Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Herds Without Hunters

I thought this was a pretty intersting article. As a Virgnia hunter, it has been hard not to notice. Over the years, I've been seeing fewer and fewer hunters in the woods. Hunters of any kind. On weekdays, I've driven into a 5,000 acre WMA and not seen another truck or hunter all day. Even on weekends, it's gotten hard to actually see another hunter, even if I see their trucks. It's hard to complain about that. But Virginia's deer herd is booming. Some northern counties have no bag limits. Anyways...

Herds Without Hunters
By Matt Knox for Whitetail Times

In 1997, Dr. Larry Marchinton, my major professor at the University of Georgia, was preparing a keynote presentation entitled “Obstacles to Sound Deer Management” for the annual Southeast Deer Study Group Meeting (SDSGM) to be held in Charleston, South Carolina. As part of his preparation, he asked me to provide a list of what I considered to be some of the major obstacles to sound deer management at that time.

Included on my list was declining deer hunter numbers, about which I wrote, “this is critical… to effective management programs. Although many states show stable deer hunter numbers, I don’t think there is any question that overall deer hunter numbers are declining and are going to continue to decline.” The future decline in deer hunter numbers was a major point in his keynote address. In 1997, Virginia had just begun to experience a decline in licensed deer hunter numbers.

The next two decades regrettably confirmed my prediction. After decades in deer management, it was obvious that deer hunters were getting older and recruitment of new hunters was declining. When the SDSGM came to Roanoke, Virginia, in 2009, our meeting’s theme was “Herds Without Hunters: The Future of Deer Management?” In 2009, Virginia licensed deer hunter numbers had declined approximately 19 percent since the early 1990s.

For the 2013 SDSGM in Athens, Georgia, I finally analyzed the declining number of deer hunters in Virginia and gave a “Herds Without Hunters: The Future of Deer Management” presentation. By this time, Virginia licensed deer hunter numbers had declined approximately 26 percent since the early 1990s.

In 2013, when I projected Virginia’s declining number of licensed deer hunters trend into the future, my basic linear model estimated 188,000 deer hunters in 2023 (10 years) and 133,000 in 2038 (25 years). In fall 2021, with 185,400 licensed deer hunters, we were already below my 2023 prediction two years early.

In February 2020, I was contacted by Duane Diefenbach with Penn State University. He had been contacted and asked to write a chapter for an upcoming book, Harvest of Fish and Wildlife. He asked me if I was interested and if I had any ideas. I immediately said yes, and we agreed that we should look at the decline in hunter numbers in Pennsylvania and Virginia and forecast how the predicted declines might affect deer management in the future. The citation for this book chapter is located at the end of this article. Duane is a gifted biometrician and modeler, and I knew he would be able to take Virginia’s past and current hunter license data and build a model that would much more accurately predict the future declines than my simple 2013 linear model.


(Virginia licensed deer hunter numbers, 1946 to 2021 and the predicted licensed deer hunter numbers to 2040 from Diefenbach et al. (2021). Note this does not include deer hunters exempt from purchasing a deer hunting license (e.g., landowners, etc.).)

In Figure 1 (the actual black line), you will see the big game license sales data (i.e., licenses that have deer tags on them) for Virginia from 1946 through 2021. I should mention some items regarding this license data. Three details in this graph deserve comment. First, note that the number of deer hunters increased steadily through the 1950s and 1960s as the Greatest Generation came back from overseas and started families, and Virginia’s deer herd grew. Second, deer hunter numbers were stable through the 1970s and 1980s at about 300,000. Lastly, deer hunter numbers began to consistently and significantly decline during the mid to late 1990s.

From just under 300,000 licensed deer hunters in the early 1990s to approximately 185,400 in fall 2021, the Department has lost approximately 38 percent of its licensed deer hunters over the past 30 years. Converted to real numbers, this means on average we have lost about 3,800 licensed deer hunters annually over the past three decades. Only two items have temporarily stopped or reversed this declining trend over the last 30 years—economic recession(s) and Covid.

In Duane’s 2021 model, if current declines in deer hunting participation in Virginia continue, the number of Virginia licensed deer hunters, 12-90 years old, are predicted to decline by 32 percent by 2030 to approximately 118,000 licensed deer hunters and by 57 percent by 2040 to approximately 75,000 licensed deer hunters (compared to 2020; see Figure 1 (the predicted red line)).

