Originally Posted by jhardy
Originally Posted by Mbrock
Originally Posted by Double Creek2
The sad part is, the vast majority of hunters will never be able to afford 100 acres… 1,000+ is just a pipe dream.

You either have to be born into the land or have very deep pockets to truly grow and hold a population of mature bucks. With that said, I still believe in trigger restraint if the deer doesn’t make you happy, regardless of property size.
Indeed, and that’s why I love cooperatives. The best chance a small landowner has to produce big deer is join his neighbors in like objectives.

Matt, if you were working on initiating a cooperative, and you had already mentioned it to multiple land owners, and they were interested, what is the smallest size property around you that you would do your best to talk with? FYI, for the most part, I have good neighbors already in the scenario that I’m referring to and have some mature bucks as well.

Jhardy, this is going to cost me some money but I was trying to find any opportunity to engage my adjoining neighbors in deer management conversation. I scheduled (and agreed to pay for) a thermal herd survey after the season closes in February for all of our properties. Each of them think the other is shooting everything (one is right, lol). None of us have ever gotten together for a hunting conversation. They both readily agreed so we will all sit around and watch the survey in progress. I’m hoping it’ll be a good opportunity to get them excited about management ideas.

Last edited by T-hatchie; 01/16/26 01:27 PM.