I heard that Over 100 deer were killed during the summer on Herefords farm in Gurley and was wondering if anyone knew this to be true ? Seems like a large number and wonder how the DCNR would come up with a number of deer to shoot and go to waste.

tell you the truth it's none of my business or yours .

a pest is a pest , don't matter if its a rat in the dog food or deer predating crops .

i know a few farms that have slaughtered deer for that reason . one farm done it because the people that least it wouldn't do it . so the farmer killed every thing where as the hunting club could've killed just does . we killed 30 deer out of one field off 80 in macon county after season one year . that year the deer ate 15 acres of 65 ac cotton field .

course we killed over 500 armadillo one year too lol

True

True words right there. We love our hobby of deer hunting, but farming is a livelihood. Farmers are going use every means at their disposal to protect that livelihood. Can't really blame them.

Back during the soybean hayday, in the early 70's, I've seen almost a hundred shot in one night in just a square mile area.

Back then, they went to the Sheriff's Boy's Ranch for food.

A hundred deer can do a lot of crop damage. Especially when soybeans are busting the ground. When those first two leaves are eaten on an emerged plant, it dies.

They also browse on the blooms. That's crop killer.

Too bad they don't just keep the season open where that's necessary like the law says. The law don't say anything about a stinking permit to kill them and let them rot.

sore subject here we have a farmer that has a 40 acre field just north of us about a quarter mile ,so he lets the boy that lives in the house next to the field do his field control ,only problem is he baits them close to the house so he can get easy shots under a light he put out he killed 68 this year and 70 something last year ,if you have crop damage is one thing but baiting them to the crop field is another ,neither year he harvested the field i guess he just turned it in on his crop insurance,burns my arse,by the way this is his only field in this area his others are 15 to 20 miles north and they are 100 acre plus

It DAMN sure IS my business !!!

Them deer don't belong to that farmer and he's got no more legal right to shoot them than you or me or Uncle Ted.

49er is absolutely right in that argument, the DCNR is clearly violating the law by issuing any individual the permission to shoot OUR deer out of season!

Legally speaking, I have just as much rightful authority to walk onto the farmer's property and shoot a deer, without his permission, as he has to shoot any of those deer, out of season.

That's right.

They dang sure don't mind taking people's money to lease the hunting rights!

I have been on some 'depredation' shoots, too.
Don't lie to anyone and say that it is an indiscriminate neccessity. It is a VERY abused program in many areas.

so what would you suggest the farmer do ?? maybe,,,i guess since they are our deer we should pay the farmer from a tax for the damage .

i agree 100% - all it would take is a 2-part tag system and each county divided into sections - buck and doe harvests would be reported and the deer herd in each section could be micro-managed - too bad some people are opposed to it - seems like it would be a lot better than wasting them

btw , i'm not a big fan of summer hunts but you gotta do what you gotta do .

I would suggest he invite more people to hunt, during the legal hunting season, perhaps even "for free".
I know that's a foreign concept these days, FREE, but it worked for a bunch of farmers in Chilton County when I was growing up.

Allow Public Access to his property or charge a small trespass fee for Daily Rights.

NOT lease the property and allow hunters to think they can manage the deer herd and then shoot them all at night out of season.

As far as taxes........Farmers are already subsidized with our tax money. They also have the ability to buy Crop Insurance.

I seriously doubt that is true as thier grandaughters husband hunts the farm and he would have a fit if that was true. There are a lot of deer and some big deer on the farm but I don't see them killing that many.

when you were growing up ,,,,, thats a key part

yeah . i havn't seen that work out to well . first they tear up the edges of the fields and the fields with their four wheel drives and four wheelers to where you have to have a tractor to get around the fields . they leave gates open so the farmer has to round up cows all the time . on top of that they don't kill what needs to be killed . great idea but i ain't seen it work .

they guy i worked for had four wheeler trails through his oat fields at the end of one hunting season .

stuff like this is why farmers have stopped free hunting . even some farms with clubs won't killed the deer they are ask to kill .

ok i got nothing against people with money . but they rent up these lands just to have a place to go . then they don't hunt like they should . so what does a farmer do , they take the lease money and have summer hunts

No, not quite. I didn't say anything about a tag system, and the law doesn't either.

The problem is caused by closing the antlerless season and having a daily bag limit on them when the season is open in areas where there is a severe crop depredation problem. Notice that it doesn't even have to be a whole county. It can be a part of the county where the season is open.

Then, if the farmers want the deer killed, they can either do it themselves or let more people hunt to get it done. If not, they can live with their problem.

i don't think you know how Crop Insurance works . it does not pay out like most think it does . if a farmer loses a 100,000 on crop lose the Insurance does not pay a 100,000.

if i was told right the farmers have no choice they have to buy the Insurance.

farmers don't get the gov money people think they get

so , you saying do it this way or that way and to hell with the land owners rights . lol

sorry 49er - i hadn't posted in a while - i forgot you're that guy into legalism - complain about everything and squeeze the letter of the law instead of taking action and implementing the procedures to help rectify the problem