Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Vermont?

Very true.
I hunted National Forest ground between Stratton and Arlington in the south for many years. Big woods, few hunters as well as deer. Saw far more moose and bear in that area. This one is from '97 in that area...

Pray for snow and track them.

Lived in Burlington 4 years, and had one doe to show for it.

Saw more moose and moose sign than deer.

People I knew spent all summer cutting wood and growing dope.

Then spent all winter burning the wood and smoking dope.

Best thing I did was move to Va..

Tony

Good luck, stay safe, and have fun.

If you're going to be in Hartford, there are three nice little gun shops in the area:

Welch's on Bank Street in Lebanon, NH
Barrow's Trading on Route 4 in Quechee, VT
Lotus Creek Outfitters on Route 107 in Bethel, VT

A little farther north off I-89 is the Snowsville Store in East Brookfield, VT. They always have a few guns and you can occasionally get a odd/unpopular make/model/caliber there for a good price.

PS - IMO, the most dangerous things in the New England woods are old wells that were seldom filled in when the farmsteads were abandoned. Remember that 150 years ago, much of NH and VT was split up into small subsistence farms, or (even though it is hard to believe) sheep ranches, and mostly cleared land wherever a crop could be grown or livestock could be grazed.

Good advice. I almost fell into one of those myself.
When you see a cellar hole, a well ain't far away.

Never hunted there, but the best beer in the world is made in Vermont......Heady Topper IPA!!

Wish I could get a boat load of it......VERY hard to get though!!

Had it. It's OK, but I'd not waste my time chasing it like some do.

As far as the deer go, there are deer to be found. But some good advice has been given already. Know what you're getting into. Hope for some tracking snow and put your walking boots on. Some big deer are taken in VT every year. Just like Maine and NH. But the deer density is low so be prepared to not see a lot of deer. I've gone days and days w/o seeing deer hunting in NH/ME/VT.

Send me all your extra Heady Topper...I'll pay for it, shipping, and for your time!!

I will try and get you a case or two when I am there.

If you're serious, so am I...ship it my way!!!!

Vermont is a great place to hunt if you put your time in and do your own homework. It's a heck of a lot better now than it has been in years past. Many big bucks taken year after year in VT. Now, they are not behind every tree....I head North for THATexperience and the opportunity to tag a big one in the Green Mountains...

I can simply "shoot" deer in my home state and do just about every year. VT is just a different kind of hunting. Same goes for NH and ME. Figure out what your justification is and keep after it.

48 Bucks killed in Hartland during rifle season last year. As Windsor County goes, that's not too bad. Plus, you are very close to the central spine of the Green Mountains.

Don't be afraid to put on some miles, drive some logging roads, find the sign, etc.,

I think a mistake would be to plop yourself in a tree stand or ground blind unless you have the inside scoop on some private property bucks. Even then, I'd still mainly be on my feet....

Good Luck!

I manage to fill one or two tags a year. Hunting's hard, and slow, and the good lands posted for the most part. Really really good deer are taken off state land here yearly.

Id plan to hunt a season where you can draw a doe tag(bow is over the counter)- id bet the farm if you see a deer, chances are high its bald...

Northern New England hunting is tough. The bucks are there but the country is big,and heavily wooded, and deer densities are not high.

CLB is right. You can hunt it any way you please, but a lot of the charm of the place is best realized hunting on foot. You can get "back in" rather easily,in Vermont mostly by heading "up",and for the most part you will have little to no competition with miles of back country to roam.

It's unusual to bump into other people in the woods, at least where I have hunted.

Killing a good buck under those conditions is a reward all its own and makes up for the tough conditions. You will probably earn it.

