Next year the word is that NYS DEC are going to all digital & electronic license issuing
by smart phone application and digital printing by home computer.

What about all us poor, penniless trapping bums who are not tech savvy
and don't have cell phones or computer printers.

It doesn't bode well for us old school, free trappers
with rotary phones & commodore 64 computers
with the DOS operating system.

Looks like me & coonman220 are screwed !!!

Coonman has a smartphone

Because 99% of hunters can get to a phone down here. It's not the vast wilderness you have up there. Just about any state down here that doesn't just guess their harvest numbers requires some sort of deer registration. New York is generous to allow a week after harvest, in Wisconsin you have until 5pm the day after recovery. I don't know any hunters that spend a full week at camp without running to town. In Wisconsin you used to have to bring a deer into a registration station before you could legally consume any part of the animal. Now a couple clicks on the smartphone or a 2 minute phone call and you're done.

Greetings to all ! I am not a trapper but I am in no way an anti, as a much younger man I trapped with a friend of mine along the Hudson River and had a great time doing it. Now I am most interested in shooting Sporting Clays which is a real "Blast". Prior to signing up for this forum I read many of the comments regarding the paper license in NYS and would just like to add my two cents to the topic. Most of the comments concerning the lack of durability of a paper license are spot on, to mitigate a bit of the problem you could fill out much of the license while at home leaving only the essential info regarding the date of kill, sex etc. to be filled out in the field, as far as getting blood on the license according to NYS law the license is to be filled out immediately upon killing an animal so just do it before field dresing the deer. Now to the real issue, after getting your foolish paper license anyone with a simple printer capable of making copies can set themselves up with a stack of licenses as thick as a King James Bible. At one time it was required in NYS that when transporting a deer it had to be completely visible, i.e. the bed of an open pickup truck or on the trunk or fender of a car, however some members of society found this to be too much to handle so NYS ended this practice, now you can just hide the deer on your way home. People used to take their deer to a butcher to have it processed ( requireing it to be tagged ) but the price of that has become too high so now most hunters just cut them up at home, so no need to tag the animal or report the kill, but with a never ending supply of "Tags" just tag it as required and after safely getting it home just wet your index fingar and slide another license off your Bible high stack. Now your back in business.... Does anyone in DEC have a clue ?

Welcome to T-man

Not sure if filling out half your tag is legal before going hunting. Will have to look into that.