One week until the opening of deer season here in Texas. The little blacktop in front of my house looks like a major migration route for the migratory Nimrod.

Started on Thursday with those who had called in sick to work and came this way hauling trailers full of box stands, ladders, camp furniture, bedding, feeders both animal and human. Friday the flow increased and yesterday was full flood even in the rain.

Got in our first really cool weather yesterday and while I was sitting at the feed store drinking soda water and eating peanuts every camoflaged 4X4 pickup and hunting van in the world stopped by. All the drivers and passengers hit the ground more or less snorting and pawing the earth.
They were keeping the loaders busy loading corn, salt blocks, game pellets, molasses blocks, and every gimcrack that they could think of. No matter if they sould have had that stuff out for the last month, Jerry, the store owner was grinning like a jackass eating prickley pear and ringing up the sales. He was also selling batteries, knives, boots, tarps and nails, rope, ammo, and every thing else you could think of. One guy even bough a fifty pound sack of deer patch seed though Lord knows what he intends to do with it at this late date.

The Dollar store next door was seeing a steady traffic loading up on cheap groceries and toilet paper. Lots of toilet paper, and Rolaids. Grease loaded chili plays hell with innards un-used to it. Bottled water by the case was flying out the door.

It would have been worth your life to walk through the hunting section of the local Wally World. Guns waving around in the air and knives fit to put fright in Grizzly bears flashing. Looked like clearance day at Foley's with all the sports trying on cammo hunting gear in the aisles. One guy was down to his skivies right there in the middle of the store. Hell with the dressing rooms he was in a hurry.

I wouldn't be surprised to hear a couple of sneaky booms late this evening either.

Next Friday up to mid-night the roads will be racetracks.

Deer season is here again.



BCR

Don't ya just love the antics of the last minute clowns. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

You should see a bunch of Okie's. Only have a nine day gun season and they let out school and roll up the sidewalks for nine days. Don't sell any stands or corn and such but BEER sales will increase by 10X. A truck bed full of beer and the cab full of guns makes you feel real comfortable when you see these guys loadin up and headin out to the woods. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> But luckily it turns out pretty good any way. These guys where raised doing this been passed down for generations.

The woods is full here in Northern Minnesota too. Every year the same thing; road hunters creaping slowly past my house trying to get a sighting of the local deer herd. I bought my little hundred acres 6 years ago for $9,900 and it just happened to be the local keystone to several thousand acres of woods, bog, and swamp to the south and east of me. I have the only open fields along the edge of this wonderland of game and I don't allow hunting except for my family and a couple of friends.

Each year the "Pumpkin Army" lines up along the dirt road bordering my land and shoot past the house at the deer. Last year a young fellow, having shot a doe a couple of hundred feet to the north of the house, knocked on my door and wanted to know if he could drive across the yard to pick up his deer.

Two years ago on opening morning I went to my stand and found a hunter in it. I called the game warden and he came out and explained that the locals had hunted this land for several generations and they were slow to understand that now it was closed. When I insisted that something be done he threatened to give my a ticket for hunter harassment. Now this is happening on my land, well within the clearly marked survey hubs, and the property is posted with no hunting signs about every 50 feet.

The season opens in 13 days, then for the next 16 days I can't have the Grandchildren out to visit for fear they will be shot.

I don't believe that I have ever seen a group of people so desparate to kill something.

Am I missing something here. Land in Minnesota looks to be pretty cheap compared to my neck of the woods. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

We paid $5900 for the back 60 and $4000 for the front forty. I hear that some folks pay more but our land is zoned agricultural and around half of it is in old pasture the rest is Tamarack, Paper Birch, Jack Pine, and Norway Spruce.

We drilled a well to 85 feet and hit water at 295 a minute. I don't know maybe some folks would rather spend their money on ATV's, Snow Mobiles, and 4-Wheel drives than on land, so they can spend their free time hunting and trespassing on mine and everyone else's land?