Duane’s model also revealed inadequate hunter recruitment and hunter retention to maintain current hunter numbers across all age classes for Virginia. In Virginia, we are losing deer hunters in every single age class. In the model, recruitment of 12- to 15-year-olds in Virginia would have to more than triple to return hunter numbers to what they were in 2008.

The decline in the number of deer hunters is not unique to Virginia. Deer hunter numbers continue to decline steadily across most states within the range of white-tailed deer in the United States. Demographics of all big game hunters nationwide indicate they are older than the general U.S. population. The next five to 10 years will very likely see significant declines in deer hunter numbers in Virginia and across the nation as the baby boomers (born prior to 1964) all move into retirement.

In the Diefenbach book chapter, we surveyed 37 states and four Canadian provinces that comprise the majority of the white-tailed deer’s range in North America. In the previous 10-year period, 79 percent of the states or provinces surveyed had demonstrated a decline in hunter numbers, averaging a 9 percent decline. Only 15 percent had shown an increase and 5 percent were stable.

So what is happening to deer hunter numbers? It is an oversimplification but, in the past, deer hunting has been an activity of almost entirely white males often from or associated with a rural background. As noted in the book chapter, U.S. deer hunter demographics (> 90 percent male, 97 percent white, 55 percent rural) have changed little over the past 30 years despite more people living in urban environments and an increasing non-white population. The fact is that Virginia and the United States are becoming more culturally diverse and less rural by the day; and this trend is predicted to continue and accelerate in the future.

Rural Virginia is slowly but steadily disappearing. There has been an excellent series of recent articles describing this trend in several of the state’s larger newspapers over the last decade or so. Many or most areas of rural Virginia are already seeing and/or predicted to see continued significant declines in their human population over the next several decades. This rural exodus will have a profound effect on Virginia politically, economically, and socially, and from a deer hunting and a deer management perspective.

There is one bright area in looking at Virginia’s deer hunting demographics. There has been a significant increase in female participation rates over time. This is the reason hunting stores are selling fluorescent pink camouflage (now legal in Virginia) as well as pink guns. I expect this trend will continue and hopefully accelerate in the future.

In my opinion, the decline in deer hunters represents the biggest statewide deer management issue in Virginia. The decline in deer hunter license sales will have a significant negative effect on the Department’s ability to finance wildlife conservation programs benefiting many wildlife species. Over eight in 10 hunters in Virginia hunt deer, and hunting license sales provide more than a third of wildlife agency funding on average. This deer hunter license revenue is used to fund many other wildlife conservation programs, including nongame species, education and outreach, administration, and law enforcement.

Lastly, the continued decline in deer hunter numbers will over time have a negative effect on the Department’s ability to manage deer population levels through recreational deer hunting across much of the Commonwealth. I think that we may have already reached this point in some of the more urban/suburban areas in Virginia.

https://dwr.virginia.gov/blog/herds-without-hunters/

There's lots of reasons why but ultimately I think it's technology for the younger generation and lack of access for the older (like me)

Regardless I don't see the trend changing. We need to do everything we can to encourage youngsters to get into the sport or it may be gone before we all are.

Lack of access is killing it off here. You either inherit land, have very deep pockets for a lease, or are SOL around here these days. I'm lucky a friend/shirttail cousin of mine has some land or my deer hunting days would have ended years ago.

This is speaking of licensed deer hunters
There still is quite a few around here , but they don’t buy license
Fir some a 100.00 to hunt is hard to come by .
For many others they wouldn’t bother with a license if they were free
These are the [bleep] sleeping all day and up all night roaming around all over peoples property and state land spotting and shooting the hell out of them
A good many shoot and if the deer don’t drop right there , they ride off
Some don’t care and are joy killers
Poaching is alive and well in Va
I know of several nice bucks taken by POS that had absolutely no buisness pulling a trigger
Another thing that has contributed to it is Covid , so many of these non working scum sucked up big checks from uncle sugar , more money than most of these bums could turn in several years and they bought thermal scopes , I mean WTH ?
No sweat off their ass , this has helped a lot on night hunting
No light being shined around
Yeah , I don’t like the MFers
Guy accross the road from me brought a 788 243 with thermal on it to me to hock for 800.00
I told him it wasn’t worth 300 to me
Don’t like the MFer and ain’t helping him out
It was a ATN , charger and the works
Have no use for it anyway and didn’t know the history behind the rifle
Kenneth

Pretty much the same here in Nebraska.

