Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Opinions on Deer Hunting in Upstate New York

Might turn into a boil

Great bucks! Danged nice!

I hunt the Norhern Zone, in the Adirondacks.

If I see a deer a day I consider that day successful.

I'm not a meat hunter, I'd rather have a good piece of beef, so I only shoot old mature deer and have let small bucks walk.

Plus when I'm 4 or 5 miles from the truck I don't wanna be packing out a dink.

My best to date is a 137 inch 11point

As someone posted earlier, "Upstate" means different things to different people and can be used to describe vastly different areas of the state with very different hunting conditions. I was born in the Adirondacks (in the same house my father and uncle were born in), grew up hunting there and now guide hunting there. If you have any specific questions about the Adirondacks feel free to PM me.



Frank

We do the Catskills - usually Sullivan & Delaware counties. Private property is preferable but both places we hunt touch fairly vast areas of state land. Fortunately we are able to punch most of our tags each year for both bow and gun with a couple decent bucks.

Only small problems I can see is a lack of decent farmland for wildlife nourishment. Also, the wariness and high alert mode every deer exhibits because of the sheer number of hunters in the area - most especially noted in the Sullivan Cty area.

-Ken

Great pics Ben! Love them old hunting camps.

Understood. Kind of like "hunting in Texas" or "high fence hunting."

You shot those all in NJ, right?

Yeah, I look forward to the camping as much as the hunting.

Heck I didn't even know there were deer in NJ............

I’ve been hunting in Western New York for about 25 years now. We hunt public land in Allegany county. Pretty much the same woods hunting as here in PA. I have taken a few nice bucks over the years, but none in the last 8 years. Pass over a lot of dink bucks…but still have a great time with my hunt buddies. Pic from last year…

Dang, could you get a citation for not wearing an orange hat??

I killed my biggest public land whitetail not far from New Paltz, NY.

Scored 154. Got him way back in the mountains. I was younger and could hike miles like it was nothing.

I loved hunting in upstate NY. Beautiful area. Some huge deer. Great people. I would like to go back but don’t know anyone out there anymore.

RAS

Nice bucks guys…. Like others have said depends where in the state your talking and what your looking for. I live on “The Island” LOL . We have some good deer here if you have some time and bow hunt. Lots of new areas opened up in the last decade that had not been hunted for 100 years. Everyone and their brother in law had 180- 200” deer in the yard on the north shore. First year it opened they all killed the swing set buck and sent pictures into trophy hunter magazine like they had accomplished something special. On the public land side yeah you could probably do a p&y deer every year with a good chance at a 140 or better if you have a lot of time on the island. Southern tier region has a crazy amount of deer but good luck finding one north of 100 inches on a regular basis ,it is a meat hunt with small basket bucks for the most part. Northern part of the state by the Daks does not have the numbers like the south but when you find them they will usually be bigger deer. They have not issued a doe permit in the ADK state park for as long as I can remember and the forest is very old growth with little food in it. Western part of the state is still holding a good bit of Agriculture and dairy but it’s hard to get on private if your not a local or new to the area.