BrownDogsCan2
Well-known member
Well shoot I was gonna ride with you!All B.S. aside. At 6.00 a gal. I could drive 200 miles south, fish and hunt preserve all winter!!
Well shoot I was gonna ride with you!All B.S. aside. At 6.00 a gal. I could drive 200 miles south, fish and hunt preserve all winter!!
Also, my Littel sister (63) lives in Florida, she says it's weird when you walk in a bar and you're the youngest one there.All B.S. aside. At 6.00 a gal. I could drive 200 miles south, fish and hunt preserve all winter!!
I should go back and change it to "land that is available to the public to hunt" perhaps. That would include privately held CRP etc.Sure, but the majority of CRP is private land.
Not to be sarcastic but there is only 61 days from Nov1-Jan1.I hunted uplands for 86 days in NW Montana this year and never saw another hunter.
I did not start until Nov 1 and I picked spots that were at least a mile walk to pheasant habitat.
And being retired, I only hunted weekdays.
I started in Alaska Aug 10, moved down to MT Nov 1, ended with ducks Jan 19 in MT.Not to be sarcastic but there is only 61 days from Nov1-Jan1.
While I do love sharing the field with my aging Father, I could not agree more with this statement. Sometimes when its just the dogs and I, I forget to shoot...but, I'd likely miss anyways. Soon my oldest boy will be ready to hunt. I look forward to that day.I always say go but go alone with your dog there is nothing like walking out there just you and your dog.
While you are probably correct in reducing hunter numbers, is he instead saying that reducing bag limits may provide more opportunities for more people to harvest birds longer into the season on public? That's just my 2 cents. If it's anything like Iowa however, you rarely see people limiting on public ground for roosters, and I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen public land limits with 2+ people.I'm not convinced reducing the daily bag limit would reduce hunter numbers. As a lifetime Montanan and avid bird hunter, I've seen a continual increase of hunting pressure to the upland bird resource in MT.
Today quick access to accurate landownership maps (onx maps), a popular Block Management Program, large tracts of Federal and State owned land, low hunter numbers relative to many mid-west states and the internet/ social media have all contributed to growing hunter numbers. Every hunter has to decide when expenditures exceed gratification.
Never leave empty hulls and never leave feathers at the scene of a good shoot.
I have been picking up hulls for 30 + years.. . . or anywhere
That is all true.One cannot stockpile birds. If numbers are elevated then limits should follow and vice versa. We as hunters are most dependent on the hatch of the year and not the adult carry over birds. If the hunters do not harvest the bonus surplus, then nature will by local climate conditions. The blizzard in ND will have an impact, hopefully not long lasting. Enjoy the surplus while it lasts. We all have seen the highs and lows. Until we control the climate to maximize bird populations, we have to adjust accordingly. Now who makes the rules is another discussion.
Just curious Skeeter.....what year was this that you found that many sharpies in the interior?That is all true.
Since I am retired and solo hunt locally, I have a self-imposed limit of 1 rooster per morning hunt.
I believe that allows me to repeat hunting the same drainage and every time I hunt it I flush at least 3 roosters.
Last fall I hunted the last week of the season the same drainage 5 straight mornings (weekdays only) and always flushed roosters.
Since I solo hunt and there is sweat-equity hiking into this drainage, it receives little pressure.
I think that if a gang of 4-6 hunters went in for a couple days huntng, the roosters would have dispersed to another low-pressure area.
I had the same approach in Alaska...a self imposed limit of 3 sharptails on a 5-acre cranberry patch near my home.
(The limit was 15 sharptails).
Over a month I shot 60 sharptails from that patch....it never burned out even after hunting day after day after day.
Some evenings I would flush 20-30 birds even though I had hunted it the four previous evenings.
Too Many Hunters,
This happened to Kansas years ago. I hunted there for at least 25 years. Public ground hunting was excellent when I first started. Word got out on the net and here came the buses of hunters. Kansas is very hit or miss now due to over hunting and lost of CRP ground. I hunted in the great state of Montana years back. We didn't see a lot of hunters then. I'm sure you will see a decline in birds.
Kansas has a lot fewer upland hunters than it did 25 years ago.
It's really crazy to me and really highlights the loss of hunting ground. Every motel in the west half of the state of KS was booked the first month of the season years back and I don't really ever remember cussing about hunting pressure. Nowadays you're fighting for spots all day long and there's a fraction of the hunters. So sad we didn't realize what we had and that we let it get away. I don't have a son and my daughter isn't into the bird hunting at this point but I'd be even madder if I had a kid that really wanted to get into this and Id never be able to give them the memories I had. It's bad enough staring at young dogs in my pen that I wonder what I'll do with coming down the pipe the next few years. They'll sure never see the miles my previous dogs have seen and it's not their fault.Too Many Hunters,
This happened to Kansas years ago. I hunted there for at least 25 years. Public ground hunting was excellent when I first started. Word got out on the net and here came the buses of hunters. Kansas is very hit or miss now due to over hunting and lost of CRP ground. I hunted in the great state of Montana years back. We didn't see a lot of hunters then. I'm sure you will see a decline in birds.