Originally Posted by
Lanse couche couche
Uh, 2.5 million acres would only represent about seven percent of the potentially huntable land in Ohio. So, even if all 250 outfitters controlled 10K acres apiece, which they don't and most are not even close to this number, it would only be a small fraction of the deer herd under control of outfitters. More realistically, we are probably looking at several hundred thousand acres of land controlled by outfitters, rather than millions of acres. So, the basic premise that "out-of-state" hunters who patronize outfitters are having a significant impact on the deer herd is pretty shaky.
Your assumption that just because land is not controlled by an outfitter it would be available for public use is kind of naive. Would imagine that plenty of private landowners have their ground posted and allow little or no access to it. Those that do may have some of the same conditions that many outfitters use in terms of what how many deer can be taken and what kind....
The bottom line is that in many states, the deer populations have risen drastically over the past couple decades on both public and private lands. If you have more deer they are going to be easier to kill. If you have more deer, the state is likely to increase the number that can be killed. Pretty easy concept...
I agree, alot of private land owners do not allow hunting on their land. Which means even LESS deer can be harvested!Out of state hunters aren't having an impact on the deer herd, outfitters leasing up thousands of acres of land are.I know, and you may too, many, many hunters that have lost their private hunting ground because an outfitter has leased it. The two outfitters that I know, lease 20,000 acres between them. That alone is more land than most individual public hunting areas, and that leaves 248 more outfitters.Other large public land tracts, such as Wayne National, Zaleski, Woodbury, just to name a few,are so vast that there are hundreds of deer there that probably never even get shot at. Just because there are more deer, doesn't necessarily make them easier to kill, especially if you are hunting only mature bucks as most outfitters clients come to Ohio for. As with most deer, after the first day of gun season, they either become nocturnal or move to land that is off limits to hunters. Deer populations are definitely on the rise. Land that is off limits to hunters serves a large part in this.And I can gather from your posts that you believe that outfitters and the thousands of acres of private ground that they lease have no effect on the deer harvest at all? I believe THAT to be naive.