$5,900 for the whole 60 acres. So that breaks down to $98.33 per arce and $100.00 per acre for the front 40. Please correct me if this is wrong.

I never did the "gozintu" for the back 60 but it was less than $100 acre and the front forty was $100 an acre. Bought the 60 from one party and the 40 from another. We paid cash and got a clear title with all of the required abstracts. It's a good piece of land for grazing cattle if one was so inclined, and my wife is so inclined. Maybe this year coming we'll by a few head of cattle as I am finishing a 40'X45' pole barn and will have some shelter.

I think we made a fair deal on the land, some say we paid too much, others told me it was about right for this part of the country.

So far we've built a new house on the land, three out 20'X20' outbuildings, and now the pole barn. We have seen moose, black bear, Spruce grouse, Sharptail grouse, Ruff Grouse, coyotes, wolves, fishers, martins, Bald Eagles, and scads of deer right in the yard.

This past summer about 20 members of my family and friends were having a cookout and a cow moose ran right through the yard. That was kind of cool. The grandkids thought it was really cool.

But, yeah it was less than $100 per acre for the whole deal. The only down side is the trespassers during hunting season.

Dang land is cheap there. Good pasture land here will run you from $650 to $800 a acre. You can find some $ 350 to $500 a arce but it will be full of saw brairs and boisarc thickets that you can't walk thru or has had all the timber cut and is in need of a couple hundred dollars per arce dozer work to clean up. If it has desent standing timber it will be around $500 to $550.

I've never been to Oklahoma but I have been to South Oklahoma (some call it Texas). Two of my kids were born there: one on Galveston and one in Jasper. I've worked the waterfronts as longshoreman all over south east Texas and Lousiana and find the weather mild in winter and warmer in the summer. Lots of folks head south from here for the weather.

Here we don't have poison snakes 'cause the mosquitoes and wood ticks have killed them all. Our summer can pass in an afternoon. We haven't been able to grow a tomatoe outside in nine years of trying; they always are taken by the frost. Some years it frosts every month of the year and my poor wife has planted her flowers four or five times some years and never had them live. Winter can get to as much as -60 without the windchill and the ground can freeze up to 9 feet down as it did this past winter in some areas. I'm currently cutting up my 12 (twelve) cords of firewood for next winter so it can season for a year.

I guess there is a reason for land to be farily cheap here, but I've yet to figure it out. Maybe it's because no one can read a no trespassing sign?

I just thank God I don't Live in the USA with all those people.

300 million living on that itty bitty piece of land..................

Boggy. Where do all those people hunt? I thought Texas had no public land to speak of. Are they leases or Trespass fee type hunts?

Haggis. You would be better off, contacting a few of the locals and offering them hunting privleges in return to police the land for others.
But here is the main proble. Now I'm not flaming you because it 's your land and you paid for it. It is all to common for out of town folks to come in a buy a piece of land and then put up No Trepass Signs to the locals. It happens all over the US. Ranches that use to be 1000-10000 acres are divided up into 40 acre ranchettes and hunting is shut down.
Seeing that the local law didn't want to enforce your rights, I can only imagine your attitude when talking to him.

OK so you don't like hunters. Your neighbors figures this as an unneighborly thing, and you end up not being accepted by the community and stay an outsider. You will go a lot further offering a bit honey, rather than vinegar. You're not going to stop it, so you might as well join forces with a few of the locals. Give them hunting privleges or charge trespass fees adn have them do the confrontation with other hunters.

Saddlesore

I get where you�re coming from on �fitting in� with the locals. I guess it�s a curmudgeon thing with me if the scenario has to be; �If they won�t let me have my own land then I can choose to give it to them.�

The history, which will bore most to tears, is that a timber company bought the land well over a hundred years ago for the white pine. They kept it for many years and then let it go for back taxes. The county took it over and created a wildlife refuge on the area and then later decided to sell all of the land for the value of the land and timber. Two guys looked at the map and realized they could control all of the land for the price of the hundred acres at the entrance. One guy bought 40 acres and later moved to California. The other guy bought 60 acres, died of old age, left it to his daughter, and she had no use for it.

