OO2
Well-Known Member
Highly recommend trapping! Absolute blast
The Future of Hunting in Ohio
- Thread starter bowhunter1023
- Start date
My son and I are having a blast with it. Of course, it does help when you don’t have a buck tag to fill. lol
My take was basically Rex said nothing is going to change. Rex did say however cdw could lead to the outright banning of baiting.
I love my crossbow though, I got a ten point that was supposed to be 7 or 8 hundo marked down to like 350 because the store was going out of business 8 or 9 years ago. God bless ten point. Nice fine weapons.
I love my crossbow though, I got a ten point that was supposed to be 7 or 8 hundo marked down to like 350 because the store was going out of business 8 or 9 years ago. God bless ten point. Nice fine weapons.
-Hunting is pay to play
-you want to ban baiting and cell cams on public go for it but telling a free man what to do on his own ground is where it starts to bother me.
-Let's not pretend people who bait and use cell cams and bows that shoot 50yards (CROSSBOW & COMPOUNDS) are Fred bear or Jeremiah Johnson. The game has changed and become easier.
-If we could all just focus on ourselves and stop worrying about our neighbors and the other people. My God enjoy the sport pure if you would like or spend all the money in the world to feel like you’re more than what you are!
-Let’s just have fun pursuing these magnificent creatures God put on this earth.
-you want to ban baiting and cell cams on public go for it but telling a free man what to do on his own ground is where it starts to bother me.
-Let's not pretend people who bait and use cell cams and bows that shoot 50yards (CROSSBOW & COMPOUNDS) are Fred bear or Jeremiah Johnson. The game has changed and become easier.
-If we could all just focus on ourselves and stop worrying about our neighbors and the other people. My God enjoy the sport pure if you would like or spend all the money in the world to feel like you’re more than what you are!
-Let’s just have fun pursuing these magnificent creatures God put on this earth.
I listened to maybe half. Skipped forward toward the end. Nothing there which makes me want to finish listening. Never heard of the guys. The one in the black shirt sounded like an idiot. Questioning laws the guy from Pennsylvania knew and had just stated. Started off by swooning to Mike's existence. Hunting multiple states and owning multiple piece of ground. Admitting to baiting to keep up with the neighbors. I simply don't feel an ounce of connection with these guys outside of my enjoyment of hunting big whitetails.
I simply can't relate to them. I rarely listen to podcasts and these guys aren't making me want to start. If I want whitetail knowledge or strategy I'll just open up TOO. I'd rather ask Ric, Jager, Boarhead, Brock, Gern. . . Just about anyone before these guys on the podcast.
I heard everything I needed to hear when Mike mentioned his position. He explained how it worked and how they are appointed. He mentioned something about agricultural people required to sit in the board and appeasing the politicians. At that point I knew nothing would change to benefit the hunters because the hunters screamed from the rooftops. If they make a change which benefits the hunters, then it is a bonus for us. They simply made a change for THEMSELVES, and we happen to benefit.
I simply can't relate to them. I rarely listen to podcasts and these guys aren't making me want to start. If I want whitetail knowledge or strategy I'll just open up TOO. I'd rather ask Ric, Jager, Boarhead, Brock, Gern. . . Just about anyone before these guys on the podcast.
I heard everything I needed to hear when Mike mentioned his position. He explained how it worked and how they are appointed. He mentioned something about agricultural people required to sit in the board and appeasing the politicians. At that point I knew nothing would change to benefit the hunters because the hunters screamed from the rooftops. If they make a change which benefits the hunters, then it is a bonus for us. They simply made a change for THEMSELVES, and we happen to benefit.
Easy now, maybe we have been yelling from the wrong location. If it is indeed political, let's talk to the governor. That is the person running the show.
We don't have enough $ to even touch that conversation.
My profession has to regularly step into the political arena to maintain or improve our ability to practice. I know what sort of money gets donated to get things done politically and we don't have a chance on this site alone.
Yes sir. See my original post. Discussing it on here is all vanity. As in housing, land and every single other thing in the past 3 years, you will have to be $$ bags to expect nice things including a nice place to hunt. Its a mindset, it's greed in man's heart. You can't regulate this shit. Deer hunting as we knew it (and our kids will never know it) is done. The coming years will continue to solidify this. We are still on the front end of the catastrophe.
