A couple concerns this old hunter has about how it's going.

[Son]

As time passes, the years, it's expected for some things to change. I have two concerns that are or could be affecting my ability to hunt. First concern is how lease prices increase in leaps and bounds since timber companies have let private concerns handle hunting leases. It seems there is no loyalty, no personal contact, and that we who lease are nothing more than a "number" (not a real person) who interacts with a website and sends money. And to make it worse, we usually don't know about an increase until we go on that website and see the increase. That's a real problem because he who manages the hunt club has already been taking up dues to cover the same or a little more than the last season. Seems all it takes is one person or business to call and offer more money to get your lease price increased. We're being priced out and that's not good for the average hunter, outdoorsman or woman. Some may not agree with me, but I'm talking on behalf of the working people.
Second concern. A problem that's really affecting my hunt club. A problem I've monitored for a couple deer seasons now. And that is, our club saw less mature bucks during the 2020-21 season than ever. We let younger bucks walk and don't over harvest our does. We do monitor the carrying capacity and the health of our deer. Planting up to 17 food plots about four times a year. The 2021-22 season, members had about 15 cameras monitoring our woods from one end to the other. We got two mature bucks the whole season, and both came in at our west end during the rut. The cameras continue to get plenty young bucks, does., turkeys and feral hogs.
It seems to me that mature bucks could be taken prior to deer season after they reach hard antler by night vision. There's plenty of that going on, and I know some people will take those big antlers anyway they can get them. Now, to let you know, I'm not just an old guy who comes up with vague ideas, I've added couple photos of letters sent to me in the past when I was well involved in hunting, Bowhunting and game management. Thanks for reading.

 

[TurkeyH90]

I'm concerned that hunting oaks will completely be a thing of the past in my lifetime. Almost all hunting clubs nowadays around here are a very large percentage clear-cut. Clear-cuts are tough hunting for kids

 

[Jim Boyd]

I'm concerned that hunting oaks will completely be a thing of the past in my lifetime. Almost all hunting clubs nowadays around here are a very large percentage clear-cut. Clear-cuts are tough hunting for kids

While not native, sawtooths can fix that in a hurry, I think.

Planted 100+ a few years back and the survival rate is in the low 90’s or high 80’s.

Also, I have about 3-400 acorns stratifying in the fridge and it is about time to get after that project full bore.

Good luck.

 

[Jim Boyd]

As time passes, the years, it's expected for some things to change. I have two concerns that are or could be affecting my ability to hunt. First concern is how lease prices increase in leaps and bounds since timber companies have let private concerns handle hunting leases. It seems there is no loyalty, no personal contact, and that we who lease are nothing more than a "number" (not a real person) who interacts with a website and sends money. And to make it worse, we usually don't know about an increase until we go on that website and see the increase. That's a real problem because he who manages the hunt club has already been taking up dues to cover the same or a little more than the last season. Seems all it takes is one person or business to call and offer more money to get your lease price increased. We're being priced out and that's not good for the average hunter, outdoorsman or woman. Some may not agree with me, but I'm talking on behalf of the working people.
Second concern. A problem that's really affecting my hunt club. A problem I've monitored for a couple deer seasons now. And that is, our club saw less mature bucks during the 2020-21 season than ever. We let younger bucks walk and don't over harvest our does. We do monitor the carrying capacity and the health of our deer. Planting up to 17 food plots about four times a year. The 2021-22 season, members had about 15 cameras monitoring our woods from one end to the other. We got two mature bucks the whole season, and both came in at our west end during the rut. The cameras continue to get plenty young bucks, does., turkeys and feral hogs.
It seems to me that mature bucks could be taken prior to deer season after they reach hard antler by night vision. There's plenty of that going on, and I know some people will take those big antlers anyway they can get them. Now, to let you know, I'm not just an old guy who comes up with vague ideas, I've added couple photos of letters sent to me in the past when I was well involved in hunting, Bowhunting and game management. Thanks for reading.

Land access has always been tough.

I say this all the time, but to me relationships trump everything. I know timber company land can be fairly easy to find across the Internet but to me I would look toward private farmers for the hunting rights. That is extra work, that’s for sure. Once you find the land, however, if done right, you can keep it just about indefinitely.

This is not an option for everybody but buying land is a way to insure rights. Our place is small but if I lost ALL of my leases, I know I can still hunt without going to public land.

And hey, Georgia has some awesome public ground !!!

I think we all have up and down years where the bucks are concerned. However, when you view an area or a state as a whole such as Georgia there seems to be a good many big ones around.

We had an off 2020 but hey, hope springs eternal.

Best of luck to all.

 

[Buford_Dawg]

I have same concern around leasing property. Deer Hunting will soon be a rich man's activity.

 

[kmckinnie]

It is a rich mans sport now. For the right amount of money..... as they say on the ODC. You can kill the buck of a life time.

