Quote:
"...40 to 80 plus members they dont leave much room for error."

Dude,
Our club has 20, thats right, 20 members and I know what you mean about the mega clubs.
We are the guys that walk by and say hi as we stroll on through and we drove a beautiful 9 pointer to a pot hunter 2 years ago.

These jersey deer are smart! Smarter that the average "drive hunter", believe me!

You have bow season to stay clear of the "herd of orange". At least until I get my bow drives up and running!

RW3
Buckeye Gun Club

I hunt in a club in Ocean County we have been around since the 40s. We hunt with about 25 guys and usually manage between 12 to 16 deer per year. My attraction to deer drives is it's FUN. Fun to hunt with your buds, fun when a kid gets his first deer, fun when a senior member (in his 70s) shoots a large 8 pointer, fun because I love to be outdoors, fun to spend the week at the camp away from work. But it is also fun because I spend every Friday and Saturday, 2 weeks during bow season, early muzzle loader season, a week in Maine the rest of muzzleloader season and winter bow in a TREE STAND. Most of the guys in my club are bow hunters and live in the area. We are respectful of other hunter we don't argue with pot hunters over who killed the deer (you ask the several hunters who killed deer in our drives over the years they know who we are we even help them drag them out). I know we are not the exception either. We donate time to clean the WMAs and to some private preserves we even have the Boy Scouts use our building. I believe my club acts responsibly as do most clubs in my area. In the last 5 years of driving deer 30 days 240 drives(averaged out) I can only recall seeing 2 pot hunter in the woods. I don't believe that we are as big a problem to other hunters in the woods that eveyone is led to believe. Just my 2 cents. STRENGHT IN UNITY

C'mon who you kidding, where I hunt there's a group of about 20 that got 146 2 years ago,[:'(] I personally seen them bag 9 and I happened to be there and nabbed 1 . Thats 10 deer in one drive which took only 30 min for the drive and maybe 30 more to get the deer out. Then they're on to the next, a mile or 2 down the road. I listen to them on the radio and can hear the shots over the radio before I can in real time. So far they've kicked me up 3 in 4 years. I have also shot and hit a deer that didn't go down and ran into another stander. By law it's theirs, now I make sure they stay down. Some meat ruined is better then someone else claiming it. By the way this has happened more than once, not only on drives but other times as well, when I thought I was alone.[&o]

By the way they didn't do to well the following year. I wonder why!

I've hunted with clubs and I know that its aggravating when they drive the piece that your pot hunting in,but there are plenty of places to pot hunt away from where these clubs drive if you willing to do a little leg work.I'm a pot hunter now and I have no problem getting away from the pieces that clubs drive.I think it's you who is being selfish.There are 25 clubs within 15 miles of my home in south jersey,with an average of 25 hunters each.Thats alot of revunue to do away with if you continue to say that we should ban driving on publc land.Lets stop bickering amongst ourselves.We have enogh on our hands with the antis without fighting amongst ourseves

Well in Ocean County there is Zones 18 and 21 and a little of 51 our club hunts 80% in 18 the rest in 21 no late season doe days here. We don't even get together for doe days in Dec. and until this year we only had 1 doe day in zone 18. We did have 1 really good drive this year and killed the most deer on 1 drive in the last 10 years, 4 (5 is the old record in 1978) and I believe the total for the year was 15 same as last year. Some of the bigger clubs can shoot 25 to 30 deer year after year after year on the same ground. I have hunted this area my whole life (since 10) I am now 40 and there is as many if not more deer to shoot in zone 18 than ever before. So the clubs have little effect on deer populations and only help the state succeed in there harvest goals. The only negative to the last few years is legalized baiting. We see alot less deer without bait than we did before it was legal. TRY NOT TO BE SO BITTER, STRENGTH IN UNITY

RAY i wish you luck doing your bow drives in the fall. the chiggers and ticks will be carrying you out of the woods before you even see a deer. my buddies gun club hunt in stands till 9 am and then will do drives till lunch time ,they then drive a little after lunch then its back in the stand for 3:30 pm. that sounds like a fair way of doing things at least on opening day when the majority of us can get off work to hunt.there are also some rivalry problems and shinaniggens going on between the clubs also. one club was out there cutting down trees on the fire cuts with a chain saw to limit the use of the other club who illegally liked to use atv-s in the pines to drop guys off for the drives. the game warden is still looking for those guys but i think they know who. most of clubs i see in zone 21 are at least 30 to 40 members. that one club alone off 539 by the old railroad tracks must have 30 plus bucks hanging every year during the buckshot season. i pulled in to the camp one year and took photos. the members did look happy with the grill fired up and keg of beer. one year one of the clubs lined up on rt 72 and attempted to drive what seemed the whole piece clear to rt 70. there were guys lost all over and screaming for help. sounds like fun though. the reason you clubs think there are only a few pot hunters is because those one week out of a year deer hunters dont see me 30 feet up in the air with my tree lounge . id like to see the clubs down south more active with the deer herds. when was the last time they put out mineral licks or donated bags of seed tos re- plant the fields with something a little better than winter rye. i do this on a small scale. its nice to give back. .

AMEN!!!!

That club by the tracks off 539 along with several other clubs in the Whiting area and the Ocean County Federation and the State are the ones who plant the fields in Whiting and Manchester WMAs and do the WMA cleanups. You would be amazed at what goes on at the monthly O.C. Federation meetings, The local club representatives, the UBNJ rep, the local Conservation Officiers, and the state Wildlife Biologists all working together in the intrest of all hunters not just the clubs. They talk about the local bear sightings, motorcycles in the WMAs, any issue in the WMAs like clean ups and planting days and non hunting events like fishing tourneys. WE GIVE BACK! STRENGTH IN UNITY

i have hunted zone 21 for near 30 years and never seen a club out there planting anything but maybe they do. i have been there when the machines are doing there thing usually around first week of september. i talked to the game warden and he told me they cultivate and fertilize the fields and then plant the following week.from what i gather its alot of work. its work just to break down the dirt hills to get into the fields. its alot of work and i would gladly run any machine to help out. im ever more convinced the clubs are in bed with the federation and taylor the rules to fit the clubs. its just not fair but its not all bad either. the clubs are a tradition and i think thats great! my dedication to the pines is year round and i live over an hour away and make several trips a week during most of the year. i could head up to north jersey and shoot bigger deer but hunting is a way of life for me and my family started me hinting in the pines. the pine barrens are shrinking every year and its a shame but i do what i can. we do need to get along out there. if the clubs maybe would just stop stealing my stands but thats my opinion

I live in the pines and drive rt 70 to work every day to Burlington County. Killed my first deer with a bow when I was 14 after school in Pasadena WMA also killed deer in Greenwood and Lebanon St Forest when I was a kid. I now hunt Mostly Zone 18 Colliers Mills. I dont believe your stands are being stolen by clubs. We have them stolen off our clubs private property in Whiting and I have had several over the last few years in Colliers Mills. There is alot to loose as a legitemate club like the one described by the tracks off 539 it costs us 10s of thousands of dollars per year to just to stay afloat. Not every deer drive is a club some are just a bunch of guys that get together and do drives. STRENGTH IN UNITY