Topgun 3006

Have to call baloney on that one! Have you ever hunted west of the Mississippi River because if you haven't you shouldn't be making generalized statements like that? The outfitters may be able to lock up private lands for the use of their clients, but with the millions of acres of public land out west there will always be hunting and other recreational opportunities. Flags is spot on and anyone that lives east of the big river and hasn't been across it has no idea what it holds for the public land hunter!

flags

Have you ever hunted west of Oh or Pa? Plenty of lightly hunted public land out west. And it will stay lightly hunted because people get lazier every year.

Bocajnala

I worked in Rocky Mountain National Park for three years. No I haven't hunted in Colorado, but I am familiar with the amount of land available out west.


I think ya'll are missing the point of what I'm saying though. I'm not retired, I have young kids, and the hunting that is available to me is within a few hours drive tops currently. Twenty years from now, I do not think that hunting will be as available, or as "good" as it is today. Hence me saying, things are changing... As the public land gets crowded, more deer will be shot, equals less deer to hunt. It is already nearly impossibly to find deer on certain public areas in PA because of years of over harvest.


In Ohio I've lost about 600 acres in the last three years due to leases, and my last Private property that I have available, 111 acres only about 50 of which was huntable, is going up for sale this spring. Which likely means I'll be losing that this year as well..
The issue is many places in the country do not have huge expanses of public land. I wasn't so much commenting on the Need for a guide as to the fact that hunting availability is changing and will look much different in the not to distant future. Can I pack up, head to Wyoming, and have access to all the land I need, sure. But that is out of the question for myself and many other hunters currently. I don't think you guys can deny that land access has changed in the last twenty years.... And I expect it to continue to change.


The easy answer is "Oh, you don't know what you're talking about. Go out west." The realistic answer is many people don't have that option available to them on a yearly basis. And, many people have to hunt on what's available to them within a fairly close drive. I don't buy beef. My family, and my parents as well, eat venison year round. Multiple times a week. As much as I enjoy hunting, it's also pretty essential to our grocery list. We use at least 6 deer a year, more if I can manage it. If I told the old lady "I'm leaving for ten days to go hunt elk and a tag is $650 and I may not get one" I'd be in for a load of trouble. Someday that will be possible, but not today.
-Jake

kidoggy

what you describe is a good argument for western states keeping federal lands in the feds hands and not the states who would sell it off to private entities.


why on earth would anyone want the west to become what the east is?

Topgun 3006

What this gets down to is that the east has a huge population with nowhere near the public lands compared to the western states that have small populations and millions of acres of public land. What was argued by several of us was that his comment was way too much of a general statement about outfitters to be accurate on a country wide basis. Even in the east, as flags mentioned, there is still a lot of public land, but it will obviously be hunted more than out west where there are millions of acres. kidoggy brings up another good point about the current push to let the states have control of the Federal lands out west. Many people in the east have no idea what a disaster that could be since there is no way a state has a budget that could even pay for fire suppression in a bad year or all the other things necessary to manage the lands like is mandated to the Federal agencies by Congress.

alleyyooper

East of the Mississippi Michigan's UP is lightly hunted.
If you work and have kids you have to save vacations days for your self to go hunt for a week or two just like I did.


I worked with other guys who hunted Michigan's UP also. One guy went in with his brother and bought a 200 acre trac above Champion with a lot of federal land around them and tented it for a few years till they built a 24'x24' cabin with a loft. the other guy also tented it till he met a father and son hunting near him with a travel trailer so he joined them.


Yes deer numbers are down due to a real bad winter 2014/2015, Wolves released in some area and high numbers of coyotes since not so many hunt them with fur prices low. I still got $65.00 each for the pair of coyotes I shot before Christmas.
There is good hunting Up there for other things also like Turkeys, squirrels , rabbits and hare's. There is also real good fishing many a stream is under fished and many of those streams have beaver ponds and that makes a great fishing whole.



Of course the brown it's down will not find it to their likening. NO DOE PERMINTS.

Al

flags

I have found high quality public land hunting in FL, AL, NC, VA, MD, and NH. So if somebody says it doesn't exist east of the Mississippi River then they need to do a little looking. Since these are public lands anyone can hunt them but considering that most people are too lazy to get more than a half mile from a road or to dive into a swamp or really heavy cover where game recovery means they can't drive to the kill site they sit around and cry about how bad it is or how crowded it is.

If where you are hunting is crowded then start to hunt the nasty stuff. I assure you you will find both game and solitude, no matter what state it is in, even PA or OH or MI or NY or NJ etc... If you want good hunting you have to work at it.

kidoggy

yep .hunting is only as good as what you put into it.
the lazier one is the less chances you're likely to have

Oldtimr

Boca, it is no different now than it used to be. Most people just starting out in life cannot afford to go west to hunt, some couldn't afford to go join a deer camp or go to an area several counties from where they live for a couple of days. I was one of those . That is life, you grow into it. Sport hunting is not subsistence hunting and while some people kill enough deer to live on all year most don't except in specific areas because in your state unless you buy licenses for the unlimited doe areas the odds of shooting enough deer to eat a couple times a week all year long is almost impossible and it is not even reasonable to think you should be able to. Going out of state enough to fill the larder with venison wouldn't be cost effective. It wasn't until I was in my late 40's until I found myself able to go hunting out of state and not have to worry about taking money from home to do so. Additionally, we have millions of acres of public land in PA open to hunting and most of it is only hunted for big game a few days a year by most hunters, stay away form the first day and the first Saturday and you almost have the places to your self. It is not modern hunting that is killing off hunting, It is not lack of land, while in some cases it may be the loss of the traditional place to hunt, other places are available to hunt. It is not recruiting as many hunters as we lose each year because of age or because of lack of interest or because life situations change and the interests of young people changing to activities that are less challenging. One day in the not so distant future, there will be a lot less hunters and plenty of public land to hunt. It is not modern hunting that is killing hunting, it is modern times!

Topgun 3006

Excellent post Oldtimr and I echo your thoughts 100%, especially those last 4 words that pretty well sum things up perfectly!