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Regardless of acreage size, you’d be a great neighbor to co-op with, share pics, etc. There are others that exploit that situation to an extreme degree because of what I feel is poorly structured season and bag limits.

2Dogs, we sure agree there. So my personal situation involves two neighboring properties. One is a 38 acre tract and the other is a 2,000 acre club with 18 members (a traditional timber company lease that adds members every time the lease goes up). All the habitat improvements in the world on 600 acres won’t get me to a quality 6 yr old when that deer dies at 2. A bucks range is much greater than a section anyway.

All the club guys I’ve met are nice folks but I really don’t have any choice but to be the prick who outbids the lease and kicks them out. I’m struggling with that. Not much I can do with the smaller private piece except continue to try to encourage different harvest objectives.

T-hatchie do you lease land in the midwest?

I have a farm in a state some call the Midwest with a 16 day firearm season

Lease the 2,000 , hand pick about 6 guys , get your $ back from them , you be the dictator on the 2 k acres. Keep your 600 for yourself.

That’s a sound plan.

I agree but there are more like my situation as far as acreage that just will not let them grow and I’ve seen it first hand letting them go to only get shot. When they send me a picture all I can do is say I could’ve shot it 100 times but didn’t. Sometimes I ask myself why I do it knowing what’s gonna happen. All I can hope for is someones prioritys change and some bucks may defy the odds and prove me wrong eventually. They shot 2 this year that u just ask why cause they were below average and would make good seed. As it stands around here right now there’s only a couple spikes to breed but maybe they got some bread before they got shot.

I applaud hunters like you, we need many more. I can’t stand the defeatist attitude of “if I don’t kill it, someone else will “. Successful people don’t think that way.

I shake many hands and congratulate many hunters every season for killing deer either myself, my kids, or neighbors let walk. It does no good to make enemies over a deer. Eventually, some will come around. Others won’t, but you can’t stress over it. Is it frustrating? Yep. It’s certainly not going to change by making it known that it’s killing you inside. Be nice, make friends, let deer walk knowing most will die, and one will get through occasionally. Everyone don’t hunt for the same reasons. There are people who couldn’t care any less about a mature buck.

I used to be one that would get kinda angry when someone at the camp would shoot a nice “up and coming” buck that had the potential to be something. One day I overheard a guy saying that the buck he shot was the biggest buck he’d ever seen much less shot. I then realized that the happiness in his voice and on his face was what was important, not that deer. There will be more bucks but that guy killing his biggest buck that morning only comes once. He still hunts with us till this day and has grown as a deer hunter. That buck that morning opened 2 sets of eyes. Mine and his. He realized that he got more excitement out of shooting that “big” buck then he did the small ones he’s always shot and now waits to kill better bucks. Now for me it’s about the size of the smiles not the bucks. Sure I’d like to see some that get killed have another year or 2 but we just celebrate them and move on. Life’s to short for silly crap.

This is long and I apologize in advance. That’s a great story and attitude Marsh. One that I share. If it’s something that I and my family, would and have passed repeatedly, and it will be someone’s first, last, or best buck, I don’t care if it’s two or three, weak racked or an up and coming superstar. Good for them, and I’ll help them celebrate. What I do get frustrated about is the situation when you’ve got a club full of grown men that have hunted their entire lives and killed tons of deer and tons of bucks, posting up on the property lines, on top of corn piles, late in the season, and whacking every 2-3 yr old rack buck that they see, and just sawing the horns off and tossing them in the back of the truck. In too many clubs, killing deer becomes a competition. “I’ve got to shoot it because so in so will and if he’s gonna kill it, I might as well shoot it myself”. It’s their legal right to do so, but it’s exceptionally detrimental to what many are trying to accomplish in growing mature bucks, when 15-20, two, 3, and 4 yr olds are getting whacked crossing the lines every single year. I fully understand and can see where T-Hatchie is coming from. I’ve killed truckloads of deer in my lifetime, big and small, and just killing any rack buck is no longer what I want to do. I and most of my neighbors (leased and private land) want to grow and harvest mature bucks, so we pass 95% of the bucks we see. Thats great for a couple of our other neighbors that aren’t on the mgmt program. They are accomplishing exactly what they want to do, but what they are doing makes it virtually impossible for us to accomplish our goals. Under Alabama’s current long season and lax game laws, both sides have every right to do exactly what they are doing. The problem is that the group that wants to grow the bucks, helps the shoot anything group achieve more success and better hunting than would ever have been remotely possible for them, while what the shoot anything group is doing, makes it almost impossible for the group growing bucks to even remotely accomplish their goals. Not sure what the answer is but I can tell you unequivocally that even in a 5-6k managed co-op, a couple shoot anything neighboring clubs bordering it on a couple sides, can sure have a big impact. Doesn’t matter how much food or excellent habitat you have. Bucks walk and the rut happens every single year. So then, if you’re trying to grow mature bucks, the only option is to do what 2dogs said, outbid and lease the property out from under the club doing all the killing and start building a buffer, which takes away the hunting opportunities for those 16-18 guys. People on here complain all the time about the cost of land, losing their leases due to the “rich guys”, doctors and lawyers, outbidding them, and running up lease prices to the point where hunting is becoming unaffordable and taking away hunting opportunities. I can assure you that nobody, rich or poor wants to pay more to hunt. But it’s still true and it’s happening. The cold hard facts are that this is a prime example of both how and why it often happens. It’s also why there are more and more high fences going up each year, all over the state and neither one is a good thing for the wildlife or the hunting community. With help from the state, through piss poor mgmt, enforcement, and regs, they are forcing us into a situation where we as hunters are quickly becoming our own worst enemy. Middle ground has the be found. There’s a solution out there but both sides will have to give something. Maybe we should get Trump on it. Lol.

