Right next to my place is a 4-5 acre thicket which is just crawling with deer. It's a honey-hole and I've hunted it for over 20 years because my grandmother owned it until she died. There are 15 - 20 or more deer bedding in there at times. I've been watching a decent 8 point for a month that comes out of it to feed in the alfalfa field that surrounds 2/3 of it.

Here's the problem:

My cousin now owns the place and has given permission to 3 other guys to hunt there since he bought it. They've been hunting there now for 4 or 5 years and they really suck at it. In that time, they've wounded, and lost, one deer and killed a tiny doe fawn last year. They hang their stands in the only funnel in the area (that I used to use) and clear every living plant with-in 15 yards of them. They then have 5 "volcano-like" heaps of corn placed with-in the cleared area as bait. I've seen then walk in to hunt - arriving just before sunset and making a HUGE racket climbing into the already hung stand! They leave equipment all around the stand which tips off the deer to the presence of hunters. I've adjusted my methods and tried to use their foolishness to my advantage and managed to take quite a few deer from the area every year despite them.

This year is different.

I just went over there to check it out and found the huge mountains of corn surrounding their stand that now hangs in the exact same spot. As I was walking out, I smelled a slight rotting smell -- like a decaying animal. Without looking, I suspect a gut-pile or worse - a lost animal.

I also just found out that my cousin is planning on running a bulldozer through there clearing much of the brush so that he can run horses and cattle there. He's fencing in the entire area and replacing the alfalfa with pasture grass. He's already in the beginning stages of this and plans to pick it up just as the pre-rut starts kicking in. [:@][:@][:@]

Trying to talk to him about any of these things only seems to make him more determined to do this. He only allows me to hunt there because my grandmother forced the issue before she died.

So this will be the last year that the area will be like it is and the other "hunters" probably have already scared the resident herd and may have shot the buck that I've had my eyes on. He was predictable and may have bought an arrow.

I know this may not matter to the rest of you all, but I've had one farm "leased" out from under me this year and my other place just went from 140 acres down to less than 6 because of different management. My lands are dwindling and I came here to cry and whine about it!

Got any cheese?