Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire High Fenced Hunting

sad part is they tend to be a tad more accurate than NWS

seen alot of pheasants and sharptail yet within a mile north of the river but if we get more snow they are pretty screwed......they are hanging on OK at the moment......we always seem to be on the edge, Scobey and you guys always have way more snow than we have and Circle usually has hardly any with us somewhere in the middle depending on how the storms catch us.....surprising the difference in that 90 miles between Circle and Scobey when there aint really anything there to change the weather patterns

All you have to do to get away from the crowds on public land is to walk more than a half mile from a road. Studies and my personal observations over more than a few year have proven that one out. Pretty close to 90% of guys stay within 400 yards of the road or trail that got them there.

Depends on where that public hunting land is....anything within 150 miles of Houston is going to be a traffic jam in the woods during the first 2 weeks of rifle season. No matter how far in the woods you go....to many logging roads available with easy access.

Personally, I think Alaska should be made into a nature preserve. Sort of like Yellowstone and Yosemite but, allow natives to hunt. There aren't many non-natives in Alaska, so may as well save it while we can from the white man.

Maybe fence it?

I don't think I should be able to do anything on private land without permission. I also don't think the landowner should profit from that which he doesn't own. The more money a trophy elk or mule deer (or anything else) is worth, the more money it costs to lease the land that holds them. The more that people are willing to pay, the more people that will be priced out of the market and the more crowded public lands will become. When quality hunting is something that only the wealthy enjoy then I guess all is lost. The simple solution is to lose leasing and destroy the "market value" of wildlife.

I hear ya, but that aint always the case or that feasible. I went along with my father in law on an elk hunt in Utah some years ago and I saw what was the most depressing situation one could imagine. If your familiar with Utah or the SW layout, its kind of unique. You could have a mountain surrounded by desert scrub brush or oaks and the only place you'll find elk, is on that mountain. We were in an area where the hunters were only given spike elk tags. And this mountain is split basically in half with one half of it or near 25,000 acres is private land. In the first day of hunting , enough pressure had been created by all the hiking, atv'ing, and truck driving elk hunters that most of the elk just ran to the other side of the mountain and went onto the private land. The road that we were camped off of was the road that took you to the gate of this private ranch, and every vehicle of hunters we saw go by had a license plate from a state other than Utah. Those guys were paying upwards of $7,000 to shoot any bull on this ranch. One day my father in law and I rode up to the ridge top were the fence was that seperated the public from private property and there were elk running all over the place on the private land side (and some dandy bulls to boot). I looked at my father in law and said this is crazy, and he just sadly looked at me said......"Tell me about it!". But then again....its the private land owners right to do with what he wants on that land and the fact that the State of Utah has distinguished his ranch as a CWMU and allowed him to sell 34 total tags, elk and mule deer combined, it just makes for a whole new element to hunting. Met several guys that trip that were friends of my FIL that used to be able to hunt on that ranch before it became big business but no longer can. This chit is a double edged sword, and figuring out a solution aint easy, but my view is that it aint getting any better anywhere, only worse. Out of about 12 elk hunters that we saw and visited with each night, only one spike bull was taken.

Wake up call buddy, the same affluent bunch I mentioned earlier are azzing up hunting up here too, and have been doing so for a while. They get tired of hunting private ranches for elk and deer in the lower 48 and then head our way each year for bear,moose,bou,sheep, goats, and whatever else. Their guides and outfitters have cleaned out entire units of sheep, monopolized local air transporters and strategically kept resident hunters out of many places. We aint exempt to this mess, we just are as [bleep] as many places in the lower 48 are, but give it time and I suspect we'll be there too! And I didn't even mention the fact that we have been losing what was state public land to the natives each and every year as they finish up hashing out the whole ANCILA deal.

South Texas is the king of the lease fee, but you can still get on a bunch of land down south for $2000 per gun, which includes quail, dove, hogs, etc....not $5000+ for a trophy whitetail on the King Ranch. $2000 isn't chump change to a lot of people, but I don't pay it because it's simply to far for a weekend hunt from Houston....I don't do 7 hour drives for a 2 day hunt anymore. Our lease fee is $1350 per gun. 2 bucks, 3 does and pigs till you drop....65 miles from the house. (includes electricity!) Oct through Feb....that ain't bad. And a LOT of places much cheaper. A good hunt down here starts with the hunt for a lease.

What about the young guy with a kid or two? Or the Senior on a fixed income? They can maybe afford a rifle and tag and some gas to get there but $1300 extra could be am impossible for many.

Selling public owned animals is not right.

Maybe you can get Obama to subsidize hunting for the poor since everyone should be able to do it no matter their economic level.

Taken care of already- called road kill

Oh [bleep] them. That's their problem. We'll make it a rich mans game and then we'll have the same kind of hunting they have in Europe.

What is the percentage of hunters to non-hunters in Europe?


Travis

This is a hard thread to stay away from.

Generally speaking, when a person wants to limit what a person can do on his own land, he doesn't own any. miles

Same thing I did with a kid, found public hunting area and dealt with it until I could afford to hunt where I WANTED.

Couple of bucks in gas, a license, tag, gun, knife, and bullet is all thats needed for a young guy that lives next to me.
The whole package can be done at well under $500 and the gun is good again next year so cost could be as low as about $50.

All that's needed is to stop the theft of public owned property.
Stop the Government from allowing the selling of public animals is all that is needed, no subsidies necessary.

Can I buy a lion from the govt? Always wanted a lion.

They aren't selling the animals but I guess you'll never admit that.

If you got your wish I can tell you what would happen. Ban leasing land or charging trespass fees to hunt and landowners will either post their land or only allow their family and friends to hunt for free and the rest of us, willing to pay or not, are all going to be jammed onto the remaining public land.


That is unless you want the government to force the property owners to totally give up their rights and have to allow free hunting to all on their own land they paid for and pay taxes on. If that's the case then people would also be able to come use your swimming pool, or have a BBQ in your backyard because they can't afford their own. It's only fair, right?

NO? They are selling access to those animals I understad that, or so they say.
I wonder what that same rancher would charge a guy to go out and take wild life pictures?
Get real my friend.

Mountain Lion tags are just a few dollars here, in fact I have one, and take a 243 along every day I work at the ranch.

Lucky me, I hunt on 28,000 acres and it's only costing me $100 a year. I can take a whitetail buck, a doe, a spike, unlimited hogs, 2 gobblers, 1 Axis buck and 1 Axis doe. Free rifle range to 1000 meters, free archery range out to 60 yards. All within 20 miles of my house. Only in America.

Whatever the market will bear. There isn't much demand for wildlife photo access. In fact you can look at photo safaris versus the real thing in Africa. Hunting safaris make lots more money than the photo kind.


There is a reason pretty hookers get more money than ugly ones too, even though they're selling the same thing. I'm quite real, thanks.