[/quote]
Killing a good buck under those conditions is a reward all its own and makes up for the tough conditions. You will probably earn it.[/quote]
I'd rather kill a 120 lb 3 pointer after 80 hrs of hunting on the side of Grass Mountain in Vermont than I would passing up 4-6- or 8 pointers all day long just to shoot a 9 or 10 pointer ---Web

Killing a good buck under those conditions is a reward all its own and makes up for the tough conditions. You will probably earn it.[/quote]
I'd rather kill a 120 lb 3 pointer after 80 hrs of hunting on the side of Grass Mountain in Vermont than I would passing up 4-6- or 8 pointers all day long just to shoot a 9 or 10 pointer ---Web [/quote]

Not me.

I'd much rather see a bunch of deer and be able to shoot several than invest a lot of time and effort with zero return on my investment. My high school hunting buddies from NH feel the same way, they much prefer to drive to NE, see more deer in a week than they might see in a decade of hunting at home in NH, and drive home with coolers filled with the meat from deer that they shot, plus the meat from several deer that I've shot on $11 resident antler-less whitetail "Seasons Choice" or "River" tags.

My friend, Andy, who lives in west-central NH and is in the woods nearly every day of the year, says that there are fewer deer in the area where he has lived and hunted than anytime that he can remember in his 71 years. It got so bad a couple of years ago that he drove all the way south to hunt in Pisgah State Park near the NH/MA border. This from a guy who usually hunted within 15 from his kitchen table and had never before punched a tag over 50 miles away from it.

I look at it this way. For $100ish, you get to deer hunt and maybe learn something new. Maybe you kill a deer, maybe you don't but since you are there anyway, it is a cheap hunt.

Exactly.

260--- Never in my entire life have I looked at my hunting as an investment. Zero return if I don't shoot something. Come on . You remind me of the pseudo hunters in my area that all they want is QDM areas (Quality Deer Management ) . They can hang one on the wall with very little work involved. I tell them -- the big ones are there ,few and far apart but you may have to work for them. Very good example is Bucktales Photo in this post of the great Vermont buck he shot around the Stratton- Arlington area. Big Woods. ------ I've gone a whole week hunting Vermont and New York without seeing a deer and loved every second of the hunt.
By your standards my (investment return) per year since I started hunting bucks is well above average for my area. My (investment return) per hour hunting --I'd be living in poverty.
What you don't shoot today ,might not get shot tomorrow -- But he is there. --Web

2014:


A friend's deer 2014:


2015:


It's not all that bad in VT!

I'd rather kill a 120 lb 3 pointer after 80 hrs of hunting on the side of Grass Mountain in Vermont than I would passing up 4-6- or 8 pointers all day long just to shoot a 9 or 10 pointer ---Web [/quote]

Not me.

I'd much rather see a bunch of deer and be able to shoot several than invest a lot of time and effort with zero return on my investment. My high school hunting buddies from NH feel the same way, they much prefer to drive to NE, see more deer in a week than they might see in a decade of hunting at home in NH, and drive home with coolers filled with the meat from deer that they shot, plus the meat from several deer that I've shot on $11 resident antler-less whitetail "Seasons Choice" or "River" tags.

My friend, Andy, who lives in west-central NH and is in the woods nearly every day of the year, says that there are fewer deer in the area where he has lived and hunted than anytime that he can remember in his 71 years. It got so bad a couple of years ago that he drove all the way south to hunt in Pisgah State Park near the NH/MA border. This from a guy who usually hunted within 15 from his kitchen table and had never before punched a tag over 50 miles away from it. [/quote]


You know yourself NH and VT populations have always fluctuated,especially in the more northern regions and central mountains. That's the nature of deer that live in big woods or more unsettled environments.They are still there and offer a unique hunting experience....you need to get out and hunt.


I've hunted some of the best deer regions on the continent ,multiple times,but still hunt NH and Maine (even Vermont when I can) as often as possible. I still regard it as a challenge, and fun,even if it is "harder". When i get done with a week or 10 days worth of hunting in northern Maine, I know I've been "hunting".

Punching tags has never been the most important thing to me...I've burned quite a few. If all i wanted to do, is kill deer, there are places I can go and do it without breaking a sweat. But what I've found is that if you can kill deer here in new England, you can kill them anywhere.

Love the mass on number 2