Neighborhood Management

[hoosierhunter]

Most state DNRs are trying to reduce herd numbers thus leading to the need for sportsman to join together and take ownership where they hunt. Most of us do not own enough property to be effective on our own which drives the need for joint efforts with our neighbors.

Let's put down some ideas and see what has worked and what hasn't.

The 1st thing to remember is that everyone won't have an interest and it doesn't happen over night.

-most neighbors feel the other guys aren't practicing any type of management and they haven't seen any results if they have tried.

-most people do not want to share information with other hunters

-trail cams are very underutilized as a management tool. I've found them to be the best way to show neighbors what really is out there.

-typically hunters don't need to harvest a trophy, but they need to see verification of what they are trying to achieve.

-you need to start small and work your way up to desired goals. By simply limiting 1.5 year old harvest guys will see a tremendous jump in deer quality. Also don't expect them to pass a deer bigger than they have ever killed. Nothing breads higher goals than making them doable.

-show them your success. Before I used to not show anyone what I shot. I learned that the power of knowledge is key. Seeing big deer gets people excited.

-offer to help them and develop a strong line of communication. Gaining trust is very important.

-peer pressure does help. Talking and showing them what you take and pass on helps to mold their goals.

-Don't tell them what to do. ASK for their input and what they want to accomplish and try to help them get there.

-if needed lease ground that you don't own. We removed several hunters that didn't buy in by doing this.

-gift them a 1 year subscription to QDMA. This allows them to gain knowledge on their own time and really opens up discussions.

-don't belittle them for not agreeing with you. Spite is a very powerful thing mistakes happen to everyone. Stay positive with them and encourage their growth.

-have a neighborhood meeting for everyone to come together and talk. Start small and get buyin from 1 or 2 and then extend so every time you have a new attendee your group is on the same page and it generally makes them want to be apart of that.

The biggest hurdle I've had is to open up and trust them. It's hard to show trail cams of big deer to people because you worry that they will hunt harder by seeing it. That may be the case but it also gives them a goal and all of the sudden younger deer walk while they are waiting for Mr. Big. I've lost several good up and comers this way, but now there are way more youngsters to replace him than before.

It's taken 6 years to get a low level of knowledge going around me but I can see it working. I have 3 neighbors that have really helped out. Only one is on my level of goals and the other two are leaps and bounds ahead of where they used to be.

Yes I still have neighbors who literally shoot anything that moves. What you start to see though is when pressure reduces on these other properties the deer quickly leave this high pressure area and end up in yours!

[wtnhunt]

We have a new neighbor on one side that was a bit of a problem before, this person bought the property that had been being leased by a couple guys. Was supposedly a hunting club depending on who you talked to. I talked with the new owner back in the spring and he seemed to be all for passing young bucks. That said, he had another boy with him and was supposedly showing him the lines. He was on our side when he was doing so, so we'll see how that goes. Previous lease holders on that property agreed on passing little bucks, but too many times during our gun seasons we watched little bucks cross over only to hear them shoot.

Another previously leased farm beside that one that typically has a lot of gun activity was up for sale, but don't know yet if that property has been bought. Could potentially be some good things for this area, however we do have a couple other property owners around where their land is hunted by those with the brown its down mentality, unfortunately one that is bordering us on one side.

[Dawg]

All that seems good in writing......but when you have guys hunting neighboring properties who are from out of town, it's hard to get them rounded up. Especially when they hunt the first week of general season and then disappear. The guy that is the lease manager of one of the leases that surrounds my 140 plot is a special kind of character. Only thing I've seen him worry about is trying to get the oil/gas company workers to lock the gate when they come and go. Makes me laugh cause it's a lost cause, those workers couldn't care less about the gate going into our properties. As for showing trail cam pics.....HA! forget about it. Poaching is too bad as it is.

What is the poaching like in your area, Hoosier?

I'm hoping the other lease I got on this year will have better "neighbors" but it too is in a high poaching area. So we'll see.

[Strut10]

You put forth a BUNCH of good thinking in your post Hoosier. The problem with it in my own situation is the neighbors.

On one side I've got a guy who has his hunters putting up stands on line trees eve though he owns about 130 acres and could put them LOTS of other places. He has a handful of "city" guys who come in for a hunt or two during general firearm season and they will down anything PA legal and some that are not.

On another side I have a nurseryman who does not hunt. But he has "hired guns" come in during gun season and, again, brown and down it.

On a third side the landowner leases out to a corn and bean farmer who, every year, gets the maximum number of damage permits he is allowed and pounds the deer from that side. The landowner and his extended family and outlaw friends also aren't at all into any sort of management practices.

The ONLY saving grace where I am is that I own the PRIME piece of bedding cover and have done a LOT of improvements. And the neighbor lady has 100 acres posted to EVERYONE but me and my uncle maintain foodplots on that piece.

The neighborhood collaboration is a SUPER idea to gain a quantity of land that actual management practices can be effective. But ya gotta have good neighbors.

[hoosierhunter]

Neighborhood Management

Dawg

Poaching is not a issue today. It was several years back until we got the guys caught and prosecuted. The same with trespassing. It's a zero tolerance policy. I actually turned in guys I know. They thought rules didn't apply to them. I wouldn't call them friends but we knew eachother.

We also patrol our roads almost daily right now in the evenings. It serves as scouting for us and a deterrent for others.

We are extremely protective of our area but we all grew up there and still live close. It's a big reason why we have access to ground as the neighborhood knows we are watching.

[Dawg]

Another "luxury" you have that we don't. Some guys have all the luck! As I've said before, East Texas is considered the poaching capital of Texas. Guys get caught every year but go right back out there not long after. They are like gremlins....catch one and three more pop up! I've been on stand before and could hear a dog runner (illegal) in the distance. A short time later, those dogs ran a deer right under my tree stand. The GW's do the best they can IMO but they have their hands full. With three of them servicing an estimated 300 sq miles each (land and water), they are stretched thin.

