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Time Magazine Article

Red,

Interesting article. I myself just started hunting relatively "late" in life at the age of 29 after a deer ran into the side my wife's stopped car. I grew up in a non-hunting family in suburban Connecticut, but always wanted to hunt. It just took me a lot of years to get into it. Hopefully I can be more of this article's "solution" to America's whitetail problem.

Dave
 
I'm glad you enjoyed the article Dave. I am from NJ and I'm sure we have the same suburban wildlife problems as you do. Where in Connecticut are you? I'm in North Jersey so we're probably not all that far. Our state is slowly making progress in tackling the urban wildlife problem but there is a long ways to go. In the past 5 years they have reduced the bowhunting safety zone to 50 yards and allowed bowhunting for deer on Sundays on private land and state WMA's. The 2 biggest problems I still see are the lack of access to land and the bag limits. There are tons and tons of suburban areas that I could get into and probably harvest not only a ton of does but some trophy bucks but either there is just no access allowed or they are in towns that have "no discharge" laws which apply to archery as well. I have a wildlife preserve across the street from my house that is a couple thousand acres and there is no discharge within our town. If they were even to sell just a limited number of permits for bowhunters we could help to just control the population. My other issue is our unlimited anterless bag limits in many of our zones. They want to allow hunters to harvest lots of does, but this ends up really just taking a toll on the deer populations on state land as opposed to the areas where the populations really need to be controlled.

Anyways, glad you are part of the solution! ;)
 
Scott,

I moved from CT about 7 years ago (and never hunted there) to take a job in Jacksonville, FL. I then moved to Ocean Pines, MD, Selbyville, DE, Berlin, MD, and finally (I hope) Pittsburgh, PA. We're closing on a house soon and will hopefully be settled so I never have to move again. Since our recent move to PA, I've been searching high and low for hunting land, but it's very difficult. There's a ton of land with monster deer (especially Allegheny County, which is the Pittsburgh Metro area and PA's WMU 2B) but very little permission from private land owners.

Like NJ, PA's 2B WMU has a 50 yard archery safety zone, but much more conservative on the Sunday hunting, buck bag limits, and doe bag limits, although additional doe tags can be purchased. Thankfully, the townships/municipalities in PA cannot regulate discharge laws, as it's purely a state function. As long as you're following state law (proper safety zones, etc.) you're in the clear.

You're correct about the unlimited antlerless bag limits. Even if deer survive the state game land gauntlet they'll either bed down and not come out during the light of day, or find refuge on some "sanctuary land" in one of your "no discharge" towns.

Interesting times indeed.

Good conversation. Hopefully others will chime in as well.

Dave
 
I hope for your sake you are done moving around! Interestingly enough, my parents in law have a place in selbysville and my parents are about to buy a place down there as well.

My best advice will be don't discount public land. There are some big bucks on public land, you just have to work harder than everyone else. I have been hunting my entire life but I have just really taken it to the next level in the past 6 or 7 years since i got out of grad school. Since that point I have probably seen at least 2 P&Y bucks per year on public land. I've taken a few good bucks for public land but I have not been able to close the deal on one of the real big ones myself yet. In 2011 I did put my dad on the "big one", probably the biggest buck he will ever shoot, a 157 1/8 buck on public land (in my tree with me hanging in my saddle above him :D )
 
I'm of the opinion that there is a wallhanger or two in literally every square mile of public land where there are Whitetail deer at all. They may rarely or never be spotted, and in many cases be almost unkillable, but they are there, as their sign will attest, and the diligent hunter can find a way to take them.
 
Sniper4hire said:
I'm of the opinion that there is a wallhanger or two in literally every square mile of public land where there are Whitetail deer at all. They may rarely or never be spotted, and in many cases be almost unkillable, but they are there, as their sign will attest, and the diligent hunter can find a way to take them.
Click to expand...
Agree!
 
I totally agree with Sniper4hire on the 1 or 2 wall hangers per square mile on public lands however there has to be some clarity. In states like Pa., Mi., W. Va., N.Y., and a few others that see tremendous hunting pressure and have poor soil a wall hanger might be a 3 1/2 year old buck that scores just over 100 inches. In lightly hunted states with excellent minerals in the soil such as In., Ia., Il., Ks., Ne., Mo., a public land wall hanger will be quite a bit bigger per same age group so it might take a 125 inch buck to be a wall hanger for those regions.

I sort of relate antler growth to crop yields. In Midwestern states the ground is much more fertile and crop yields are considerably higher per acre than in states with sandy based soil. The same minerals that spur higher crop yields per acre also spur larger antler growth per same age group of bucks. Where I live in northern Michigan a buck on public land (no food plots or nearby crops) has to be at least 3 1/2 years old before he has any chance of having 100 inches of antler. On the public lands I've hunted in Il., Ks., and Ia., it is common to see 2 1/2 year old bucks with 120 inch plus antlers.

My largest public land buck from Michigan was a 6 1/2 year old 165 inch 10 point taken in 1981 and he was the state record muzzleloader buck for quite a while until in-line muzzleloaders were introduced with far longer killing ranges. Just as red mentioned it took a lot of work to get him. He resided on a small island within a cattail marsh with waist high water and I waded (with chest waders) out to the island 3 hours before daybreak to set up for him and it was worth the effort.

My hats off to hunters that hunt public lands because they earn every deer they take and the key is hunting different than the competition. If they hunted in the same manner as the competition, there would be no reason whatsoever to expect different results. Luck will only go so far.
 
John Eberhart said:
If they hunted in the same manner as the competition, there would be no reason whatsoever to expect different results. Luck will only go so far.
Click to expand...

John, I have read all of your books and tons of your articles and I think these 2 sentences sum up your entire philosophy. Well said!
 
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