Gator

There must have been a Caribbean special yesterday, because all the young bucks were on the cruise Okay, that was just wrong. Both guys I hunted with yesterday took management bucks, and my buddy's customer who was hunting with him took one, as well. All three deer were sixes. I got to hold a class on field-dressing! Good times. Now, back to looking for Mr. Big. If I'm lucky I'll get a chance at a beast like Chris's.

When I got out of my stand to start checking SD cards, there was a good one seventy yards away on the mowed trail. Headed my way? Not after he saw me step out of the thick stuff Ah, well. My buddy shot a "management" buck on our property this morning...he's gone during gun season and just wanted one for the freezer. I was with another friend I hunt with on his land last night and he had a breeding nucleus come by him. It was his first time seeing one and he had no clue what to do with bucks and doe running all over the place. Just about crapped himself. I told him, "this is why we hunt the rut". He all gung-ho to get out tonight now. Looks like we have another convert.

Here's his little brother.

After passing on several eights and nines in late October, I've sat in the woods the last two evenings without seeing a deer. Welcome to the rut! Boom or bust. Congratulations Rob on a fine buck!

Two nice shooters dogged a doe past me at 35 yards, but I wasn't comfortable with the shot. I haven't practiced this year like in the past. A six walked within twenty yards, though. Go figure. Lots of movement today.

Good looking stud!

One of our neighbors shot a medium eight at one pm in the afternoon yesterday and saw a bigger deer walking around at 10 am. They're on their feet in daylight...

Unreal! I tried with my daughter, but the day she told me, "Dad, I'm not really a hunter/fisher girl" nearly broke my heart. I guess you got to support them no matter which direction they choose to go, though. I'm glad that you're getting the opportunity to mentor your daughter in the outdoors; treasure it!

Nice bruin! I passed on a nine last night, it was the only deer I saw. He came in perfect with the wind and offered a quartering away shot at 10 yards. I actually drew on him, but got to thinking that it's early in the season, and given his mass, if he'd have been a six, would I have shot him? No. Okay, there was my answer. So I let down and he walked away sniffing at the ground in search mode. I have an awesome nine with a full third coming off his right side that I'd like a crack at, though. Let him step in front like that..

Yeah, slow for me too. I had a spike under the stand for half an hour, then a six walk by on the trail, and two doe just as I was ready to leave. I pulled all the SD cards and they each had pics of scrubs on them, but no giants. A couple of eights that looked decent, but still nocturnal. There was one four point with balls hanging down to his knees though ...it must be close.

Seen some good scrape activity and a couple of really decent bucks this morning...my buddy had two within twenty five yards from the stand, an eight and a nine, either of which could have been shooters if he'd wanted, and we bumped two that were traveling together as we were checking the cameras. Both were outside their ears. I am very hopeful that some decent ones are going to start showing up. The pic is from last night, so probably one of the bucks we saw this morning. Back at it soon on some stands that haven't seen any pressure yet this year. I'm in the mood to get some product made at Constanza's, so a doe may hit the dirt tonight.

I've got a Ph.D. and twenty five years under my belt, and I still can't make sense of it I'm seeing lots of guys posting here who are frustrated with the fishery and with some of the practices of folks who might be less...ethical...than the majority of LOU members. Heck, I'm one of them. But this is a friendly debate. In general, I'd expect this to have degenerated to name calling on most forums. I'm proud that hasn't occurred on LOU. Let's keep it that way. We can agree to disagree, respectfully. We're all on the same team.

I hear you that the run is good now on the Salmon. But if the majority of the fish are condensed into one big "late" push, it could create the perception that there are more salmon around than is true. Probably some combination of all of the theories that have been posted here is closest to the truth though. Let's hope for a more normal winter and we'll see what we see.

Yotes supposedly can breed with wolves. In the old days, eastern coyotes were much smaller. Then they went practically extinct. The theory is that the western coyote caught some timberwolf DNA as it migrated back though Canada to repopulate the East and now the "new" sub-species here is larger than the western breed. True? Even if not, it's a good story. As was yours!

A buddy got this picture on our lease. I guess there's a series of 40 shots that shows the entire sparring match. Cool stuff!

