THE opening of the Southern Zone firearms big game season in New York is Monday, but concerns about the proposals for the 2005 season have many bowhunters on the warpath.
New York’s Dept. of Environmental Conservation is looking at restructuring the deer season in the Southern Zone. Some of the changes include creating special deer hunting opportunities for youths, changing the opening day of the Southern Zone regular season from a Monday to a Saturday, expanding currently existing seasons and creating new special implement season opportunities like the crossbow.
The DEC would like to make a 14-day early archery season beginning on the first Saturday in October. This would be followed by a seven-day early special muzzleloader season (antlerless deer only) starting on the third Saturday in October, followed by the second half of the archery season beginning on the fourth Saturday in October and running until the day before the regular season, which would open on the third Saturday in November.
All of the above would be followed by a seven-day late archery and muzzleloader season, beginning on the first day after the close of the regular season.
Opening each season on a Saturday makes sense; it puts more hunters in the woods and brings in more revenue for upstate businesses.
However, I have heard from the New York Bowhunters organization and it doesn’t like the changes one bit. NYB says the proposal is unacceptable and that it will not sit back and allow the DEC to ruin New York’s archery-only season for a projected 2% increase in muzzleloader license sales.
NYB offers another proposal: open the Southern Zone archery-only season on Oct. 1 and run it through the Friday before Thanksgiving, open a one week muzzleloader season on the Saturday before Thanksgiving then open the regular firearms season on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.
The Saturday after Thanksgiving won’t fly with firearms hunters or upstate merchants. The firearms season draws by far the most hunters, and if you wait until Thanksgiving weekend to open the season, you’ll wind up losing hunters.
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If you are heading to the Catskills for Monday’s big game opener you might want to swing by the Friar Tuck Resort and Convention Center in the Catskills for Big Al’s fourth annual Silver Bullet Gun and Knife Show. Held both Saturday and Sunday, the show will offer a display of Winchester rifles, 250 tables of traditional and antique firearms, swords and knives, Civil War and WW II memorabilia as well as artwork and decoys – both useable and collectable.
The show will also feature an array of hunting equipment and will be offering a DEC hunter education class on Saturday. To register for the class, call (914) 382-6837. Show hours are from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Sunday.