The Future of Hunting in Ohio

[bowhunter1023]

I encourage you to watch and/or listen to this podcast with @mrex. You can find it on all streaming platforms along with YouTube.

I know there will be some strong opinions on this topic, so pull on your big boy panties if you want to throw down on this conversation. In the podcast, they discuss bait, cameras, crossbows, leasing, and a few other factors/conditions that have led to Ohio being on the backside of the bell curve with its hunting quality and experience. I was surprised there was no mention of social media and how it has contributed to the degradation of the experience.

The key takeaway for me is that as a landowner and someone exempt from a license and tag, I still buy them every year and only recently have really needed to do so (because of my desire to hunt public and get away from my corn-piling neighbors). I would pay $100 for a license and $50 for an either sex tag if I could go back to my early 2000s hunting experiences. Hell, I'd probably pay 2-3-4x that to hunt my own land if it meant a higher quality experience than what I had this year.

I agree with Don Higgins, hunters are the minority and our opinion doesn't matter even if we were truly united and at peak #s. My recommendation to the wildlife council is to ban baiting and let's go from there. I would also support the banning of trail cameras on public grounds and could be convinced to support the banning of cell cams altogether. Overall, we need to make things harder or we'll be more like WV than IL in another decade.

 

[Deersurgeon]

I complete agree with your recommendations and baiting has completely changed the normal deer movement around my 120 acre parcel due to surrounding neighbors who all bait. It’s a struggle as there is also so much influence regarding other properties that are being leased out for high dollar amount. Where I hunt any vacant properties are leased and various social media posts (Facebook, Instagram, etc) about big bucks pulled from the area continues to influence more people to hunt and flood to certain areas. It’s frustrating because there is not much I can change however I am blessed to have the opportunity to be out in the woods with my son and for every breath I take.

Regarding baiting ban in Ohio - I would love to see however there is no way certain hunters are going to stop baiting. It’s how a majority of people have always hunted and I don’t see them changing irregardless if it was banned. I would have a hard believing the ODNR would enforce that as they don’t follow leads on your routine poaching acting or additional complaints.

I could be wrong but interested to hear others opinions…

 

[at1010]

I also enjoyed this (as you know already). Mike did a very nice job explaining the balance the ODNR must maintain (imo).

I still would love to support DMAP or some type of more refined zoning vs. county sections. Although I bait - I would fully support a baiting ban.

as for cell cameras - I wouldn’t support a ban. I think they help far to greatly as a security and trespassing deterrent. However, I would support the state regulating them with the service providers. An example is - if you select the camera is for hunting, in Ohio - it’ll only allow 1 time per day photo transfer. This wouldn’t be difficult for a camera company to add to their software. Also, if you select security - it could be timely send. The majority will follow the rules.

Lastly - if a dmap is considered. I’d fully support using guys like Seth and Brock to contract with dnr to do density surveys in zones. I’d want this to be shared publicly for both biologist and zone operator agreeing on the count. This removes the speculation of DNR falsely inflating numbers or not.

here is a little video I did after watching this podcast. What do yall think?

 

[Gern186]

Everyone wants to kill a 160 inch deer or bigger every year it seems. The reality of it is not even close to happening. If you don't have a chance to kill any deer on your property then its time to look at the bigger picture. Maybe lower your standards on what you decide to shoot and stop worrying about what the neighbors are doing. We already have enough government regulations telling us what we can and can't do. We don't need more restrictions than what we already have.

 

[bowhunter1023]

Everyone wants to kill a 160 inch deer or bigger every year it seems. The reality of it is not even close to happening. If you don't have a chance to kill any deer on your property then its time to look at the bigger picture. Maybe lower your standards on what you decide to shoot and stop worrying about what the neighbors are doing. We already have enough government regulations telling us what we can and can't do. We don't need more restrictions than what we already have.

I don't necessarily disagree with you, even though I feel attacked

I bring this up as devil's advocate, but seat belt laws were a good idea, so not all regulation is bad. All joking aside, I don't have an inches goal, but an age goal and it wasn't really until this year that I realized the effects of many factors on our local deer herd. I am advocating for more, older deer, not necessarily bigger deer (although I recognize the correlation). I have more on the topic I'll share as the convo unfolds, but I know you'll make a thoughtful response that I'm genuinely interested in reading.

