Outdoors with Larry DiDonato - Youth Deer Hunting is Always a Success

Sierra Schelling was one of over 10,000 or so Junior Hunters participating in New York’s 2025 Youth Deer Hunting firearms season that took place over this past Columbus Day Weekend. Kids between the ages of 12 and 15 were able to harvest one buck or one doe on the Saturday, Sunday, and Monday of the holiday weekend. While hunting with her dad, Sierra was skilled enough to humanely harvest a nice buck for the family freezer. It was her first deer ever! Sierra also attended the Greene County Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs Youth Pheasant Hunt held on Saturday, September 27th where she harvested her first pheasant ever. Congratulations to Sierra on two great firsts in her first year hunting!

During the 2024 New York deer hunting season, kids 12-15 took a total of 1,907 deer. 63% of those were antlered bucks and 37% were antlerless deer. This harvest was slightly higher than the 2023 take of 1,949 deer, but above the five-year average of 1,658 deer. With over 200,000 deer taken on average each year in NY, the youth deer take accounts for a very small portion of the annual deer harvest.

New for this year, youths who were successful in taking a deer over the youth deer hunting weekend can get an additional tag to use during the regular deer hunting season. The bonus tag will authorize them to take one additional deer of the opposite sex of the one they took during the youth season. So, Sierra Schelling, who took a legally antlered buck during the youth season over Columbus Day Weekend is now eligible to receive an extra tag allowing her to shoot a doe during the regular deer season. Conversely, if she had shot a doe in the youth season, she could have gotten a bonus tag to take a buck in the regular season.

What’s great about this story is youth hunters like Sierra have been introduced to the outdoors and hunting at a relatively early age. This sets the stage for a potential lifetime of hunting, and possibly fishing and trapping. Getting kids offline and outdoors by hunting at an earlier age is a great accomplishment by all who fought for this wonderful opportunity.