Welcome To The Coop Forum

[sandbur]

Talked to my neighbor today. We started with talking about how many deer are wintering on our land, how many were shot on our section, how few deer we saw during deer season,and then I mentioned that I would like to see 3 adult does on my farm and that I only have one doe. We both agreed that my farm could support three does and their fawns. It appears like no does were shot in our section that we are aware of. I pointed out that my wife and I decided to shoot no does.

It is a start, but my neighbor and I are good friends and think alike on most things.

Guys, thanks for pushing me to mention these things to my neighbor.

 

[wiscwhip]

I like the loose and fluid "rule" structure. It would be nice to imagine ANY deer walking past a neighboring hunter and not being killed. Change is hard but that can be an advantage in the long run. As you said you guys relaxed the buck restrictions but people still passed on them because that had become the norm. Success is contagious and addicting. Once created and successful I can envision a coop continuing to grow as others see what's going on.

Another major obsticale I would face is small parcels. A 40 by us is considered big and an 80 is huge. Many 10-20 acre parcels and smaller in the area. And most of them have multiple gun hunters each year. It would take upwards of 25 landowners to make up a square mile by me.

Good luck with all that bueller, I am looking forward to seeing if you can pull it off in that neighborhood. Not trying to discourage you in any way, but it would be a MAJOR undertaking. I think 5 of those 25 landowners might be skeptically "onboard", the other 20 would laugh you off their property and it won't matter how much success the other 5 have. I lived/hunted there all my life and with all the scattered small parcels that are in MFL Open and the county forest properties all over the place, you will be hard pressed to find anyone who would believe it would work, even if you could somehow show them long term proof that larger bucks/more deer could be the result. Most of them would just play it off as you getting lucky or they would likely accuse you of shooting them over bait.

 

[wiscwhip]

There is a 2000+ acre QDMA coop to the NW of your parents old place, towards badgerfowl's place. I don't know how well it's producing for them, I do know they have been at it for a few years now. I would think that if anyone had gotten anything decent, it would have been big news, news like that spreads like wildfire over there. Maybe they just haven't been at it long enough to see any big changes in the average size of bucks yet?

 

[Bowsnbucks]

After 2 yrs. here in my area, the results spoke for themselves. Like you said Stu, the starting - up is what needs to happen. We still " park our doe tags " as we need to or just because. No formal rules in writing, just trying to practice good stewardship of the herd. 5 does having twins in an area = 15 deer. We don't have wolves here like you guys do in N. Minn., ( yotes here ) but more deer is more deer.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Stu - that's EXACTLY what I was thinking here !!! If things are good - DON'T ADVERTISE IT !! ( your stfu comment ) I guess great minds run in the same gutter !!??o_O:D

 

[wiscwhip]

This area is very nearby, within a mile or two of your old place, there maybe some parcels even closer. I know the general centralized area where the coop is located, not the exact parcels, because they do not post QDMA signs or any of that type of thing, so they do keep it somewhat under wraps. I totally agree on the STFU thing stu, but if one other person who was a hunter that wasn't in the coop found out about it, like at the registration station, the cat would be out of the bag knowing the folks in that area of the state like I do. With call-in registration now on the table "STFU" will work like never before. Like I said, they have been at it a few years to my knowledge, but maybe not quite long enough to have gotten many bucks to 5.5+? I think the nutrition is the limiting factor in that area, the area does have some half-a$$ed decent genetics, as you stated earlier, and the first hand knowledge of ones that I and others in our hunting party have shot over the years.

 

[wiscwhip]

Totally agree stu, genetics are fine in that area. Lack of good food, small parcels, and excessive hunting pressure on both public and private parcels are what keeps Juneau from producing more large bucks.

 

[wiscwhip]

As I said in my earlier post to bueller, not trying to discourage, but I know it would be a daunting task to say the least. I may take several attempts just to get a couple neighbors on board. I think a guy would have better success getting the "transplants" on board then some of those stubborn a$$ed locals over there, unless it was a local that was heading up the group maybe.

IF I still owned land over there I know exactly how I would approach surrounding landowners to try to get a coop started. It would most likely work with both the locals that remember the "good old days" and on newer "transplants" that would be shocked at some of the photos of deer shot right in their backyards years back.

 

[bueller]

If you guys in Juneau County could get a mile or two in a co-op...I think the results would sell the surrounding areas on the value of doing something similar. The problem is the "start up"....get it done and the results could be impressive.

