^^^exactly what are you talking about here? I am confused about what you just stated. Are you saying there is no need to manage the deer herd?
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^^^exactly what are you talking about here? I am confused about what you just stated. Are you saying there is no need to manage the deer herd?
I think what you are really reading Tim, is shear frustration with the Dept and perhaps the loss of hunting areas to leases. Also shows some passion, which most of us understand. I myself had have MANY dealings with the Dept, including face-to-face meetings in Frankfort and can share the posters' pain.
I get frustrated with some of the things that happen up there as well, but most of it has to do with the commission itself. The Biologist, C.O.'s and the others with their boots on the ground are doing the best they can. More people should get involved with what goes on. You have a voice through your comissioner, let it be heard. You can also address the comission at their quarterly meetings, provided you follow protocol.
I agree with you 100% Tim. Most of the biologists and CO's are stand-up hardworking folks. Like I stated in a previous post, I have been to Frankfort for a face-to-face and it was a waste. My numerous writings to my commish were a waste as well. Maybe someday I'll see some changes and try again.
I dont hunt anymore, but what iron worker said is painfully a fact.It started many years ago when hunting clubs bought leases from farm owners, we paid for a duck hunting trip in arkansas, we were refered by a third person. CASH only!All the "guide" did was tell us the location of the blinds, and which one was ours. This became so prevalent with all small game that it wasn't worth it, the public hunting areas were stocked daily and you paid a fee,for this you got a chance to shoot a semi tame pheasant, wow!
[QUOTE=IronWorker;445144]Please dont take what i am about to say wrong. But with all due respect to you the days of it being "our deer herd" are long over. The private land owners along with the out of state land hoarders are the ones who now own the deer herds with the sole expressed interest in making large amounts of money off those deer herds. I with the inclusion of eveyone on this board knows this is true and so does the Kentucky Department of Fish & Wildlife. The Department of Fish & Wildlife would never admit it (even under the most dire circumstances they wouldnt admit it) and they are desperately hoping not many people open their eyes to the fact of it being how it is. [B]The truth is we are paying state employed biologists to keep track of privately owned deer herds on privately owned land that 99% of us will never get to hunt much less take a shot at them. And if thats not crooked i dont know what would constitute being crooked.[/B]
With so many private deer herds actively managed and looked after by multi-millionaire landowners who are in the business of making money off those deer there is little danger of the state wide deer population being compromised to the point that their numbers will become endangered much less being hunted to extinction. So why do we have state employed conservation officers and biologists when there are so many deer hunting business owners constantly patroling their properties and monitoring the numbers and the quality of these privately owned deer herds.
How can a poacher stand a chance against one of these land owners following them with a GPS and a cell phone connected to the state police?
[B]The survey results were probably not released to the public because it would have caused a huge stink and ill tell you why it might have possibly caused a stink.[/B]
[B]With all the farmers who own a thousand acres and are inviting out of staters in to hunt. Do you honestly think these farmers are going to the courthouse and registering as a "hunting guide business"? [/B]
[B]Do you think they are requiring their "paid guests" to use a legitimate and traceable form of payment and to also purchase a state hunting license and all applicable permits? [/B]
[B]Do you honestly think the number of deer being havested is reported in a honest and accurate manner?[/B]
These individuals claim it is cheaper to sell guided hunts than to risk planting a crop and losing it to drought. Dont think for one minute that behind all the no tresspassing signs and constant 24 hour trail cam protection that a number of them are not secretly planting a "crop" and making 100% tax free money off it.[/QUOTE]
To get to a few of your topics (Still not sure I understand everything you are saying).
"[B]The truth is we are paying state employed biologists to keep track of privately owned deer herds on privately owned land that 99% of us will never get to hunt much less take a shot at them. And if thats not crooked i dont know what would constitute being crooked."[/B]
There is no such thing as a privately owned deer herd, and the biologist and C.O.'s are in charge of the entire herd regardless of whose land they are on. Just because we can't hunt there doesn't mean squat. It is the landwoners choice if he wants to let you or anybody else hunt, so I am not sure how that is "crokked."
