NEW YORK HUNTING AND TRAPPING GUIDE.

[ray koziatek]

Ok , A hundred year veteran of hunting well 40 years ,Ive got to know the rules pretty good so i dont read the guide much the other day i was cleaning my "pile" and noticed the cover so i opened to page 12 ..

WOW their are coyotes in NY, and maybe they have a impact on the deer herd..

Now 40 years ago i wasnt the sharpest stick in the woods but i saw deer lots of them tho mostly tails. I was unaware of their nose,eyes and ears and ability to pattern humans.

most what i knew was self tought as calulaters were the high teck items in those days and Ed Sullivan and Walt Disney coverd very little on the topic..

!8 tears ago i started "bow " hunting with many dicoveries of buck feaver,twigs,and some pretty smart deer Lots Of Them.

In the late 80,s I was a ski buff hitting the slope every chance i could ,when a 10 pac pass was 99 bucks and a season pass was a outragious 200.00.

Many nights i traveled rt 13 returning home rather it was 4,pm or 11pm you would see litteraly hundred of deer in the newfield,alpine area with lotsof deer along the route.

Yesterday i talked to a hunter who has been active in that area for 20 pluss years ,

in the last 10 years the deer have all but dissapeared cept for backyards,road edges,and small town outskirts..

And coyote population exploding in every inch of those woods.

So some great brains decided to spend our tax dollars to research these elusive dogs.

UM ask the hunters ,no more yearlings wandering around alone munching leaves, doe population dropping like flys , up to 5 deer a person with 10's of thousands more "nucance permits" issued to landowners and farmers. Yes at one time some areas needid trimming with isolated areas still having enuf deer to justify permits. (coyotes havent moved in heavy yet),,,,

As any hunter knows we have our dens where we discuss sucess or not in the field,and some of us have a pretty good idea whats up.(or down)

lets see a coyote is basicly a dog with 5 to 8 pups per litter,at let me guess very low as to what i see the hide dealers haul in every year lets say 5000 females x 6 pups a year x will just go back 10 years each adult eating 5lbs a day oh lets say deer , avarage deer,100lbs eatable parts ,divide by curent coyote population x numbers of dogs = deer loss ..................Hmm maybe i better get out my "high tec" devise from my youth (calculator) to get a answer.......or go in the woods for a day...

[skipper19]

Uh OH...looks like Ray is trying to come up with an answer ...I think it comes out to be 14....Maybe Musky can get a new brain twister out of this. Or un-twister RAYYYY!!! what have you done!!!! aaaarrggghhhh

Mark

[Capt Vince Pierleoni]

Ray, interesting that you posted this. Is it the coyotes or unlimited tags? The guys I bow hunt with and talk with in Niagara co, Naples area, and Jasper area have all experienced the same thing. The worst year for deer sightings ever. Yes there are some Giants being taken in all of these areas, but the joy of observing undisturbed deer from your stand/blind is what keeps you going until you get your shot. The coyote population is exploding, and they are practically throwing tags at everyone around here. We found a fawn coyotee kill on top of a mountain in Naples just this past Wed. We know everyone there who bowhunts, and it was too far away from a road to be a car collision.

On top of it, here in Niagara county, nuisance permits are basically unlimited. All Summer long they are shot at night with rifles. It doesn't have to be the landowner, they can give them out to whomever. You may be on to something Ray. I have passed young deer early, but we are primarily archers who enjoy venison. Hope this "trickle" rut brings my bro and I some backstraps before the booming starts. Good Luck to all, and congrats to those who have harvested.

[on the lam]

I believe Ray has valid points, and until someone can come up with another reason for dwindling deer populations I will go along with that thought. But don't live in NY so I can't comment from personal experience, but in NJ I can tell you that the deer herd has been hit hard in the last 10 years or so but not by coyotes buy by hunters.

I am a firm believer that the auto insurance companys in NJ (and there are alot) effectivly lobbyed the state legislature for a large reduction in the herd. Deer car collisions in NJ average about 30K per year that are reported. This apparently are paying out millions in claims per year. In the late 90's a herd of about 200,000 was reported annually. Since the liberal hunting seasons were put in place whereas you can hunt from early sept. till mid february with various weapons and with all the proper permits take a deer doe per day during that time period. I think you can take 6 bucks with all the permits offered with the various weapons. Recent laws passed to enhance the killing are crossbows and hunting on sundays as well as within 150' of a occupied dwelling with a bow.

With all this, the herd as reported recently in down to around 130,000. With 50,000ish taken by hunters and 30,000 hit by cars, its a wonder the herd sustains itself.

I will say one thing, the quality of the buck is evident in recent years. But gone are the days of seeing herds of deer in the 30's and 40's running together in the late season like in the 1970's and 80's. If we had the coyote problem NY has this herd could be decimated in short order.

My prediction is in the future NJ is going to be a bow hunting only state with limited gun hunting on large state owned land, and that will result in a trophy hunting state like no other, provided we don't have a coyote population explosion

[skipper19]

Seriously, I have to agree to the extent of the deer losses to coyotes over the years. I hunted the Catskill mountains for years and we had very good populations of deer in Otsego and Delaware counties. In fact 35 years ago those two counties were top in deer take during the open seasons with a very high buck per square mile ratio of more than 6. Now less than 2. It has steadily declined over the years and it is directly related to the amount of coyote in the hills. My hunting friends are well aware of the fawn kill in the spring. Witnessed by a good friend was a fawn being killed in broad daylight in an open field on his mother's farm. He killed that coyote a day later in the field with a fawn distress call and a 12 guage buckshot blast. I haven't hunted over there in years since leaving that area for western NY, but I find myself reluctant to even go over there because of the low prospects of sighting a good deer population. I was just camping over there in a state park and at night the yotes were singing in stereo all over. Sure sign that it's not getting better.

Here, we have less coyotes in Orleans county (there are some dedicated hunters for them out often), as I have been hunting near the Lake Ontario Shoreline. Not saying we have none here cause I have encountered them in the past just not nearly as much as in the open woods of the Catskills. There is limited amount of "big woods" here and the terrain is open farmland with a lot of human activity in the orchards, and thick undergrowth where allowed to grow up uncleared. Great for cover, not so great for hunters to access, thick man eating briar, and willow, vines and such that a machete would be good but not practical. So the deer are pretty well adapted to that "jungle life" or just move to the residential areas where less chance of a coyote encounter is higher. Thus the sightings of large bucks are good along the thruway towards Buffalo. I think the difference in populations of deer are directly related to the coyotes population on these observations. The hunting pressure seems a little more concentrated here.... but that I think is due more to the lack of large woods and most hunters want to be in the open woods. Expansive thickets are the places never penetrated by hunters and unless a drive is put on during the gun season. Those pressured deer that have the jungle life is neither conducive to coyotes or hunters. Just my observations.

Mark