Random thought
 

Thinking out loud...

It seems to be the way of the world has gome to leasing land to hunt on. As a property owner I can sure understand the benefits to this. It seems to be a general thought that fewer and fewer young people are getting into hunting. How is it that we can keep people interested in hunting when land to hunt is few and far between?

Now, I know there is public land, but I would not take my children to public land to hunt, at least not around here. Noteveryone can afford a lease.

We are fortunate to have some land and some that we have access to, but for others this is not the case.

Just some random thoughts.....

RE: Random thought
 

Never hunted public land. But around here from what I here its like a war zone. It is bad enough on the private land I hunt. With people surrounding me on all sides. At first light of gun season. BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM from all directions. This is why I hunt alone on my own land. As far as bow hunting goes. I cant see a difference because of the lack of danger.

RE: Random thought
 

Biggest issue I see around here (with regards to gaining access to private land) is the way "hunters" go about it.....and how they go about KEEPING it.

As a community....we have ourselves to blame much of the time.

RE: Random thought
 

GMMAT:

That I can agree with. My husband has taken my son to a couple local farms where we have a good idea some decent bucks are hanging out to ask permission. He explained that this is my sons first year to bowhunt and that we wanted to give him the opportunity to do so. He had farmers more than willing to give him access....one even took them in to show them a mount of a nice buck he had gotten several years ago.

I too think many either don't make the attempt or don't go about it in a good manner. However, it still seems that leasing is becoming more of the norm.

RE: Random thought
 

I agree, I don't know what the later generations are going to do in order to keep hunting alive. I ran into many problems when I moved here to NC trying to find a place to hunt. All of the land around me is all private or is leased out by hunting clubs. I used to even go to the closest public gameland and hunt pretty often but, come gun season there is a line of trucks all down the gravel road leading out into the land that either your rubbing elbows with the guy hunting beside you, your forced to hunt in the thicket (which is impossible as a bowhunter) or every trigger happy redneck is killing deer at a very young age so there is no chance in killing anything of a decent size. Fortunately, I just got to asking some of the local farmers who owns what around my house and if there was anything I could do to help them out. Luckily, that was enough to earn a right to hunt in designated areas on their land. I tried to even pay the man that allows me to hunt on his farm land but, he wasen't going to have that. So every time I take a deer I make sure to give him his choice of the meat. Yeah, if it wasen't for there being such nice people in my area i would still be hunting on gameland or have to give it up until I could afford a lease.

RE: Random thought
 

My grandfather owns a 95 acre farm & he doesnt hunt. He lets 2 or 3 guys hunt every season no lease. They know when his porch light is on they are not to go out & they wait to see until he gets up. If they find a cut fecne they try & fix it & report it to my grandfather. They take out there tree pegs every winter & they report any oddities. Although I think they pull to many deer out a season 2 buck's each & 2 does each if not more they do take care of the things my grandfather cares most about. Also when there wives make cookies they drop a batch off. When it snows a lot they try to plow his drive. When I hunt there they let me use there stands & offer advice.

Hunters take note. These guys hunt here free because they are not rude or wastefull & the do the right thing.

If he can my grandfather even takes his pickup back & brings there deer up for them.

RE: Random thought
 

Twodilemas that more than likely are impossible to do anything about. A third that is a part of the public land situation you mention is the slob/inconsiderate hunter that makes trying to hunt PL a battle.

RE: Random thought
 

I live in the Piedmont area of NC...Worked for Deere for 13 years calling on the local dealers...It's increasingly harder for farmers to pay taxes when the cities keep growing into the farming area, many are forced to sell and within a few years there is a new subdivision or shopping mall...

I'm lucky that my families own farms in a rural county in eastern NC and in my generation we will be able to keep this encroachment out...I pity the guys that aren't as lucky.

RE: Random thought
 

I think I have a peculiar take on this.

I live in Arlington, VA, which is right across the Potomac from DC. Talk about tough to find a place to hunt! It’s 45 a minute drive to the closest place I can practice my bow!

But Virginia has an urban archery season that starts September 15 (regular archery starts Oct. 5), and the deer in Fairfax County and Loudon County really are in severe need of getting under control. Approx 5,000 deer-related vehicle accidents in Fairfax County alone in 2005. And early last winter in Loudon County, I hit a deer with my wife’s car (didn’t kill or seriously injury it because I was able to slow down almost to a stop before we collided) and, within a week-and-a-half, my brother-in-law gets a deer thrown through his windscreen by a deer that was hit by a semi truck (the truck didn’t even slow down, much less check to see if my brother-in-law was injured).

I haven’t tried out the urban season yet, because it is a really hassle to try to coordinate a hunt among all of the neighbors. I also don’t know if I would want to eat an animal that was eating the runoff from the highways and other heavily-trafficked roads in northern Virginia. But it would be good practice and would help with the deer overpopulation problem here.

Has anyone in VA ever done one of these urban hunts?

As for me, my wife and I recently acquired some beautiful wooded mountain land in VA near the WV border where I hunt, mostly in George Washington National Forest, which is public land, but which isn’t overhunted where I go (I’ve never seen a hunter I wasn’t hunting with while I was hunting). It’s over 2 hours to drive there, but it’s worth it. We plan to build a house and move out there in a few years. I’m in the process of putting together a hunting cabin this year.

I guess my lesson from all of this is that sometimes it’s necessary to drive a ways to find a remote area to hunt.

And, as others on here have said, it’s probably a good idea to get in good with a landowner and exchange favors. Here in VA, most farmers are glad to have someone killing the deer that mess up their crops, as long as the person is responsible.

I think talking and common courtesy are greatly undervalued.