TheHeadTurkey
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Man, I like the sound of that.
VA Elk Hunt Help!
- Thread starter AvidIndoorsman
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TheHeadTurkey
Member
- Joined
- Apr 27, 2021
- Messages
- 77
I have seen bull elk while driving through humid east Texas swampland on high-fenced ranches. It kinda stuns you to turn a bend on a road and see a bull elk on the other side of a fence, in the middle of a place that is supposed to not have any elk lol. Texas also has very concentrated populations of free-range elk in far west Texas. Texas could definitely support a population of wild elk in replacement of all the dang "exotics". Although, that doesn't really matter because the landowners would charge an arm and a leg to hunt them or wouldn't let you hunt them at all, and the public hunts would be very minimal. Texas Parks and Wildlife doesn't seem to care about enlarging the population of free-range elk that it already has because they classify elk as an exotic and allow year-round hunting for them with no bag limit.Here's the thing there are already hundreds if not thousands (cumulatively) of elk in many eastern states.
Vermont (I believe this place closed in 2018)
Vermont Russian boar, Red Stag, Elk, Buffalo, Fallow Deer, Ram and wild Goat Hunts|Discounted Guided Hunts
Hunting guide and outfitter directory and reviews.hornandfin.com
New York
Hunting Packages – Rocky Fork Whitetail
Free range hunts on a 120 acre tree nursery available for BOW hunts only. Please call for pricing on our custom 5 day hunting packages. Rocky Fork Whitetails operates on over 283 acres of beautiful Ohio country.rockyforkwhitetail.com
New Hampshire
NH bill would require licenses for hunting at Corbin Park preserve
CROYDON — Corbin Park, the large private hunting preserve with an individual membership fee that runs into the tens of thousands of dollars, is being targeted by proposed legislation that would require its members to buy a new class of hunting...www.vnews.com
Maine
Maine Maine Bear Hunting, Deer Hunting,Game Ranch
Maine bear hunting, moose, whitetail deer, and the best game preserve hunting in the northeast with elk, buffalo, russian boar, red Stag, fallow deer.www.hillsideguideservice.com
Ohio
KG Deer Ranch | Ohio Trophy Whitetail - Guided Deer & Elk Hunts
KG Deer Ranch in Cadiz, Ohio. Guided Trophy Whitetail & Elk Hunts. Lodging & Accommodations included. Servicing hunters out of Pittsburgh & Akron Airports.ohiotrophydeer.com
It would not surprise me in FL, GA, AL, NC, etc states that allow high fence hunting also have elk populations.
So elk are already on the ground... but like the Wilks bros folks in these states don't actually want elk to be managed as a game animal.
Maybe eastern residents should start pushing back on their states.
VAspeedgoat
Well-known member
There are places in the east with 20-40 deer per square mile or more. It's why we get 5-6 tags in VA and we don't change the population a whole lot. I'd venture a guess that in the same areas the corresponding elk density would be in the single digits. OTC would wipe them out quickly. Unless there's something that I am missing, which is quite possible, I don't see it.
Ridgerunner6901
Well-known member
Everybody knows the big bulls like to hang in the middle of greenbriar and multiflora rose thickets!
FWIW NY has a bill sitting in committee (last I checked ages ago) that would ban high fence hunting in the state.Here's the thing there are already hundreds if not thousands (cumulatively) of elk in many eastern states.
Vermont (I believe this place closed in 2018)
Vermont Russian boar, Red Stag, Elk, Buffalo, Fallow Deer, Ram and wild Goat Hunts|Discounted Guided Hunts
Hunting guide and outfitter directory and reviews.hornandfin.com
New York
Hunting Packages – Rocky Fork Whitetail
Free range hunts on a 120 acre tree nursery available for BOW hunts only. Please call for pricing on our custom 5 day hunting packages. Rocky Fork Whitetails operates on over 283 acres of beautiful Ohio country.
New Hampshire
NH bill would require licenses for hunting at Corbin Park preserve
CROYDON — Corbin Park, the large private hunting preserve with an individual membership fee that runs into the tens of thousands of dollars, is being targeted by proposed legislation that would require its members to buy a new class of hunting...
Maine
Maine Maine Bear Hunting, Deer Hunting,Game Ranch
Maine bear hunting, moose, whitetail deer, and the best game preserve hunting in the northeast with elk, buffalo, russian boar, red Stag, fallow deer.www.hillsideguideservice.com
Ohio
KG Deer Ranch | Ohio Trophy Whitetail - Guided Deer & Elk Hunts
KG Deer Ranch in Cadiz, Ohio. Guided Trophy Whitetail & Elk Hunts. Lodging & Accommodations included. Servicing hunters out of Pittsburgh & Akron Airports.
It would not surprise me in FL, GA, AL, NC, etc states that allow high fence hunting also have elk populations.
So elk are already on the ground... but like the Wilks bros folks in these states don't actually want elk to be managed as a game animal.
Maybe eastern residents should start pushing back on their states.
Tons of public land in parts on NY without a lot of ag production. Bummer that whatever remnant of eastern elk that exist in the world have diluted bloodlines.