[Rhino]

As you know Pat...we are the new guys on the block in MO. Nobody knew how to take us or what we were going to do. We were the dang out of staters. At first, rumors were rampant between the locals. One rumor that got back to us was we were buying up the land to be Outfitters. All kinds of crazy stuff!

OK so we were the outsiders coming in. First friendly contact was with the neighbor that lives on the dead end road right before you get to our NE corner. He's become a good friend now but in the beginning he wasn't sure how to take us. We introduced ourselves spent time talking with him and simply told him the truth about what our plans were and how much hunting pressure we'd have. Stopped and visited with him a lot before we even started hunting the place last year. He's now our watchdog friend and we've hired him to take care of some things while we're not there. Word spread around through him, who we were and what we were about.

Shortly after the beginning of bow season last year the neighbor that owns the most land around us stopped by with his oldest son and visited with us for ~2 hours. We learned he is basically a true conservationist. Does everything he can on his land to benefit all the game, not just the deer. He's an avid deer hunter but doesn't bow hunt. The only people that hunt his property are the 2 of them. We ended up having a long give and take discussion about management goals. Before they left I shared some trail cam pics with them. Wasn't long after that before he was emailing some of his trail cam pics to us. Since then we've become pretty good friends and we've discussed joint goals for deer management. Through him we were introduced to a few more neighbors around us that own small tracts, with the exception of one that owns ~275 ac. on our far E side. We've also learned through all of them and through the local GW (yep invited him over too last year) who we can trust and who we can't. Fortunately the can't list around us is pretty short. Funny thing is...everyone we've be tipped off that we shouldn't trust has never stopped to introduce themselves. We had a run in with one that owns 14 ac. and the discussion got pretty heated. He learned...we don't back down no matter how hard someone tries to intimidate us.

So...all in all...there's going to be people that you can trust and there's going to be those you can't trust when it comes to making cooperative management plans. If you're fortunate to have more that you can trust than those you can't, count your blessings. Work with the ones that are trustworthy and don't worry about the others. Who knows...the ones that you have concerns about not being trustworthy may come around but it's best to let the ball stay in their court until they pass it to you.

BTW...if you have the means or you have a trustworthy friend with a few extra $...buy the ground where there's a problem if you can. Land is one of one of the best investments anyway. 2nd option to that would be leasing it.

[WStreblo]

Neighborhood Management

I agree with a lot of what you say Hoosier.... It would make for some damn good hunting if I could get my neighbors to follow a good management regime, however the first 3yr old 135+ buck that you pray breeds every doe for 100 miles cruises by you can bet your bow they kill him. I passed on a 3 yr old 9 point 2 years ago, last year he was blasted by my neighbor and scored 168. Made me sick that he wasn't given another year to breed some does especially after he told me an old 8 point came by his stand 20 min prior. I know what deer he was referring to and was on the hit list. The neighbor told me he would have killed that 8 point had it been the last week of season. Hard to build em big here when your neighbors are bigots

[hoosierhunter]

Neighborhood Management

Streblo

I know the feeling of passing deer and having them shot. What I try to remember is that their goals will probably never be like mine, but anything is better than where we started.

Split LG2 got shot on the last day of gun in 2010 after multiple passes by me. He was the biggest deer my neighbor ever shot as a 3.5 year old 9 at 134 inches. He called to tell me what he shot and I was nothing but excited for him. I could tell how much that deer meant to him and it was neat. My good buddy also made a mistake last year on a great looking 130 inch 8 that was a stud 2.5 year old. He dressed at 156 on Oct 15th. Again I was excited for him when I got the call. He felt bad once he realized which deer it was but that didn't come from me saying anything negative to him.

In a perfect world both those deer make it but I know that's not possible.

That's the cost of doing business sometimes. Ill take saving multiple yearlings year to year for losing 1 3.5 year old per season which has been the average.

[Maine Hntr]

Hoosier, I agree with your last post and while I haven't taken a ton of deer in my career I love to see others especially family or friends take deer and it gets me even more excited and I think that's what hunting and the comradery is all about. Sometimes it hurts but as long as you're content with your goals and what you're trying to harvest then it's not so hard to swallow! Good Stuff!

[whitetailfreak55]

I'm going to talk to the guy who owns the land I hunt off of about not shooting young bucks. Its a shotgun group that does deer drives every year. They don't shoot does only bucks and every year they shoot very few mature deer. There are 30 guys in that group and every year most all of them are tagged out in the five days of first shotgun season. They own a ton of land and I have the rights to it during archery and muzzle loader so if they can lay off the little bucks during shotgun season it would be better hunting for everybody.

[PotashRLS]

Neighbor relations/management is the most important ingredient to deer management. If you don't bite the bullet and lead by example, it will never work. There will always be skeptics and jealousy. The handshake is still the best form of diplomacy.

[dbHunterNY]

I have tried for years to get a all the neighbors to sign onto certain rules but one neighbor never wanted to do it so the other two wouldn't as long as they wouldn't. everybody agreed that the "rules" were reasonable and that I back it up with biologist recommendations. they just didn't want to put in the effort to have one neighbor do whatever, abuse the situation, and rewards they haven't worked for.

what I have found works well enough... tell them it's their land to do as they please but here's the recommendations (which they usually half heartedly follow). do request and stress that they let simply let you know what they take and others around that they know of take. then try to make an effort to take equal numbers of doe and bucks. it won't always work and they won't all ways tell you, but everybody wonders what people in the area have taken and it usually does.