Hunter overcrowding and the privatization of access

[AT Hiker]

There is no good answer to this. The reason why you never hear of TWRA buying more land near an urban base, where it would do the most good, is because land values have gone up too much for them to justify buying it. They can buy a substantially more amount of old strip mine land in BFE for the same total price. Not only does it cost more near population bases, but they'd have to find a willing Seller who owns a large enough tract, to even create a new WMA. These large tracts of land are in short supply.

And, not to pile on with the negativity, but a good portion of the existing WMA's near population bases aren't even owned by TWRA. Not only are we going to have to just get used to more hunters crowding public lands, but there's going to be an influx of "other users" (hikers, bikers, etc.) in the coming years. I'll keep complaining about it, but it won't keep me from being out there. Last year, I learned to adapt to the pressure during turkey season. I'm sure I will for the other species also.

More reason to recruit pro hunters. If we have to share the woods with bird watchers and mountain bikers, we need to be on the same team.

Utopia would be; pulling up to a trail head and a bird watcher tells you. "I heard a turkey gobble on that back ridge".

 

[kaizen leader]

I don't understand why people complain about taxes and license fees when they spend, at a minimum, hundreds of dollars for just the basic needs. Makes no sense. I also don't understand why a hunter would disrespect nature and private property while hunting. I know a lot of it is ignorance but come on, what about common sense? Oh yeh, not so common.
I would love for Gov Lee make litter one of his missions to improve. I did ask him to do that and didn't get a response.
As for on line videos referred to, they don't exist in my life like a tree in the forest. I'm proud of what we have in TN but would like more continuous improvement. I don't own any hunting land but enjoy public and a friend's 100 acres.
Time to go fishing now. Good luck yawl.

 

[Buzzard Breath]

More reason to recruit pro hunters. If we have to share the woods with bird watchers and mountain bikers, we need to be on the same team.

Utopia would be; pulling up to a trail head and a bird watcher tells you. "I heard a turkey gobble on that back ridge".

I actually had some hikers at LBL tell me exactly where they had heard a bird gobbling. I went there and sure enough there was. It didn't do me any good. But, it did let me know the place wasn't a turkey wasteland.

 

[AT Hiker]

I actually had some hikers at LBL tell me exactly where they had heard a bird gobbling. I went there and sure enough there was. It didn't do me any good. But, it did let me know the place wasn't a turkey wasteland.

You can thank your Lezbaru at the trailhead for that. They thought you were an undercover anti-hunter and sent you that way to disturb the bird.

 

[megalomaniac]

I wonder how far a drive from Lebanon (Wilson Co middle Tn) it would be to reach a $300 a member club lease. Been quite a while since I entertained the idea but I wouldn't be surprised if I had to drive well over two hours. I'd love to be wrong. If someone wants to correct me or knows of a lease looking for new members at an affordable price I'd at least consider it.

sorry, I'm referring to leases in Mississippi, where hunting access by lease only has been the norm for the past 20 years.

Perhaps the concept of leases here is normalized because we never had the vast tracts of land leased to the general public for a $20 access permit like middle TN had. Instead, the timber companies leased tracts directly to individual lessees. Now the price folks willing to pay has skyrocketed... rural pine leases used to be $2 to $3 per acre 20 years ago. They are now $9 to $10 per acre. And the good ground that used to be $10 to $15 per acre is bringing $30 to $45 per acre for hunting rights.

 

[Buzzard Breath]

You can thank your Lezbaru at the trailhead for that. They thought you were an undercover anti-hunter and sent you that way to disturb the bird.

It could have been the Lezbaru. They were driving one themselves. It looked like an older couple who both could have passed for college professors. So, I think they knew they were dealing with another intellectual when I asked "You ain't seen no turkeys in them there hollers, have you?" It immediately put us on the same level and they knew I was one of them.

 

[megalomaniac]

Seems like the same issues are happening on the public lakes/ waters to be honest....

I fished this past Friday, so not even a weekend... my usual secluded spot is chocolate milk from all the recent rains, so I mapped out my day at a different launch on the coast I've never been to before. The first spot I picked had 8 or 9 boats in there. The 2nd, and 3rd had almost as many. Finally gave up and just hit a tiny bayou and went so shallow 95% of the other folks couldn't get in there. Caught a bunch of rat reds all by myself, so it was a fun day once I got away from all the crowds.

