NEW61375,

Good deal. You sound like the type of dog hunter that I don’t mind at all. From your post you take the responsibility and the enjoyment of your deer hunting seriously. There are clubs like yours in SC that have a lot of land and are mostly able to keep control of their dogs. The problem down here in SC is that most of the dog hunters are not staying on their land. They don’t even try. The land leases down here are for the most part timberland in divided sections under the management of different companies. How a lot of the dogers down near my club operate, is that they lease a small parcel beside a good area or on each side of a good area. Now that good area is leased or owned by someone else, usually still hunting maybe a swamp, or farmland, etc., the dogs are run across the other land intentionally going from lease to lease or simply dropped on the road and pointed toward the lease on the other side. That would be two 10-acre leases separated by a thousand or more. And those are the better dog hunters in the area. The bad ones don’t give a dam who is on the land or has leased it. Darn it, but the ethical dog runners down here don’t support the ethical still hunters when they want to handle the situation. Not to long ago if you caught someone’s dog you would call the owner first, I still do, and they would thank you and you would probably not see them again. Now it happens repeatedly. The situation has deteriorated to the point that dogs are being shot indiscriminately. There are not enough law enforcement officers to handle the problem. I did find a novel way to chase them away; I started taking pictures of their trucks and such. My camera comes out and their guns go up, since they know I am waiting to bust them and have the evidence to prove it. I don’t like that it has gotten to this stage. This is what is being fought over in SC, not accidental trespass by the dogs but purposeful and indiscriminate use of dogs to hunt land with out permission. NEW61375, what would you say about someone letting 25 dogs loose on a 50 acre lease and chasing them for miles with guns routinely. I hope this might shed some light on the situation here. I hope your season goes well.

mello