Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Herds Without Hunters

In Wisconsin, licenses have been going down for 25 yrs. except a few years from "covid". Here is what is happening in Wisconsin. Northern Wisconsin had deer ,,, not a whole lot of deer , but enough to keep most hunters happy . There were too many deer for the big woods and there was little regeneration of pines , cedars , hemlocks, and oaks cause there were too many deer for the land . Now , with poor habitat and wolves there are very few deer,, likely were 30 psm. 30 yrs ago and now there are likely 10 to 12 psm. Like Windfall said, sure, you can hunt there and you will never hunt the same square mile twice , and see a few hunters a year , but seeing a deer is a task. My son and I hunt every opening weekend and sometimes the second weekend and I have not seen a buck since 2009 , my son has not seen one since 2012. It's really that bad. We avr. about 1 deer sighting a year between the both of us. Hunter numbers are down about 75% or more. In SE . Wis. where I live there are deer all over . The private land is all hunted by owners , or leased. Many of the up north hunters stayed home and leased some land for 5 x what it was worth cause they figure they can go 500 mi. round trip, freeze their asses off , and listen to the kids complain of no deer , or pa up and see some deer. The SE. Wis. public land was hunted hard in 2020 , but less every year since . Today there was not a single car in the parking area where I hunted on public . Many refuse to go back a ways cause it's all dead ash laying all over with high grass over it and almost impossible to walk without going ass over tea kettle. It is loaded with orange the first half of the 9 day gun season. Then 10 days of muzzleloader . No one is out there, after muzzleloader it is 4 days of doe only and no one is out there except a few that mostly want to take a walk.. I think deer hunting will get better in northern Wis . cause the woods is getting healthier from less deer . SE wis. will continue to see heavy hunting and many doe tags , but will remain good cause many just wont put in the work to find the deer and we are getting older. About 15 yrs. ago Wisconsin did a hunter study and found the avr. age was 49. Ten yrs. later it was 54. Now it is likely 58? Not too many 58 yr. olds going to go back in what I called "that [bleep] hole full of dead ash. " Ya literally cant walk in it , but those deer sure are in the high grass and downfalls. Cant hardly see them sometimes and almost walk right by before you see them, it is that thick.

The DNR has done a lot of work on my WMA: cleared the brushy meadows out and planted food plots, mowed the trails that had gotten nearly impassible. The result is that I’ve been able to watch the chasing and cruising from a distance without boogering up the area, and with a little luck might fill one of my doe tags AND punch my Earn-a-Buck ticket quickly once the guns become legal in a couple of weeks. No shortage of deer here, just have to put in the time. Seen more bucks and deer in general this season with less effort than ever before, all from the ground BTW, and got one on ice. Life’s good!

Pappy, our DNR doesn't do anything like that. They dont plant any trees, they burn huge areas of grass for the planted pheasants that never live through tth winter anyway and there are no wild ones where I live anymore. They should trap the stupid raccoons if they want pheasants , but no. They should have planted million of oak trees in the fields 40 yrs ago so there is good deer food . Nope. In Missouri , they do a lot of what you mention and hunting is good right on the public land.

We're going to need a lot more road hunting poachers to keep the deer numbers in check. Last year we couldn't give a doe away the last week of season, I feel there shouldn't even be a deer season anymore. Georgia has a lot of non resident hunters, and there's no available land for lease.

I’ve hunted this patch for a long, long time, and this is really the first serious work they’ve done. Took them over a year ro finish. I’ve forsaken hunting from trees this year, so the newly cleared areas are very beneficial to me, and ought to really make a difference for predator and turkey hunting too. The wooded areas weren’t affected, so mast and browse will still be plentiful.

One downside is that the open views may attract more hunters. Many were put off by all the brush and head-high weeds, though the deer had plenty of food there. On the way out with my buck Friday, we passed two other hunters headed in to where I’d killed him. Since I generally avoid weekends, it shouldn’t cause me too much trouble.

