Originally Posted by
PBiz
Robbie,
Would you support a line item in a bill:
-Leased land to be 500 acres, Owned land to be 150 acres to dog hunt
-A license to turn loose dogs, where the strikes follow the individual, not the club
Oh yeah, if you want me to keep my dogs on my property, then give me more buck tags than I could ever shoot..
Sometimes deer have to be killed in order to stop the hounds..
Will all types of hunting dogs be affected in this bill? I.e., fox,cat,rabbit,hog,coon,duck?
PBiz,
I personally think that 500 acres is way too small so 150 would be way out of the question. Here are the reason why: A guy who has a slow controlled pack of beagles "could" keep them on 150 acres no problem. However, the majority of those causing problems will not fit that category. The "community club" that borders my land has slightly over 150 acres that are owned by the "et al" so it would fall under the "owned" category. Every Saturday they surround the block (30 yards apart) and turn loose 20-30 walkers. Where do you think those dogs end up 30 minutes later? In my opinion, these are the types that are creating a majority (not all) of the problems.
I have a close friend who owns about 500 acres that is about 5 miles up the swamp from one of our hunting areas. He has battled a "dog club" for years and years. This group will purposely turn loose 50 walkers on 200 acres beside my friend and drive to the other side of his property to shoot. He manages for trophy deer and puts a lot of time, effort and money into it. They try to run his property EVERY Saturday. They will trespass to shoot a deer, they will radio each other as to the owners whereabouts, they will raise hell when he brings them one of their dogs he has caught on his land because it interrupts their hunt, they will lie and claim to be hunting with our club when questioned by the game warden (so your idea about fines tied to the owner are good but they started running no name tags on collar), on and on and on. Now, when the wind is blowing just right on one of the 5 Saturdays that we hunt down the swamp from him, we will have a few dogs get on his property. It has never happened before 11:00 as we wait until 8:30-8:45 to turn loose. He allows me to use my key to let anyone from our club onto his property to catch their dog. The other club can not understand the difference. For this guy, it is simple. We do not hunt and intrude upon him every Saturday (although even one intrusion is not justified) and we do not try to purposely hunt his property. A local GW has pretty much shut this crowd down by using the Renegade Dog Act. It could curtail many of the problems IF there were enough GWs to handle each county who knew and understood the law and made it a priority.
Excellent point about the buck tags. When we are hunting a 2,500 acre swamp, the fact that we wait late to turn dogs loose helps with neighbor relations. The fact that we shoot EVERY buck that is not a cow horn (and still manage to kill over 100 bucks a year most of which are 6 points or better, but that is a different topic) greatly influences how quickly and how often the dogs get off our property which greatly helps with neighbor relations. Do we stop every buck? No. Will the new tag system make even more "pass through"? Most definitely. Especially on a large tract of land. There is a HUGE difference between dog hunting 800 acres of fields and flatwoods compared to dog hunting 2,500 acres of swamp or all woods. This difference should be considered within a proposal. I think (based on conversations and reading some posts on here) that most people associate hunting deer with dogs with a group of 20 guys with 50 dogs hunting 300 acres.
Coon hunting under the same bill? IMHO it should be included. I have had just as many coon dogs that were turned loose on 100 acres come onto my property as I have had deer dogs over the years. In fact, the coon hounds are worse because they will tree on my land and the hunter has to trespass in order to get him. At least the deer dogs will keep running most of the time and be gone within an hour or so.
Become one with nature then marinate it.
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