Don't forget during archery they love hanging out in stinging nettles. If you find poison ivy and poison oak you are in the right spot! It is so hot out I recommend shorts and a tank top when hunting them that time of year!
Alabama
Active member
Alabama formerly had extremely lax rules about high fencing and import of animals. Then about ten years ago they cracked down on it so if you didn't have elk before then you are SOL. If any of them escape they can be shot year-round, but I think it's more about the disease threat than elk getting established. There are quite a few red deer/elk hybrids in high fences here. Elk aren't native this far south and supposedly the red deer side helps them deal with the heat/humidity. I wish they would outlaw high fences completely.
RobertD
Well-known member
That's interesting. And glad to know you guys have similarly strict rules re: importation of animals.
I do have to say though, some of the land NW of Birmingham looks like it'd hold elk. Have often driven through there on I22 and thought about it.
AvidIndoorsman
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AvidIndoorsman
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Alabama
Active member
Elk were native to the top 2/3 of Alabama just not in the southern part where I live. I wish they would reintroduce them. There's plenty of habitat but zero social tolerance. They actually reintroduced 55 elk from WY in the early 1900s but they were poached and/or shot off of crop fields and they were all dead in a few years.
RobertD
Well-known member
Yeah, I read they were around Chilton county? I have cousins there and it doesn't seem like the ideal place for them but I guess it was worth a shot back then
Alabama
Active member
I like wllm's map better than the one I was basing the 2/3 on. That looks more like 85% of Alabama! My land might be inside that map. It would be close.
I think it was around Tuscaloosa, I'm not sure why they picked that area, but it was a bad choice.
Elk in PA have been there close to 100 years and there are no plans to expand that herd.
I say there's no social tolerance but who knows? When elk were reintroduced to Kentucky, Virginia was completely against it. I was pretty young, but I remember reading in magazines about how the Virginia DWR was against it. 25+ years later and VA is having their first hunt.
I think it was around Tuscaloosa, I'm not sure why they picked that area, but it was a bad choice.
Elk in PA have been there close to 100 years and there are no plans to expand that herd.
I say there's no social tolerance but who knows? When elk were reintroduced to Kentucky, Virginia was completely against it. I was pretty young, but I remember reading in magazines about how the Virginia DWR was against it. 25+ years later and VA is having their first hunt.
Here's the link to the RMEF raffle for the 6th VA tag this season: https://events.rmef.org/shop/virginiastate1
Sounds like the state draw had about 32,000 applicants.
Sounds like the state draw had about 32,000 applicants.
np307
Well-known member
Need an overlay of human population then vs now. As much as I love seeing elk in the east (I mean I dream to kill an elk in my home state one of these years) there just isn't enough public support to have truly meaningful populations. Too much time has passed since there were elk here. They arent a part of the identity of the east anymore because nobody can picture them being here in significant numbers.
If reintroduction would have followed the pattern of turkeys (i.e. starting not long after extirpation) then I think it would be a different story. But the population has grown up massively and not had to account for elk. Asking them to adjust now to deal with them just won't happen, no matter how much we want it to.
AvidIndoorsman
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I think your last sentence is likely true but the public land piece doesn't matter IMHO. Turkey/Bear/Whitetail/ etc live in great numbers east of the Mississippi primarily on private land.
IMHO it's a mindset about elk not an actual feasibility issue.
np307
Well-known member
Yeah but the deer seem to be particularly adapted to living alongside people in these areas. They do well on very small ranges. They can bed in the drainage between neighborhoods and a herd can survive on less than 1000 acres. Not sure that will hold true for elk.
And public definitely isn't necessary but it sure doesn't help the cause that huge swaths of national forest are very mismanaged for wildlife currently.
I can't speak for other areas but the bear population here is pretty inverse to the human population. Heavy numbers down east in the thick, nasty brush where nobody lives and decent numbers in the steep mountains where they mostly have to be hunted with hounds.
RobertD
Well-known member
Just for arguments sake, I feel a bit iffy about bears being included there, at least with the modifier "primarily." Most of the bear populations I know a little bit about seem to rely on National Forests and other public land enough that I wouldn't say primarily. I'm only really familiar with the three GA bear populations and the populations in North Florida for what it's worth.
With that said though, I think that's part of what makes bears a good measuring stick for elk. In particular, the North Georgia bear population is interesting because they exist in an area that has a good mix of low elevation private and high elevation public in the most population-dense non-metro region of the state. And there's like three thousand of them, but the social tolerance seems to be pretty solid from what I know.
I know elk aren't bears, but there are too many parallels between the area I'm describing and some parts of places like Colorado or Montana that have all of the above PLUS tons of elk. Can't convince me we couldn't handle a couple thousand in that part of the state.
AvidIndoorsman
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Going along with that...
I think we need to look at "intact landscapes" rather than public/private. Here is VT (obviously the white is also private the green is just private conservation areas).
I'd also be curious how elk in the east use the landscape... obviously way more food, do they stay put more? Move the same as in the west, live in the thick stuff like deer? etc.