Technology yes, however there’s role reversal in the home too. I had a game warden tell me today, most kids are soft. Mothers are mainly calling the shots in the house.

Problem I see here is the sheer cost of a lease
to hunt on. What public there is is usually pounded.
Some years ago, we used to get to cull hunt at
several places because the main lessees wouldn't
shoot their does and spikes they were supposed
to be taking as part of the way it was set up.
The main expense was eating and driving there
and back. A couple were luxury. As time passed,
people got to where they'd pay more and more
until the cull hunts were no more. One of the
same places now sells a day hunt for what
used to be cull deer, now it's a "meat" deer hunt
for over a grand. A run-of-the-mill lease is
$3000.00 + - a gun. Last one I was on years back
was $350 for a long time until the son took
over and it went to $750 first year he was in
charge. IIRC the last time I checked it was 4-5000
Little too rich for me.
Probably as well for a beginning hunter I'm sure

Yeah maybe, but the real estate people have
pushed it past that in various areas around
where the yuppie out-of-staters throw up
"southwest " style mini ranch type housing
developments, and tea rooms and art galleries
and antique malls in the middle of BFE

Had to attend a wedding a while back north
of San Antonio, and places i haven't been to
in years had houses and condominiums and
yuppie businesses everywhere, and the
poor old farm-to-market roads were bumper
to bumper in spots.

One other thing to consider when talking about "kids not as interested in hunting " is divorce. They are WAAAYYYY more common now and we all know who usually ends up with custody. So, unless mom ends up dating/marrying another man that hunts their time being introduced to the outdoors is cut drastically. Even more so if mom had a problem with dad's time spent in the woods during the fall.

One day during the Fall turkey season I did see two groups that looked like dads with kids, and the day I shot my buck there was a dad who had his young son along while he hunted, so that’s encouraging. They can’t get enthused unless somebody takes them….

Of the ten or so geezers I shoot clays with, only one still hunts deer AFIK, and he has access to family land where he can erect blinds. A few of the others hunt birds, but not many. The rest just shoot clays and some also do target shooting with handguns and .22 rifles.

The dogs here will start on November 18 when the general firearms season opens. No hounds are running during the early archery and early ML seasons. And no hound hunting for deer west of the Blue Ridge.

The downside to the hound hunters is that they tend to road hunt, they'll shoot anything that their dogs drive out - legal or not, and they don't give a lick about private property. They'll set their dogs loose knowing they will cross onto private property. There's a growing movement in Virginia to ban hound hunting due to this. It hasn't been successful yet, but give it time.

The upside to the hound hunters is that they are pretty lazy road hunters. If I can get into the middle of a tract, near thick cover, before they turn their dogs loose, I can pick off a deer their dogs are driving. That makes some of them crazy, that someone would shoot a deer their dogs got moving. But f'em.

But I tend to avoid hunting weekends during our general firearms season. I try to hunt weekdays as much as possible. Few clubs are out running their dogs during the week.

I spoke with him later and it turns out the doggers were out; one of their pups wandered into the camp. They came looking for it and claimed to be “coyote hunting”. Don’t know how that fairy tale would play with a game warden.

I have nothing at all against hunting deer with dogs, but do think they should be held accountable for their frequent and deliberate flaunting of the laws, and have their asses fined off. I’ve heard they have considerable political clout so I doubt anything meaningful will ever happen to rein in their dumbassitude.

I suppose there’s always a chance that the dogs might push the deer onto the lease my son hunts and present those guys with an opportunity, but I don’t recall him mentioning it ever happening, at least not with a happy ending. There’s a river between the two leases, how deep and wide I don’t know.