[B]"The survey results were probably not released to the public because it would have caused a huge stink and ill tell you why it might have possibly caused a stink. With all the farmers who own a thousand acres and are inviting out of staters in to hunt. Do you honestly think these farmers are going to the courthouse and registering as a "hunting guide business"? [/B]
[B]Do you think they are requiring their "paid guests" to use a legitimate and traceable form of payment and to also purchase a state hunting license and all applicable permits? [/B]
[B]Do you honestly think the number of deer being havested is reported in a honest and accurate manner?"[/B]
Once again, a farmer has the right to allow who he wants to hunt his land and that includes leasing the hunting rights. If they are leasing hunting rights then they do not have to be registered as an outfitter. Not sure what the payment has to do with anything.
If someone is hunting with no license, that is on the hunter not the landowner. Now do I think the number of deer reported is accurate? No I don't and neither does KDFWR or any other state game agency. That is why the figure a percentage in for illegal harvest.
[B]"These individuals claim it is cheaper to sell guided hunts than to risk planting a crop and losing it to drought. Dont think for one minute that behind all the no tresspassing signs and constant 24 hour trail cam protection that a number of them are not secretly planting a "crop" and making 100% tax free money off it"[/B]
What is illegal about no trespassing signs, trail cams and food plots?
Honestly, this reeks of someone who lost their hunting land because some out of state hunters came in and leased up the land.
Guys, i don't know anything about this survey or whether i completed it or not. That said, I grew up in Mississippi, where hunting rules are pretty wide open. Put it this way, gun season lasts from the weekend before Thanksgiving to the end of January except for one week of muzzleloader season in early December (the rut is between Christmas and New Years that far south). Down there, there's probably 25 bucks killed to every doe (according to feedback from processors) and you're allowed to kill something like three bucks per year plus two more for archery. That causes this crazy situation where the deer overpopulate because hunters won't shoot does because they don't have horns and where bucks don't grow big because the deer herd is so overpopulated. Trust me, I went numerous years without seeing a single buck, spike or anything! The does I've shot since moving here are easily 20 lbs heavier than Mississippi does.
Plus, Mississippi hunters complain that all the land is getting gobbled up by private hunters also. This certainly isn't a KY-only complaint. I just think our KDFWR is doing a great job and they are doing their best with limited resources. I don't think they are perfect, after all the commissioner plead guilty to poaching an elk just about a year before his appointment, but the folks with their boots on the ground, as Tim said, seem like salt of the earth.
[I] agree with you eddie m, but it is not the people with their boots on the ground that is the problem.[/I]
Before getting started i would like to explain i know an individual who worked for a larger sized guide business. This individual showed me copies of emails that were exchanged between his employers and several other guide services. The emails contained what i would consider to be unethical business practices and ill not say anything more other than that.
What i wrote was in simple English and not hard to understand. I was not saying there is no need to manage the deer herd and in no way could what i have said be interpreted as to mean the state deer herd does not need to be managed.
What i was initially saying is the KDFWR could stop all activities of state funded deer heard management and unless some kind of bizarre mutated deer death plague occurred the deer herds would never be in danger of dying out but rather would continue to show a yearly increase in big deer size and quality. The KDFWR are no longer the primary deer herd management professionals but have been replaced by the private deer hunting business owners. And they are managing the deer herds better than the KDFWR were ever capable of doing. And ill explain how this is being done.
The KDFWR employees are required to follow certain deer herd management procedure and protocol that is public knowledge and constantly scrutinized by the general public at large. Therefore they cant simply take it upon themselves to deliberately and frequently kill off all the bucks that are of small and medium physical size and antler size. The deer hunting business owners are not subject to the same publicly scrutinized procedure and protocol. But rather they constantly monitor their privately owned deer herds and are actively killing out what they consider the genetically inferior bucks in favor of having nothing but the utmost largest of the genetically superior pope and young and boone and crocket record bucks.
Simply put the bigger the deer the bigger the price that the hunt can be prostituted for. Big deer equal big money and dont think for a minute these deer hunting business owners arent constantly killing out the little bucks to keep them form poisoning their trophy deer herd with their inferior genetic material. Dont think for a minute these guys are waiting until hunting season to kill the smaller less desirable deer out of their herds. And where are the biologists when all this is going on?
If they state stopped managing the deer herd things would plummet down hill fast. There is no way to argue otherwise. There are very few places in the state like you describe, so they are not much of a factor to the health of the overall herd. I think you are giving the few that are out there more credit than they deserve.
One thing really disturbs me. You know someone in the business, have read these e-mails and it seriously sounds like you know of illegal activities. Did you report this to any law enforcement officials? If not, why?
One other thing, judging by your last post (and I could be wrong about this) but you seem to be in favor of the way the private landowners manage the herd instead of the way the KDFWR manages it. Is this true? If so, why?