The 60 acres had an easement across the 40 acres so none of the locals had an interest in buying it and building a quarter mile of road to get to it. I bought the 60 from the daughter who was ready to retire from her job and move to Florida. I did some leg work and found out that the guy that owned the 40 was still alive, albeit older than rock by about two days, and he didn�t want me to build a road across �his� land. I offered to buy his 40 and the purchase gave me control of the old refuge. (Needless to say some of his would be heirs have come to me pi$$ing blood over the sale, but I have a clear title to the land.)

I understand that the locals feel it�s their land because of traditional usage, but things change. As for fitting in, it is also a tradition here that outsiders will always be outsiders. The only friendly people I�ve met up here in our 9 year residence are also outsiders. I guess if the only way that I can be accepted is to kiss their collective @$$�$ then I will remain an outsider.

I live on the land and my family of 5 kids, 9 grandkids (with more coming), and a variety of son-in-laws and daughter-in-laws live in the area now. In another generation I will have turned to dust and my descendants will be the locals, and they will still control the old refuge. If their smart, they�ll keep it.

Always seemed to me that if I owned a desirable piece of land like Haggis' little piece o' heaven, I'd probably post it but with a phone number on the sign -- so anyone who isn't too lazy to pick up the #$!% phone can call and get permission, if they are polite and the place isn't being hunted that day by family and friends.

My family acquired a farm in Bracken County, KY in 2001. Unknown to us was that the locals treated it like public land. The first year, I chased off 10 parties of hunters, who did not read my posted signs. It took diligence. It took taking out an ad in the local paper. It took ripping stands off trees. It took getting stern with a few people. I called the game warden three times, and he never returned my call, but I fixed the problem without him.

This year, my deer and turkey are in much greater abundance. I'm not seeing strange ATV tracks, and strange gut piles. My neighbors are also beginning to follow suit. In our area it was high time the landowners took back the land, and we are reaping the benefits. Things were getting out of hand all over our part of the county, and it's now beginning to turn around.

The thing I told a few hunters was this: the only way I can be sure of someone's safety in the woods is to control access. Folks who don't check in with the landowner are a danger to themselves and to others. No one is going to get shot on my watch-- period.

Make sure your land is properly posted and take out a classifed in the local paper. Make sure your classified states that only written permission will be given. Once that's done, here are some handy tips for DIY pacher management:

1) At the access points to the property, put up a signs that say:

"DAY LEASES AVAILABLE $250/day" along with your phone.

When they call, tell them you're booked solid. Few people want to mess with a leasee that's paid money, and they'll stay out. Make sure you take names and numbers for a "waiting list."

2) If you run into a hunter in the woods, let them know the place is leased out and unavailable for the year, and that they need to leave. While you're at it, offer to keep their name on a waiting list. Take the name and phone number. Once they figure out what's happened, they probably won't come back.

3) Concoct a couple juicy stories about how the phantom leaseees are running folks off. Spread them around the local feed store, bar etc. If the locals think there's someone lurking in the woods that has no respect for human life, your place will be left alone.

4) Make your access as hard to use as possible. Put up chains, gates, and padlocks. Block roads you're not using, and be sure to post everything.

Don't be too confrontational with people. Locals told me stories of folks getting barns and houses set on fire from disaffected poachers. Keep the blame off yourself. Be a nice guy.

I actually had fun the first year hunting poachers-- it was far more interesting than hunting deer. Once I explained that hunting was going to be by written permission only, most guys left and never came back. One group of leasees from the neighboring plot kept straying over onto my land, and I had it out with the leasor. He was less than responsive. It cost him $5000 to acquire an adjoining parcel so that his guys wouldn't have to travel across my land to get to their lease.

