Successful NY deer hunt - Otsego County

[Bucksnbows]

My good buddy bought a 175 acre farm two years ago and I had to miss last year's first annual NY state buck camp after my open heart surgery in late September.  But not again this year!  This is a beautiful piece of ground about 20 minutes from downtown Cooperstown, home to baseball's Hall of Fame.  I was pleasantly surprised at the relative lack of heavy hunting pressure.  My 35 or so years in PA have always come with crowds of orange every year, and I'll be back in PA the day after Thanksgiving for yet another year in that camp.

 

Back to NY and Burlington Flats where the farm is.  A nice mix of fields, scrub lands and mature forest with groups of pines and spruce which makes for some great deer habitat (and turkey, woodcock and grouse).  I didn't take many shots of the habitat, but this gives you a basic idea:

 

"When in Rome, do as the Romans do".......the Butternut Brewery is only a couple miles from our camp  

 

Camp was not exactly "roughing it" like I'm used to in PA where we have no running water.  This is a nice warm farmhouse complete with plumbing and both clothes and a dishwasher in addition to a big barn to store toys, handle deer, store firewood, etc.

 

It even has its own outdoor fire pit where we grilled venison backstraps on Saturday night. 

 

Some star gazing around the fire.  We see lots of shooting stars this far away from cities.

 

 

The deer were cooperative with the 6 hunters taking 5 bucks and a doe (doe on a landowner permit).  It sure is nice to use a quad to take deer off the mountain!

 

 

My nice 8 pointer....

 

 

The crew after the hunt taken Sunday morning.  One of the youth hunters was staying through this morning in hopes of filling his buck tag.  Three of us have years/decades of experience while the other 3 are relatively still very new to deer hunting.  Some of us passed on smaller bucks while others were more than happy to take the first legal buck that came into range.

 

 

I can't wait to go back next year.  Great friends and some of our kids along with two guys that came to hang out that don't hunt but were fun to have in camp.  

Edited November 17, 2014 by Bucksnbows

[LittleM]

VERY NICE!

[PV216]

Nice pics. Congrats!

[BowhunterNJ]

Awesome, way to go! That looks like a heck of a trip! Love those backstraps on the grill!!!

[MRMCR]

I know 4 guys that went up to NY and all were sucessful.....

[Rusty]

Wow what a great trip!  Thanks for sharing the pictures.

[Rusty]

P.S.  Nice buck!!   

[thefirstndsecond]

Very cool!

 

Looks like mayhem!

[BHC]

congrats on the buck, time with friends and family is priceless at deer camp

[robnj]

That looks like fun. And those backstraps are huge, when we get deer in pines the backstraps fit on hotdog rolls.