Look its all a balancing act. How can I limit intrusion? Have less hunters. Guess what that means? I have to charge more. Which causes what? People hunt more to get their moneys worth.

How do I keep members when some never kill a deer, and never see one, which is what would happen if I let people kill doe's off green fields. I don't have groups of 8 to 10 doe's hitting a green field. I have small groups of 1 to 4. And usually a couple of those are unspotted fawns basically. 4 deer on a 1/3rd acre plot can keep it very short if they hit it every day. I have a couple like that. The same family group hits it every night. At least once. And then I have half acre plots of durana that aren't being mowed.

If I was seeing 6 to 8 doe's on some of the fields, then I would think we have a more sustainable population. Think in terms of round numbers. 10 members. Each wants to kill at least 1 deer. A buck is a bonus. That's 10 doe's. I need to have 20 left over that have twins and don't lose one to a yote or anything else in order to just maintain my population. If each member kills 2 doe's, then I need 40 left to replace my population. In a perfect world. There is no getting around the math.

Now I am toying with a theory that if I have better groceries than anyone else, I can pull deer off neighboring property. The problem there is I probably only have 10 acres of my 1050 planted in limed and fertilzed food sources. I don't have a way to lime the woods. My ph is 4.6 to 5. Adding fertilizer to those area's doesn't do alot. Reason I know, I planted 3 log decks left over from logging. Added lime and planted them. I have had to put a ton of fertilizer on them to get them to grow. Urea is $35 bucks a bag, so it adds up in a hurry. If I don't fertilze them, then they don't grow and turn yellow. Now next fall, it will be easier. But there is always the expense and low production when you add in new ground. It doesn't help the loggers scrape off the available topsoil either.

I have 3 spots I want to expand in the spring. But in order to do that, I need to deal with the stumps left over. That means I need a bull dozer or a stump grinder. One wouldn't take but about half a day, the other will probably take 3 days.