2008 NY Deer harvest #'s

[Adjam5]

Slightly up from last year.

http://www.dec.ny.gov/press/52340.html

[NY_Bowhunter14]

good read, thx for posting...

[Turkeygirl]

I emphasize slightly lol

Archery was awesome...shotgun was a stink of a skunk.

[Doc]

Actually, that slight increase might be a little more significant than one might think. When you look at what happened with the weather on opening day of gun season, I am surprised that the harvest was up at all. That near steady rainfall that we had drove all but the most hardcore hunters out of the woods, and from the lack shooting, I would say that most didn't even venture out in the first place. Also, I understand that that weather extended across most of the state that day. So the one day that traditionally accounts for the largest percentage of the harvest was pretty much a wipeout. The fact that we had any kind of a larger harvest may just mean that the population rebound across the state has been larger than we imagined.

Of course, there was another opposite weather effect that happened throughout the rest of the season (Here in western NY anyway). We had a snow cover much earlier than usual, that lasted throughout the season. Snow is one thing that really makes deer stand out in the woods, so many of the deer that normally would have sat tight while hunters walked by, were either shot or spooked out, putting them in harm's way.

So, who knows which weather effects had the biggest impact on the harvest. We can only guess. However, this season was one of the weirdest ones in quite a few seasons, and I would be surprised if weather didn't play a big part in the harvest numbers, one way or the other. It just shows that harvest numbers alone aren't real reliable predictors of herd size.

Doc

[ruttinbuc]

I could not agree more, Doc! Weather is the biggest variable when it comes to deer hunting anywhere. Should see the results of the low gun numbers grazing in the summer months.

[Doc]

I'm sure that it is different everywhere, but in my hunting area, pressure was very light again this year. Most of that was due to weather, but I believe there is something else at work here too. On the state land that I hunt, we went through a rather severe shortage of deer a few years back. The DEC backed off on permits and the deer have made a very quick recovery. So, once again the DEC is issuing large numbers of permits, but hunters in my area are not really aware that the numbers of deer have come back, or at least that is what I am theorizing. I'm thinking they all went to other more productive places. So now, even with the higher population, and the higher number of permits, the local hunting pressure is still low, and the deer herd is still growing. If I am right, that probably won't be going on much longer, but I am having a ball while it is. Eventually, the word will get out, and the hunters will come streaming back in. So yes, weather does seem to have the biggest impact on harvests, but there are also might be other little subtle influences that are not quite as obvious.

Doc

[RangerClay]

One thing that may have worked in the hunters/harvest reports favor was the weekend opener. If it had been the old days, Monday would have been a wash out and then the hunters would have returned to the woods on Saturday. By then the Saturday deer were educated. This year everyone was able to get out the next day when the weather was more conducive to deer hunting. We had cold and snow the next day and we whacked a bunch of deer.