Checked cameras yesterday
New York
Pulled my cards yesterday, and to my surprise and relief, on the last card I viewed, there was #1. I had gone through hundreds of pictures of does and yearling bucks, and this was the first buck over 1.5 years I saw. Sadly, I haven't seen #2 since the middle of November,and that bums me out because the opportunity I missed because I tried to take a shortcut and use a decoy. I'll never do that again. I came across the carcass of a young deer in the field partially eaten. It didn't appear that it had been there for more than few days, but it was half consumed. While looking at my pics, I saw one of a small doe with a bad front leg. On another camera, I had multiple night pics of a deer confronting 3 coyotes, so I can only speculate. Has anyone else determined that their best buck survived? or had interesting pics?
Made it.
Made it.
Oops...can't do it that way.
Alan; looks like you will have a nice shooter for next year. That's something to look forward to!
Survivor
Survivor
My Goodness Pat, he is HUGE!!!! What a brute, he looks like he is still in full rut mode with that neck.
The size can be attributed to the fact that he is apparently crossed with a "white face" !
For the money I spend putting in all those damn plots he better be huge!
I had him within 10 yards while bowhunting during the ridiculous 6 week rifle season . I passed him up. He’s a 4.5 and his rack needs another year to catch up to his enormous frame. He looks bigger in person too. I’m guessing 250 dressed but his rack is maybe 100”. Gotta love NY’s deer management.
My number one likely made it too
My number one likely made it too
Now this buck id never pass up. Got only three days of photos. If he was killed I would probably have heard about it from my network up there.
Another fine buck there Pat. Your hard work is paying off.
That's exciting both those bucks made it! Does that last one sorta resemble your sons buck from a few years ago?
So now if the Ohio situation pans out what will you do...Sell the Oneida farm?
Saddle, Not selling my farm in NY. But I will definitely be splitting my time between Ohio and NY. I saw one months' worth of trail cam photos on the land I put an offer on, and there were more trophy bucks in one month than I have ever had on my NY property in 8 years. But, it is what it is, and we continue to have mature shooter bucks on my ground year after year. But it's hard work, and tough passing up some of those nice 3.5 year old bucks. NY has the single worst seasons I have ever seen, but I knew that when I bought my land and I accept that it's likely not going to get better until they separate politics from hunting.
Good luck deciding between the 2! Can't wait to see how the new property unfolds if you get it.
I'm not shocked by your findings on the OH piece. I would go out on a limb to say that had you purchased land in choice parts of WNY instead of foothills of Adirondaks in CNY, you might have significantly different results for the effort put in - not that it matters much now. You're in a tough area to begin with... regardless of NY politics.
I know one WNY area where 5 bucks that I know of over 140" ( 2 over 160") were taken this year that is less than a 3 mile circle. That's with no QDM going on and 4 weeks of rifle season.
Swamp, oh I can believe it!!
I have a couple theories about this part of the state and the bucks it produces. #1 we seem to have mild winters with respect to prevailing winds and position of the lakes from about Rochester area and west, but not too far south of buff. #2 Couple the easier seasonal conditions with premium ag and grain crops, so the deer around here have superb diets. #3 I've found that locating those combinations of good ag with nearby sanctuary type areas or areas of big timber, swamps or brush, and the deer generally make it to a few years of age. #4 After hunting many regions of this state I've found people in the western part of the state generally see good bucks, therefore are possibly more apt to hold out for a big mature buck. Whereas in other places a 6pt or basket 8pt is the biggest oldest buck hunters may typically see, and so those deer get killed off quickly. Not to say that doesn't happen out here a lot, but I think in general it happens less.
Just this past season I had 4 friends that arrowed deer between 138-154". Oddly enough the youngest looking buck of the bunch was the 154" - a 14 pt. The others were safely judged at 4.5 and one was 5.5 (151"). I was personally targeting a handful of different mature bucks (exception of 1 with respect to maturity) this season, all within a mile of each other. One was a ghost of a buck that would be around 190 and likely 6.5yrs old.
They are definitely out here. My summertime scouting routinely uncovers mature bucks that I'd be happy to hunt or put on the wall - regardless of rack size. We may not be OH but we aren't that bad off if you can find good areas to hunt with like minded hunters.
LOL ....Pat...slowly moving west? first ct, then Ny, now OH...pretty soon you'll be in IL :)
I am contemplating hunting public in NY this year for the first time and I agree the Seasons and Regs make absolutely no sense to me.
Still have some good Bucks on the farm in 1C . Hopefully we can find their sheds when they drop .
I agree with SaddleReaper. I hunt the south eastern Adirondack Park public land and I attend the Adirondack Trackers ,( Joe Dinitto, Jim Massett, Steve Grabowski,) annual deer party in January. There were many big woods bucks taken in the ADKs and Tug Hill this past season, and their racks were at the party ranging from 120”-140”+.
It’s not easy to hunt these areas but, If you put in the time and pass on small bucks, even in poor summer and winter ranges of the ADKs and Tug Hill , it is possible to harvest respectable bucks . One of the reasons for the long rifle season in the northern Zone.
IMO even with the long rifle season, the buck quality in the big woods of the northern zone is improving each year. I attribute this to, most wilderness hunters will not waste time spending a half day dragging a immature buck out of the wilderness, more large tracts of private timberlands with active timber harvest and conservation easements on them opening them to public hunting, and relatively mild average winters.
Anyway I used to bow hunt SE OH and not all areas there are what they are cracked up to be.
Back to"I checked my cameras" theme. I put my old Cuddy camera in my daughters yard in January because several deer use it as a crossing. Well, it malfunctioned, so last week, I put a new Spypoint up see who was making the big tracks. I guess I missed the boat since this guy has already shed. I'll pull all my cameras till the end of June when I should be able to see some growth.
I pulled may cameras 2 weeks ago and the bucks were still holding. I had a few real nice ones make it through season. Unfortunately I was out doing a quick early shed hunt this weekend and found a tank of a buck dead.
