ORIGINAL: quiksilver
LOL Germ, all I want is LESS HUNTERS. I'd give my rightnut for 3/4 of the local yocals to hang up their deer rifles forever. Cancel gun season... Do a drawing... Ramp up the antler laws... Charge $500 for a resident license... I don't care. Just too many people (around here) fighting over too little space.
Seriously Gary - In that other thread, I was just pointing out a hypocrisy on this board, and throughout the PC hunting public. Everybody acts like they're the next Great American Sportsmen b/c they say they root for the next guy, "hoping everyone has a successful season," but god forbid they ever let a total stranger come hunt on their land. Deer hording. "I hope you get one (as long as you don't get one of MY deer)." I think it'sa major hypocrisy, and it's prevalent among hunters. I've got a whole pile of guys who ring my phone in November to see how my season's going. While pretending to hope that I get the big one, they'dhave kittensif they saw me drag a booner out of their honeyhole. (Feeling is obviously mutual) But that's a whole other phenomenon...
This is a different issue that I just dreamed up. "Hunter Carrying Capacity."
Just like there's a formula for how many deer a piece of land can handle (Carrying Capacity)- I think there's also a limit to how many hunters a given area can support - before the hunting goes to crap.
More public land increases the "huntercarrying capacity" - at least temporarily- but when something happens and it's no longer easy-pickin's on the public land, you're left witha million people standing there with guns in their hands and valid tags in their pockets... looking for a deer to shoot... things go haywire.
Isn’t hunting going elitist enough than to charge major fees? As for the reason land owners are buckling down, I being one myself, is because of the lack of respect John Q Public has. We have to face it, if you want something destroyed, make it free to the public. It only takes one derelict to ruin it for everyone. I’m no deer hording, by any stretch or the imagination, I limit access to my land to those I know. I do wish them luck and take them out and set them up on deer. I’m very picky with my land because of the lack of respect the public paid when I let everyone hunt it. Nothing is worse than to own land and have it destroyed, over hunted, and poached by ingrates.
As for your carrying capacity rant, I’vebeen on a board who decided how many deer need to be removed from the herd. Its calculated according to the density dependent and independent factors for a given area, as well as, the previous year’s hunting licenses sells and/or deer success recorded by check stations (where they have them), and the density of the herds in the area. However many deer need to be removed from the herds is afforded by the bag limit to the number of hunters the previous year. It might fluctuate a bit here and there but has proven true. Just in my short life time, ive seen the deer herds getting better and better each year. In the 70s and 80s, the deer I shot would never get close to making Pope and Young. Heck, we bearly saw deer period. We were lucky just to see a deer. Now I take a Pope and Young off and on depending on my luck. Usually one every two years or so.