Quote Originally Posted by JBtflo View Post
The problem is that the legislature has to decide what that is going to be in words. As soon as any restrictions get talked about, whether it's GPS collars, different or fewer dogs, acreage limits, training, etc., there's going to be push back.

I suspect many of the "good" clubs have a series of attributes that contribute to this that may be hard to reduce to words. Location is likely the hardest to describe. Having the luck of being in a club in a very rural area with few neighbors, or only neighbors that share similar views is going to be hard to put into law. Another is not having the types of hunters that disrespect other landowners on the regular. Careful curating of good members can help individual clubs, but DNR or the legislature cannot reduce that to text in laws or regulations.

What the legislature is going to have to do is continue to kick the can down the road or come up with some likely compromises. This has been simmering for a long time and is only going to get worse with the amount of development and breakups of large land holdings. Self-regulating isn't going to work now, nor is the dogs can't read signs thing gonna work. Most timber companies have prohibited dog hunting for deer as they are an easy well-heeled target, and more importantly, can usually quickly replace a hunt club with another. What's left is either going to have to decide to come to the table with something as refusing to do anything is likely to make it worse whenever the hammer eventually drops, and it will.

The constant influx of people ain't making this go away - just watch what you ask for with continued lower and lower taxes demands as well-off retirees that are tired of cold weather are seeking cheap (from their perspective) properties and they have the money to buy them up. They didn't grow up with the dog hunting tradition and likely don't care how they always did it round here... The public will decide what the answer is, right or wrong. May happen next year or in ten years, but it will happen eventually.

Either take the lead or get led.
Yes dog hunting land is getting harder and harder to come by. Another reason clubs should work harder to control dogs and have respect for adjacent land owners.

I will say this again acreage limits is NOT the fix.

Just requiring GPS collars won't fix it all either but using the GPS collars to train your dogs and being adamant you want your dogs on right property is the only fix.

Very few haven't went to GPS collars but that doesn't mean they have collar broke dogs.


I am all for having fines in place to keep dog men in place and technology with GPS collars aren't fail proof 100% but 99.9% dependable so is that .1% going to cause someone to have dogs out of hunt area at some point in time absolutely. I am speaking from experience here. Had a dog stolen due to this .1%. You can't keep a dog on the property if you have no tracking on it. (I am not making excuses for anyone to justify their dogs being off property just trying to educate ones that may not know.)

My experience goes back 14 years with collar broke deer dogs with using garmin tools to accomplish.

Still hunters and land owners that are having issues with dog clubs i hope you will take info provided from those of us that want it done right to preserve dog hunting and speak up as your voices will be heard louder than any dog hunter on the planet.