Would you Drive Deer on property you trying to manage??
I leased 1,250 acres in SE. OH. in August 2002 and brought in 11 of my friends, I set up a 8-pt antler restriction with a ear width spread ( average 2.5 year old buck for the area) The property is very thick and the only openings is the 30 acres we cleared this year for food plots but were not able to get them planted but thats another story!! Prior to us leasing the property it received very heavy gun hunting preasure, mostly by groups of 20 or 30 guys driving off the property and shooting at any thing that moved. Seems like most of the gun hunters in that area hunt that way and I can understand why because of the thick clearcuts which makes up over half of our 1,250 acres. It is very hard to find an area that you can see more than 50 yards. last year we harvested 2 shooters and hit another that wasnt recovered in bow season and no bucks in gun season, since I harvested my buck in bow season and filled my doe tag in about 10 minutes the first day of gun season, I drove around the property patrolling for trespassers and watching a large group' s of neighbors driving off land surrounding us. not one of the 7 gun hunters last year harvested a buck, all seen bucks but only 2 of them were shooters and they were jumped while still hunting, most of the deer on our property didnt even know it was gun season because we had very little hunting preasure, something that everyone of our members being from PA. were use to having while hunting with a gun. So far this season we have seen 14 different shooters ( we only seen 5 shooters for the entire bowseason last year and the best is yet to come in the next couple of weeks) this bow season and harvested 3 of them, Our antler restrictions seem to be working great but some of the members are kicking around the idea of driving the property during gun season after the first couple of days ( there was hardly and hunting preasure on the properties bordering us after the 3rd day) I agree that it would be pretty successful but I think we would have to be idiots to drive deer on our property because of the chance of driving the bucks we have been protecting for the last 2 years off. They think because our property is so thick that the deer will just run a couple hundred yards and bed back down and they wont leave our property, I think they are wrong, I have also read article' s state that if you push bucks off your property by driving them that there is a good chance that the bucks might not ever return to it even if they are not harvested on other' s property, I agree with these articles because our 1,250 acres is currently no better or worse than the 5,000 acres that surrounds us, so there is no reason for them to return if pushed off. A few of the members have claimed that the only reason I am against driving is because I have already harvested my buck this year and it doesnt benefit me to do so. I am also concerned that a few might not properly identify their targets and shoot some of our gifted 1.5 year old bucks by mistake and also wound some because of limited amount of time they will have to identify a buck as a shooter and the limited visability of our property. What are your opinions of driving deer on property that you are trying to manage and hold as many bucks as possible? Thank You very much for your opinions. Pike