IS this MN or what? ??????????????

[jh45gun]

I know we have a lot of MN hunters where I hunt but Geez today while I was out I would have thought I was in MN I did not see many hunters out but I seen 6 MN vehicles and 2 WI ones that had hunters out.   This was in one area!  Seen quite a few parked at the bars and eating establishments too. The only reason I bring this up is when we had the early Tzones hunts I always seen more MN hunters out then WI ones too. Some may feel I am wrong on this though I do not,  but it kind of irks me that Out of state hunters can buy doe tags by the truckload full of they want and take back all the deer they can haul. Be different if the tags were not so darn cheap.    Not saying they should not be able to take a doe if they buy a license but they should limit the out of state extra doe tags. 

[bub524]

I guess  I'm not alone. More then once While on county and state land, I've been told "hey this is our area to hunt, we been hunting here for a gazillion years" by MN and ILL. "sportsman". When I was much younger 25+ years ago we gave their vehicles something to remember WI by, but alas we get older and smarter.

[gutshot_again]

Yep, same thing I see around here (north of Menomonie area).  Wouldn't be so bad but they either buy up land for thier own private game reserve or lease it.  Wish they'ld just stay home.

[jh45gun]

What also ticks me off was every one I seen on Sat were road hunting and none had handi capped markings on any of the vehicles so I know they were illegally doing it and one was following me on a black top road and they disappeared behind me Some other guys stopped where I parked near a rut road and asked me if I was hunting with them as they just shot off the road.  I have no issue with it if they are handicapped I am and do it myself but if they are not and I am sure they were not that just ticks me off.

[bub524]

A problem we used to see in central WI is they (ILL) would lease 10 or 20 acres and then 9 or 10 or more of them show up and forget where the boundries of their lease were and be on everybody elses land.
A few years back an old neighbor got tired of it and called the sheriff and the DNR. They arrested 4 of them on his property within 100 feet of a smashed gate with a no tresspassing sign riding 3 wheelers with 4 untagged does with no doe tags on them. Took their guns, 3 wheelers, 5k fines each, 2k for property damage ea.  and impounded all the vehicles for almost 6 months until the hearing came up. Plus banded from WI hunting and fishing for 5 years.
Haven't heard of any problems like that from down south for a while.

[jh45gun]

Yea I carry a plat book in my truck to make sure I am not tresspassing. I wish those idiots in Gov would have never passed the law that folks do not have to post signs on their property it sure would make it easier to tell what is private and what is not. I have no wish to tresspass but even looking at a plat book things some times get blurry.

[steve]

I have my land posted. I had caught one idiot thought my land was public hunting.  He had walked right past the sign. I tooked out to the road and had him read the sign. Also asked him if he knew how to read. Made him looked like a dumbshit hasn't been back since.
I have alot of Amish around my land they think they can go on my property even if it is posted. I had caught them a few times. They had tried to break into my house and shed and also looked around the farm to see what they could use.   I had to literly threaten them to stay off my property.  I just told them if I catch them I will take there bow or gun away from them and I would take ther horse and buggy up to my yard and shoot the horse and burn the horse and buggy.  It worked.  They haven't been on my property since them.

[SDS-GEN]

I live in Illinois and the same crap goes on down here, I have seen it in Colorado and Wyoming too.  The only thing that will stop tresspassers and poachers is the law.  The first few years I lived on my farm poaching was a real problem, until I got the game warden involved.  It is too hard to find good hunting ground any more, if you find it do everything you can to keep the slob hunters out.

As far as out of state doe tags go, I think cheap doe tags are great.  The deer herd just keeps growing, one of the biggest problems is that the residents shoot too many bucks and too few does.  Everyone around here wants a buck, fiteen deer could walk in front of a guy's stand; 14 doe and 1 little fork horned buck.  Guess which deer gets shot 9 times out of 10.  I don't know about WI but I think IL could get on an earn a buck program or antler restrictions for a few years.  

In regards to posting property.  The problem with posting your property is that it is too easy for a poacher to tear down the sign and say that the property wasn't posted.

