stillhuntin

I live in MA and have bowhunted in NY with an outfitter I was not very happy with it, they were set up mainly for gunhunters. I found myself sitting in large tripod stands out in the open on the edges of fields. The dumbest deer would have spotted me from a mile away. I would prefer to scout and set my own stands and am considering hunting public land (wildlife management areas). Has anyone hunted these areas? How are they? Are they overrun with hunters? I will be bowhunting. I am looking at the Happy Valley WMA in the area of Parish and Williamstown? Is anyone familiar with this area of NY? Any info or advice would help...thanks

Shaky

stillhuntin,
I've hunted Happy Valley on a few occasions, but not in a couple years. My first year i hunted quite a bit and saw deer every time and had some close calls but never scored(that's not saying much with me) , the next year i only hunted there 3 days, most of which was bad weather and saw some deer and several more while driving the roads through the area. It wasn't over run with hunters, very few in fact,probably a little low on the buck population but i'm sure they are there, it's a very big area and would just take some time to learn. I feel if you looked at lands to the north like tug hill, perch river etc.. you might find better deer populations or if you wanted to travel to western NY, there are many good area's there too. Happy Velley isn't a bad place but you could find better I feel. I like to check out the DEC page and look at the deer takes for each county, WMU and the bowhunter logs. Good luck

Eric

RWK

Stllhuntin there is a lot of state land to hunt in western n.y.. My son has property around little valley, theres got to be over 15,000 acres of land thats not hunted to hard. Good hunting Rich

Phade

I 3rd the idea that you consider WNY. It is consistently leading NYS deer numbers wise, and also from the choice selections of public hunting. It really is a well kept secret up here, that we don't like to share

stillhuntin

Phade and RWK Thanks for the input, but I am from central MA and to consider going to western NY I am talking about an 8 hour drive. I would like to keep it near the 5 or less drive as a lot of the trips would be just long weekends. I dont want to waste an entire day on the drive. I know a lot of big deer come from that area, but I live an area that you may sit on stand 24/7 for weeks and see nothing. So am happy just to see deer, they dont need to be pope and young quality to keep me happy.
Shaky...have you, or do you know anyone who has hunted the tug hill area?...that was a second option I had looked at. I am somewhat familiar with the area, my parents used to own a place on Oswego for Salmon fishing. We used to travel to the watertown area a bit. Tug Hill is an option I was just wondering what kinda deer numbers/quality were there?

SnowHunter

I have never hunted Tug Hill but from snowmobiling I know / have seen some nice size deer in there. It is a VERY large area though and would be tough to learn not living there which is why I do not hunt it. Good Luck.

Shaky

Sorry, never hunted there. You could try calling the biologists for Regions 6 and 7 and ask there opinions, I'm sure they can help you.

check out the link below if you haven't already

[link]http://www.dec.state.ny.us/website/dfwmr/wma/[/link]

In general just looking at the buck and doe takes by town for Oswego, Jefferson, Lewis, and St. Lawrence counties and ignoring the difference in size of the counties and not knowing the # of hunters in each county - I'd try to hunt an area in Jefferson or St. Lawrence county, several large pieces of public land. BUT - Tug Hill and Happy Valley will both have deer and be better than what your hunting now probably. I've heard almost all bad things about hutning in MA. Driving through the area, isee alot more deer near watertown than i do as i get closer to syracuse, IMO.

As far as #'s of deer - if you pick good spots you should see a few deer during an outing probably 40- 50% of the time - just a guess, hard to say going into an area for the 1st time and depending on how well you hunt - it'd probably be lower for me

nybowhunter

Check around, there is hunting land all over in NY. Look at the Adirondacks, Allegheny State Park, Letchworth State Park, Finger Lakes Region, Hanging Bog in Rushford, Steuben County is the county with most deer taken in NY. You should have a problem finding land to hunt in NY. Good luck & enjoy NY

Shaky

Don't worry that an area is too large or you don't live there - it makes it harder but nowhere near impossible. if i can find deer anyone can,. there's different ways to do it, i like to get topo maps and do my best to find saddles on ridges, or benches or funnels of some sort or use aerial photos to find edges of different kinds or near by agriculture or water. take your 3 or 4 of your best guess - and when you go there take a day for scouting and go to those areas and keep them small in your mind, don't get intimidated by the size of the area an quickly scout out 50 acres or so in those areas - is there any food here, any cover, any trails or sign. hopefully one or more of the areas will look promising and go for it, if not take your next 3 guesses or do some driving, look around for deer or squirrels or turkey or look for thick cover - just don't feel like you need to know the whole area, or see the big picture, or find the very best spot. Find a good area and see what you see and adapt and learn a little more each year. Just my opinion of course. Good luck.

by the way if you come by the thruway and you hit Syracuse, it's 30 min. to an hour to these area's north, if you go another hour west instead to Rochester, I can show you a couple area's here - but they will be a little more crowded but they are good. i bet a couple of area's like bear spring mt. and partridge run and captial district wma's are decent too and closer to MA.

Eric