 

[longrangedog]

While you might enjoy killing hogs and see them as desirable to have on your hunting lease, hogs on your property will cause the deer to move somewhere else where there aren't as many hogs. I saw this happen on my own property. Getting lots of trail cam pics of nice bucks and healthy does in 2018. In 2019 got my first hog pic with 16 in the picture. Deer pictures decreased rapidly after that. My neighbor noticed it too and he built a corral trap as did I. Over the next three years we caught over 85 hogs on 450 acres. Deer have returned and we seldom see hog sign or hogs. Both traps are ready in case we do.

 

[Troy Butler]

The concern that the younger ones now don’t know what deer eat. Ask some of them and they say corn, food plots many don’t know what an oak tree looms like or a persimmon tree.

 

[Troy Butler]

That’s looks like and a persimmon tree is.

 

[buckpasser]

It’s getting to be more expensive, but that’s how it has to be with a larger human population.

 

[Sixes]

What was the club kills over the last 3-4 years?

Were a lot of 2.5s and 3.5s killed, that can explain the missing mature bucks.

Also, how was the fawn crop? If y'all lost most of the last 2-4 years of fawns, then that will also explain the missing age classes of bucks.

 

[Bucaramus]

Timber company land is not easy to find any more. Last year 38 Rayonier leases leased in about 15 minutes. Sight unseen. I'm not gonna do that. If I don't have time to at least look at some good maps I'll just have to lose out.

 

[Crakajak]

Also part of the issue on the low #,s is habitat changing.What was a clear cut 20 years ago is a sterile pine forest with minimal browse.
What use to be pastureland is now a pine forest.
A lease of 20 years had the pastures of grasses,clover and natural browse replaced with volunteer sweetgums so thick even the hogs don,t go in there.
This was a 400 acre tract with 125 being pasture.
I was at one of the first QDMA meetings in Ga and talked to one of the biologist about the value of food plots.Even then he stated that the deer population would decrease unless you had 15-20% of land mass for browse.Anything less will be decreased populations.Throw in the predation aspect and being a deer is tough.
Oaks are great to have ,but will only produce for 1-2 months and if that crop fails or you don,t have the proper variations of oaks it doesn,t do much for the deer population.

Rates will continue to increase until it is priced out of the average hunters pocketbook.The additional pressure on public land will increase and kill rates will also, until the deer will be as scarce as the 1960,s on public land.
JMO.

 

[buckpasser]

I think they will change management practices on public lands if they start getting hit that hard. Also, once it becomes a rich man’s sport only, it disappears shortly thereafter. They need us, the little man, to keep us all out of extinction.

 

[Swamprat]

To much land being or has been converted to pine plantations, unless you have any SMZ's or wetland areas your browse goes to about nothing to sustain a deer.

Would love for the state to have some type of CPR program like in the Midwest but timber companies have no interest in that nor do private landowners who are raising pines.

A healthy hog population will push deer off a property, deer do not like to compete with other species for food sources. Have watched boar coons run deer off from a feeder as well as a flock of turkeys.

Land lease cost will keep rising as property taxes also increase, it will get to a point where even that will reach a tipping point as you have a thousand acres of mostly pines surrounded by ag but as the old farmers die off for the most part the next generation has no urge to continue that so they either sell to somebody who will plant pines or keep the land and do the same. Managing pines after the first planting is a lot cheaper than crop production every year.

 

[BamaGeorgialine]

I try to advise any young person to buy themselves ever how much acreage $70,000 will buy them before they go and buy a brand new truck for the same price. I fought the urge all my life and still do sometimes. Even $40,000. I see so many young people driving the super expensive truck, just to pull up to a red-light and try to impress someone beside them that they'll never meet when they could have bought them a small piece of their own heaven.

 

[Son]

Looking back, I could have bought a nice piece of land next to the land I'm leasing at a very reasonable price, but didn't. Now, I refuse to buy because of the prices and my age. One thing that hurts timber lands for game management is, they kill every oak they can. Even those along the roads. Dead live oaks along roads are a hazard, some we can go far enough out to pass to not be under those large dead limbs. Some we cannot. We're always having to remove dead oak limbs ever since they killed the oaks using aircraft. Speaking of hogs, I trapped and shot over 200 in less than two years. We had the hog problem down to where it wasn't too bad. Until people began dogging them on adjacent properties. In the last two months the hog population has increased. Now we need to dog them and run them off our lands. They get trap wise quick, and nocturnal.

 

[kmckinnie]

They just thinned our pines. Cut the oaks down beside the road and there they lay.

 

[Son]

They just thinned our pines. Cut the oaks down beside the road and there they lay.

Every time there's timber activity, we've had to clean up plot areas, and fix the roads. But that doesn't count with them, they will still go for the highest dollar amount offered. Some groups go after good leases, use them up and move on to the next. I've seen it happen more than once.

 

[Son]

Good management takes work, money and members who are willing to pass up young bucks. That is what we do, we manage year round. That doesn't count, it's the highest dollar offered that counts today.