Hey y'all. Good to be part of the forum. Figured I'd go on and weigh in on this topic. I've lived and hunted in VA all my life. My experience with dogs and deer hunting has always been negative. It may work out for the group running the dogs, but a lot of people use the dogs as an excuse to trespass and run all over everyone elses land. If you happen to see them they act real nice and claim to "just be looking for their dogs." It really puts a hurting on the still hunter.

There's nothing worse than taking vacation from work to hunt, getting up at 4:00 AM, driving a half hour or more to your hunting spot, hiking in and setting up your treestand in the dark, and then as soon as the sun peeks over the horizon you've got 3 beagles running all around your area barking like crazy, pissing on the tree your in, and ruining your whole day. When you finally give up you pack up to leave only to run into the dogs owners at the road asking if you've seen his dogs and if he can drive down and look for them. What nerve! It happens all the time. My most recent example of this behavior is when I went for the special hunt in the Dismal Swamp this year. It's a National Wildlife Refuge so you can't run dogs in it. But guess what? There's a hunt club that borders it right across the canal. They let the dogs all loose on their side and point them into the refuge to run the deer out and onto their side. The Ranger told me since they didn't let the dogs loose from inside the refuge they aren't actually violating the law.........................just screwing up everyone elses hunting.

Also, hunt clubs tend to run dogs every Saturday. After a couple weeks, the deer get wise and seem to only start moving at night. You see lots of deer sign, but no deer. If you hunt during the week there's nothing moving, and if you hunt Saturday you got dogs running all over. A lose-lose situation.

I've known number of people who's policy is "If the dog's on my land it's a dead dog." Personally I like dogs and realize it's not their fault but rather the unethical practices of their owners. Unfortunately, however, I can see how someone could eventually see no other way to solve the problem.

Anyhow, that's my 2 cents on the topic.