Private vs. Public in the East

[Dougfirtree]

Nothing Earth-shattering here, but an interesting article with some interesting numbers about where deer are killed in the eastern half of the country. The author's opinion that we need to get more comfortable with paying to hunt makes me bristle, but I agree wholeheartedly with him, that the northeast needs to create more programs to secure public access to private land.

MSN

 

[Deleted member 28227]

Nothing Earth-shattering here, but an interesting article with some interesting numbers about where deer are killed in the eastern half of the country. The author's opinion that we need to get more comfortable with paying to hunt makes me bristle, but I agree wholeheartedly with him, that the northeast needs to create more programs to secure public access to private land.

MSN

 

[Deleted member 28227]

Nothing Earth-shattering here, but an interesting article with some interesting numbers about where deer are killed in the eastern half of the country. The author's opinion that we need to get more comfortable with paying to hunt makes me bristle, but I agree wholeheartedly with him, that the northeast needs to create more programs to secure public access to private land.

How much of the access problem in say VT is posted folks either 1. Hunt their lands themselves or 2. are morally opposed to hunting ?

Do you think there are significant tracts of land that could be opened up?

 

[Dougfirtree]

How much of the access problem in say VT is posted folks either 1. Hunt their lands themselves or 2. are morally opposed to hunting ?

Do you think there are significant tracts of land that could be opened up?

I know lots of landowners who, on the face of it, seem to be somewhat intolerant of hunting. But whenever I dig deeper, whether it's an individual landowner, or some conservation-minded organization that owns the land, I usually find that someone has access to hunt there. It might just be one person who's help they needed at some point, but I think the number of landowners who are utterly opposed to hunting, is relatively small (at least up here and in Vermont. Quite possibly a different story in Westchester County, or the outer Boston area).

Folks hunting their property themselves is a bigger issue, for sure.

So yes, despite limitations, I think there is opportunity for access programs.

I also think that the access issues hunters face should not be just thought of as inconveniences that agencies are powerless to impact. I would not be opposed to linking nuisance permits to public access in some way. I think forest management programs that offer tax breaks, like our 480 program in NY, could also be linked in some way to access. I think it's fair to exert a little pressure on some landowners.

It's ridiculous to think that public land hunting success is ever going to match private land in the east, numerically (and the numbers in the article may not take into consideration private land that is open to public hunting, which is significant in places like Maine), but the numbers are still pretty stark and I think there's room for real improvement.

 

[Jorgy]

Nothing Earth-shattering here, but an interesting article with some interesting numbers about where deer are killed in the eastern half of the country. The author's opinion that we need to get more comfortable with paying to hunt makes me bristle, but I agree wholeheartedly with him, that the northeast needs to create more programs to secure public access to private land.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/9...tp&cvid=7db7c86da65743aa9eeedcf80b426ea4[/URL

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Nothing Earth-shattering here, but an interesting article with some interesting numbers about where deer are killed in the eastern half of the country. The author's opinion that we need to get more comfortable with paying to hunt makes me bristle, but I agree wholeheartedly with him, that the northeast needs to create more programs to secure public access to private land.

MSN

Wisconsin has a great program, managed forest land, which is where you can put your property in the program. you get a tax break on your land. Bigger tax break and people can hunt your land. Smaller tax break and they can't. Basic description to save typing time.

 

[jpc01101]

In KY you pretty much own or lease land or cram into the 4% of land that is public. As far as opening up private land the people who don't hunt lease their land out around here. Getting $10 acre a year here so that's 10k annually for 1000 acres which isn't a bad offset for property taxes, etc. When I'm gone I will instruct my kids who don't hunt for the most part to lease my place out and get as much as they can to offset the ever-increasing property taxes. If game and fish departments want to open up land they need to pay what the market will bear.

 

[Gr8bawana]

9-out-of-every-10-harvested-whitetails-are-taken-on-private-land-here-s-what-that-means-for-deer-hunting-

Couldn't that be simply because that's what most of the land is on the eastern side of the country? There is far less opportunity to hunt on public land over there.

 

[brownbear932008]

9-out-of-every-10-harvested-whitetails-are-taken-on-private-land-here-s-what-that-means-for-deer-hunting-

Couldn't that be simply because that's what most of the land is on the eastern side of the country? There is far less opportunity to hunt on public land over there.

Not so in many areas. Between WMA property and NF I could hunt a different drainage each year for the rest of my life in my State. The biggest problem is NF timber isn't managed well and much of the State property is similar and deer numbers are low. Most game agencies mismanage hunting seasons combined with that.

 

[Mtnhunter1]

I think that if Montana would implement mandatory harvest reporting, with a "check the box" private or public, folks would be shocked....and in 10 years, they'll be horrified.

 

[Keep on]

If I didn't have access to a private farm in my area, I wouldn't hunt the rifle season on public. Pumpkin patch doesn't begin to cover the circus that is public land around here.
I think people would be even more shocked if they quantified average antler sizes public vs private in the East.

 

[np307]

9-out-of-every-10-harvested-whitetails-are-taken-on-private-land-here-s-what-that-means-for-deer-hunting-

Couldn't that be simply because that's what most of the land is on the eastern side of the country? There is far less opportunity to hunt on public land over there.

2MM out of 33MM acres in NC are public game land. 3% of all deer killed in the state are killed on that 2MM acres.

 

[Bullshot]

No problem finding public land to hunt even in many of the crowded eastern states. You need a LOT less room to roam when chasing whitetails and eastern areas generally, public areas particularly, are thick brush and wooded and often include low/wet ground. Western hunters (for as limited as they are in their # of deer tags available to them) would have a tough adjustment to eastern public land hunting as a result of that even though it would give them access to practically unlimited whitetails, and many big ones, coyotes, fox, turkey, small game, plus bears in a lot of areas too. I’d love to see Wyoming plates at one of my spots, but it will never happen in my lifetime. By me, almost every private land or farm of any size already allows hunting by themselves, friends, or hunt club lease. With no public access, they serve as “sanctuaries” to a large number of deer but since its not migratory herds, they are there year round and landowners must be pretty OK with that.