Abolt, that is frame worthy right there. Everyone should read that twice.

I don’t see a way to legislate a fix to that scenario Abolt. Quadruple the amount of game wardens and maybe you could. The other option is to somehow change those guy’s objectives. Most guys grow out of that stage, but some don’t.

Pwyse, I acknowledge your point but I’d ask you, how do other states successfully accomplish it? There should not be a scenario where there is a 63 legal buck limit on only 2,038 acres adjoining acres. I asked before…does AL really have that many more outlaws than other states?

I know it sucks for yall. But the only thing yall can do is beat them or join them. Go make them an offer they can’t refuse on the hunting rights to their property or sell or turn the lease go and find better neighbors. This is not just an Alabama thing. It’s everywhere I’ve ever hunted. Believe it or not even in Texas and Missouri. It’s always the little guy killing all the bucks. Only other option is set up on the property line where the deer are getting onto their property and scare em back onto your property. One thing for sure all the bitching going on here about it will accomplish 0. There’s ways to remedy every problem. You just have to be willing to find it. I’m so glad we no longer have this issue. The one older gentleman that hunts his property next us is no longer a problem for us once we made him understand that him standing next to our power line pole about 50yds on our property in a fresh clear cut was not a safe place to hunt. When he finally saw where the stand was he agreed and moved on. He kills his couple deer a year and we go help him get them to his house. I’m pretty sure he still hunts our firelane next to his property when we’re not there but I’m not going check. It doesn’t affect what we see from our stands so it’s not a big deal.

Man this is starting to be like the duck hunters around here. They lease or own 1000’s of acres of rice fields or marsh. They get pissed when Joe public sets up a temporary blind in public waters on the edge of the leased property or the old man that has his little 5 acre homestead on the fringe of the farm happens to shoot a couple geese that were flying over. They want to start calling the Game Wardens or Sheriff’s office because they are messing up their hunts. Always the big guy against the little guy.

Why not? Those 63 bucks belong to anyone who purchases a hunting license. Just like our place. We could legally kill 24 bucks with just the members. But also anyone that hunts with us can kill the state legal limit of bucks. Do we ever do it? Of course not!! Heck we’ve never killed 24 deer in a year in the 15yrs we’ve been there. Never in the history of our place have we had the opportunity to kill 24 legal bucks according to our rules in a season. I have killed my 3 bucks a couple times but those years were the types of years we all wait for. Perfect weather during the rut. If you don’t like what they are doing on that 2038 acres go offer the president of the club to buy out 2/3s of the memberships or heck buy out all the members but him. I’m afraid yall are beating that poor dead horse to no end. Again I hate for yall but I’ve learned a long time ago not to worry about things I can’t control.

Easy now, you're gonna ruin their narrative that it just isnt possible

A step in the right direction is making the crime harsher instead of slaps in the wrist for doing stuff…Kansas and other states do not play when it comes to wildlife offenses.

The other states don’t have a 4 month gun season. I wish we could limit crossbow hunting to gun season unless having a medical excuse…that’s a whole different topic.

Nope, you do not go to Kansas with the attitude of “oh well, boys will be boys”. Funny how everybody dreams of hunting there too.