Agree with the sentiments above.

Access is huge. Whether you agree with hound hunting for deer or not, it's a tradition in eastern VA. Some of the hound hunters are respectful. However, many of the clubs are slob hunters who purposefully run their dogs across private property. I've seen seen them shoot from the roads, and kill anything their dogs chase out, whether it's an illegal antlerless deer, or a legal buck. They drive their trucks onto private property without landowner consent, because VA law allows that. It is infuriating to land owner and many land owners have simply shut down any prospect of even a single hunter, like me, accessing their land.

The good part is VA has quite a bit of public land that, aside from deer hunting during the general firearms season, is basically unused.

I can remember a time when it looked like a train going thru mountains before daylight on national forest.That’s dwindled down to a scarce few

It may be true for whitetail hunters in eastern and middle American states but western states are seeing unprecedented numbers of hunters each year.

It’s the “in” thing with 25-40 year old dudes to do CrossFit, “eat clean”, grow a beard, spend a fortune on gear and clothes and “go deep” in the backcountry. Post it all on social media talking about the great protein elk provide. Sure be nice if they’d go back east to hunt whitetail deer instead and I could get back to drawing a muley tag every other year instead of every 4th year.

Trends I see closer to home that are likely contributing factors. Nobody wants to just shoot deer, they want to feed, pattern, name, and geek out on photos of a specific buck. This takes space, space that nobody else is hunting or stomping around in, hence leasing places to lock them up. This is also a solo pursuit, gone are the days of two dozen guys making drives and slinging lead at whatever runs by. People moving in to escape whatever schithole city ad to this as well as crowding on WMAs. Hunting is a country thing you do when you move to the country. I used to hunt an archery only WMA my uncle managed when he was still working. Bow hunting wasn’t the in thing like it is now in whitetail country and I never ran into anyone else. The biologist who took over when my uncle retired said this year on the bow opener it looked like a parking lot at a sporting event there were so many pickups. I have no interest in trying to compete with that, I’m sure others feel the same way. I’d imagine many go a few times and say F this and give it up.

Everyone with a spot wants to “manage” deer, hoping to grow a monster. I can tell you from recent experience that this is not a good approach to keep a young kid interested. A good friend recently invited me to bring my son out to shoot a buck, we learned when we got there that a buck meant a particular buck. We ended up seeing him with no shot opportunity and that’s fine for me, it is hard to explain to an eight year old itching to shoot his first buck that the one horn forkie right in front of us is off limits because we’re after a different buck. We still had a great evening but it’s tough to keep a kid interested in shooting a deer when you can’t let him shoot a deer, I’m sure it’s much the same for anyone just starting out.

I’m sure there’s lots of factors. I’m just going to keep hunting and taking my son and wife, about all I can or am willing to do.

Don't send those guys east. But you can come east. Find some public land, there's a lot of it, and you may be the only hunter on thousands of acres that day.

We have some WMAs near population areas that can get crowded on weekends during the general firearms season. But hunt on a Tuesday, and you'll have the place to yourself.

Last year during our muzzleloading season, I never saw another hunter even on a weekend.

I lease exclusive trespassing rights on a farm close to home, otherwise I have to drive at least 90 miles to hunt on family property. The farmer is happy to get a check from me every year because he knows that I'll respect the property and I'll help him with some chores. Since we're both getting older, the chores that we do together have gotten a little less strenuous over time, but we still cut, split, and stack 3 or 4 cords of firewood every year.

As a landowner, I spend more time dealing with trespassers than I'd like. The sawzall gets a workout cutting up those cheap Chinese ladder stands that are so popular.

I don't know about local hunter numbers myself. It seems to me that locally, there are more hunters than ever...but I'm not looking at data numbers so I could very well be wrong.

I will note a short coming on my part related to herds without hunters... Deer numbers in the two states I hunt are very high, much, much higher than when I was growing up. One state has a limit of 12 does and the other has a limit of 1 per day over a 3.5 month season. I've been a very poor steward of taking does the last several years. I used to try and take 2 does for every buck I killed. I need to go back to that practice. Does around me have essentially become a herd without a hunter and I need to force myself to take more of them.

10Glocks,
Thanks for posting. Several good follow-up comments as well. In addition to the other comments I will add just general loss of habitat. Think about all the development that has occurred in any state since about 1985. How many acres have been lost to development of housing, factories, etc. Or No Hunting allowed due to liability and abuse by sloppy hunters. I do agree with comments above that the millennials and younger generations have little interest in hunting due to their attitude of immediate gratification. Not too many interested in putting in the effort and put up with hardships to get deer.

