2018 Adirondack Hunting Season Photo Album

Published by Todd Waldron on December 1, 2018December 1, 2018

2018 Adirondack Deer Hunting Season Photo Album

Another Adirondack deer season has come and gone. I’m thankful to be able to spend so much time in the big woods each fall. This year was no different. It was a season that started out slow and turned out well by week five. Snow blanketed the southern Adirondacks on November 16 and tracking became a solid option.

Hunting on Snowshoes

I’m forever grateful to the buck I shot on the weekend of November 17, several miles back into the Forest Preserve. There are so many meaningful memories associated with that experience – hunting solo on snowshoes, in an area I’ve been wanting to hunt and explore for two years. Covering three miles before finding a single track. This buck means the world to me and I’m thankful for his life, his wildness and the healthy organic meat for our family’s table. He will be honored by the healthy sustenance he has provided our bodies and souls and through the conservation work that remains to be done for wildlife and wild places.

The Challenge of Big Woods Hunting

How do you describe Adirondack deer hunting? Its not quite like any other kind of whitetail deer hunting in North America. Deer numbers are low. You’re constantly traversing remote, thick-timber country, impenetrable blow-downs, never-ending cedar swamps and steep, lung-searing hardwood ridges. You can hunt for miles and days without seeing a single deer. At some point, every season, it will be frustrating, pushing you to the emotional limit and making you question whether its all worth it. There are far easier places to hunt deer, even in New York.

When Things Come Together

Then, in what can be a mere matter of seconds, things can finally come together. When all of that work culminates with a beautiful wild buck on the ground, several miles from the nearest road. There is a sanctity in the silence that occurs immediately after the shot. Your life’s path has become one with the deer you have been hunting, and from that moment forward, it will always be one path, one story, one trajectory. There’s an immediate ecology that occurs. There is also an acute clarity of what was, and what is, and what always will be. Looking at that beautiful buck on the ground, accepting that someday you’ll go back to this same earth too, these Adirondack Mountains that brought you life, and you make peace with it and all of that is good.

There’s no whitetail deer hunting experience that rivals it. The Adirondacks require all of your collective hunting experience, knowledge and effort. You may or may not fill your tag. Success can be defined in knowing what its like to hunt in one of the most wild, beautiful, untamed wilderness areas east of the Mississippi River. Success can be achieved through learning something new each time you step foot in the mountains. Learning more about Adirondack deer. Building confidence in your big woods hunting skills. Its the closest thing to western hunting you’ll ever experience in the East.

Here are some photos from what turned out to be an incredibly successful and enjoyable hunting season here in the Adirondacks.