 

[deerhunter10]

[

We don't need more hunters and we dang sure don't need anymore recruitment. Everyone agrees that with the population growing and land disappearing, we are crowding more and more people into a continually shrinking resource. So what in the world about that absolute fact would make anyone think we need to recruit more hunters?

Someone said that the younger generation isn't hunting as much. Who do you think all these flatbill hat wearing goofballs that post all over Instagram and TikTok to fuel their dopamine addictions are? 18-30 year olds!

I do believe that if all forms of social media were to disappear that within one full hunting season we'd see a dramatic reduction in hunting pressure and that would be the best thing that could ever happen to hunting. Unfortunately, that will never happen. Social media has been the most destructive thing to ever happen to hunting.

I think social media as far as public land has helped with the over crowding but as far as what the thread is about I think social media's numbers and appearance of numbers are skewed. Now as far as destructive to hunting traditions I agree 100 percent. But you can also add outdoor TV into this same argument. But i said the younger generation isn't hunting as much and numbers are down, I stand by that. Get off social media which is basically an alternative universe and pay attention to your local gas stations and stores around hunting season it's not hard to see the numbers are down. My nephew is 8 and only has 1 other kid in his class that hunts.

 

[MidTennFisher]

[
I think social media as far as public land has helped with the over crowding but as far as what the thread is about I think social media's numbers and appearance of numbers are skewed. Now as far as destructive to hunting traditions I agree 100 percent. But you can also add outdoor TV into this same argument. But i said the younger generation isn't hunting as much and numbers are down, I stand by that. Get off social media which is basically an alternative universe and pay attention to your local gas stations and stores around hunting season it's not hard to see the numbers are down. My nephew is 8 and only has 1 other kid in his class that hunts.

I'm not on any social media, unless you count TNDeer. And I do use LinkedIn but never for hunting/fishing related stuff. I ditched all those time wasting platforms and am glad I did.

With a resource that continues to decrease, the number of people using it should also naturally decrease. I'm not saying I don't welcome new hunters, but I don't want organizations drumming up interest whether that be through outdoor TV, social media, R3, whatever just because it makes money for them. They're targeting people who otherwise would never have gotten into hunting and throwing them into an already overcrowded resource.

As for the privatization of access, which also a concern brought up in here, Matt Rinella makes a solid point when he says companies like Mossy Oak essentially take the money we spend on their camo and make it so we have fewer places to use it. He is referencing them buying up land and selling it as a "hunting property" to the wealthy who can afford it.

 

[deerhunter10]

I'm not on any social media, unless you count TNDeer. And I do use LinkedIn but never for hunting/fishing related stuff. I ditched all those time wasting platforms and am glad I did.

With a resource that continues to decrease, the number of people using it should also naturally decrease. I'm not saying I don't welcome new hunters, but I don't want organizations drumming up interest whether that be through outdoor TV, social media, R3, whatever just because it makes money for them. They're targeting people who otherwise would never have gotten into hunting and throwing them into an already overcrowded resource.

As for the privatization of access, which also a concern brought up in here, Matt Rinella makes a solid point when he says companies like Mossy Oak essentially take the money we spend on their camo and make it so we have fewer places to use it. He is referencing them buying up land and selling it as a "hunting property" to the wealthy who can afford it.

Makes sense. That's the tricky part with companies like mossy oak, being a business owner myself it's a brilliant move to invest back into the business. On the topic at hand it sucks but that is capitalism. That's why I don't see how it can be fixed without stepping on rights. And I don't want politicians in it at all.

On another note I do my best to protect my leases by staying off of social media i dont want people knowing where i hunt. i don't post deer or turkeys on anything at all I have seen someone kill a big deer then the next year they get bidded out.

I said it above also it's turning into a "Rich man" sport even though I am not rich at all, but do own a farm. And plan on buying more.

I think it's not fixable at all personally.

 

[Iglow]

I've discussed this a lot lately. Why are Southeastern people so bad about litter? I drive through the National Forests here and see, and not limited to:

couches
mattresses
old appliances
beer cans
styrofoam fast food boxes
plastic bags
tampons
oil filters
batteries

While walking through the woods or fishing a lake it's beer/soda cans, bags, dip cans, trail tape, bottles, fishing line, discarded lures, ripped clothing, literally anything they didn't want to take out.

