Bucks spread out…..when the buck levels have been lowered all around you prior to the rut then a lot of your bucks that you’re trying to stockpile and protect are going to leave and go to those other areas that have been shot out with no competition.....especially if your shooting a bunch of does on your place making the competition on your place even greater.... Some of those that leave will be shot too during the rut until the whole area is impacted…..This is why I have said that I think some of the big wigs will find that they arent immune to the impacts
The big wigs already know that they aren’t immune to the impact. They are the ones most affected and most aware of what’s going on because they are the ones raising all the young bucks that are getting sucked off of their properties and killed by the neighbor next door with 5 adjoining acres and 400 lbs of corn piled up in a pile out his back door. When the big property owners and managed clubs decide to toss in the towel and say that they are done, and start indiscriminately shooting the same number of deer per acre as all the small properties surrounding them, that’s when everyone will see the problem and the error of their ways. It’s coming too, unless something changes. It’s getting way too expensive to control big acreage and try to stockpile enough bucks to get just a few into older age classes so that you’ve got mature bucks to hunt.
Already happening. Ppl are fed up spending tens of thousands of dollars annually to NOT pull the trigger, while all the neighbors benefit from their hard work.
Things like that has been going on forever. Just like here with the guys that own large acres of marsh for duck hunting. If the little guy sets up a blind in the public waters next to them a happens to kill a couple ducks you’d swear the world is about to to end. They call us and wildlife and fisheries and wants them arrested. They get real pissed off when we tell them that it’s their right to hunt their and nothing can be done to stop them. Same thing is happening with deer hunting. I absolutely believe that the small landowners are shooting a few deer but I find it hard to believe that this is something new.
I help ppl manage property. I work with ppl all over the state. I guess until you have it happen to you some of yall just won’t get it. Let me ask you this question and give an honest answer. If you were a landowner with several hundred to several thousand acres, is it unreasonable to expect that there should be a couple of mature bucks to hunt each season? I mean it’s not greedy or selfish to have that expectation right? They’ve spent their money on land, equipment, other resources to have a nice place and to enjoy it. They can’t enjoy it fully because what they’re after is not attainable. It’s not because they don’t have the habitat. It’s not because they can’t hunt. It’s because their neighbors kill every deer that is 2-3. Corn and cams completely changed the ball game. It baffled my mind yall can’t see this. I’ve seen large acreages completely changed by a handful of neighbors who decide to start killing deer. Neighbors that do nothing for wildlife except put corn and a camera out in deer season. Places that go from having multiple mature deer a year to zero. Would it change your mind on the subject if you knew the lease you were paying money for had zero mature bucks? Would you keep paying it? Would you enjoy it? Would hunting be the same?
