move to preferred feed, up one ridge and down another, but not in the fall of 2004. There was little to no beech nut or acorn crops to draw them.

And with little to no snow cover and heavier than usual foliage, courtesy of the optimal meteorological setup (Mother Nature) before and through the season, whitetail hunters found it difficult to see deer, and track them too.

It may seem ironic but the popularity of the ATV as the preferred mode of transportation to and from the deer stand may be working against the deer hunters for a couple of peculiar and heretofore unexplored reasons.

Whitetails become accustomed to ATVs. But that does not mean that they become unaware. Deer in woodlots with continual ATV use become sneaky and in a short time learn how to hide.

Secondly, hunters on ATVs stay on trails instead of filtering through the woods and fields, kicking out deer in those unexpected places.

Both these points tend to make the deer hunters' ultimate goal more difficult to attain even though they got to the stand with no more effort than turning the throttle.

And of course there are simply fewer whitetail hunters in the woods and those hunters spend fewer days and hours in the woods, hunting and moving deer.

No doubt that through many stretches of the upland woods that there are fewer deer than there were a couple years ago. Remember when it was almost unanimously declared, "There are too many deer?" Well most whitetail hunters agree that that problem has been solved for the most part.

There are probably other reasons not considered here, as to why deer hunters didn't see the whitetails they expected. But it can not all be chalked up to a low whitetail population."

P.S. I put quotation marks around the stuff so you all knew it was by the author,lol

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Re: NY Hunters--->

This a very interesting article. It sounds like a compilation of DEC excuses for the current state of the deer herd in many areas. Last year, they used the excuse that we had bad weather on many of the key (traditional high take days) hunting dates.

Certainly all of these excuses may have some validity, but the way I'm hearing it, these massive complaints are a phenomenon of this past season. So, are we to believe that all these new hunter habits have just happened in the past year or two. Go down through the list and ask yourself: " how likely is it that this item would only have an impact for the last year or two". As far as deer migrations and unusual weather patterns are concerned, is this year the first year that these such things have ever occurred. Most likely not. Why then is this the first time that we are hearing these "deer scarcity" comments.

No, inspite of how the DEC tries to explain these comments away, the cause is very obvious. You cannot have successive seasons where all the hunters are running around with a pocketful of permits, without the impact eventually having a pretty dramatic effect.

Now, the comments where hunters are saying that they are not seing as many deer should be answered by the DEC this way: "No you are not seeing as many deer as you used to, and you will not in the future. We are approaching our management goals and our methods have proven to be effective. The state deer herd is approaching the targets established by our management staff and is falling in line with the hunting and non hunting requirements of proper management". smirk.gif

Man that is a real crock, but would be an excellent way for the DEC politicians to answer the complaints. They could paint themselves as heros. In fact, I expect that that is exactly the way the party line is going to go this year. Their other excuses are getting a bit too transparent, and it is getting to the point where they are going to have to fess up to exactly what they are trying to do. The worst part is that I would guess that they probably would believe all that line of garbage. I don't think they have any idea how their slash and burn policies have effected many localities. Furthermore, I don't think they even care. As long as state averages come out looking good, they look good. Farmers, nurserymen, insurance industries are all happy and the DEC looks like they are really doing a great job.

So, don't be looking for any relief in this situation any time soon. The politics of the job just plain won't allow it.

Doc

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Re: NY Hunters--->

Thank you for the good chuckle. They must have found this in the lame excuse file.

There was one point that hit home where I hunt. Hunters are moving less in the woods. I do depend somewhat on hunters moving deer from bordering properties. The deer do not seem to be pushed around like they used to.

Ranger

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