Posted on 02/03/2020 6:45:21 AM PST by Alas Babylon!
What do you bag them with? A crossbow?
There are parts of Long Island, NY where there are so many deer in suburban neighborhoods that they hire archery hunters to come in and cull the herd.
Another place with major deer problems are the Casco Bay island off the Portland, ME coast. These are islands within a 1/4 mile to 1 mile from the mainland. Deer swim across to them. Once they are on the island, there are no predators. Also, there is no hunting with a gun. There are so many deer that the homeowners have to cover their postage stamp lots with deer fencing to keep them from eating their flowers and shrubs. I have seen this personally on Peaks Island. It is a 15 ferry ride from downtown Portland, ME.
Oh, they get it. They’ll just start clamoring for fees from some other outdoor activities. I saw something last week about NY State selling access to the park system for — I kid you not — stargazing!
California is also lamenting a drop in income for the highway fund from gasoline sales. They correctly attribute this to electric vehicles & hybrids. California is busily looking at other taxation schemes.
Those are good examples of how common sense has evaporated.
Same for me, except in my case it’s while sitting on the front porch.
Pick your buck, the average range would be about 80 FEET.
“I get a lot of crap on FR for being a New Yorker”.
It’s ignorance. Some people hear ‘New York’ and NYC comes to mind. It’s a big state.
I was stationed at West Point for a summer and we had a great time on weekends traveling around that part of the state and along the Hudson. One would never know that NYC was just down the road.
Invasive species with no natural predator (except us).
Tales abound of .223 just ricocheting off their skulls, anything much less than a .357 or 30:06 just makes ‘em mad.
The bear was young, the wife rendered the fat, absolutely beautiful, sparkling snow white. We just had spiced bear loin, sous vide, so tender you couldn’t come close with the most expensive veal.
I also grow most of our own food. You’d be gobsmacked at the list of what we have stored and preserved.
I raised my boys to hunt, started them at 5 years old going overnight, 2-3 mile backpack trips in, up at 4 a.m., on the mountain in stand by 6 a.m. taught my wife to hunt. One year, November, apron on, she’s cooking the turkey. Deer run into the front garden (I had taken the fence down), she grabs her rifle, out the back door around the porch, fires, knocks one down, takes a picture holding the deer and rifle with her apron on, asks me to take care of the deer, and she goes back in to cooking.
It is just how we roll.
Here in Utah, they have made getting a tag for the area you want to hunt into a lottery. Folks that choose to live in the urban areas have the same odds of getting a tag in my county as us locals do. If that fails, they can buy tags from the big landowners. Somehow the folks with money always do OK. The rest of us pay our entry fees and pray.
It also seems odd they they limit the hunting in someas, then go in at night and have”removals”. That’s DWR speak for jack lighting elk under the premise of management. Can’t let some poor slob take that elk, nope, we’ll shoot them by moonlight and Qbeam, in the summer.
I hunt small game locally, but for anything else I go to Texas. At least there they don’t mind calling it pay to play.
The folks who think and talk like if it doesn’t score xxx points, your a loser, have not helped our sport either.
“Deer hate dogs.”
LOL! Not my wife’s pit mix! I think the local deer herd made her an honorary doe. She likes to just go out back and watch the deer feed in her yard. She watches, the deer eat. They’ll walk up to within 10 - 12 yards of a rather large dog.
My dogs (Kangals) kill and eat the deer.
My family didn't get here until around 1900 {but we didn't own slaves, so I ain't paying} but I've been hunting since 1950, so I guess the only solution, is to raise the price of licenses. S/Off
Caption, please!
Fifteen?? Why so late?? Down in S. Louisiana where I grew up, the age is more like eight. The local weekly paper (to which I still subscribe, though living far, far away) routinely publishes pictures of young hunters (quite often female) with their "firsties".
Where’s here, and does your wife have sister?
Add to that the number of vehicle/deer collisions.
The main cause of that here in Michigan is the growing number of subdivisions being built in wooded areas which are forcing the deer to survive in the wooded pockets that are left standing.
Where I live, there's a wooded area at the south end of my complex that is only about a tenth of a mile square with an eight lane highway on the south side of that. There's five deer in there that I have seen and it's only a matter of time before one of them gets hit in the traffic. It happens every year.......
“Fifteen?? Why so late”?
Because 15 was the age of the oldest when he got his. But he got his first elk at 11.
My brother Tim got his first deer at 7. His first elk at 12.
I guess Louisiana could be considered a little late for some.
And we grew up on a big ranch and didn’t have to bother with hunting licenses or game wardens.
Hunting peaked in 1982.
It’s decline is from a combination of boomers aging out of hunting (and fishing and golfing), other activities (like videogaming) attracting younger generations, a lowering white male demographic, less hunting land made available or at higher fees and the school/media anti-gun Indoctrination over the decades. An article on it...
https://www.outdoorlife.com/why-we-are-losing-hunters-and-how-to-fix-it/
Some old hunting pics...https://www.wideopenspaces.com/good-old-days-30-old-time-hunting-photos-pics/
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