Hopefully I can continue being a cull buck specialist for people.
This is a semantics retort here, especially knowing your typically dystopian view of the world and how I think you mean this, but I want to point out that it would be vain to think people on the Council are not reading this thread. (I know they are and that this forum is a resource for public opinion.) Now, will it change anything? No, and thinking otherwise would indeed be vain. However, there is value in having this conversation so that we can hear the opinions of others and use that to influence how we proceed - and perceive - our hunting going forward. If having it were vanity in the form of arrogance, we'd call it the Braggin' Board. Saying that having it is in vain, meaning we're unlikely to change state policy regardless of how many replies hit this thread, would be a fair statement.
Lots of interesting replies and I wanted to unbox this one a little more.
I am one of those people focused on buck size (and age), and I have let that pursuit diminish my overall experience. Ironically, what drew me to archery was the challenge of the pursuit, which for me at the time (age 18) was the perfect filler for a guy who played 3 sports from ages 5-18. Now, because it's the challenge I'm after combined with the fact that I'm addicted to solving the hardest challenges in life, my love of archery evolved into a love of hunting big bucks. It can be a miserable, frustrating experience which sums up 2/3rds of my seasons. Doing all this on one piece of ground that's small in the world of "buck management" has compounded the frustration. The reason I have started to hunt public land is for the mystery and adventure that comes with exploring new ground in pursuit of big bucks, which had become the missing element for my experience over the years. If it were only about big bucks, I'd never step foot on public ground.
So to Seth's point about this thread, which so far has been mostly us complaining, being in vain, let's shift to providing solutions. I've added a poll and you can choose as many of the choices as you'd like.
If I were the Ohio Deer Czar for a day, here are my Top-3 priorities:
1. Ban baiting.
2. Restrict crossbow use to youth 17 and under, women, men 60 and older, and anyone with a valid medical reason.
3. Implement license and tag reciprocity. Raise NR licenses to $250 and tags to $100. Limit landowner tags to primary residence only.
With regard to baiting, yes some people will continue to bait, but many will stop, myself included. If we need to make hunting harder to maintain our current level of quality, then baiting and crossbows are the single biggest factors in that IMO. Speaking of crossbows, I've held this opinion for 20 years. I don't favor them as tools in the world of hunter recruitment and retention. If you are an able-bodied male between the ages of 18-59, archery season for you should mean a vertical bow. Lastly, another 20-year-old opinion is that Ohio undervalues its resources with the pricing of our licenses and tags. I am not in favor of really going beyond my recommendations and feel that's fair all things considered. It may help deter some leasing from NRs, which would open up opportunities for residents to backfill via lease or permission (or even state programs) and I think landowner tags should be limited to your primary residence only. This would close the funding gap and if you're a resident who buys recreational ground, I think you should pay a little into the coffers that support the resource.
I'm not attempting to address the arguments against these because that circulates us back into a spiral of complaining. Just offering my solutions and justifications for choosing them.
If I were the Ohio Deer Czar for a day, here are my Top-3 priorities:
1. Ban baiting.
2. Restrict crossbow use to youth 17 and under, women, men 60 and older, and anyone with a valid medical reason.
3. Implement license and tag reciprocity. Raise NR licenses to $250 and tags to $100. Limit landowner tags to primary residence only.
With regard to baiting, yes some people will continue to bait, but many will stop, myself included. If we need to make hunting harder to maintain our current level of quality, then baiting and crossbows are the single biggest factors in that IMO. Speaking of crossbows, I've held this opinion for 20 years. I don't favor them as tools in the world of hunter recruitment and retention. If you are an able-bodied male between the ages of 18-59, archery season for you should mean a vertical bow. Lastly, another 20-year-old opinion is that Ohio undervalues its resources with the pricing of our licenses and tags. I am not in favor of really going beyond my recommendations and feel that's fair all things considered. It may help deter some leasing from NRs, which would open up opportunities for residents to backfill via lease or permission (or even state programs) and I think landowner tags should be limited to your primary residence only. This would close the funding gap and if you're a resident who buys recreational ground, I think you should pay a little into the coffers that support the resource.
