Originally posted by jbwhttail:
Delaney, I believe your motive for not hunting your farm was/is to provide a sanctuary for local deer? You make my point if that is the case, you used a management tool to improve the deer herd.
Cody, you missed my point. I'm not saying you have to go out of state, people need to adapt to the constraints around them. If EHD hurt my deer hunting(we had an outbreak 4 years ago)I would limit my hunting in the area and search out a new place to deer hunt. If antlerless permits had reduced the deer herd in my area, again I move and not kill does in "my" area.
IDNR did a survey of landowners a couple of years ago, 25% of landowners surveyed said they had never had anyone ask permission to hunt! This tells me that hunters in general are one of two things........
1. Unwilling to change hunting areas
2. Too lazy to look for new hunting ground
Money is not an issue to hunters in general, all we have to do is look at gear sales. People are still buying new gear. Let there be a new tool to hunt with and people have to have it, new camo, broadheads, a 4 wheeler. I have yet to find the person who does not deer hunt anymore because license were/are too expensive. They complain about the price but still buy them.
No one on here complains about lack of deer more than Parkerbow,(not picking on the guy)he changed this year, adapted his hunting style. He took a kayak(he had) went up a creek to a new area he couldn't reach by foot, killed a doe the first morning out. Was it luck? I think it was adapting to conditions he saw.
I don't know the size of your dads farm, If I wanted more deer on it I would only hunt the outside edges. Never set foot inside it, the deer will find it as a sanctuary. Same premise as what Delaney has done. the last Saturday of Muzzy season we took 5 antlerless deer off our farm, all gun season neighbors hunted and pushed deer into our "sanctuary". Patience, and managing the outside f
orces........
Joe,
I think you missed my point. I/we have done every single thing u mentioned. We have 110 acres probably 65 acres are sanctuary and never stepped a foot in. It doesn't matter when neighbors shoot everything until they hit there alotment. What I'm saying is it sucks having to "adapt" and essentially not even hunting that 110 acres because we know we aren't going to shoot anything there.
Again we have adapted and don't have trouble giving ourselves opportunity. I just think it sad we have to resort to "adapting" in the ways u mention, specifically relocating areas just to have decent opportunities. It would just be nice to see a little help on the regulation side, imo.
