Deer eating crops... okay to shoot???
#31
Typical Buck
Join Date: Nov 2008
Posts: 564
I know. It is just a catch 22 position. We need them for the ground. They need us to take deer of the ground. One without the other won't work. It just erks me to hear something like the post I quoted saying hunters should not expect a farmer to subsidize a hobby then charge lease rates to make money. Well what is a deer worth to you??? If the damage is that bad and needed controlled, then the hunter has a valued service to provide. Is a farmer willing to pay say $200 a head for each deer harvested as to hear them talk that would be a huge savingings according to the amount of crop damage claimed to be the result of deer. Hell no they won't, but they expect us to pay $10 an acre (160 acre min) to hunt a ground that has maybe 20 acres of huntable ground.
#32
Definetly check with the autorites to see what you need to do before you start blasting. Id shoot the does and leave the bros though. My boss gets around 40 DCAP tags every year here in VA. They base it on how much land you own and how much is set in crop. Its a great way to manage the deer and here you can only take does with these tags. I took around 15 does last year and donated the meat. If more VA folks would do this VA hunting would rival any state in a few years but everyone here wants to shoot spikes and 4 pointers! Ummm....sorry to rant.
#34
Not all states are passing out cull permits that easy. Got a buddy in Illinois that was having major problems with deer in his vineyard. Asked the state folks for a permit and they told him to build a fence. Guess those folks never sat down and calculated the time, money, materials, and effort to surround 20 acres of hilly ground with a deer proof fence. I've got some relatives who have spent hundreds of dollars and a lot of time just trying to deer proof a quarter acre garden, with mixed results. Don't really think its a natural state of things for there to be so many deer that they are causing noticeable damage to a given tract of land. The blame goes all the way around: farmers who post their land to hunting but then complain about crop damage, farmers who lease to people who just won't kill does, people whe lease large tracts of land and wont shoot does, and hunters who love the large numbers of deer and scream bloody murder at any attempt to actually regulate he deer herd.
#35
see if someone tells me i can hunt their land and he says i need you to kill x number of deer then by god thats what im gonna try to do. hunting land is hard enough to come by with out people starting to be picky because of the QDM rage.
#37
Spike
Join Date: Oct 2020
Posts: 12
#38
Here we can get a nuisance permit to protect our farm lands from deer. Then you can legally shoot all you want. They will try to discourage it though. One thing that worked for me was to shave bar soap into a spray container and mix it up good with water. Then spray it on your plants. The deer have a dislike for a soapy mouth so it works great on them in small gardens and the like..
#39
Spike
Join Date: Oct 2017
Location: Norther IL, but want to leave
Posts: 38
I did it in WI a long time ago, the farmer had the crop damage tags, that he gave me to hold. The only condition he gave me was to shoot every deer I could. I shot 8 deer in one day, saw at least 3 herds of 70 deer moving through. Most of them were small 80-90lbs dressed, with a few monster doe's mixed in. I could see how they would impact a corn crop. If you get a chance to do crop damage it's a lot of fun and the farmer is really grateful. My problem is that my freezer was full and my friends and families freezers were full, I told the farmer I can't take any more meat this year, I am at capacity.
#40
Spike
Join Date: Nov 2020
Location: Key Peninsula, Washington
Posts: 12
I did it in WI a long time ago, the farmer had the crop damage tags, that he gave me to hold. The only condition he gave me was to shoot every deer I could. I shot 8 deer in one day, saw at least 3 herds of 70 deer moving through. Most of them were small 80-90lbs dressed, with a few monster doe's mixed in. I could see how they would impact a corn crop. If you get a chance to do crop damage it's a lot of fun and the farmer is really grateful. My problem is that my freezer was full and my friends and families freezers were full, I told the farmer I can't take any more meat this year, I am at capacity.