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Any luck?

I have yet to be out in this monsoon. Has anyone arrowed any yet? Just awful weather past week here in 9h! scentman

I've only been out once due to heat & rain, and wind that's not conducive to any of my good stands. My best stands require north or south-ish winds, and they are hard to come by this time of year in this area. My west wind stand didn't show any promise this year.

Been out one afternoon ( in the heat of week one) and in the wind this am. I see deer in my yard almost everyday, but it seems much of the activity has been nocturnal. It should start improving from now on..

Went out once for deer. Probably my last time. I have 3 bucks on cam and none of them are old enough to shoot. Does are almost non-existent. But I have a thousand pics of coyotes. I never hunted my property last year, probably the same this year.

Wow Pat ! I hunted a private farm in your area back in the late 90’s and early 2000’s and the number of deer was amazing. Since coyotes have been here forever it has to be the two legged predators, both legal and illegal doing a number on the deer numbers. I don’t think they had doe permits back then. Winters have not been extremely bad.

Numbers look good and deer look healthy here in 9h... their coats look darker this season.

When I bought this property 12 years ago I always had 1-2 bucks 4+. And a good amount of does. It’s not even huntable now for deer. Haven’t killed one in years. My neighbors are fed up too and between us we own 3000 acres of private ground.

There’s something going on here, and it’s not poaching. All of our properties are well controlled. Our predator population has exploded, both bears and especially coyotes. It’s sad.

Have any Amish neighbors ? Unfortunately they tend to ignore game laws. I can’t believe that coyote and bear predation is that much worse now than it was 10 or 20 years ago. We have tons of coyotes down here in my part of 7M and the deer population is still good. When our population crashes it’s usually a brutal winter or an over harvesting of does both legal and illegal.

Nearest Amish farm is about 15 miles away. No Amish near us. I'm at a loss. My neighbor killed a doe fawn during Muzzy last week. First deer he's killed in two years and he has 700 acres. The only thing I can think is that maybe something happened when they yarded up somewhere else during the winter. Thankfully I own an Ohio farm where the deer hunting is amazing. Several 5-6 year olds, and about 30 1.5-4.5 year old bucks. I have a 150" 5.5 that I'm passing up because I have three bucks 160-175+ in the neighborhood. We're one hour from the NY border too.

OH has a short rifle season, no firearms during the rut, and one buck tag. Huge difference from NY's 6 weeks of firearms, that includes pre-rut, rut, and post rut, and two buck tags.

We have yotes, a bear or two, and now Fishercats... our turkey seem to be rebounding, along with deer, but we have had OK winters. scentman

Pat, you are right that is puzzling. If there were wolves or mountain lions ( no, I don’t want to debate that) I would say you have a predator problem, but I find it hard to believe that coyotes or bears alone could cause that much of a problem. Like I said, I hunted a 175 acre farm near the Steuben Memorial back in the late 90’s until mid 2000’s and it was filthy with deer. The snowmobile trail went right through the property and off that the ravines were 100’ plus straight up and down. And coyotes and bears have been around forever. I still think it may be a human problem.

I agree Ralph.

It's been happening for 3 years. I discussed it with the DEC guy and he's puzzled too, thinks the most likely culprit is a winter die-off in 2021. In 2020 and 2021 we had an early march snow that developed a hard crust in our area and lasted for three weeks. If it was a human problem, it didn't happen in our immediate area, but all our deer migrate off to yards so who knows.

You would think that if it was a winter kill in 2021 you would start seeing improvement after 2 years. Back in the early 2000’s here in my part of 7M we had a hard winter and DEC mistakenly gave out way too many DMP’s Deer were scarce. They gave out no DMP’s the following season and in a year or 2 the population rebounded.

Weird weather for October, hopefully the rut will be on schedule this season. scentman

Looks like this weekend should be the change. Colder weather and getting past the full moon should kick things up a notch.

