Farmers

Do farmers report their deer they shoot to game check? I hear farmers shoot hundreds of deer yearly each.

They need to. I know some that shoot 100 off one property.

They do not. And 100 is a small number for some.

You serious, Clark?

That's plum stupid. Farmers ruin the deer hunting around me.

But but, them deer just eat up all the crops! maybe down south, but they sure as hell don't up here.

They use night vision and supressors. Then they don't want to lease you land to hunt during the day. Farming is important, but there has got to be a better way.

Of course I'm serious. You don't believe some of the large-scale farms shoot more than 100 deer in a spring-summer in an effort to protect their investment?

I would if I had a large farm that supported my family. I'd shoot the piss out of whatever I needed to, hunters and hunting be damned. There would be zero choice between family vs. a deer.

Well yeah, totally agree with you there. I'd just never heard of/considered it. That's a bunch of deer.

I spoke to a farmer that has land in Tennessee and some of his leases he requires a certain number of deer to be shot in order to lease the land from him. He absolutely hates what the deer do to his crops every year. He also get predication permits for the spring and summer. I have never been a fan of those permits and always been told you had to shoot and leave the deer wherever it lays however I was told by the farmer that in Tennessee that is not the case the only stipulation is any 6 point or better buck has to be turned into the game warden.

Sure enough I helped a farmer on a depredation permit that farms some where around 500 acres(row crops not including woods) and we slaughter them. They also still get $10k/ year from leasing it to deer hunters who still kill plenty of deer. I wouldn't be surprised if between deer hunters and the dep permit they kill 100 deer a year off it.

I can see it hurting the hunting in some areas but around us it doesn't at all, if anything I would say it helps. When you shine one field and there are 50-75 deer out there munching down on a crop it can make a huge impact on a farmers harvest. I've done some of the " damage control" before and I hate to know how many were killed year after year, but I can tell you I only remember is killing 3 or 4 bucks outa all those deer. Of coarse they were by mistake and not something we wanted to do by any means but still that's not a lot of bucks at all compared to the deer these field were holding. We are still seeing the same amount of deer we have always seen but now it's a better buck to doe ratio. Now I'm not saying it's not possible to take out to many deer, we just haven't shot enough around here to do that.

Oh yes. They gut shoot them so they don't fall in the fields too..... And if you asked some I know to hunt and thin them out they look at you like you ask to sleep with their wife..........

aint just deer the farmer fight theres geese , beavers too. 50, 60 geese can go through some soybeans after they come up

The ones that don't allow huntin kinda doesn't sit well with me.

Sounds like I should be a farmer.

after awhile they get tired of fooling with hunters

Chuck said they were gonna start making them report 'em .

I believe it should be more governed but I don't blame the farmers that have high deer population. We have a few places where we plant were we have about the first five rows eat slap up. I'm sure coons help with that too

It's mainly because some stupid asshole messed it for you to have a chance. Folks tearing up muddy field roads, throwing out trash and being stupid.

Oh I'm absolutely positive the geniuses in charge of game check have a very accurate s.w.a.g. Of a number they use for farm kills.

I have 2 farmer buddies that do it. One farms in Shorter, the other in Society Hill. These 2 have AR15s with thermal imaging scopes. One spent 6500 for his, the other spent 4500. They admit the deer aren't doing that much damage, but they use it as an excuse to drink beer and shoot and have fun.

Surely not!

A couple seasons ago we were covered up with deer and Had some absolute giants on camera regularly. The next year and this year have been totally different. Someone told me that a farmer near us had a permit and had killed of ALOT of deer following that season. I wouldn't know how to confirm it, but it would make sense as to where the deer went.lol

I've heard the Same story with my wife's family land that drops off the side of Skyline.

Either way, I should stop deer hunting and get a part time job farming. I'd have to come out ahead.

Teat-suckin' welfare cases!

Should have FarmCheck mandated ...

mud riding in drain ditches , to lazy to drag a deer 200yrd so they rut up the place , dont know how to close a damn gate , ect , ect , ect.

These problems are not limited to just farmers but all landowners. Told someone on here a few days ago things will slow down now hunters are out of the woods.

I know there are permits for hogs and predators too for year round shooting and trapping. However, I will say from experience a half dozen hogs can do more harm than 20 deer.

Depending on the crop, I bet it's more like 6 hogs vs 50 deer.

A farmer friend of ours has killed 40+ on one farm during deer season, and will continue to kill on into the summer. I'd much rather them kill the numbers they need during the fall and winter, before antler drop, so they can know for sure they're not killing racked bucks, and also so the meat actually gets used instead of coyote and buzzard feed.

BUT BUT BUT MANAGEMENT! We've got to count all the dead deer!

This policy, by itself, shows us what a joke GameCheck is. And if I lived in the "doe day" zone, I'd be super pissed, because farmers up there still get depredation permits and still get to have just as much fun drinking beer, shooting deer, using night vision, and raising hell. Everyone else is just suckers.

Not just possible bucks they are killing when the antlers are shed, but they are for sure killing pregnant does during the summer. And about the farmers having to report their kills. Yeah, that's really gonna happen. Just another headache for them and they ain't gonna do it. And we all see how well it worked this year with hunter's reporting their kills.

and why wouldn't they kill racked bucks?

It's against the law.

That, and as a courtesy to the landowner, by not taking out the buck they've watched grow, and pass on, just to get killed in August at midnight over a cotton field.

On our land they lease, they've actually gone from killing deer in summer to hanging scent rags around the field edges to deter deer. Supposedly it worked pretty decent, and we certainly appreciate it.