I'm not attempting to address the arguments against these because that circulates us back into a spiral of complaining. Just offering my solutions and justifications for choosing them.
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Share a story. For years farm bureau advocated for an early gun season. Like October early. This was in their yearly mission statement report as a stated goal for years and years. Suddenly one year the Wildlife Council approved an early muzzleloader season proposed by the DOW, total coincidence I'm sure, as a trade they eliminated the bonus gun season. I can't remember the exact number but north of 30 state legislators in Ohio signed a letter to the Wildlife Council demanding the bonus gun season be reinstated. They claimed that hunters reached out to them complaining about the removal of opportunities. They wanted both the early muzzleloader and bonus gun season to remain. Their letter and influence succeeded in making the Wildlife Council hold another off-schedule hearing to vote again on the issue. Many of the signed state congressmen showed up for the emergency hearing held by the council. Ultimately I was impressed as the council held to their stance and once again voted to try the early muzzleloader with no bonus gun season. The ag seats voted to keep both. At the time I did some research and every signature on that paper had received campaign donations from the Ohio Farm Bureau. The whole "hunters reached out to their reps complaining about the loss of opportunity" was a complete fabrication. The reality was Farm Bureau used the politically purchased congressmen to pit the heat on the Wildlife Council. But they still failed, that time. But don't for a minute think they don't get what they want in other ways. Hunters don't stand a chance against a checkbook like that.
Fun Note. That's how the Strouds gathering started in Mid October. This was during their deer decimation days and Rex said the 101st airborne couldn't kill all the deer down there. So we created a gathering at Strouds for the early muzzy season in mid October.
All of this X2, except I'd be a little stricter on the age requirements for crossbow use. A middle school age child can shoot a 40lb compound bow. Age 14 to 65. Hard pass on paying for landowner permits, too. I pay enough fucking taxes already and one of the benefits of owning land is not having to pay to hunt on it. Lack of funds isn't really a problem I see anywhere in what we need to fix what ails deer hunting in Ohio because we cannot out spend the FB and Insurance lobby.
You are among the most respected opinions on this topic for me, but I'll disagree (with a slight adjustment) to your timeline while agreeing that one or the other of us lives in a bubble
I have two anecdotes to go on for this observation: My house and the farm. My first hunt at the house was Christmas Day 1999. You could throw a rock out the back door and hit a deer in those days, and it seemed like I saw a good buck on most hunts and the ruts were INTENSE. In those days, there were only 2 bowhunters on the 300ish acres that influences the hunting back there. Me and one other guy, and neither of us baited. Today, there are 8 adult males, 4 of us with kids that hunt, and all 8 of us are running bait. Coincidentally, where we once had multiple older age class bucks, with the big boys being B&C contenders, we had exactly one mature buck between us this year. We have 1,000% "high-graded" our local herd. Oh, and the observed rut is nonexistent these days.
On the farm, you know the saga of Duece in '07-08, a deer that will never be replicated without some HUGE changes inside the 640. From 2008-2015, my target buck was 5+ and 160+. This year, he's maybe 4, most likely 3, and maybe 140. Again, the quantity and quality have been diminished in recent years, and what changed? Leasing by NRs and bait. For sure, the good old days are behind me and my bubble has burst.
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I agree with you. I certainly wasn't knocking the relevance of the discussion. Just worn out on it is all. I do find value in venting with other hunters. The frustration of knowning we will never change a damn thing is what is defeating. We are against a political machine. I think it's good to discuss.
We cannot change other people or many things in this life, but we all have the power to change ourselves.
Here's my top 3
1) Ban Baiting
2) Shorten Bow from October 1 to December 31
3) Increase NR tags substantially
None of those 3 things will solve the leasing problem or the shift of deer hunter mentality in general.
1) Ban Baiting
2) Shorten Bow from October 1 to December 31
3) Increase NR tags substantially
None of those 3 things will solve the leasing problem or the shift of deer hunter mentality in general.