The forum has been quiet. The main event is almost upon us. What is everyone’s plans? I will be up in camp for a few days opening weekend and back in the second week of November in Long Lake. Prepping gear and getting the rifles ready. A few nice bucks showing up on camera. Can’t wait.
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Last edited by Mallard1100; 10-04-2025, 04:22 PM. -
My first hunt will be the mzl opener on private land. My freezer is about empty and the landowner wants some does gone, so I'm not going to be too picky. Rifle hunts will be on both private and state land. Be safe and good luck to all! -
I will be hunting our traditional last week of the rifle season in Hamilton County. Can't wait. Bowhunting in the southern zone now.Comment
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I live in the St Lawrence Valley, and next weekend I’ll be concentrating my efforts there to put a couple black powder deer in the freezer. After there is meat in the freezer (hopefully), it’s off to camp in Santa Clara. This spring I purchased a camp on MOLPUS property and have been busy ever weekend since Easter getting it fixed up. New pressure treated piers, rough cut pine siding, windows, doors and a solar generator. It’s getting into shape nicely. Learning new woods is challenging but the topography looks very promising. Three decent sized mountains, two river bottoms, and lots of swamps in between. All within 3 miles of camp. Mostly MOLPUS property, but lots of state land also. Then mid November I’m off to Saskatchewan for my first out of state hunt. To say I’m excited about the upcoming season is an understatement!! Let’s keep this forum active, I love hearing about others Adirondack adventures.Comment
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I'm headed to our deer camp in the Long Lake/Newcomb area Friday afternoon for a long weekend of smoke-pole hunting. I suspect it will end up mostly being a scouting trip given the warm forecast and dense foliage but I'm still excited none-the-less. Looking forward to seeing what's on the cameras, being in the big woods stalking around, and the camp camaraderie with the guys. After that, I will head back to camp for our rifle hunt vacation starting November 6th for a couple of weeks (if necessary).Comment
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I got into some really nice buck sign this morning. Scrapes and rubs and the whole area torn up. I thought for sure I was coming home with a deer today, but never even saw him, only one lone doe. Will be back at it tomorrow!Comment
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Heading back up Saturday for 7 days. Weather is looking prime with cold and snow. Opening weekend was slow but I did jump a big body deer and missed a good one by a day going by the camera. Weather was great. Cool with zero wind. Felt great to get out and be in the woods. Some good deer around, just need one to make a mistake while I am close.Comment
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I hunt the northern tug hill and we have had almost NO deer this year. Hardly any bucks on camera, no rubs, no scrapes, few tracks, seeing very few does. Its very odd to go to our property and hunt all day and see zero deer. Never had a year like this. Last year was slow, but still had some deer.
We've got coyotes on camera and saw some bears for the first time this year. I'm sure they are putting pressure on the deer population. Even though I haven't actually seen a yote in years, the ones on camera at night are BIG.
My hope was to put a big doe in the freezer early, then maybe devote a day or two to scouting some new areas in the western ADK, but at this rate I'm worried about eating tag soup for the second year in a row.Comment
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Hunted the Jessup River Wild Forest yesterday. The mountains are all covered with fresh snow and I was surprised how much ground cover of snow there was. Ideal hunting conditions but I failed to come across anything but tracks, but it was too late in the day to start tracking. Got a real cold front coming starting this Monday...along with snow. Best of luck to all you cowboys out there.
Bluesman
And remember: "It's not about the kill, it's about the Adventure"
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Don't know what the problem is but I'm unable to "POST"... only "EDIT" so here's my story...
Jessup River Wild Forest: Tuesday, 11/18/25, it's 17 degrees, 6 inches of snow on the ground and brutally cold with the wind. I still hunted from daybreak until noon when I found myself in a real heavy thicket. Tracks & beds everywhere. I put up 3 doe who were "together" but they didn't go far at all. Hmmm... I start scoping the area and see something that resembles a deer but not sure because it was in a real heavy thicket. At first I thought it was a down tree but I kept my scope on it a few moments without any movement. So I start scoping the area again but keep coming back to that so called down tree. I watched it for about 1 minute when it finally moved it's head and I saw the rack. Only shot I had was the neck because most of it was behind the heavy brush... He was quite a way's away. I took aim and fired. What a beautiful, well placed shot.
