How to get started in hunting?

[Palladin]

Dad

 

[Bigfudge16]

Yes.....you hit the MA attitude on the head, except you said picky. Nothing wrong with it, our F&W manages for "jesus christ I saw a deer I need to shoot it, because I haven't seen one in 3 years!"

Ask you this....if you saw deer a lot more.....would you feel the need to shoot every one you had a tag for? Say you went out and most times you saw some deer.....the average thinking would be I'll take one for meat, but I have a nice herd here in my spot and want to keep the quality up.

Or would you act like Jo Jo the circus clown and blast away not giving a shit about the herd, how many does your really taking out of the herd, what your doing to your spot, etc.........that is the overall MA mentality. Kill everything I see because.......well......I HAVE A TAG FOR IT. That makes it OK.

When you hunt other states like PA, KY, or most midwest states, that have tons of deer yet you have antler restrictions and only one buck tag........You'll see does and small bucks walk by you every day your in the field, you don't feel the need to shoot every one you see. So some days you say....yeah....today I'll take a doe or two and fill the freezer, then I'll use my one buck tag I get (because the state manages properly) to wait for a decent buck. The attitude in those states is totally different because they see deer regularly.

If I saw deer on a fairly regular basis I'd definitely let more of them walk on by once I had meat in the freezer. We see a good amount of deer in eastern mass but not enough to pass on a lot of them

 

[Mark from MA]

If I saw deer on a fairly regular basis I'd definitely let more of them walk on by once I had meat in the freezer. We see a good amount of deer in eastern mass but not enough to pass on a lot of them

All that tells me is they should not be giving out unlimited doe permits.

 

[Bigfudge16]

All that tells me is they should not be giving out unlimited doe permits.

i agree

 

[HorizontalHunter]

All that tells me is they should not be giving out unlimited doe permits.

Sadly, Connecticut is running head long down the same path Massachusetts took.

 

[Mark from MA]

Sadly, Connecticut is running head long down the same path Massachusetts took.

I agree with this....when I started hunting there nearly 20 years ago......the success rate was like going to the grocery store. You hunted one day, you came home with meat every time.

Last 5 years I hunted there.......it was still way better than MA, but hunting pressure was up in the neighborhoods, and I could see that quality was headed way down. Thats when I hung it up, plus the gas, time and traffic got to me. The fact that I had shot a 220# buck that I was chasing for 3 years pretty much ended it. I no longer need to go down there to help my Dad get a deer either. My son killed a few with the bow, I had done what I wanted to do.

State land.......went from a bounty to pretty much raped in a few years with everyone plunking does off. I hunted Centennial and killed 3 deer the first season. The next season, you barely saw a deer, they got in there with rifles.....and it was done. I wouldn't bother hunting state land down there. Again, the Watershed wanted it,but I think the insurance companies had a pretty large lobby for it as well. This is where I learned you can't just keep plunking does and not expect bad things to happen to your hunting area. When you see the quality go down in real time.

Private land in CT....still has some good hunting. Its only because the whole state in written permission only that keeps some sanctuary and from it being like MA.

 

[HorizontalHunter]

I agree with this....when I started hunting there nearly 20 years ago......the success rate was like going to the grocery store. You hunted one day, you came home with meat every time.

Last 5 years I hunted there.......it was still way better than MA, but hunting pressure was up in the neighborhoods, and I could see that quality was headed way down. Thats when I hung it up, plus the gas, time and traffic got to me. The fact that I had shot a 220# buck that I was chasing for 3 years pretty much ended it. I no longer need to go down there to help my Dad get a deer either. My son killed a few with the bow, I had done what I wanted to do.

State land.......went from a bounty to pretty much raped in a few years with everyone plunking does off. I hunted Centennial and killed 3 deer the first season. The next season, you barely saw a deer, they got in there with rifles.....and it was done. I wouldn't bother hunting state land down there. Again, the Watershed wanted it,but I think the insurance companies had a pretty large lobby for it as well. This is where I learned you can't just keep plunking does and not expect bad things to happen to your hunting area. When you see the quality go down in real time.

Private land in CT....still has some good hunting. Its only because the whole state in written permission only that keeps some sanctuary and from it being like MA.

Spot on.

We hunt some private nearby but stopped hunting southern Connecticut and Centennial years ago for the same reasons.

Bob

 

[Mark from MA]

Spot on.

We hunt some private nearby but stopped hunting southern Connecticut and Centennial years ago for the same reasons.

Bob

Exactly.....Northern CT still has a lot of big private land. State land hunting up there is hit or miss, but not great.

Southern CT, a lot of the open land was watershed, with a few 2-5 acre private lots thrown in. Years of being unable to hunt the watershed and State parks it was a goldmine the first few years of the hunts. But with unlimited doe harvest and them allowing shotgun hunting as well. Along with some other towns bringing in sharpshooters.......the quality of hunting has gone down hill bad on state land abutting areas. My last hunts in the Centenial we saw less than half the deer we originally saw. Not worth the trip, so we went back to neighborhood hunting.

Down in tight towns with no state land near NYC there is still some good neighborhood hunting, but it isn't what it used to be either. Plus that can be a shit show in its own right keeping permission etc. As the old boomers/WWII vet generation who allowed hunting move out/die off, the new people have no clue and you either have to educate them, or the don't give you permission at all. You need at least 5-10 small lots to keep you busy down there and worth the wile to drive.