So, you guys know me and I'm sure not an enemy of charter boat captains. But I'm not too bad at math either, and Rolmops has a point. If the salmon fishing sucks, captains put their sports on lakers. With salmon, you're taking a short-lived fish out of the system and they stock 2 million of them a year. With a laker, you're taking a long-lived fish that they only stock half a million. That's a double whammy, because the number of fish in the lake is determined not by stocking numbers, but by turnover, same as any other biological system. Any system with fast turnover recovers more quickly, less so other systems. So, taking more lakers (which is fine in my book) is going to require stocking more lakers to keep up. Unlike kings, where it won't make as much of a dent, what you'd think would have minor impact is exacerbated with lakers because of slow turnover. And the population will more rapidly show a trend toward smaller fish as the size distribution is reduced and larger fish get taken out of the system. If, on the other hand, you don't replenish the population, it will take a nosedive quite quickly. So, stocking more lakers is not a completely bad idea, and in fact it means that DEC is tacitly acknowledging the increased pressure on them. I for one would hate to work at a government agency where you have to balance the practical with the political, then make everybody feel like they're getting cherry Kool Aid.

I used to work for Ellen Marsden and Chuck Kruger, who were Cornell University researchers studying natural lake trout reproduction in Lake Ontario. I spent a summer at the Little Moose facility in the Adirondack League Club, which they managed. Their early work from the late '80s and 90s is great reading if you want to gain perspective on the issue. Alternatively, here's a link to the GLFC lake trout management plan drafted in 2014, if you'd prefer some lighter fare . Enjoy! http://www.glfc.org/lakecom/loc/Lake%20Ontario_Lake_Trout_Strategy_Nov_2014.pdf

I should be asking you that question! We just bought the property this year and the Dunstans went in ~May. I have >90% survival and I'd say that half of them showed some growth in the tubes, the other half leafed out and look good, just not much vertical growth. I guess that's to be expected. Next year they'll get Osmocote in the spring and I'll spray around the base to prevent competition. I'm actually intrigued about the Auburn Buck IV that drops in November. It's patented and pricey, but I may put a few in this coming year. They're a grafted variety. And there's big news just emerging about a GMO where they've got an American that can survive blight. It'll be a couple of years til we see that one on the streets. Corey from Future Forest is also trying some this year. We'll have to compare notes down the road. How do the ones at your cousins look?

That's an awesome picture! Any chance your daughter is in Rush-Henrietta? I have a daughter in 9th grade academy there. She used to hunt with me, but that got left by the wayside a few years ago. She's a heck of a shot with a bow, just other stuff going on. Maybe if she knows your daughter it will stimulate her interest again. I'll show her the photo. Congratulations to her!

I think that's the point. Although I'd be careful about alleging any particular misconduct without solid proof. That having been said, it wouldn't surprise me to see some bucks come out of the doe-only area, particularly on the edges...

My land sits on a corner with crop fields to the West. The stands along the West side closest to the fields should be good in an East wind, and walking in is easier since the scent is drifting into the field. Since it's the first year, I don't know for certain though. All our other properties have at most one or two stands that work in an East.

I shoot my does when it's convenient, and that's generally later in the season once it's cooled off and I don't have to worry about spoilage. A doe-only start to bow season won't make me shoot them any earlier! Ie, I hunted last night and passed on three doe. Why was I out there? Who knows? You always make the choice of whether to let one fly or to refrain. I chose the later. I will shoot does, just when I choose, not DEC. The primary benefit of early season moving to October 1st was for hunters who patterned bucks on summer food. This is a great way to arrow a big boy. Once the bachelor groups break up, their patterns change and all bets are off. That opportunity has been lost now, only a few years after it was given to us. But IMHO the only reason that DEC instituted the two week thing was that it's a necessary step in process and allows Phase 3 to happen: muzzleloader during archery. I think that Phase 2 is designed to fail, but implemented so that they've covered their butt and can tell archers that, "you were given a chance". Seriously, though? Who in their right mind thinks that archers, which are a minority of the deer hunting population, can by themselves in a two week period make a significant dent in the doe population? And that's without the blowback that we're seeing from archers who either won't hunt at all or who go to the Southern Tier where they have a crack at a buck. It's a ridiculous management plan with little to no likelihood of success. Dollars to donuts, every archer in this area could arrow a doe and it wouldn't be enough to make DEC happy. And here come the muzzleloaders! At least we have two years of this doe-only period mandated before they can implement Phase 3. Enjoy archery season while you can. For the record, I have nothing against muzzleloaders and I love to gun hunt. But I bow hunt for different reasons, and bringing guns into bow season would negate most of those reasons. I'd rather have a shorter bow season and a progression from bow to muzzleloader to shotgun rather than have an interrupted bow season. Just my opinion.