NY Big Game Hunting Seasons - Saturday vs Monday Opener

[doctariAFC]

well where i hunt i have seen alot more deer out of my stand with the weekend opener.more guys out hunting the properties next to ours pushing deer all over.but whatever monday sat wed doesnt make a diff to me as long as there is a season.

hear hear.... 

[vivlamored]

What about cutting down the gun season by a few days what do you think about that

[doctariAFC]

What about cutting down the gun season by a few days what do you think about that

I don't know.  Its tough to "give back" something extra "you got", and I think that would be a tough sell.  If we have issues with underpopulation of deer, I could certainly understand that type of move, but, before we do that, examine the DMAP and DDP programs and make adjustments accordingly there. 

But I don't believe the last few days of reg season account for much anyhow, in terms of hunter participation and deer harvest numbers.  We do not have a shortage of deer, either.  First days are another matter.  Better weather typically for the older and younger crowd.  It would be a very hard sell to get that one through.

[muskytracks]

Has anyone looked at other states to see what they do?  I grew up in Wisconsin and the season there is only 9 days long.  The Saturday before Thanksgiving to the Sunday after.  Also they have to wear 50% blaze orange on the upper half of the body.  There are some monster bucks taken there.   And to top it off a youth at 12 years old can have a big game license.  I shot my first deer at 12 with my 20 gauge standing by my father.  I field dressed it too.   

I like a Saturday opener so I can get out with my family and have to take a minimal time off of work and school.

[yesjacker]

   All of the people that like the monday opener are old school..  The Saturday opener is new school, and may take time for many to get use to but it does benefit the youth which are the future of the greatest sport ever. might i add we live in a state the doesn't no anything about hunting!

[doctariAFC]

   All of the people that like the monday opener are old school..  The Saturday opener is new school, and may take time for many to get use to but it does benefit the youth which are the future of the greatest sport ever. might i add we live in a state the doesn't no anything about hunting!

huh??

[vivlamored]

what he is saying is the sate doesn't do very much for the sportsman. Which i'll have to agree to an extent with him

[doctariAFC]

what he is saying is the sate doesn't do very much for the sportsman. Which i'll have to agree to an extent with him

ahhh....  yes, we get the shaft, as do our natural resources.

Believe it or not, the move to the Monday opener didn't do us sportsmen and women any favors, either.  In fact, it has hurt our economic impact HUGE.  near 30% drop in losing what was in effect 2 opening days, and a weekend shopping spree with the wives before the mighty hunter went out to kill the wabbit!

HUGE.

So some got to hunt on Saturday (who already did) but it was opening day instead of opening Saturday.  78% hunted opening monday.  72% hunted opening saturday.  Now, 80% hunt opening day, and NO other day reaches the participation level of 70%, with the possible exception of Thanksgiving Thursday Morning and the day after. but then again, that participation was already there, too.  We didn't make it up in the last weekend, although we did gain more black powder hunters this year (and that has been rising steadily).

Just do the basic math.  Hunters spend on average @ $100.00/ day during their hunting season.  According to USF&W.  NYS has 520,000 licensed big game hunters in NYS (total res and non-res)

78% of 520,000 = 405,600 hunters on opening monday, spending $40,560,000.  It actually less, because license fees and what not are factored in, but if I run the exact figures,. the same is true, only about $10 MIL lower.
72% of 520,000 = 374,400 hunting on opening Saturday, spending $37,440,000 on that day.

Total $$ in 2 days is $78,000,000.  Thayt is roughly 30% of the total economic impact hunting has in NYS.  2 DAYS.

Now, watch this....

80% of 520,000 = 416,000 hunters on opening day saturday, spending $41,600,000

Don't know what the participation level is on the last weekends, but the % participating during the weekdays hasn't changed at all.

What happened to the other $36.4 million?  How about the taxes on same?   What about the part time waitresses and bus boys at places like Earl's Country Kitchen in Yorkshire, who no longer get the extra hours Monday morning, because no one is hunting to warrant the workers?

Food for thought.  If I get the time and remember to do so, I'll post the accurate numbers.  Turned out the impact was higher because I am only using averages, and lump sum spends happen leading up to opening day, and retailers lost 25% of their hunting season sales when that last weekend leading up to opening day was lost.,  I never accounted for that in my model.

[The Polish Pirate]

If anybody ever doubted that this thing we do called hunting isn't purely a "profit center" for the state really is living in the past ! Everything that the state does is an attempt to ultimately drive positive revenue growth within this "industry" and all the other related ancillary services that go along with the travel, the food, the fuel, the motel lodging, etc .. If the "#'s" continue to go backward .. there will be more changes to come .. and when I speak of "#'s", I'm talking about $$$'s ...

[knight rider]

They have a site devoted to hunting only, check it out at the bottom of the home page.

[Dr. IceGeek]

As someone who enjoyxs hunting I could really care less which day the opener falls on.  I hunt from the first day of bow season to the last day of muzzleloader.....Maybe some of you gun only guys who are upset about losing a day here or there should give bowhunting a try.  Bow hunting WILL make you a better gun hunter.

[vivlamored]

I gun hunt and bow hunt i liked the monday opener gave one more weekend when people would actually go up north. I wouldn' mind seeing the gun season shortened in the southern zone by atleast a week. That way i can get back to my goose blind

[Coldfeet]

Personaly I never liked the idea of the Saturday opener from the beginning. To me the areas I hunt in the Southern zone, on Monday mornings openers was a nice quiet and SAFE area to hunt. Sense the change it turned into a war zone of SLOB hunters. We never saw this before the change. Add the fact that they opened the area to Rifle it has kept me out of the woods on opening weekend all together. My son and I grew up on Monday openers and some years sure I had to miss it because of  work or he might have missed it because of school, but thats the way it is. My safety and his rides on the hands of others who feel that Saturday and Sunday are the only 2 days  they get to hunt and have a feeling or saying of "If its brown its down" attatude. These same "Weekend Warriors" are the ones who carry a 308 and think that they can drop a deer out 1,000 yards and after unloading on a deer running through a open feild have no clue to who is at the other end of that feild or where there rounds are going. Now sure on the other hand there are plenty of hunters who have respect and knowledge of there weapon and its capabilities but all to often they are outnumbered by the Slobs of the sport. To me I felt that the Monday opener was better for the true diehard hunter who kept a couple vacation days for that opener not the Johnny Rambo's who only hunted weekends and thanksgiveing day who headed out to shoot up a bunch of Maple saplings. For some this change was good but for me and my son I feel this was another blunder of the NYDEC. Maybe someday if I feel safe again going out on opener I will do it untill then I will stay out of the woods on Saturdays opener.

[bussman]

Please take these hunting related topics where they belong.

Here is a link to a new thread for you guys.

Re: NY Big Game Hunting Seasons - Saturday vs Monday Opener