Dear Sir, with all due respect to you i stated that i had read emails that contained information about several deer hunting businesses being involved in what i in my personal opinion considers to be unethical business practices. And i will leave it at that.
What im saying is the state no longer maintains the role of managing the deer herds as it did twenty five years ago. The state wildlife biologists and conservation officers have simply been pushed aside by the privatized deer hunting business owners. The KDFWR wont admit it due to it giving the appearance of the KDFWR losing control of the deer herd management programs that took decades to develop and implement and the millions of tax payer dollars that was spent doing so.
There are quite a few of these large hunting operations evenly dispersed throughout the state and you have to consider they involve thousands of acres of farm land. Then there are the medium size operations consisting of more or les than a thousand acres that are adjoining the largest ones. In some instances there are enough of these medium size operations that they completely surrounding the largest of the hunting properties. And there are the additional four and five hundred acre land tracts that are connected to the medium size operations. For anyone who cant imagine this is true then come down to Henderson, Union, Webster, Crittenden, Caldwell, Hopkins, Muhlenburg and Ohio Counties and you will see for your self.
These are all privately owned and managed deer herds that are located inside of multiple thousands of acres of privately posted land. These deer herds are being managed in ways that the general public would not approve of with little regard to the opinions of the general public because the general public will not be hunting them. And does the KDFWR really care that all this is happening? Probably not due to the fact their big game management work load has most likely been reduced by over 80% in the last twenty five years. The fact is the deer hunting business owners are doing all the KDFWR work for them.
I left when i was a teenager and went to NCY to hang steel in a relatives construction business i came back in 2009 and i couldn’t believe how much the deer herds had improved. The large numbers of trophy sized deer im seeing now is mind blowing considering it is something you didn’t see here twenty five years ago. The bad thing about it is twenty five more years an entire future generation of hunters will be lost and non-existent.
Were these e-mails talking about Illegal activities? Or just unethical? There is a difference.
[B]"There are quite a few of these large hunting operations evenly dispersed throughout the state." [/B]
Really? Who are they and where are they located? As best I can tell looking at the numbers there are not that many.
[B]"What im saying is the state no longer maintains the role of managing the deer herds as it did twenty five years ago. The state wildlife biologists and conservation officers have simply been pushed aside by the privatized deer hunting business owners." [/B]
Nothing the KDFWR does has changed over the last 25 years in regards to the control they have. The only thing that has changed was when we went to the one buck limit, the state started producing more trophy deer and in recent history QDMA has become a catch phrase and a lot of individuals are passing on smaller bucks to let them grow.
[B]"The KDFWR wont admit it due to it giving the appearance of the KDFWR losing control of the deer herd management programs that took decades to develop and implement and the millions of tax payer dollars that was spent doing so."[/B]
That is a load of crap, they haven't lost control and they receive ZERO dollars from the taxpayers and the general fund. KDFWR is self sustained by us buying license and tags and Pittman-Robertson money.
[B]"There are quite a few of these large hunting operations evenly dispersed throughout the state"[/B]
There are very few of these type of places. Not sure why you continue to insist otherwise.
[B]"For anyone who cant imagine this is true then come down to Henderson, Union, Webster, Crittenden, Caldwell, Hopkins, Muhlenburg and Ohio Counties and you will see for your self."[/B]
Once again, there ar not that many places like you describe and the few that do exist have no real influence in the states deer management. If they are managing their land in accordance with the laws then that is their perogative, but if they are breaking the law they will be punished. If you don't believe so do a google search on Game Trails LLC or Greg Ritz.
[B]"And does the KDFWR really care that all this is happening? Probably not due to the fact their big game management work load has most likely been reduced by over 80% in the last twenty five years. The fact is the deer hunting business owners are doing all the KDFWR work for them."[/B]
False!!!
[B]I left when i was a teenager and went to NCY to hang steel in a relatives construction business i came back in 2009 and i couldn’t believe how much the deer herds had improved. The large numbers of trophy sized deer im seeing now is mind blowing considering it is something you didn’t see here twenty five years ago.[/B]
The one buck rule and more people trophy hunting are what caused this. You were not here so you don't realize the changes that started in the early 90's. I am still confused where you came up with this conspiracy theory.
[B]The bad thing about it is twenty five more years an entire future generation of hunters will be lost and non-existent.[/B]
Really? Who are all these youngsters I keep seeing at Kentucky Hunter Education courses?