Welcome to WNY Deer Hunter...
I started this website back in November of 2006 for a combination of reasons including my love for being outdoors, hunting and writing. I had been hunting for about 4 years prior and have always been an avid outdoors person. I spent some very impressionable teen years in Chautauqua County before moving back to the Buffalo area. I mention this because during those couple of years, I became infected with the incurable urge to be outdoors, no matter what the weather. Camping and just generally spending time in the woods became a constant for me.
Many years later I found a new excuse for being in the woods. I had my first real taste of venison. I decided that I could no longer depend on friends who hunt to provide me with the tasty, better for you meat. I proceeded to go through the required courses and pick the brains of friends and others about deer hunting.
Luckily, I was informed/educated by many great enthusiasts about the in's and out's of deer hunting including safety, techniques and moral obligations. This only infected me more. I began hunting at a later age and loving every minute of it. I have an uncontrollable thirst for knowledge by nature and have been educating myself on many things in life but, I've found deer hunting/management to be the most interesting and enjoyable.
Back in 2006 while sharing a fermented beverage or three with a few hunting buddies, a light went off in my head. I was, at the time, working for an internet marketing company and it was a no-brainer for me to combine some of my talents and interests. I created the site WNYDeerHunter.com as a way for my friends and others (by word of mouth) to share information, stories, pictures and tips with each other.
My goal was to create a forum of information/education sharing and an avenue to brag about your harvest and so on. This year, as my ability to install new components became a little better, I decided to install and modify this discussion forum in the hopes that more people would access it and share information about deer hunting/management and more.
I also monetized the website in the hopes of recovering the costs associated with building, hosting and maintaining a website (I haven’t recovered nearly a quarter of the costs, but the Google ads do help although, it’s not about the money).
I hope to, with the help of people like those that have been accessing this site, make this website the largest resource in WNY for deer hunters. I’ve already considered spending a little more money by installing a new component that will be a resource list of local taxidermists, processors, outfitters and suppliers associated with hunting (hopefully in 2010, we'll see how the cash flow is).
It would be ‘a dream come true’ if this website has a hand in helping to steer deer management and conservation in WNY and maybe the entire state some day.
WNY's source for deer hunting information, stories, tips and more. Be sure to check out the links and
resources section to help optimize your deer hunting experience. If you have a link, a story, a pic, or a tip you would like to share
with other WNY Deer Hunters, please do not hesitate to submit them here. All stories, pics, tips and links will be
reviewed for proper content and posted within 48 hrs.
I hope you enjoy browsing this site, be sure to tell other hunters of this resource. Remember this is a FREE Website resource for
hunters, paid for by a WNY Deer Hunter.
Good Luck to all Hunters. Be smart, be safe and introduce a child to the great outdoors.
Featured Post
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Re: NYS is destroying deer hunting.
01/30/2010 [BDINPGH]
I have been lurker in this site for awhile now. I just wanted to say that Aimlow has "hit the nail on the head". If things don't change soon, hunting in NY (and elsewhere) will no longer exist as we have known it.
I am seeing more and more things that deeply concern me in the sport of hunting. The following is a list of some of the items of concern to me:
1. In other states, one of the problems that I see becoming more of an issue are the so called "outfitters" and "guides" that are leasing up all the prime whitetail hunting land and reselling the right to hunt on these lands to individuals who are willing and able to pay the fees that are being charged. I understand that the market dictates the value of things - like fees for access to private land - but the net effect is that most regular folks can no longer hunt on private property that they do not own. Just try knocking on a farmers door in the prime whitetail hunting areas of SE Ohio and you will see what I am talking about. I can't blame these farmers, they are doing what is in their economic best interests.
2. The lack of serious penalties being imposed by our courts for people convicted of poaching. They get the ususal small fine, some non-reporting probation, loss of hunting privileges - and in a very few cases some short period of time in county jail. It is time to start "throwing the book" at these offenders.
3. The barriers imposed upon out-of-state hunters by all of the western states through the use of excessive out-of-state licensing fees and limited numbers of big game tags available to out-of-state hunters that results in out-of-state hunters having to wait for years to hunt prime areas that state residents can hunt nearly every year.
4. Arcane hunting laws and regulations that prohibit children from hunting until a certain age. This should be the decision of the parent. We do not regulate how old a child must be to participate in other sports?
5. Endless hunting programming on various cable TV channels that amount too little more than "deer pornography".
6. In some states like PA, people who push back against rational, scientifically based game management practices like antler restrictions without giving something different a try. In my opinion, the deer antler restrictions have been the best thing to happen in PA deer hunting in the last 50 years.
7. Members of the hunting community that believe that you have to have a certain political outlook in order to be a "true hunter". Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Anyway, we need to rethink what we are doing as a hunting "community". Attached is a link to an article first published in November in the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/25/dining/25hunt.html
I will be the first to say that I do not like the bias exhibited in the Times, but the article is very interesting and insightful. What I take away from the article is that people who do not fit the typical "description" of who becomes a deer hunter are starting to take up the sport.
We need to welcome these individuals and cultivate their participation in the sport of deer hunting. We need to be ambassadors of our sport and engage the decision makers who have been appointed to our game commissions. We need to rethink our buy-in to the commercialized side of hunting. (why do I need four different types of camo, eight deer calls, 6 different deer scents, six game cameras and $200.00 boots?)
We need to teach our new hunters how to harvest deer ethically and we need to teach them how to process their own deer. For us archers, we need to ask the bow manufacturers who a new, top-of-the-line compound bow now costs over $900.00.
Please don't mistake me for a "hater", I see many good things in the sport of hunting. Most of the good things are the things that have always been there - time with family, friends, and just being in the "out-of-doors" as my grandmother used to put it. It is just that some of the recent developments should be a clear wake-up call to everyone who values the sport of deer hunting.
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