Very good point there, too. A couple of smaller plots I used to hunt got sold off, and the new owners promptly chopped down half the trees on them to build houses.

The upside to all this is that I am finding fewer vienna sausage cans in the woods.

I used to hunt a private property in a county near where I live, one of the very few counties near me where could use a rfile from the ground. The lady that owned the property died and the buyers are anti-hunting and won't let anyone hunt there anymore. So all of my hunting since then has been on public land.

The lack of access could be used as a tool to discourage hunting in general, I believe that is happening up here at this time and moving forward, it doesn't look good for resident hunters, but it looks good if you have deep pockets and don't mind paying an outfitter, pretty much just as you say here.

Hard to compete with that NFL. Watchin guys just like you and me havin fun throwing that ball around. Now that’s America!

I got my self start exclusively on public/Nat Forrest lands, something that SWVA is blessed to with to the tune of 100's of thousands of acres of.
Those 1st few years I connected only on the few antlerless days.

To this day I've not killed a buck on public land.

After 3-4 years of only having access to public lands for hunting I knew what I needed, my own property.

Now that our son rarely hunts our property[FYI-he still hunts 100+ days annually], the herd is going to have to be thinned.
I offer my small parcel to parents that I know with kids but rarely get taken up on the offer.

One big issue here is there is very little publicly huntable land, around 2% of the state, and a big slice of that is in Shawnee National Forest. The rest is littlle bits and pieces scattered across the state.

I make decent money, and had planned on buying my own little parcel after I had paid the house off. Decent money isn't what it used to be, though.🙄 Land prices went up around 10x in the interim, so I got priced right the hell out of that plan.

Depends on where you live. I think we have more hunters here than places for them to hunt. Now, that's mostly because there is a huge Mennonite/Amish population here, and they look at deer as free meat. It's true that it's become more difficult to find a place to hunt, especially if you don't own land or can't afford a lease, but we're still overrun with people wanting to hunt here and they aren't too particular where they hunt either.

Access.

North East Ohio. If you don't own property or lease you're limited to A few public areas.

-Jake

No doubt!!
At 60 years of old age I am so very happy that we bought more land than we could afford 35 years back!
Very pleased that the sarge was all in with me on that!

There is no cheap land any more

This place I hunt in central Texas is going up for sale at 23,000 an acre. Nothing but juniper and rocks.

I thought I spent some dough at $2600 a acre😵😵😵😵holy schit

$2600? Schidt, you'd have people cutting mama's throat to get a deal like that around here 🤣

Not quite as high as Hanco's neighborhood, but $15k an acre is pretty commonplace. Maybe 10 for flood prone stuff.

$5k per acre is robbery

I sold the parcel this stand sits on last winter[14 acres] for $13.5ac
just pretty SWVA mountain land.
But I was able to retain the hunting rights until such time as any development starts.

The plot I'd been hunting on the past several years sold for about $14/per back in June. He could have gotten more for it, but he was wanting to cash it out quick to buy some other property.

Piece I grew up hunting is selling currently for $6,500/ac

Ten years ago it would have been $1,500/ac

It has gone nuts... stuff around here was $1000-2000 an acre 15-20 years ago. It had been creeping up, but the last 10 it really took off like a rocket.

Here's a 2021 chart of the number of licensed hunters in each state and the % of total population. While VA is below 3%, the top 5 average run from 16 to 23%. The top 5 states are all in a continuous block from Idaho to the Dakotas. The people in the northern Rockies and Great Plains clearly like to hunt.
LINK

10Glocks,

Here is my take on your survey--I too am a data guy and I totally agree with your assessment but do have a few points to ponder.

1) Technology--The current generations are tied to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. and are not outdoors types. This versus the decrease in rural upbringings is spot on.

2) Access--This was brought up many times and I do think it has a bearing on things. I have been up and down the east coast and Midwest (can't speak for out west) and every state I have been in (except Texas) has plenty of WMA land to hunt. Whether it is close or worth hunting is another debate for another time though. I remember when I was a teenager in the 70's, everyone knew everyone nearby and it was nothing for us to hunt and cross several property lines. Not so today!

