In the Outdoors: New York hunting enters the digital age

The iconic hunting coat with its flapping back tag is now a thing of the past in New York

By Oak Duke,

    Say “Bye-bye.”

    This hunting season, beginning in the 2024- 25 season, New York state hunting and fishing has now entered the digital age.

    Starting this year, with New York’s various hunting seasons opening this fall, including the popular archery season for deer October 1^st, here in the Southern Zone, (having opened September 27 in the Northern Zone,) along with small game seasons, the back tag is no longer a requirement.

    However, hunters are still required to buy a hunting license and carry tags to affix to their kills, such as deer, bear, and turkeys.

    Hunters print their own:

    Hunters may not be able to call or walk into their traditional licensing agents such as town clerks and certain sporting goods outlets and immediately obtain an over-the-counter hunting license as they always have.

    Things have changed. 

    For starters, the DEC is no longer printing hunting and fishing regulation guides, both are now downloadable from the DEC website, and actually much more comprehensive than ever…chock full of information and ads.

    However, hunters and fishermen can still purchase their licenses from an issuing agent, in person, online or over the phone, BUT licenses bought online will be sent to the purchaser through email as a PDF and will need to be printed out.

    Hunters or fishermen in person or over the phone may get their license emailed to their email address for printing, or printed out by the licensing issuing agent at the point of sale on paper.

    Lifetime license holders should have gotten theirs by mail on plain paper by September 1, 2024.  

    Further…

    New York state is no longer furnishing Valeron paper, the shiny plastic feeling printable stock that licenses and tags have traditionally been printed on.

    So, hunters can now print out their own licenses on regular paper, 8x 12-inch, and then cut out the appropriate tags.

    I admit to a bit of trepidation when I started the process of calling up the DEC website and going through the forms, worried that something so important could easily get screwed up with computer glitches, format issues, and of course the omni-present…operator error.

    Grousing under my breath all the while about changes in this new modern digital world…

    But I have to admit that the process was much, much easier than I thought and went off without a hitch.

    Magically, out of my printer came three pieces of paper, in black and white with all my licenses, regular firearms, muzzle loading, archery, even DMU permits (doe licenses) and turkey and fishing.

    What is cool is I printed a second batch of licenses so that if the first set gets lost or destroyed (wet, torn, or illegible) being printed on relatively delicate regular paper, I have them to fall back on. And I saved the PDF (portable data file) so I can even print them again if something happens.

    There are a number of ways the DEC recommends hunters to protect their tags when they affix them to their animals so they remain legible, whether inspected by law enforcement or in the case of deer, by processors, where they are, each and every one, recorded with the info uploaded to the DEC.

    I simply cut out the new paper tags, formatted much the same as the old ones, with a pair of scissors and put each one in a separate small sealable plastic sandwich bag. Then, I plan to stuff into my hunting jacket a larger plastic bag with all the tags in their separate bags along with a handful of extra zip-ties, so the tags in their waterproof bags can easily be affixed to an antler, a deer leg, or a turkey leg.

    The individual tags are no longer rimmed with the days of the month on one side and months on the other side that required us to tediously cut them out, with a sharp knife… specifying the date of the kill.

    Now, on the new tags, there is just a line for the date when the animal was harvested, needing to be filled out immediately, along with the hunter’s signature. Some care will need to be exercised when out in the woods, in snow, rain, etc. due to the fragility of wet, bloody, or damp paper, ergo the plastic bags.

    I also wrote on the back of each tag in large letters with a pencil what the tag authorized, such as “Doe…Antlerless,” “Bear,” “buck,” “Turkey” so I don’t have to squint and read the fine print, especially in a typically low light situation as so often seems to happen at the end of a successful hunt.

    A further requirement is that hunters must still report their kill within seven days to the DEC through the Harvest Reporting System.

    I am a stickler for reporting each and every animal I harvest. This way, the DEC can get a better handle on wildlife populations through hunter participation. I look at it as being more of a conservationist, actually participating in the process of game management versus being just a taker.

    Also, further going into the digital world, the New York State DEC now has an app we can put on our phones making our reporting easier. Get it through the app store at HuntFish NY.