Quota Hunts

[TNLynn]

Unless the stop the hunt. Or the island floods again. Or CWD takes over.

Still makes sense to me. There are no other quota hunts I'm interested in. With the points I have now, I can draw PI now. If PI ends or doesn't get back to what it used to be, I'll still have my points. If a new management area opens, that sounds great, I can use points then.

 

[DoubleRidge]

Unless the stop the hunt. Or the island floods again. Or CWD takes over.

Shhh....dont say that

 

[BigJohnJTP]

Speculation about what impacts deer numbers or other wildlife quantities can be a frustrating endeavor due to the variety of things impacting wildlife quantities. Obviously if a favorite area is logged out its going to be devastating to existing wildlife for years. I have watched areas of Catoosa that I enjoyed hunting (and worked hard to get familiar with!) get clear-cut over the last 20/30 years. The first year after a clear cut the only thing deer do is run through it fast trying not to fall down in the mud. The second year you will see a few sprigs of greenery near the edges but deer will hardly step out to eat it. The third year small foliage and browsable plants start scattering across the areas one to three feet high but there is not enough cover for them to stand around until after dark. It's about 5 years after a clear cut when deer have finally have enough cover to bed down temporarily in one or hang around long enough to give you a shot. You have to hunt the edge cover for years or expect to shoot a 200/300 yard rifle across fields. Archery hunters will need to be doing so from a tree stand 10 yards back in the woods next to a field edge hoping to nail something walking around the edges. But 7-10 years later these clear-cuts become seer magnets for 10-15 years until the canopy of the saplings becoming trees starts the shade out the undergrowth.

I have seen equally devastating and seemingly unexplainable drastic drops in deer numbers in the semi-suburban green-belt wooded areas where I occasionally hunt. I once had some stands in a hollow with a running creek down the hill from a friend's house in a mixed rural/suburban area where deer were easily seen every year. Then suddenly one October there were no deer coming through the area. Since they usually came from a particular direction, I drove the road down in that direction and found about 1/2 mile away a complete new subdivision being built with about 25 houses. Obviously their bedding area was gone. On another even more stark experience I once saw one morning about 20 (yes - twenty deer - I counted) mostly does and a few small buck walk across a ridge in a field in front of me going in a particular direction away from me. So I drove down a nearby road only to also find where big excavators had started a new subdivision that very morning.

An even worse experience happened about 12 or so years ago when in a favorite hunting place where I always saw deer I noticed very few deer to be seen. A week or two later I drove around a bit and found that TVA had sprayed the foliage under some powerlines nearby (cover and food) and it looked like a a bomb had gone off. Anything over 5 feet tall had been cut down and all of the rest of the underbrush and foliage laid dead on the ground rotting. That powerline was a deer food magnet and sanctuary. All gone. The area is only now recovering a decade later.

So when TWRA harvests trees without telling us our favorite hunting areas are about to be leveled we can at least know that WMA's should eventually come back for us to hunt and to support wildlife. But when real estate developers strike its gone forever. There is a massive shopping center with hundreds of shops and now hundreds of apartments in West Knoxville called Turkey Creek. Why do they call it Turkey Creek? Because there is a small creek called Turkey Creek that runs along the edge of it. There certainly won't ever be any turkeys anywhere near there ever again.

 

[killingtime 41]

Speculation about what impacts deer numbers or other wildlife quantities can be a frustrating endeavor due to the variety of things impacting wildlife quantities. Obviously if a favorite area is logged out its going to be devastating to existing wildlife for years. I have watched areas of Catoosa that I enjoyed hunting (and worked hard to get familiar with!) get clear-cut over the last 20/30 years. The first year after a clear cut the only thing deer do is run through it fast trying not to fall down in the mud. The second year you will see a few sprigs of greenery near the edges but deer will hardly step out to eat it. The third year small foliage and browsable plants start scattering across the areas one to three feet high but there is not enough cover for them to stand around until after dark. It's about 5 years after a clear cut when deer have finally have enough cover to bed down temporarily in one or hang around long enough to give you a shot. You have to hunt the edge cover for years or expect to shoot a 200/300 yard rifle across fields. Archery hunters will need to be doing so from a tree stand 10 yards back in the woods next to a field edge hoping to nail something walking around the edges. But 7-10 years later these clear-cuts become seer magnets for 10-15 years until the canopy of the saplings becoming trees starts the shade out the undergrowth.

I have seen equally devastating and seemingly unexplainable drastic drops in deer numbers in the semi-suburban green-belt wooded areas where I occasionally hunt. I once had some stands in a hollow with a running creek down the hill from a friend's house in a mixed rural/suburban area where deer were easily seen every year. Then suddenly one October there were no deer coming through the area. Since they usually came from a particular direction, I drove the road down in that direction and found about 1/2 mile away a complete new subdivision being built with about 25 houses. Obviously their bedding area was gone. On another even more stark experience I once saw one morning about 20 (yes - twenty deer - I counted) mostly does and a few small buck walk across a ridge in a field in front of me going in a particular direction away from me. So I drove down a nearby road only to also find where big excavators had started a new subdivision that very morning.

An even worse experience happened about 12 or so years ago when in a favorite hunting place where I always saw deer I noticed very few deer to be seen. A week or two later I drove around a bit and found that TVA had sprayed the foliage under some powerlines nearby (cover and food) and it looked like a a bomb had gone off. Anything over 5 feet tall had been cut down and all of the rest of the underbrush and foliage laid dead on the ground rotting. That powerline was a deer food magnet and sanctuary. All gone. The area is only now recovering a decade later.

So when TWRA harvests trees without telling us our favorite hunting areas are about to be leveled we can at least know that WMA's should eventually come back for us to hunt and to support wildlife. But when real estate developers strike it's gone forever. There is a massive shopping center with hundreds of shops and now hundreds of apartments in West Knoxville called Turkey Creek. Why do they call it Turkey Creek? Because there is a small creek called Turkey Creek that runs along the edge of it. There certainly won't ever be any turkeys anywhere near there ever again.

All that has ruined my usual places also. It disgusts me to see this. I'm starting to feel like the Indians must have many years ago. Watching all the beauty disappear one subdivision after the other. At least I can remember what peace we had before all these out of state developers came in with big investers money. To plunder the state and leave. Then soliciting all these people to move here from out of state. knowing the local economys could never afford the prices of these homes. But who cares if you've ruined any chance for locals to buy a house or land. High paying jobs are few in most of these places. But all the out of state money and what these people paid for house's and land. Only snowballed running everything to the moon. pushing out most people that have lived in these towns. Simple economics says the cost of housing is dictated by what the local economy can afford. With average yearly income at 42,000 to 52,000 in my area that hardly dictates 350,000 plus as the average home cost.