I caught another guy trying to slip his ATV under my chain across the road. He'd gotten the handlebars stuck. I helped him out, and then told him politely not to come back. He didn't.

shaman, I used to hunt in Bracken Co. The Farmer that always gave us permission died a few years back and we never did go back. Next to the last year we hunted there I noticed he couldn't remember us or was having a hard time at it in the least. I talked to his wife later and she told me his health was failing pretty fast. He then died the next spring. That was the year another farm across from his had been sold and was being converted into a horse farm, that person had lost several mare's and colts that spring, and they said it was from eating the fescue grass that was on the farm. All I ever seen growing on it was cedar trees. These farms were located just outside Mt. Olivet near a Gas transmission plant, do you have any idea where this is?

Saddlesore,
There are three kinds of hunters in the influx of camo that is crawling over the county.
1 and the largest group are deer lease guys and gals. You can lease anything that ain't bald open praire for good money here.
2 Kids and grandkids and friends come to hunt granpa's old place.
3 Mom and Pop have retired to their fifty to seventy-five acre ranch in the country and all their kin are seeing how many guns they can crowd onto the place.

Thats where they come from.

BCR

It sounds a lot like our place-- except for the horses and the exact location. The pastures are almost entirely fescue, and if you let it go a few years, cedar trees crop up everywhere. I talked to the biologist about the fescue eradication program. The problem is that the replacement seed is so doggone expensive, it'd cost an arm and a leg just to get started. The cows eat it just fine, however. So we'll probably keep it-- fescue is great for controlling erosion

It's a coincidence, I'm sure, but the circumstances sounds familiar too. The owner died in 1982 and the house was uninhabited until we took it on in 2001. They say he got to being a bit senile towards the end. We're about halfway between Falmouth and Brooksville about a half-mile from Roosters' as the crow flies. That's the problem with out that way: no money in tobacco anymore, and no money in beef until recently. The old guys stayed put and died, and the younguns moved off. The land's too hilly for crops, and too far out of Cincy for development.

For a deer and turkey hunter, however, that's just right.

I used to hunt birds just outside Mt Olivet, and I also almost bought a parcel near there. It's about a half hour away from us.

The woods are going to get fuller in Kerr County tomorrow. We are heading out. I've hunted there since 1977, and love the place.
Weather looks great for sun bathing, but who cares? Good fun will be found among old friends no matter what. I'll wave to the east when we go through Waco. Luck to you. Bob <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

My family and I started a home grown deer management project about 10 years ago. It was successful, too successful!

After collecting several above average bucks, word got around. We now spend 1/2 of each fall chasing off people without permission to hunt. Like you, we found the game wardens less than useless. We turned to the county prosecuter. Now, anyone armed with a firearm or bow, that refuses to leave or becomes belligerent, gets hauled off for criminal trespass or brandishing a weapon.

We have also had to resort to destroying our own access roads to keep people out.

We've had shots fired into our houses and outbuildings, fires, treestands stolen, gates and fences pulled down, cattle herded out into state roads, gut piles almost year round and one idiot sued us because his 10 year old wrecked his 4 wheeler on our road, 20' past a 2 day old no trespassing sign.

I've even had to call a tow truck to pull pickups out of the way so I could go to work.


We as a community, have begun to band together, to protect each others property. The only way to stop it is to prosecute, till the word gets around. And it seems that the poachers etc. are starting to steal or destroy each others 4 wheelers.

Our big problem is someone inherits or buys a half acre, then thinks he owns everthing in the surrounding 1,000 acres.

Bobb I'll wave back. You wouldn't be sneaking off work a tad early would you? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

I an beginning to hear rumbles south of me. I think Houston is about to move. Mass exodus.

I hear the hill country is good this year so lots of luck to you Bobb. Half the fun is good friends and good times in a place you like.


BCR

Hunting land in Wisconsin is going for $1,500 to $3,000 per acre. The larger the parcel, the more expensive per acre. The price tends to derease the farther away you get from Chicago.

TERRY8mm

Do you have any leases open at the time? Let me know if so, also my youngest Son may be interested as well.