I own some land in the Catskills with some partners, in my early years I thought it would be a great idea to hunt the Dacs since we already had the license. We hunted opening day weekend (3rd weekend in October I think) in Hamilton County, East Canada Lakes Region and Louey and Long Lake areas, for years and no one ever saw a deer or bear! We saw tracks, rubs and scrapes but never a deer! One opening day when it was raining sideways we were in a bar having lunch and a guy came in with a small racked 8 pointer that weighted 170 lbs., only buck I ever saw taken. Tough hunting up there, like Maine I guess. We stopped hunting up there when NY started charging $50 for a bear tag instead of including it with the NR license. If you kill a deer up there you really earned it!
