Mike Tonkovich

[Hortontoter]

Thanks for taking my posts as just an example Brock. The deer numbers are down statewide and I understand some areas are at a crucial point in population. I almost always only hunt my own ten acre parcel in Carroll county and the numbers there are down quite a bit over what they were even five years ago. I was actually surprised to see Carroll was in the top ten. I'm sure most of those came from the two public land areas in the county. I still have fairly decent hunting on my property, but let very few does get taken by anyone that hunts there.

 

[brock ratcliff]

Speaking of public land; Paint Creek is just a couple of miles from my home. I enjoyed some fantastic hunts there when I first moved here. In fact, in 96, I killed a heck of a nice buck there. Today, there are more hunters than deer tramping the woodlands and fields. Seriously, it is sad. There are trails that were once rutted with deer tracks in some of the pinchpoints and creek crossings that are barren...I mean NOTHING. I'm sure given enough time, a person could still kill a deer there, but it is a far cry from what it once was (back when we had 450k deer). One neighbor of mine owns a farm that butts up to a huge ravine that comes directly off the WA. They used to shoot a pile of deer there during gun season. He had a large party of friends and family that came to hunt. Last season, some of them made it up from TN for shotgun season. They hunted most of the week and saw one deer, which they did not shoot. Paint Creek is in northern Highland Co. It's pretty sparse around here, but the southern side of the county still has some deer. Traveling a distance is just going to become a part of deer hunting for many, I think.

 

[LonewolfNopack]

Any public land in the south west part of that state, and a large majority of public land in the south east part of that state that I hunt or have hunted is pretty pitiful. There def. is more hunters than deer. For as great as a big buck destination as Ohio is, It is beyond me why the state continues to allow our public lands to become over hunted and destroyed. Even WV has special public land restrictions. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that allowing an unlimited number of hunters onto any parcel of property with no control of hunting pressure is self defeating. I kill or have the opportunity to kill deer on public land every year, but each passing year gets more pathetic for deer sightings, and more obnoxious for other hunter sightings.

 

[Shoulder Blade]

It would hurt a lot of people but it would be great if we could unite for a year and boycot the season to show how much power we can have.

 

[Milo]

Deer hunting has come almost circle on itself ..