Gator

I'd be really cautious field dressing anything...if I lived in "Lyme, NH" Nice deer. Great boat, too. I have a 2003 Mr. Pike with a Yamaha F115 and I can't say enough good things about Lund. The 18' ProV is a great compromise for the big lake and bass/walleye. You should move it quickly.

Hey Matt, We had to put Java down at 14 last year because her hips went. Many good years of crackerjack retrieving and the fun of training. Never to be forgotten. I feel your pain.

April 1 was the first "real" fishing I ever did with my Dad...caught an 18" rainbow in Cold Brook and I was king of the world (at six). From what I've heard, the run hasn't been strong in 20 years. I know that the laker fishing wasn't like this when I was a kid. We'd troll an entire morning for a couple fish, if we were lucky. There were some big browns, though: remember, the state record brown used to come from Keuka. My best guess is that the smelt crash changed things significantly. Coupled with zebra mussels, this is an entirely different fishery from when I grew up.

Good luck with that We hadn't had any other guys off the point we fish until this weekend; there was a group of six on Sunday whooping and hollering every time they hooked a fish. Actually, it was great to watch them having fun. I think that with safe ice two years in a row, more guys are trying to take advantage of it. Usually, with a ten year lull between opportunities it takes a while to build momentum. I've never seen so many guys on Keuka as this winter. It was like somebody took their foot off the brake and size of the crowd burned rubber. It may very well be that this is just what that lake needs. The fish seemed stunted the past few seasons, and it was rare to catch one over five pounds. And they tended toward long and skinny. I'd say that the population seems healthier now. IMHO. I'm going to guess that the bite will slow down significantly in the near future, though.

Yeah, the cold water scares me. We beat the heck out of them for the first two months, then had a heck of a time finding anything solid after the second week of June. It seems like the panfish spawned later, which was great for us perch jerkers, and Honeoye didn't have the algae problems it's seen the past few years. So, like any extreme, the cold will have both good and bad effects. It's all about how adaptable you are...as well as "that bass" pronounced "base" (not treble) Sorry. 13 yr old daughter. Blame her.

In my mind, it's not about what I want personally, but what's best for the ecosystem. Having said that, I'm not well versed in the literature and I have no idea of the effect of AR on buck/doe ratios, population genetics and sustainability. I'm going to hazard a guess that local opinions are influenced more by practices in surrounding areas (food plots, cover, nuisance permits) than management strategies, so I would tend to give more weight to controlled long-term studies over a larger area than individual cases. One thing that somebody mentioned above does resonate with me, though. I think that hunters have moved toward voluntary AR over the past decade. TV? Aging hunting population? Whatever the reason, if you move to demand AR, then suddenly you put undue pressure on the deer that mature more rapidly, taking them out of the genetic pool. And maybe Joe Average hunter feels like the AR takes the place of making a personal judgement on what constitutes a "shooter". All in all, I try to encourage letting the little guys walk, but I prefer people being able to make their own choices, so long as there's not a scientifically valid reason to do otherwise.

Whatever you end up doing, be sure to post your results! I've been in similar situations where you have a one-day gig with a relative and you want a near sure thing. Unfortunately, there's no local bite right now that I know of that's on fire. The biggest perch are in Seneca, but that's all open water. Maybe laker water is solid on Keuka, if you're prepared to jig in 100'. There can be good perch there, too, but it's hit or miss. Honeoye is probably the easiest in terms of access, but it's been pounded. You might want to peruse IceShanty; hopefully somebody on here shoots you a pm with good advice.

Unfortunately, just because we're advanced doesn't mean that we aren't subject to the same rules Mother Nature applies to all populations that are out of balance...

I've got to agree with Tim's comment that the oceans are a major player. And unfortunately, they're more susceptible to our screwing around than the atmosphere...think of rain as a means of washing all that crap back into the oceans. Anybody who wants to argue the point can look at the effect of acid rain. Limited in scope, but undeniably real. I had a friend who recently published in Science on the ocean carbon cycle. There's some scary stuff going on out there. We're seeing large anoxic zones and there's an increased incidence of red tides globally. The oceans are actually a better indicator of global warming than the weather above ground. As Les said, there's no doubt it's occurring. Playing the blame game gets us nowhere, but...you've got to consider the worse case scenario. What might happen? Is the price worth it? That having been said: is there anything that we can even do?

The short version: great season, good numbers of deer in each of the four (widely scattered) spots that I hunt, with the best activity coming in early November. I shot four doe, two with the bow and two with the gun. One of those went to a single Mom who lives on one of the properties and two of them went to my grad students. One deer will last me and my two girls the year. I passed on numerous small to medium bucks, had a close encounter with a shooter ten, and passed on a shooter eight during late bow. Overall, the number of large bucks that I saw was down for the year, but the number of small bucks and doe was up. My experiences during late bow tell me that there were quite a few deer in at least a couple areas I hunt that made it through the season, including some nice bucks, so anticipation is high for next year.