Roy,
As you know I deal with the same issue. Here is how I deal with it, and there may be other options too.
1. A co-op with neighbors is certainly advisable, but go into it with the understanding that your neighbor is not likely to honor the rules as well as you do. My best neighbor does something he regrets or his guest regret at least once every year. Nevertheless, it is better than no united attempt to raise older bucks.
2. Fight a camp fire with a forest fire. When the are pouring out 25 or 50 lbs of corn close to your line, start dumping gravity wagons in the core of your property next to sanctuaries or areas of cover and all other items they need such as water. Even if you don’t hunt over the bait, it does help protect the deer. It will not save them all because they wander, but it does help.
3. I tend to agree the more acreage you have in thick cover the better. It is better than plots, water, bait, and all else in our area of the world.
4. Try to educate the small acreage folks like the gentleman or lady who noted above that small land owners think baiting close to the line is the only way to compete with large owners. That is just simply a statement from someone who assumes the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. By way of example, I have a close friend that has hunted my main farm every week since season came in this September. He is a great hunter and he has not connected on a mature buck. Large tracks of land lets say 1,000 acres or more with 80 percent cover means bucks, does, and fawns are not use to seeing much interaction with humans. If you put in plots, water, bait and improve cover, the truth of the matter is they don’t move around a ton every single day. At times, they move a lot no doubt. But, darn the majority of the time they may be nocturnal, many have a really small core area, and certainly go on high alert when they encounter human activity - more so than on a small tract of land. Thus it can be really tough to hunt a huge tract regardless of what others may think. I have some 25 to 40 acre farms some distance from my main place, and they see human activity around them and through them every week if not every day. Those deer get use to it, and are far easier to hunt. So please don’t tell me as a small landowner that you have to bait close to the line to have a chance at a good buck unless you own both types of farms. This is a long way of saying talk to your neighbors.
4. For the neighbors that are a pain in the rear, and I only have one. Well here is what we do. We post that property line the first day of gun season (both seasons) and the first day of muzzleloader season every year. Actually, do it three years in a row and they pretty much stop hunting the property line during gun season at least.
5. I would love to see Ohio ban baiting I really would, but I don’t think it will without significant cases of CWD.
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