[jh45gun]

SDS-Gen I want to shoot does and when I cannot find any to shoot that tells me that there are too many being taken in the areas I hunt I also am disabled so I can legally road hunt if I want to and when I cover a lot of territory that I used to see 20 0r 30 deer in a afternoon hunting and now if I am lucky see 5 0r 6 that shows me that we are starting to kill too many does at least in the public areas and those areas that border public land.

[SDS-GEN]

Public land is hard to hunt, I tried it several times here in IL and never even saw a deer.  There were plenty of tracks and I occasionally saw a deer in the area driving out an hour or two after sunset.  The sign I saw in that area was undeniable though; heavy trails, fresh tracks, rubs and scrapes, there were plenty of deer there.  One thing I never found was bedding areas.  I'm guessing that the deer had heavy hunting pressure every day, in fact I know they did.  The area I hunted required hunters to sign a log and there were always people hunting there besides me.  Three and one half months of pressure every year had made the deer totally paranoid, they came out at night then crawled into the thickest, thorniest, crap they could find during the day.  I'm sure many people forsake that public ground to this day because hunting it is so difficult.  The problem is hunting pressure though - not overharvest.
  Same thing happened on my farm.  2003-2004 and 2004-2005 seasons I was seeing fewer deer on the back of my property.  I was wondering if I was hunting it too much, putting too much pressure on the deer.  I tagged deer both seasons, but I wasn't seeing the numbers I had in years past and deer weren't using their usual travel routes.  Then one day I caught a guy tresspassing, a light bulb went off, I wasn't hunting the ground any different than I had in the past, outside pressure was causing the deer to vacate the area.  A call to the game warden and a few busted poachers and now this year I'm up to my neck in deer again.
  Bottom line is humans aren't very effective predators when given a limited season.  Too many people claim that the game departments aren't making accurate counts or aren't providing enough hunting opportunities to their residents.  Chances are too many hunters have educated the deer for too many years.  The deer are still there if there is good habitat, they just know how to dodge hunters.  Another point - if more deer are killed in an area than usual they are usually the younger deer(the easiest deer to kill) and the deer that are left are the smarter, older, harder to kill deer.

[jh45gun]

Been hunting the same areas all my life I know wether there are deer there or not and this year it was down. I also have talked to folks who hunt the same areas that did not have much luck either so I am not basing this not seeing many deer just on my expiriences.

[steve]

Years back I did alot of hunting on public land.  I had notice something within a 1/2 mile from the road that is all you saw was hunters.  Go back in 1-4 miles you would see more deer than hunters and that still holds true today. People are getting too lazy to walk back a few miles and see deer. If they can't use their ATV they don't want to walk.  They  hunt close to the road and bitch cause they don't see any deer.  I would go back around 3 miles I would always get a nice buck.  There are areas in Clark county where you can go back about 5-8 miles and not even see a hunter or his foot prints.

As far as poachers trying too tear down my signs good luck.  I put them the right height where they would need to climb to get at it.  The biggest problem is the neighbors and the out of state hunters who haven't fiqured out how to read yet. If the land isn't posted they think it is public land.

[jh45gun]

Steve I see Deer along sides the roads all the time expecially during bow season when the hunters are not that thick so I know there were not that many deer around this year. I hunted during the bow season and did not see that many deer compared to years past. Talked to guys that made drives and I hunted with guys making drives for two days I did not drive I cannot but did stand close to the roads where I could get to easy access and lots of those drives produced no deer now that tells me yea there maybe have been some there that excaped the drive but for most normal drives if there are deer present you will still see some. Like I said during bow season I saw a lot lower amount of deer which tells me where I hunt the numbers were down.

[steve]

I usually sit. I went hunting with one of my neighbors and did some drives in the county forest.  Managed to get 4 to 5 deer a day.  There were around 25 guys in his group.  Where we were making drives at there did not see any other hunters around at.  It took awhile to get back to where we making the drives at.  The only drive we did close to a road ran into some Hmongs.  One of our guys had shot a doe, then all of a sudden a Hmong that was behind him in a tree stand shot and hit the doe in the ass and yelling out my deer.  Our guy just walked away didn't want to cause any problems.
I know one thing if someone would have done that to me.  I would shoot that deer a few more times and tell the other hunter it is your deer now.  But I would wait till after he put his tag on it.

[jh45gun]

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