They don't have much political clout, but they are loud and whiny. And our DWR has been sympthetic to them. And our legislature has been sympathetic to "traditions" and haven't change laws that let them trespass on private property. Right now, Va law allows hunters to enter private property to get their dogs without land owner notice or consent. That's pissing off a lot of land owners who complain, and prove, that these club hunters use that as an excuse to hunt their private land. The push is on to change the law that lets them trespass, and to ban hound hunting in general. Like I said, the DWR isn't supporting that right now, but these never ending, constant conflicts are eventually going to be settled on the side of the property owners. They are the ones that have the land, the clout, pay the taxes, and will happily vote for any liberal that will side with them. And the hound hunters have brought it on themselves.

This is true for both places I deer hunt every year. On public land in New York, and private land here in PA. I couldn’t tell you the last time I saw a younger hunter in New York. Maybe they are all hunting private land, and not venturing into the little nearby town…but almost every dude we see in hunting gear in town or out hunting is older. (like us). We also see considerably less hunters overall…but less deer overall as well.

Back when I was able to start hunting, we usually had anywhere from 9 to 16 hunters in our two family group hunting the property. Between several other adjacent properties, there were anywhere from 25 to 60 other hunters hunting that area of hollows and ridges. Quite a bit of hunting pressure throughout the season. One particular cabin up the road usually had 20+ hunters for the first 2 or 3 days, and maybe 10-15 through the season. I don’t think they have mustered over 25 total hunters for any hunting in the last 3 years combined!

All this decline in hunters, and I’ll guess a decline in bucks taken, along with the antler restriction, has seemed to result in more quality trophy bucks. Not a bad thing…but our total deer numbers where I hunt here in PA, and in NY, still seems to be down considerably compared to 30 to 40 years ago. I guess you could take my opinion in that with a grain of salt, considering the absence of hunting pressure, in theory, lends to less unnatural movement of deer, and less seeing of them.

I think the book sounds like a great read, and I would agree with the Herds Without Hunters concept…but my daughter may argue that idea if she struggles to see a deer for a shot opportunity. She will offer up the concept of “A Hunter Without A Herd” pretty quick if the sledding gets tough! 😎

For now, I guess lawsuits are all that’s available to landowners as a way to control the problem. My son’s club is separated from the doggie bunch by that river, which seems to help somewhat.

I believe they do with Tony Wilt and the Va Bear Hunters Association.

The bear dog guys aren't the problem. It's the east-of-the-Blue Ridge deer hound guys that are. Bear hunting is miniscule in Virginia compared to deer hunting. More than 50% of licensed big game hunters in Virginia that hunt deer hunt deer with hounds.

I think there is a relatively new lawsuit in Virginia arguing that the law that allows legal trespassing represents an illegal taking of private property in violation of the Constitution. It's a new approach and based on a Supreme Court decision on a California case. Not sure where that stands today. I do know a Virginia court previously dismissed a lawsuit filed by a landowner, deciding that the Virginia laws does not permit trespass, but only decriminalizes it. (So if it's not criminal, why even characterize it as trespass?)

Landowners are so pissed with the constant trespasses that some have been setting snare traps for hunting hounds. There was a bill in the Virginia legislature to ban the setting of traps for dogs but it failed. And I know some rural land owners have vowed to shoot hounds on their property. There are lots of hunt clubs in Virginia that don't use hounds, that lease hunting property. Many of them are on the side of the landowners that the hound hunters run their dogs across their leases and disrupt their hunts.

That's the problem with the law. These hound hunters and their dogs aren't trespassing accidentally. They are intentionally running their dogs across prohibited properties, driving deer to areas where they can be shot, because there is no penalty for doing it.

Whatever clout the hound hunters have - it's eventually going to fail. With fewer hunters and more developements, the issue can't be poo-pooed by the Virginia legislature much longer.

https://www.outdoorsrambler.com/pos...rd-passions-high-regarding-dogs-and-deer

Wouldn't they play by the same rules? I know a few land owners that argue the same points being said here, but with bear hunters. Private land around Short Hills WMA comes to mind. I know Wilt is in the Va Bear Hunters Association.

In my opinion they need to do away with the summer bear hound training

If bear dog guys are violating privately property rights like the dog deer hunters do, they will end up paying the same price for it - eventually.