RE: Anyone own/ manage a parcel < 50 acres for game??
my buddy had a camp on roughly 55 acres. 1/2 acre pond, creek in and out, some apple trees scattered all over one side, mature oaks and hard woods and also a nice thick creek bottom, wildblueberry fields etc. it was PRIME deer hunting land. only problem was we(or i should say camp owner) couldnt post the land...we COULD but if you do most people dont care or they will burn or vandalis the camp and property..sad but true. we couldnt keep guys off of it. opening day of rifle season and there was atleast 5 guys NOT from our camp and not permitted there. another problem was the back side was an old strip mine that got hunted HARD, the front and left side was the dirt road, and the neighbors owned the right side, which got hunted HARD as well. after the first couple hours all the deer were ran out of the property as well as surrounding properties. between guys tracking deer and chasing them around you had guys going back to camp at 9am, guys walking around etc. the guys in the camp were too lazy to drive it out at the end of the day so that didnt help. it had potential, but theres no way to keep others out and to keep the deer on the property. it was tough hunting but if we could posted the land and kept others off we would been much better off.
heck the tresspassers even took all the fish out of the pond!! road ATVs all over the land etc. fridays when we would pull in there would be guys with their trucks pulled through the yard right down to the pond banks!! couldnt do much about it. noone there to watch the camp all week and security systems didnt work. noone could get there fast enough. it got broken into more then once. most of the time it was kids and just stole booze.
small pieces of land can be gems, but up in the mountains were the camp was meant EVERYONE could use the land....sad..now around here in suburbia i hunt small pieces of land. they get hunted hard too but the bucks feast on corn etc and are pretty smart and can find cover and make it. thats why im bowhunting this year! first crack at them while they arent being chased around!