3 )Poaching--I think this has always been here and always will be. Statistically it won't skew the results as its always been and always will be present

4) Metrics--I agree with you in using the amount of hunting licenses sold as a way of defining how many "hunters" there are as I see no other way to do so. I do wonder how many folks, especially the older ones, still buy a license in the hopes of going afield but never do so. Also, alluding to what Rockcuck was talking about would be what percentage of those "hunters" represent the total population of the state, How many are non-residents or landowners, and success rates. I know tallying these data points would be a monumental task but I bet iot would shed some serious light on the matter.

I do applaud you undertaking this and I do feel you are correct in you basic assertion--hunter numbers are dwindling. GOOD JOB!

Just my 2 cents

The radio this morning said that the Baby Boomer generation is aging out of hunting and the kids today are just not that into it. I'm hunting the National Forest in northern Wisconsin and after last years record snow fall, most of us up here will be only getting exercise. Darn little sign anywhere, so it will likely be a woods without herds or hunters. Back in the '60's our deer camp had 12 guys. I started my own camp and it went to 4. I switched to hunting out of the wife's cottage and it went to 3, then 2 and now I'm doing the solo thing. The big deer are south, so who can blame guys for going there if they can hunt the private farm country. My step kid gets at least one trophy buck every year x-bow or gun and his wife is pissed about their taxidermy bills. His man cave looks like Cabela"s trophy room.

I think there is a huge difference between way back then and today. Way back then the reason to hunt was primarly food. Today is all about sport. I don't see how anyone can afford to lay out the money many do to hunt deer! When I hunted elk I hunted cows. Lot easier to get a cow than a bull and they both pack a lot of meat in the freezer. Missing out on a bull put's nothing in the freezer! Hunting bulls is sport hunting and all hunting is heading that way rapidly!

Quite a few hunters in my area but things are changing. During china flu hysteria, a bunch of idiots from far away states bought up the land and almost doubled property taxes.

Now there is 300 acres across the road from me owned by some guy that moved here from California. There are more cameras than Fort Knox, another 480 acres that ajoins it was bought by 2 out of state doctors, locked up tighter than a nun's cunny. Locales us to ride a bunch of it in the summer, keep trails cleared etc and hunt some in the fall. No more of that.

I’m near Charlottesville. There are a number of older men who punch paper and shoot trap, skeet, etc. Out of 35, maybe a third hunt. Access is not the issue. The hunting population is older. Kids today play video games and care less about hunting.
My own grandkids show no desire to hunt. They like to shoot when the weather permits. Get cold in the woods, hell no.

I'm also tired of point restrictions, special seasons, earn a buck programs etc etc. If you want to shoot a spike, shoot a spike. Deer season should either be open or closed. Do you want to hunt with a bow during open season, have at it.

The way so many hunt these days would have probably turned me off as a kid too. Getting cellphone texts from your game cameras, sitting in a blind over a pile of corn, never walker more than from your atv to your tree house.

I think it may have been for meat or disguised as being for meat back in the 50’s and 60’s. But back then there weren’t any deer in many parts of the country, my local area included. So guys like my Grandad and his friends loaded up and went to Colorado or New Mexico, or Wyoming to deer hunt. That was purely for adventure and sport because even back then it didn’t make financial sense to do it for meat. Sport hunting has been around a long long time, that’s why there’s been lodges and hunting guides for over 100 years now.
Any time you have to travel much distance and take time off work you aren’t making financial sense if you’re doing it “for the meat”.

Muz ldr season opened yesterday here I’ve heard “1” distant shot all weekend

Glocks, like you guys in VA, herein WV we’re blessed to have lots of public land, and ours is pretty well distributed. The patch I hunt is only 1400 acres, split into two closely-located sections, and only 20 minutes away. Again like you, I don’t see many other hunters, though we ran into two Friday while pulling my deer out, both headed to “my” spot. Within an hour or two drive, there’s vast chunks of open hunting land, though some is pretty rugged. As a gimpy old geezer, I’m content with the one nearby, and have it pretty well figured out. There’s a fair crowd during the early part of the regular firearms deer season, but the later ML and primitive season don’t get much traffic.

Private land access here is tough to get, and often comes with a bunch of strings, so I don’t bother trying anymore. Much easier to just jump in the truck and toodle off to the WMA. I just want time in the woods, and some meat. I almost always manage to scratch one or two down, nine beginning in 2018, seven with the arrow-gun, and maybe half a dozen before that starting in 2012, about all we can eat, and all I care to deal with. Lots of squirrels, though I seldom hunt them, predators, and some turkeys. Waterfowl are on the river, but I don’t do that.