When we went out to Colorado last Summer we hiked on some busy trails and I fished some lakes with plenty of people around, not one speck of trash. Not even a piece of fishing line or a single cigarette butt.

I've made the comment that it was so clean that if it weren't for seeing other humans, I'd think I was the first person to discover those woods or lakes. With how disgusting Southeastern people, of course not all of us, seem to be I can't blame private land owners one bit for not wanting to allow access. I probably wouldn't allow it either.

Lou Holtz said at his presentation as USC coach that South Carolinians must have the cleanest cars in the nation cause all the trash is on the roadsides here!

 

[Iglow]

How about a golf course analogy ; Imagine standing with 5 or 6 others where you tee off , all getting in each others way, the fairways have 5/6 people in different stages of play and are having teed balls hitting around them. 5/6 are on the green at the same time and all are putting at the same hole at the same time. Doesn't sound very fun does it? That's public hunting in the future in Tennessee.

Now Imagine you and a friend getting set to tee off and you are the only ones in sight, at the same time the check you wrote to the country club is being deposited and it has a bunch of numbers($$$) on it....a bunch. That private hunting in Tennessee in that same future.

 

[mike243]

At some point all of the public hunting will be Draws, Look at how few of the WMA are open now, most are draw hunts

 

[MidTennFisher]

How about a golf course analogy ; Imagine standing with 5 or 6 others where you tee off , all getting in each others way, the fairways have 5/6 people in different stages of play and are having teed balls hitting around them. 5/6 are on the green at the same time and all are putting at the same hole at the same time. Doesn't sound very fun does it? That's public hunting in the future in Tennessee.

Now Imagine you and a friend getting set to tee off and you are the only ones in sight, at the same time the check you wrote to the country club is being deposited and it has a bunch of numbers($$$) on it....a bunch. That private hunting in Tennessee in that same future.

You forgot to add in the part where the next year, those dues go up because hundreds of morons posted all over social media how wonderful that golf courses in that particular area are. That increased demand, thus increased cost.

The public courses are even more crowded as well because companies that sell golf clubs, golf shoes, golf balls, and visors told us that golfer numbers are in serious decline and if we don't recruit more, we'll lose golf forever!!! R3 = Revenue, Revenue, Revenue.

 

[MickThompson]

Loosing hunting property has nothing to do with the government, $$$ is what is driving leases, trophy hunting is what's driving folks to leases, not wanting to hunt public and share the resources, reckon it could be classified as greed to drop out as many competitors as possible. No nice way to put it but it boils down to the same thing imo. I'm not against leases by any means but it's a way to control how many folks are hunting Your deer.

I don't absolve government at all - how often do we see the government encentivize companies to move to their state or county with cheap land, low taxes, or both? Why do county governments buy industrial parks?

Government's basic mission of providing for the collective good of its citizens what private industry can't or won't has morphed into 1 word- " more"

More jobs, more amenities, better shopping ( more property and sales taxes).

 

[mike243]

The reason for the industrial parks ect is because of human expansion, Nothing short of sterilizing a bunch of kids there is no stopping it, do we want to be like China and put a limit on how many kids our children or grandchildren can have, I won't but at some point it may happen here also

 

[kaizen leader]

The reason for the industrial parks ect is because of human expansion, Nothing short of sterilizing a bunch of kids there is no stopping it, do we want to be like China and put a limit on how many kids our children or grandchildren can have, I won't but at some point it may happen here also

That won't do any good sinse anyone can walk into our country.

 

[mike243]

Yep and start dropping anchor babies

 

[WilcoKen]

I think the same thing has happened with waterfowl. As for deer, the 1400 acres I hunt is being developed. Probably be gone in 2 years. I also live on 20 and can hunt it but the sprawl is messing up my place too. It's amazing how I am watching my hunting opportunities dwindle away every year. Duck, deer and turkey hunting used to be so much better but I noticed a sharp decline the last 3 years especially. I also enjoy golf--even that is being overtaken by developments. Several courses have closed and been developed for housing. So many things are becoming not affordable for the middle class sportsman. Part of a capitalist "system" I guess.

 

[WilcoKen]

At some point all of the public hunting will be Draws, Look at how few of the WMA are open now, most are draw hunts

This. Started 3 years ago with waterfowl. And it's been a trainwreck.