I'm old school and don't own a smartphone so pics at the kill site aren't available. However, when I came home a few photo's were taken so here ya go... Catch me if you can Dak's...
Bluesman
Last edited by BLUESMAN5748; 11-26-2025, 10:13 AM.Comment
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Tomfish - any reports of EHD from your area? It was in parts of Oswego and Jefferson counties a few years backComment
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No reports of EHD on Tug Hill, but what we did have was DSLW disease, (deep snow long winter ) last winter. On top of coyote, bear predation ( bears everywhere) and last winter, it’s a wonder there are any deer in WMU 6N and 6 K.
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Well, there was definitely a bit of luck involved in how this one came together. I was actually supposed to be guiding a deer hunting trip this morning, but my hunter had to cancel last minute. I was a little disappointed — we picked up a couple of fresh inches of snow around 4am, and conditions couldn’t have been better. But I decided to take it as an opportunity to get my wife out in the woods with me instead.
This is her first year hunting, and she’s been dipping her toes into it slowly, so I didn’t want to drag her way back into the big woods just yet. We headed to a piece of property near our house here in 5H that we have permission to hunt. I set her up in a nice hardwood ridge where I knew a buck had been moving through at night — the same buck I’ve been playing cat and mouse with all season. I’ve been finding his fresh rubs and scrapes, but he’s managed to avoid me in daylight and even dodge my trail cameras. The closest I came to him was opening weekend of Northern Rifle when I jumped him checking cams but couldn’t get a shot.
After getting Stephanie settled in, I dropped down a few hundred yards into a swampy low area surrounded by thick softwoods. My plan was to sit tight until about 10am, then make a little push through the thickets toward her stand and maybe bump a deer her way.
Plans changed around 8:45 when I caught the faint sound of something sneaking through the thicket to my left. A few seconds later I caught a glimpse of horns and then the whole deer stepping out into an opening. The wind was perfect — he had no clue I was sitting there less than 30 yards away. He eased his way along, head low, completely relaxed. Once he stepped into a clear spot, I raised the 760 and dropped him in his tracks with a single 30-06 round.
Not exactly how I expected the morning to go, but I’ll take it! He ended up being a nice 6-pointer and weighed 161 lbs dressed. A lucky day, and a great memory to share with my wife on her first season in the woods.
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Nice buck Dax... I dropped a nice 9 pointer in the Jessup River Wild Forest on 11/18... I think this forum is slowly dying since there's very limited posting here...especially during the prime time of the rut... If you know of any other ADK forums dedicated to hunting please forward to me... I'd appreciate it. Thanks... Bluesman
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I fully expected to find some dead deer in the creeks late summer/early fall when we didn't have anything on camera and no tracks to be found, but haven't come across a single one.
I think its just a combination of high hunting pressure, heavy snow last winter, increased predators, and lack of farm crop (our property's hay fields were all killed this year, i assume in prep for corn next year).
I've got reports of some good rut activity recently, so I'm optimistic that cruising and chasing bucks will get more eyes on deer.Comment
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Sure Jay...
Stick Stephanie up in the hardwoods so you can go shoot the buck in the swamp. Just as you planned it! 😉Comment
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Nice Deer Dax, congratulations. When are you going to start posting your videos again? I always enjoyed watching them.Comment
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Thank you! I definitely have a huge backlog of some really awesome trips to edit up for the channel, it is just so tough to carve out the time when guiding full now for Adirondack Mountain & Stream. I am trying to teach Stephanie how to use the editing software to maybe close these big gaps between uploads. Thanks for watching!
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