Neighborhood Cooperation

[Tallredd]

Wanted to start a conversation about inspiring folks in our neighborhoods to board the QDM and habitat management train. Not just about deer management but habitat management (and even predator management) that benefits all kinds of wildlife. For example, I live in Overton County and I am fortunate enough to have a small farm with neighboring farms on both sides of me whose owners who to see bigger deer. We more or less have an understanding of not taking any bucks under 3 1/2-4 years old and mature does only. There are other neighbors (land owners and hunters who rent ground) that I would like to bring over to the light but it is definitely more challenging as they are a bit more reclusive and fall for the "if I don't shoot it now, someone else will" mentality (AKA Tragedy of the Commons).
On the habitat side of things, while my adjoining neighbors have a pretty good rule for an age limit for deer, they do not understand the value of good quality habitat. No doubt, when they hear the word "habitat" they immediately think of food plots. While food plots can be beneficial, deer are browsers and can and will eat just about any type of vegetative matter in the woods. They are more like goats than anything. I have noticed a lack of good cover for fawning and bedding in my immediate area and have tried to alleviate that by establishing buffers around field edges and even letting the back part and lest productive portions of the fields to go fallow/wild with mowing every 2-3 years . And on turkeys, trying to inspire folks that if they wait just 2 or 3 more weeks to begin hay mowing, the hen turkeys will be off the nests for the most part, and the chicks will be able to fly when jumped up.

All that to say this....do any of you have any advice or tips to engage the neighborhood landowners and hunters? What has your experience been, if any?

 

[Tallredd]

Oh yeah...for kicks, I have a place in another county where there are bigger bucks. I have thought of showing my neighbors trail cam pics of those bigger bucks, which may spur them to believing that there are some giants walking around our area, which would entice them to hunt those bigger deer and pass up these smaller ones we have running around. Guess what happens in about 2 years?! They start bagging those bigger bucks.....

 

[PickettSFHunter]

I'm one county over and have some land that is just about in Overton. There are a few large properties here that manage well for deer and they can pretty easily get deer up in older age classes but those are getting fewer and farther between. The number one issue is poaching, it's just really bad with thermal, cell cams, drones, you name it. Everyone knows of every nice buck in the Summer and it's really hard for a legal hunter to get ahead of that. You also have a lot of non-hunting landowners that are perfectly okay with poaching, it's just a culture thing. The next issue is development and the ever increasing population. There is more hunting going on than before and much less large tracts to manage for deer on. The third issue is bear predation on fawns. The amount of fawns making it past those first few weeks has dropped very low. I'm afraid to say that the good ol days are behind us in my county. Yes there are still good ones around but it's no where near what it used to be. I would love to have the cooperating neighbor situation but it's just not a reality over here, at least long term. I had it once and it was great but the guy holding that together with the large tract passed away and the landowner gave the hunting rights to poachers. Good luck in your endeavor.

 

[Planking]

I'm in Overton County. I have poachers across the street from me. They got busted a few weeks ago shooting deer from the road at night and apparently they can still go hunting. They were there shooting this morning. I agree with the post above, the good ole days of hunting are gone. I'm so frustrated dealing with thermals and road hunting at night, non hunting land owners that don't care what type of criminals they are hosting that i no longer want anything to do with the sport of hunting. Best of luck.

 

[megalomaniac]

About the only way you are going to get neighbors to focus on habitat is to improve yours to the point where they want to hunt right on your line because you have the best game (because of the habitat improvements you have made).

But that's a downside as well. New group next to one of my farms, and they cram 5 hunters on the 40ac next to me, spaced out on my line every 150y. They have killed 5 already we passed up (3.5 and younger) past week. Won't be long and it will be nigh impossible for any buck in that area to reach 4.5.

I talked with them from a safety standpoint (they have been hunting on our fencerow In areas I have stands 100y off the fencerow. Mentioned that we will keep passing up the young bucks, but they have found their paradise. No need to even push it further.

 

[Boll Weevil]

A bit different from your neighborhood, but we have lots of large landowners in mine and one thing that's actually helped over the years is information sharing. I totally understand this might not work well in areas where poaching is a concern or with lots of small landowners.