Yes Ralph, I do agree... plus the fact we're leading up to election day November 7th... my "old timer buddy" who passed a year ago always told me that was the best hunting! Miss you Albi. Eric

I hear you Eric. Halloween to Veteran’s Day was alway my favorite time. Sorry about your friend.

They be chasing here... getting excited! Good luck gents, stay safe!

Yes, the passing full moon, calendar and some favorable weather has kicked it up here. Saw a 6 pt on the prowl and I am pretty sure he came in too my grunt. We had a dusting of snow and I found a freshly hit scape going in and pretty sure that buck freshened up again after it passed me. I always love Halloween to Veterans Day.

Ooh baby it's on! Love this time of year... every buck I see is like a painting of fall, just the smell says it all. scentman

I've got two does so far on long Island so I'm set for meat and have let all bucks walk except a nice big 8pt that I blew that shot after my upper recurve limb hit the tree. That's my fault for putting up a stand and not cutting proper shooting lanes in the thick stuff. The good thing is I've got him on camera a couple of times since. Good luck everyone this weekend should be awesome!

Did not take one today, but it is full blown tarsal in my area!

I hope you don't mind, by best buck yet but with a shotgun. 21 morning sits during the bow season only seeing 5 deer and only 1 was a buck far away, 3 were fawns. Got this guy the second day of the gun opener.

Don't mind at all... that's a dandy!

Nice! Congrats!!

I have a love/hate relationship with trail cams. I have pics of a WIDE 10 point with extras, and the old "you can't kill big ones if you shoot a small one first" filled my head. Had a couple respectable buck come within 30 yds. during archery season but not the big one. Gun season opened, with legal shooting at 1/2 hour before sunrise (in my opinion this is a stupid law, you can't see much detail a 1/2 hour before sunrise). Any way, legal light was 6:30, and I was climbing in my stand at 6:20. I noticed a doe watching me at about 50 yds. and she watched me climb to my stand. Once there I noticed "something" across the field. I looked through 10 power bino's, and there was a buck with a big rack, but because it was only out to his ear, I knew it wasn't the wide one. Anyway he see this doe, trots across the field, and stands there at 50 yds. It is now exactly 6:30, legal shooting time. I look through my scope, can't see him well, because I have the scope at 10 power. I crank it down to 5 and look again. I still can't tell much detail, and with my finger on the trigger, I watch him walk into the woods. I panic because I realize I may never see the wide one or this guy again. It's even darker in the woods and I can't find a clear lane to shoot and he walks away. Now all this happened before I had a chance to safety in. Any way, my neighbor shot him about a half hour latter, and I got to see the heavy horned 10 point up close. He was nice, 17" wide, nice tines, and carried mass all the way out. The up side is that the neighbor saw the wide one soon after he shot the 10 point. As far as I know the wide one is still on his feet, where there's life there's hope.

Very cool story Don, you did the right thing by passing on him in my opinion... your a fella a guy could share a campfire with ;0)

Opening Day 4F

Beautiful Buck Gaffer1 congrats

Nice buck BR, thanks for sharing. scentman

Thanks Scentman

Double lung? Let's hear the story, just sitting here watching snowflakes coming down ;0)

Boiler, I see your buck has G-3's longer than the G-2's. Do you see that a lot? Several bucks I killed on my property have that trait.

There were two in area like that this year . This one and an 8 . Normal no but not unheard of.

Scent man its one of the shortest stories i have but one I remember every detail of . Opening day went and sat a stand i hung on an opening in a stonewall .i had this one and a bigger 9 point on camera .he came out in field to get some grub and i could not believe he actually did what i had envisoned walked right thru that whole in the wall at 34 yards . Double lung 40 yds and watched him tip over . Walked back to the house after fondling him for about 10 min and went and got my 12 year old son and 5 year old daughter out of bed to go “recover him” . Son was stoked and daughter said next time she wanted to touch him before i took out his guts. Lol

Cool

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