 

[Gern186]

I haven't watched the podcast yet to be honest. I will watch it later. I do think it can be humbling and disappointing when you pour money and work into making property improvements only to see them not always pay off for you. Its frustrating for sure. And I think most guys deal with it annually.

 

[at1010]

I don't necessarily disagree with you, even though I feel attacked

I bring this up as devil's advocate, but seat belt laws were a good idea, so not all regulation is bad. All joking aside, I don't have an inches goal, but an age goal and it wasn't really until this year that I realized the effects of many factors on our local deer herd. I am advocating for more, older deer, not necessarily bigger deer (although I recognize the correlation). I have more on the topic I'll share as the convo unfolds, but I know you'll make a thoughtful response that I'm genuinely interested in reading.

I do think @Gern186 brings up a good point about over regulation.

We also need to be careful when we wish for older deer. Honestly - from a biological perspective we want some bucks in each cohort harvested, same with does, to maximize carrying capacity. I’d suspect this is done well at the macro level just based on law of averages and one buck state.

If everyone is only shooting 5+ year olds we will certainly lend ourselves to high grading - imo. This is a common argument against APRs.

As Mike hit on, we need to focus on hunter retention and recruitment. Altho it doesn’t seem this way - most hunters just want a chance at a deer. This is why I believe it’s critical to leave as many regulations as they are but consider fine tuning areas to help with deer population increases/decreases.

The mature bucks will be there regardless. Honestly in Ohio (other than the guys in this podcast) - I don’t hear guys complaining about quality bucks. Between cameras and harvests we all seem to have fun with the chase at a minimum each year.

We do seem to have concerns with quantity of deer and that is highly variable depending on hunter, area, etc. again my reason for proposing zones or DMAP.

 

[Jamie]

I don't need to see that podcast. The writing has been on the wall for 30 years if you bothered to look. As someone who NEVER gave into the appeal of easier equipment, artificial feeding or the use of trail cameras of any kind, I do not stake any claim to high moral ground, but only that my perspective is somewhat rare today. In my opinion, hunters need to start hunting deer on the deer's terms and stop taking advantage of every shortcut. The state isn't going to do anything to curtail the sale of tags or licenses, or to slow down the killing of deer. That is up all of us to take responsibility to limit ourselves on how easy we make killing a deer and how many and what kind we kill.

It has always been my contention that crossbows should not be allowed in archery season except for people that have a legitimate physical limitation that prevents them from shooting a 90% let-off compound bow, and I still feel that way today, but they are surely here to stay. Archery only seasons were born of low success rates due to the difficulty of using archery equipment. Now compound crossbows with magnification optics are killing more deer than firearms, and they are doing so in October and November for the most part. That is why the quality of your deer hunting experience has been annihilated and will not get better. Hunting in archery season is simply too easy today because of crossbows, corn piles and trail cameras.

 

[LonewolfNopack]

I'm not going to watch the video, mainly because i have zero attention span listening to people talking about this stuff, but also because of the characters talking here....but in my very negative but extremely realistic view (which means absolutely nothing) deer hunting as we once knew in Ohio is doomed. There's a lot of reasons for this, won't divulge here because it doesn't matter. If you ever want deer hunting to be like it once was you better change your mindset and expectations, because the old days are behind us and honestly in 10 years we will wish we had 2023 type hunting again....that is assuming you even still have a place to hunt that hasn't been leased out.

 

[bonemonger]

If you want to improve the hunting in Ohio in my opinion you have to limit non residents ability to get buck tags. It would eliminate a bunch of leasing if non residents were only able to harvest a buck from gun season till the end of bow season. All top quality states limits non residents either through limited tags or through a drawing. In my opinion there are too many outfitters focusing on leasing land to profit off of the unlimited non residents,if you could stop the ability for them hunting early bow season if could reduce leasing

 

[at1010]

I'm not going to watch the video, mainly because i have zero attention span listening to people talking about this stuff, but also because of the characters talking here....but in my very negative but extremely realistic view (which means absolutely nothing) deer hunting as we once knew in Ohio is doomed. There's a lot of reasons for this, won't divulge here because it doesn't matter. If you ever want deer hunting to be like it once was you better change your mindset and expectations, because the old days are behind us and honestly in 10 years we will wish we had 2023 type hunting again....that is assuming you even still have a place to hunt that hasn't been leased out.

