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Greetings from upstate NY

RedOak

RedOak

Member
Joined
Jul 3, 2018
Messages
94
Location
Upstate NY
Hey guys, I’ve lurked for a while and figured I’d finally join in. Some quick background on me: I’m a professional firefighter in upstate NY. I’m a former Marine and got into bow hunting in 2011 after my second deployment. It gave me something to focus my energy and more importantly my brain on. I have been very fortunate to have access to some great properties close by, both public and private. All my properties are free permission (minus some help around the farm from time to time when they need it). As a full time firefighter, I have a schedule that allows me to spend a LOT of time in the woods each season.
This will be my first year hunting out of a saddle. Myself and another firefighter (also a former Marine) both purchased Kestrels. He is strictly a public land hunter and I myself have been spending more time on public land recently.
I have repeatedly had stands stolen on public land (they brought bolt cutters and cut my cable locks). Another and equally frustrating problem has been other hunters using my sets. None of my spots are exclusive access and as I’ve had some decent success the last few years. I see the saddle as a way of hunting not only hard to reach places, and difficult trees, but also a way to hide my sets from other hunters.
My influences have come mainly from Dan Infalt and John Eberhart.
 
Welcome to the forum! Fellow NYer here from the Finger lakes region. You will find so many great resources here and the people are awesome to talk with. Check out G2 Outdoors on YouTube, Greg has tons of great vids on saddle hunting.

Where in upstate are you from?


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I’m from just outside of Syracuse in Camillus. I believe I saw you mention in another post that you are from Auburn. So we are Lilly only a few minutes away from one another. My father has kept his boat in Union Springs on Cayuga Lake half the summer for years.
 
I live in union springs. I work in your area pretty often. I do farm consulting all over the northeast.


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Welcome RedOak. I am also from NY and am starting to saddle hunt for the same exact reason. Only way someone will be stealing my stands from now on is if they strip it off of my dead body haha! Good luck this year and hope you enjoy the site as much as I have.
 
Welcome! I hate thief's, I've never had a stand stolen, but I can see how that would piss you off, I think I would spend a lot of time/energy getting them on camera, lol, and losing sets as well, man......public land. At least Saddle hunting solves some of those issues and it's better!

I always recommend checking out the new saddle hunter section, hopefully it can save you some time.
 
@g2outdoors Fort Drum allegedly has some pretty decent hunting on it! I’ve been up there a handful of times for training exercises. We had a black bear with two cubs cause range control to shut down our mortar range one time. If you are ever back in the area, feel free to hit me up. We have decent sized boat set up for salmon fishing just a little south of the base and I do a lot of bass fishing on Oneida. If you send my Mantis out early, I might even show you where I arrowed my 197” beast last year lol!
 
@donnieballgame I used to get more angry but have since tried to just let it go. In a way, I consider it the cost of doing business. This winter I removed all of my stands from all but two properties. Instead I followed @John Eberhart advice from his book I purchased and began to prep all my trees for saddle hunting this fall. The properties I left my stands on are pretty well controlled by myself and a close friend. Everything else is gonna be all saddle though.
 
Welcome

I’m new here too and also have followed JE and DI
Read his books and watched both their videos

Just got my Kestrel 2 months ago and have been practicing shooting with it

I hunt 95% public and live near Buffalo NY

Can’t wsit for this year to start
 
@Bowtech12 I think I really found myself drawn to those guys because they hunt pressured deer like us here in NY. My hunts never seemed anything like TV hunts. It took me a few years, but once I figured out that the pressured deer we have here in NY are very different than those highly managed Midwest deer we see on TV. Western NY always has some giants taken though!
 
RedOak said:
@donnieballgame I used to get more angry but have since tried to just let it go. In a way, I consider it the cost of doing business. This winter I removed all of my stands from all but two properties. Instead I followed @John Eberhart advice from his book I purchased and began to prep all my trees for saddle hunting this fall. The properties I left my stands on are pretty well controlled by myself and a close friend. Everything else is gonna be all saddle though.
Click to expand...
RedOak said:
@donnieballgame just checked out your post in the new saddle hunter forum. Wow, what a resource. That was a great read. Thanks for taking the time to write that up.
Click to expand...
That's a great attitude, you're a better man than I. Glad you like the thread, just doing my part!

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Bowtech12 said:
Welcome

I’m new here too and also have followed JE and DI
Read his books and watched both their videos

Just got my Kestrel 2 months ago and have been practicing shooting with it

I hunt 95% public and live near Buffalo NY

Can’t wsit for this year to start
Click to expand...
Where did you get the videos, I can't seem to find them.

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Videos for John are on his website
You can buy the dvds or you just pay to get access electronically which I did. Then you have access to watch them right then and there

Infalts videos I ordered, I watched the video hunting Hill country bucks
 
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