 

[howl]

In Georgia, rifle hunts on public are intended as uncoordinated man drives. DNR figures out how many they can pack onto an area to meet harvest requirements. They do not depend on hunter skill. Many of these require a point or two to draw. There are some quota hunts which focus on quality hunting. You'll need several years of accruing points to draw.

I lost two leases last year to sale o someone from out-of-state who was not going to lease the property. One lease had been held and renewed for 12 years. The other was 20+. The trend in the past few years is investors and yankees have been buying up land and not leasing it. Investors are putting money into real estate because stocks are a mess or their country's real estate market is the same. Large tracts are either not being hunted or being hunted little by very few. Land that is available for lease goes to the highest bidder most of the time. The old days of fair prices to maintain a long term mutually beneficial relationship with a landowner are fading fast. Prices are going nuts to the point you could as well buy a guided deer hunt and come out the same or ahead in many cases. If I couldn't kill deer on my few acres I'd probably just buy a beef and stick to small game.

I contacted every landowner with suitable land for my wants in my county and several around. I did not find any land available for lease. We got some angry phone calls from anti-hunters with strange accents, though.

 

[CorkyM]

I may not understand the question correctly but…………I have been hunting deer in Pennsylvania since 1964. A big deer hunting state. Mostly private and some public. By public that means State Game Lands that is run by the Pennsylvania Game Commission. And there are plentiful state game lands throughout the state in the various counties. I have killed about 4 deer, as my memory is not so good, on one state game land that was a very small acreage state game land in Lehigh County. Since I moved away I don’t know if it’s even part of the States land anymore because there was new development starting to spring up around it. As far as the other public lands I have hunted the hunting pressure is so great there that I never have seen one deer, and that’s off and on since 1964. In 1969 I started hunting on private land on a farm and the surrounding woods. The deer are there and so are a very few other hunters. I have killed ABOUT 33 deer on this property. I will stick with the private land. And sometimes on the public land you come across hunters that don’t know a deer from a steer. They come up from the big city, and they are dangerous. Now, my experiences on public land may not reflect everyones experiences who hunt or who have hunted there.

 

[Elkhunter24]

I live in PA and have a private farm and a camp that borders state. As a group we much rather hunt the state ground and there is a pile of it in my area. I hunt everything on state anymore as I like the challenge of it. Our group of guys kill some good bucks every year and we kill a good number of bears all on state. I get much more out of that on state than I do on our private ground. I like the challenge and putting all the time and hard work into finding feed and the scouting. Let’s face it there are some very lazy people/ hunters anymore who would rather walk 10 yards off the road and shot one in a field then to go explore and find new places way back in.

 

[Kentucky Jack]

In KY you pretty much own or lease land or cram into the 4% of land that is public. As far as opening up private land the people who don't hunt lease their land out around here. Getting $10 acre a year here so that's 10k annually for 1000 acres which isn't a bad offset for property taxes, etc. When I'm gone I will instruct my kids who don't hunt for the most part to lease my place out and get as much as they can to offset the ever-increasing property taxes. If game and fish departments want to open up land they need to pay what the market will bear.

Not sure what part of Kentucky your in but $10 an acre is pretty cheap. In western Kentucky it's over $20 an acre. I know of a 25 acre plot that they get 25k a year for. Just this year I also found out that some leases are now weekly. Couple thousand and it's yours for a week, then the next week it's another group for same price. That's some pretty hefty change considering how long our season is. Unfortunately Kentucky is a pretty cheap state to get tags in so we get tons of out of state hunters who go in together for leases! The Amish bringing family down during rifle season don't help either but that's a different issues all together!

 

[jpc01101]

The $10 acre reference is heavily logged forest/thicket. I can see ag land going for much much more. I can see companies like landtrust (essentially Airbnb for day leases) becoming very popular in the near future.

 

[Mtnhunter1]

$20/acre to hunt a whitetail? It is extremely depressing to think what hunting was and what it will be in not to distant future.

 

[VAspeedgoat]

As mentioned, the only way for the state to open up private ground is to pay the going rate to lease it. I don't ever see this happening.

In my area of the state, guys used to come from many other states to hunt the national forest. I'd estimate the deer numbers are 1/4-1/2 what they were 30 years ago. When I was a boy, i once counted 30 shots before noon and that didn't count shot strings. Three years ago, my buck was the only deer I saw all day and my shot was the only shot I heard in the exact same area. As brown bear mentioned, national forest land is badly mismanaged.

 

[Steiny77]

I own approx. 400 acres in IN & IL and lease another 280. Saw a long time ago where things were headed with hunting around here, so got some ground tied up that we could control. Since I began hunting in the early 70's I'd guess at least 60% of the woodlots, marshes, fencerows and otherwise game holding habitat have been bulldozed and turned into crop fields which hold no game and provide no cover from harvest till summer green up. The areas of remaining habitat still provide some decent hunting, and you can still get permission to hunt some of these farms but hunter density and competition is high.

Regarding lease costs, we pay $20/acre for our leased ground, split four ways it's a very reasonable price for quality hunting. $1400 For a property to yourself and around (100) days of quality deer hunting opportunity. A week long trip out west to hunt muleys or antelope even DIY will cost about that much.

Note - There are some pretty darned good, large public properties in these areas a guy could hunt and probably be successful on if willing to put in the work. Hunt these places on weekdays and they're not very crowded.