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New York Deer Forecast: Expectations Rise for Improved Whitetail Harvest

Away from the bright lights of the city are some truly great hunting opportunities.

New York Deer Forecast: Expectations Rise for Improved Whitetail Harvest
White-tailed buck near Buffalo, NY. (Photo by Pierre Williot / shutterstock.com)
  • This whitetail hunting forecast for the state of New York is part of Game & Fish’s “Great States" project identifying the best deer-hunting states in the country. Read more: America's Top Whitetail States

The Best Places to Hunt Deer in New York

New York comes with a rich deer hunting heritage. A lot of deer and deer hunters call the state home, and it offers a great shot at promising hunting opportunities.

According to the New York DEC, the state has about 900,000 to 1 million deer and between 500,000 and 600,000 hunters. That translates to a fair amount of hunting pressure, but hunters can still find overlooked pockets.

The Empire State is seventh in Game & Fish’s "America’s Top Whitetail States” rankings, getting high marks in annual deer harvests, season length and hunting access to public land.

On a similar note, trophy potential is good, too. The state has around 150 Boone and Crockett bucks in the record book, as well as a slew of Pope & Young deer. That’s proof enough that hunters can find a good buck to hunt.

DID YOU KNOW?

CROSSBOW HUNTING

Despite a lower deer harvest in virtually every category in 2023 (compared to 2022), crossbow takes were slightly up last year. Crossbow hunters harvested just under 17,000 deer, according to state statistics.

New York DEC Biologist Brendan Quirion attributes this in part due to DEC’s "Let Young Bucks Go and Watch Them Grow" campaign. The program helps educate deer hunters how allowing bucks to reach older age classes really increases opportunities at bigger whitetails.

Of course, they still encourage hunters to harvest what they wish, so long as it falls within regulation parameters. Overall, New York is seeing more 2 ½-plus-year-old bucks in the harvest, and few yearling bucks being tagged.

buck in snow
Big white-tailed buck, Adirondack Mountains, NY. (Shutterstock photo)

Hunters killed 209,781 deer (112,224 antlered) during the 2023-24 season, according to the New York DEC’s calculated deer harvest report. That was the lowest total since 2017. Hunters killed 231,9612 deer during the 2022-23 season.

As for the deer herd, Quirion says it’s stable and growing. Those who want to see more deer will find that in the eastern counties, and he notes some areas have more per-square-mile counts tallying more than 100 deer, which is far higher than most carrying capacities.

THAT'S A FACT

HUNTING HOTSPOT

Counties along the Pennsylvania border in southwestern New York are some of the state’s hottest areas for whitetails. The top spot last season was Steuben County, which reported 14,295 harvests; 5,000 more than the next closest county.

For the public land hunter, New York has approximately 4.5 million acres of open-to-all ground. Deer live on these lands, too. That offers plenty of space for hunters to roam.

The 2024 deer season should be good. Quirion says that with good mast crops (hard and soft) and mild winter, this season should be better-than-average. He expects antlered and antlerless harvests alike to be up this season.

Recommended


deer map of New York
New York deer harvest map. (New York DEC)

In an interesting change for this season, hunters no longer need their license and tags to be on special stock material. Now, it can be on plain printed paper. This allows hunters to purchase licenses and tags online and print them at home. Also, recent legislation eliminated the need for hunters to wear back tags in New York.

Get more info: Buy your hunting licenses, deer permits, etc. here. Check out the 2024 deer season dates here.





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