My son lives near Richmond, belongs to a club West of there, and just got exclusive access on a nice chunk of private only minutes from his home. He has to deal with the dog hunters on adjacent leases while on the club property, but it’s not too bad for the most part. He ML’d a decent buck yesterday on the club, and didn’t mention the dogs.

Always wanted my own hunting land, but now I realize it would be more work for Grandpa than he wants nowadays.

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.

Really nothing you can do about the bear dog issue the bear trees wherever and the bear population has exploded there actually affecting the deer population

I have hunted lots and lots of public land. For 30 years.

The best advice I have is to find a place deep that isn’t easily reached by a trail or road. Find that, and you will find game and little to no hunters.

Most hunters hunt 200 yards from a road. GPS map tech has made this easier. But also easier for the competition.

There is more to hunting, or not hunting for that matter, due to technology and social media. Montana has always been a great state for hunting, but magazine articles and hunting videos have brought too many people here. You can’t find a magazine on the outdoors without some reference to Montana.

Population of game, access, seasons and bag limits along with a myriad of other factors have polluted the hunting landscape in Montana. Deer and antelope are not what they used to be 20 years ago, but elk are in healthy numbers throughout western Montana and even in many places east of the mountains.

Too much attention has been made public on what a great state for hunting and Montana is paying a price for it. Other states with little or no attention probably have better opportunities and if they are smart, they will keep it to themselves..

I generally go in about a half-mile or so. Often I see no one back there. Most seem to follow along the river, where it’s flatter and more open. That river route goes for close to 1 1/2 miles, then becomes a forest trail. I also like to hunt the heavily-forested ridge on the property. The walk is shorter, but the top is a couple hundred feet above the parking lot. Very pretty woods, worth a little climb.

I think the prototype of glamorous hunting shows will doom it for the younger generation.

They sit, whispering, recording everything, checking trail cams.

Wearing $450 britches, with a $135 plastic pudmore.

Expecting a booner before breakfast.

No real connection with Nature or chance of fun without having to harvest a trophy.

Many women hate hunting season partly because hubby is out of her immediate control, and partly she has take up the slack, like taking the garbage out, letting the dog in and out, etc. The amount of tasks doesn't change, just the available labor force.

Pisses her off....she ain't going to encourage that in her children if divorced.

Pappy makes a good point on working for your game. GMU 15A locally burned in 1969. By the time I moved back here in 1980, it was filthy with moose. I killed my bull every year (a couple times I skipped a year if I had freezer meat- most years I split it 50/50 with someone, letting me hunt every year, and fresh meat).It never took me more than 2 weekends, either. Maybe an extra day or two for packing, depending on area and time of kill.

I always hunted 1-5 miles off the road, with 100% success. No-one back there, at least until airplane access was allowed last 10 days of season. The success ratio for all hunters in the area was 20-25%, because the yo-yo's would not get more than a quarter mile from the road ( and sometimes not out of their vehicle, even, until they saw a moose, if they did), and despite their looks, moose are far from dumb, believing out of sight is out of bullet range.

One evening one year when the second growth was 6-8 feet high, I saw a couple Indian lads "hunting", in a pickup. They were in the cab, rifles in the back-window rack, driving, talking, drinking beer.

Their two women were in the bed of the truck, outside hands clutching the rain gutter, their inside arms linked, each watching their respective road sides for moose.

My wife told me I could just damned-well forget about that!

Very few hunters on the public land just 40 mi. north of Milwaukee this year. Yesterday I actually heard a few shots though. As for me , I shot a doe there on Tuesday, saw nothing Wed. could have shot a few on Friday and Saturday so they are in there. Didnt see a buck though. I am not sure why so many hunters are giving up. It seems like the best is yet to come with less hunters and more deer.. Tough hunting though with all the dead ash trees fallen all over and marsh grass growing over them so you cant see them , then falling ass over tea kettle cause you cant see them. Those deer sure like it though and with all the more sunlight from the trees dying, the grass only grows taller and thicker.

Alabama is over ran with hunters, public and private “clubs”. I hunt public a few times a year, and it’s always packed down here. And the number of folks don’t bother me, it’s the rudeness in the azz holes that do. They’ll pile right on top of you, get set up beside ya and not even care. Be glad y’all ain’t got a lot of hunting pressure up your way.