I hope you don't think they honestly give a rats ass

No, I never said that I was just providing a reason why racked bucks might not be shot.

Joe Blow hunter has doe limits and can't hunt at night, and whole areas of the state where does are off limits.....and farmers can't sit on the back of their tailgate at 2AM with a yeti full of Bud light and annihilate 18 deer in a night and give high fives and not have to report any of them. Ain't it grand?

Shooting deer in soybean and cotton fields was fun with a 22 hornet. Gut shot=no bones to pop tractor tires!

I know some farmers in the Covington County area that put the hurting on the deer...bucks/does; if it's brown (or eyes shining/or body heat) BOOM....seen a nice rack buck crippled up tearing the heck out of a cotton field....probably tore up more crops than he would have ate by being cripple. A buddy walked out and put him down.....Poor Farmers!

I got the farmers busted last year at my place. Nothing happened to them much but I made damn sure everyone in the county knew about it. They were shooting good racked buckets off the paved road towards houses with a night vision scope on his rifle. Two game wardens came out and took pictures, evidence, and went to see them. They didn't shoot anymore the rest of the summer. They were shooting with a cow pasture full of angus cattle, and a housing development as their backdrop.

I know for a fact they've got racks stacked up like cord wood and brag and brag about the big bucks they kill. Law states you can't touch em for a week. So I doubt they let those deer lay for a week before going back to get the racks, plus the law states antlerless only anyway. They're taking something that's meant for one purpose, and using it for another one, an unlawful purpose.

well I guess it appears farmers are just low down deer killing unlawful vagabonds.

yep...gmo monsanto backing sorry arse sobs!

man..if we all didnt need to eat..theyd be outlawed!

Theyre one step up from a politician in my book.

No, not at all, but the laws are pretty crazy. Especially in your area with a lot of days without a chance to kill does, even during season.

i had a buddy that kept deer legs in the freezer and would go to the ag fields on the property and the field of P's he had planted just down from his trailer window, and put tracks out there and snap off the crop to get depridation permits. Of course all his biggest racked bucks were killed legally, according to him.

Didn't know because I've never looked, but is part of the 'farmer depredation' deal that they are only supposed to shoot antlerless deer?

funny how that works, ain't it?

Supposed to be does only. I'd say most try and hold it to does only , but there are some think a deer is a deer and all must die.
We have some of both in Central Jackson Co.

got that right . how a half a rack can go through a 14 ply tire is amazing .

new one on me too but its been yearssssss

High fence them to keep them out.....

To intentionally gut shoot an animal causing it to die a slow painful death is wrong.

Shoot him and drag him out the field if you are so concerned about your tires. The shed antlers are the bigger problem and you can't do anything about those.

No animal deserves a slow painful death. Deer or hog.
They are just doing what they do.
Kill them quick and move on.

The entire concept seems to be in direct conflict with Laws concerning Wanton Waste.

And, the practice of issuing Permits is not only in Violation of State Law, but also VERY loosely Regulated.

When I was in Greene Co I refused to issue summer crop shooting permits to any who did not make an effort to take out does IN DEER SEASON.

What was an acceptable effort?

I just asked if they made an effort to kill does IN season before asking me to allow them to kill does in the summer. Actually I don't remember issuing any crop damage permits in Greene Co at all. I had some ask, but no takers.

I WISH THEY would do away with the farmers getting summertime permits to kill deer.Most of the farmers around my hunting grpunds, Halfway farm anyway.They disk up the fields and run a planter though them,they don't put out the right amount of fertilzer,just enough to get there crop to grow . After the crop grows .They claim insurance on it saying there crop failed or the deer eat it up.Alot of the farmers are doing this.They get the permits to shoot the deer,so they can claim are destroying there crops.Then they get paid through the government for crop failure. One of the farmers around my hunting lease said he shot 23 deer last year.The permits are for antlerless deer anyway.23 deer Just across the fence line is alot of deer add that for year after year is nonsense. They need to do away with the farmer permits for deer because it's killing the deer population. If they want to controll the deer they should let people hunt the deer during hunting season,That way it would help feed famil8 with the deer meat .Insteed of letting the deer go to waist. Now hogs is another story they can destroy a farm in a few weeks.

Yea man farmers just plant to half ass and shoot deer. That's all they do

Lol. Farmers living off crop insurance. Lol. How many crops have you put in?

And all that seed and fertilizer is so cheap. They have to haul their money around in Brinks trucks. Not to mention those cheap tractors and other equipment they have. I made so much I had to quit because I didn't have any more space to put all that money.

When I started this thread my thought was to just know how those deer are factored in to the herd. I believe most farmers do it the way they are supposed to and the crop damage is real in most places. I'm sure some misuse it, and I wish we had a way to know how much they do hurt the total population.

Non worse than a brown it's down hunting club does. There's way more of those than farmers in AL.

I use to think man I would love to have a bunch of big soybean fields around my hunting property. But after reading this it looks like big fields full of pine trees are better for the deer population.

Sweet taters is where it's at. (Reds specifically)

i see some don't know $hit about crop insurance and how it works .

he aint put none in

I understand the need for farmers to do this. Only thing that kills me around here (Florida) is they shoot deer all summer to keep deer out of the fields, but come hunting season they put feeders all around the field and corn the snot out of them.

i don't see how that part of it is legal

Well you know the government gives us the seed, fertilizer and equipment to farm.

Yea that's right.

Man we been doing it wrong around here. Who have yall been getting crop insurance with? I need to switch plans here, and get on that policy.

When the dcnr issues crop damage permits is it public record? Can they be looked up online?