Top_Heavy's World

I recently read an article that the overall number of hunters was down in the United States, but the license numbers were up. They say less people are hunting more. I guess I am finally seeing changes as they creap into my areas, but I don't understand the results. I recently lost a 300 acre property in Missouri. It wasn't really very good for trophy hunting or for managing for bucks, it backed up to the Mark Twain Refuge, a huge public hunting area by Monroe City. There was a fair strip of public land between our north fence and the water, so deer hunting was a zoo! Opening day sounded more like duck season or World War 2... we heard hundreds of shots some days. We used this trip as a doe harvesting weekend. Jody and I would shoot 4 to 7 deer in a short weekend and be back at work on Monday. This trip was fun, but we only saw 8 or 10 deer with antlers in 4 years. We must have done a good job with the hunter/landowner relations, as we were the first group to be allowed to hunt the brushy land in almost 15 years. Many of the locals would talk about hunting there before the house was built, but not after. Now that the landowner was comfortable with the whole hunter idea, he decided to pay the taxes on the property, with the sale of hunting rights. I graciously backed out of that venture and I got a couple more properties in Iowa for the rifle season. My property in South East Iowa is now "open to the public". The wonderful man who owns the property allowed another man and I to hunt as his first group since he bought the property. We hunted in peace for 5 years, passing many 140+ deer each year. 3 years ago the 140" deer became tough to find, one year we never saw a deer that big. The landowner started letting a group hunt during the 2nd shotgun season and they shot anything. The group would take about 10 deer per year, mostly does, but it changed the buck pattern for late season dramatically. Soon there was another late season hunter with a blackpowder rifle. The following year another man was allowed to fall turkey hunt, during archery deer season, and he always had a grandson or two with him. Pushing turkeys is not my style and it is really less than fun to be bow hunting on the farm when they decide to show up and hunt. If there are less hunters, I can't see how, most of my properties have multiple hunters on them now, my secret spots are getting surrounded... I guess each hunter has more options for locations?! I got a call this morning from my SE Iowa landowner telling me about the 1st season turkey hunter... he hunted my food plot and called in 2 big toms, he picked the best looking one and was done by 7:30... I guess it is time to look for a new property there as well.

I am not complaining, I have taken my 7 best deer during the toughest, past 3 years, but the pressure from other hunters sure takes some of the fun away. I hope everyone finds a place to hunt, it just makes it tough to believe that overall hunter numbers are down!