I don't disagree but that would take probably 50+ landowners with the smaller parcels by me :(

 

[bueller]

Good luck with all that bueller, I am looking forward to seeing if you can pull it off in that neighborhood. Not trying to discourage you in any way, but it would be a MAJOR undertaking. I think 5 of those 25 landowners might be skeptically "onboard", the other 20 would laugh you off their property and it won't matter how much success the other 5 have. I lived/hunted there all my life and with all the scattered small parcels that are in MFL Open and the county forest properties all over the place, you will be hard pressed to find anyone who would believe it would work, even if you could somehow show them long term proof that larger bucks/more deer could be the result. Most of them would just play it off as you getting lucky or they would likely accuse you of shooting them over bait.

Whoa, slow down. I never said I was going to try anything :). Although we are lucky enough to not have very much ground open to public hunting within a mile of us. Outside of that and those parcels become much more common. First I need to meet and greet more of my immediate neighbors this year, which I already planned on doing anyways. If I sense they wouldn't be interested at all then I'd be spinning my wheels. And I don't have much hope as they did a ton of shooting and harvesting this year, and not just on opening day. At my Pop's place just a mile away it's a quite different. We have less hunters on neighboring properties there and they seem to either be not very successful or more selective. For now my plan is to make my place more attractive and hope to harvest a good buck from time to time during the bow season before the lead starts flying.

 

[wiscwhip]

Didn't mean to insinuate anything there bueller, just wishing you luck if you should decide to pursue it up that way and giving my insight from 45 years experience in that area.

 

[bueller]

Didn't mean to insinuate anything there bueller, just wishing you luck if you should decide to pursue it up that way and giving my insight from 45 years experience in that area.

I know you were. You are spot on with many things you say about the area and the people. With my geographical location set between the Yellow and the Wisconsin Rivers, only 2.5 miles apart at that point, I dream about using these natural barriers as western and eastern boundaries of a large coop of sorts. But this will likely always be just a dream no matter what if any efforts I decide to put forth.

 

[bueller]

Not quite in the bottoms, we are high and dry. But the bottoms are just on the other side of the ditch which makes up my western border. We always have had good bucks on camera at my Pop's but I'm hoping for even better with my new location being closer to the Yellow and also much closer to the nearest ag fields. My foodplot next year should prove to be a hot spot for the deer before they hit the nearby ag fields and the river bottom bucks will hopefully come across the ditch looking to hook up :).

 

[bueller]

First deer on camera at the new place was a small spike buck :p. But also had a big 10 cruising midday a couple weeks later :). Heard one of the neighbors got a nice 10, one of their 5 deer :mad:.

 

[bueller]

If I make a square and use my property as the NW corner and my Pop's as the SE corner I come up with about 600 acres. Connecting those dots would sure be nice. Add some more properties on each side of ours and we would be over a square mile.

 

[bueller]

If I make a square and use my property as the NW corner and my Pop's as the SE corner I come up with about 600 acres. Connecting those dots would sure be nice. Add some more properties on each side of ours and we would be over a square mile.

Just did some quick looking and the square I described above has approximately 65 parcels contained within it :eek:. Of course that number shrinks somewhat because a handful of the those landowners own more than one parcel. And a dozen or so others are small lots of less than 5 acres on which no hunting may even be taking place. If my immediate neighbors seem like they could be interested I would be a hell of a lot more likely to blast out letters to all these other landowners to let them know what we are doing.

 

[sandbur]

Watched today's first playoff game at a local establishment...and did my absolute best to not listen to the local aholes whining about only being able to shoot one deer this year.

I hear that , also in zone 2 where we had up top 8 doe tags for some years.

I do not hear it very often in zone 1, where we have mostly been one deer-almost forever. People seem to accept the one deer idea.

My answer to the hunters who want two tags, is"That is a great goal, but we need to pass some does for a few years to get to that point."

 

[bat man]

If the area hunters are satisfied with the hunt they likely won't be looking for change.

If the area hunters are dissatisfied, most of us on this forum take for granted the level of knowledge we have to help turn things around. Find the hunters that are not happy, slowly help them understand what can be done to fix the issue, get the area talking, and change will come.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

I agree w/ Stu from post # 80. Lime & fertilize like there's no tomorrow. We all have different soil, but lime is the chemical " KEY " that unlocks the minerals in any soil. All the good antler-building minerals are made available to plants in the plots by liming. We saw it here at my camp. When we started liming our fields after years of neglect, we started to get wild clover. We kept liming and adding fert. to grow real food plots. THAT'S when we started seeing bigger racks. I remember reading a post by LC some time back and he advised someone " if you're gonna do anything to your fields - lime them. If you do NOTHING else - lime them. "