Thermal Drone Deer Recovery

Wish I had the hawk thing figured out. In the old days every rancher and farmer shot them on site. Hunters were expected to do the same to help the landowners out. Of course in the old days every rancher and farmer had chickens. That crap can get you heavy fines now. I suspect the best defense on hawks is a patchwork of great habitat with tons of overhead cover in the form of thickets and runways between the patches. Wish I had more quail!

I never cared too much about yotes. Figured they mostly eat mice and bugs. But I've seen some evidence of harassing deer lately. I truly feel bad for you guys fighting hogs. That has to get old!
 
Have a pretty nice 800 acre lease i've hunted on for 10 yrs now. For the first 3-4 years, no hogs. Here they came, and cool, let's put some hogs down. Processed a few, gave a few away. They kept coming and coming. Then it turns into a shoot on sight, and leave them lay. Then the coyotes get really happy, and they multiply. Wait, where did the quail/rabbits/turkeys go? Holy cow that sound like a lot of coyotes as the sun rises/sets. Uh oh, may have messed up here. Damn, I'm down to 6 rounds for my hog rifle and can't get the same brand ammo now. Guess I buy this brand and have to tune my scope again. Time to go on a yote mission.
They got smart fast, or maybe I'm not a great coyote hunter. Let's kill a few more hogs and set up on them, but hogs get smart, too. Let's review the hog hunting regs real quick. Wow, no restrictions. No bag limits, thermal/night vision ok, headlights/spotlighting ok, night hunting ok, no restrictions on weapons (too bad I don't have grenade launcher) and don't even have to have a hunting license. Local hog dog guy offers to show me the ropes if we can use my place to hunt them. Do the night hunting with dogs and bowie knives. Kinda sketchy/dangerous for the few we get in a night. Buddy said I have a drone with thermal, so he gets an invite to the lease. Take a few more out. This is getting too hard for an old man to stay up all night on the weekends....welcome to my world.
Best thing I've done was quit with the deer feeding. Last 2 years, used none. Getting very little hog activity on cams or in the field now. Getting the occasional heart murmur again when stepping on an unexpected rabbit or covey, and hey, yeah thats a decent 10 on the cams, but check out the pics of the turkeys!
Damn.
 
Have a pretty nice 800 acre lease i've hunted on for 10 yrs now. For the first 3-4 years, no hogs. Here they came, and cool, let's put some hogs down. Processed a few, gave a few away. They kept coming and coming. Then it turns into a shoot on sight, and leave them lay. Then the coyotes get really happy, and they multiply. Wait, where did the quail/rabbits/turkeys go? Holy cow that sound like a lot of coyotes as the sun rises/sets. Uh oh, may have messed up here. Damn, I'm down to 6 rounds for my hog rifle and can't get the same brand ammo now. Guess I buy this brand and have to tune my scope again. Time to go on a yote mission.
They got smart fast, or maybe I'm not a great coyote hunter. Let's kill a few more hogs and set up on them, but hogs get smart, too. Let's review the hog hunting regs real quick. Wow, no restrictions. No bag limits, thermal/night vision ok, headlights/spotlighting ok, night hunting ok, no restrictions on weapons (too bad I don't have grenade launcher) and don't even have to have a hunting license. Local hog dog guy offers to show me the ropes if we can use my place to hunt them. Do the night hunting with dogs and bowie knives. Kinda sketchy/dangerous for the few we get in a night. Buddy said I have a drone with thermal, so he gets an invite to the lease. Take a few more out. This is getting too hard for an old man to stay up all night on the weekends....welcome to my world.
Best thing I've done was quit with the deer feeding. Last 2 years, used none. Getting very little hog activity on cams or in the field now. Getting the occasional heart murmur again when stepping on an unexpected rabbit or covey, and hey, yeah thats a decent 10 on the cams, but check out the pics of the turkeys!

Interesting scenario. Supplemental feeding deer often creates more issues that it solves. Coyotes are very hard to control. In general, they can move 100 miles in a day or two, so when you create a void, there are always more that move in. Control really needs to be an a very wide scale, almost at the county level. Some studies show that if you shoot certain male coyotes in the social structure, there may be an increase in female fertility as a response. There is some evidence that, on a local level (hundreds to thousands of acres), intensive hunting/trapping in the late winter/early spring, may have a positive impact on deer recruitment. The theory is that you temporarily suppress the coyote population long enough for successful fawning before it bounces back.

None of this is easy. We have a complex interrelated eco system.
 
That piece about the hogs is a real deal, no embellishment. Turkeys, quail, rabbits almost disappeared when the hogs moved in heavy. It negatively affected the deer hunting too. Forgot to mention that I've moved a hog catch pen to the area twice, which is a bigger deal that what you'd think. Both times, caught 15-20 within a week, and then virtually none after that. They get smart, and its kinda brutal to have shoot that many penned hogs in the head, then have to get rid of them, then move the trap again. There's just no way to keep up that i can tell. I reread what i posted, and maybe i wasn't clear, but when you kill the hog and let it lay, the coyotes eat it. I have on camera that it only takes 3 coyotes to move a 150 pound hog, and very seldom do i find the head or bones of any hog.
My lease is a cattle ranch. The owner wants me to shoot every hog/coyote/bobcat/cougar on sight. Of course, I ain't doing nothing unless it's legal. I have access to some wildlife biologists I've met during special hunts in Oklahoma, and they've told me that coyotes were #1 by far in regards to fawn mortality, and my landowner says calf mortality due to coyotes is real, too. That's why this thread about thermal drones caught my attention, cause I've already been there and done that due to hogs/coyotes.
In regards to hawks...i go to Kansas to pheasant and quail hunt a couple times a year. The landowners tell me to shoot the hawks, and once again, can't do it if it's not legal. I'm no expert, but my experience tells me just what u said Jack, it really would have to be control on a wide scale. I don't expect the wildlife dept to open season on hawks/owls tho! Catscratch has an interesting idea in an earlier post, but, it'd take a more educated person than me to figure out a habitat plan that could curtail hawks.
All that being said tho, stopping the deer feeding has been probably the most effective tactic so far, as i've seen more quail/turkeys/rabbits in the last 2 years than i have in the 5 years before that combined. Thank god!
 
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