Mike and the guys did bring up leasing and how it’s hurt access tremendously - which is one of the largest hurdles to hunter retention.

Basically it was chalked up to “you can’t stop it in a capitalist society”.

 

[LonewolfNopack]

Mike and the guys did bring up leasing and how it’s hurt access tremendously - which is one of the largest hurdles to hunter retention.

Basically it was chalked up to “you can’t stop it in a capitalist society”.

Hes not wrong on that either. It's a huge issue that is virtually impossible to stop. Which is a problem for us 99%ers. I'm already seeing the rich guys being outbid on leases by guys that are even more rich then them. Once more landowners realize the gold mine they are sitting on the cards will continue to fall. The price will be unthinkable. First born? Wife? It's well proven by now that there is a certain class of hunters that will do whatever the fuck it takes to kill a big buck just so they can brag about it on FB each year. Family, friends, job, life be dammed.

 

[giles]

Man...who knew that mrex and I would agree on so many things, lol.

Alot of very depressing things said in this. Kinda seems like everyone knows a problem is here but no one is going to do anything.

 

[Clay Showalter]

It would be interesting to know how many leases are to residents and how many to nonresidents

 

[Bigcountry40]

I'll make several comments on this thread as I love these type of threads, we need to regulate outfitters asap.

 

[bonemonger]

That would be hard to determine because how many residents were forced to lease just to keep a place to hunt.

 

[Mike]

I don't get the crossbow argument. Most archery hunters that i know, regardless of equipment, hunt the firearms seasons. That's usually what it takes for me to fill tags anyway.

 

[Tipmoose]

Regarding baiting, they can ban it, but I don't see that making a difference to some folks. Corn is king and it always will be.

I agree completely on severely reducing non-resident opportunities. That will also reduce the impact of oos leasing and outfitters.

Other than that, I absolutely oppose any sort of TDM stuff like APRs. I detest that stuff. Give me a tag and let me decide what I want to spend it on.

In general, less regulation is preferable.

 

[Jackalope]

I watched most of the podcast in about 3 different segments.

I've beat this horse to mush already over the years. I will say this. Hunters have absolutely zero influence on what the future holds for hunting in Ohio. ZERO. The DOW is a business where hunters are the customer, but hunters are not the shareholder. Big agriculture and insurance rule the roost at the state legislature way above the ODNR.

One thing that wasn't really talked about was the "why". Why all of a sudden did baiting and leasing explode in Ohio. Why all of a sudden did everyone start dumping corn and trying to lock up property? If you've hunted in the state long enough you'll know that it primarily started to ramp up about 2008 when the DNR decided we had too many deer and hammered the population. When people saw their deer numbers plummet they did what any human naturally predisposed with greed would do. They set out to hoard what was left. They excluded and leased to lock up a place only they could hunt. They set about baiting as a way to see more deer again. From there leasing started to become more acceptable, farmers learned they could make money and their farmer neighbors wouldn't judge them for it. Then here come the out of state money leasers.

It's the same reason Rex bought a 29-acre lake that everyone in the community fished that produced two state-record fish and then he proceeded to kick everyone else out. Greed. Deer numbers drop and greed kicks in. Leasing and baiting become a thing.

 

[at1010]

I don't get the crossbow argument. Most archery hunters that i know, regardless of equipment, hunt the firearms seasons. That's usually what it takes for me to fill tags anyway.

Currently - 70% of the archery harvest is now with crossbows. However, according to odnr data - even in years(04-10) crossbow use declined archery harvest still increased.

So we can draw a conclusion here - that regardless of crossbows or not - more hunters are enjoying archery.

I suspect if crossbows were outlawed - youd see a decline for a short duration and then an increase in bow hunters again. That’s my guess based on the ODNR statistics.