[rat]

Part of the reason I am grateful I dont have to hunt public ground is just what @pmpeaks63 is describing here.
Good luck with it, unfortunately thats the way it is.

 

[rat]

I guess the other piece of hesitancy I have for hunting public ground is having to deal with whiny a zzed crybabies

This thread is a good reminder.

 

[rat]

That Rat guy told me you was yankee I didn’t know any better lol

He's a yank, dont let him tell you different. lol

 

[rat]

I appreciate that you are on the same page with me about the need for change. Can you give me some examples of your personal efforts or group efforts that have failed in the past? Are you aware of any attempts to discuss with local state representatives?

Once you guys get your way and there are no more non-resident hunters on your private conservation area, dont you think locals will just fill the void?
Close enough to Columbia that once the word is out that you have banned the NR hunters, locals will just fill the void.

Finding conservation areas that are less pressured would be a better use of your time than complaining to the MDC.

 

[rat]

BTW...if residents fill a void, then I have no complaint. If they aren't hunting it now due to excessive use by NR's then I'm sure they will support the efforts made to correct that.

So your complaint isnt at all that its too busy with folks and not enough room for you to hunt?

 

[rat]

Any reduction in pressure on public areas will be filled by residents immediately.

So, if you are forced to hunt public areas and refuse to go scout areas beyond your 15 minute drive comfort zone, you are stuck.

Reducing NR tags will not result in an empty parking lot for you.

 

[rat]

Knock on doors, scout other public areas, choose unpopular times and weather, get in early, go in deep, stay all day

Complaining on an Internet forum isn’t making anything better for you. Change, adapt, overcome.

There are several folks here that knocked on doors and found places, several places even.

 

[rat]

Why would that happen? You're saying that the resident hunters that are currently hunting private property will suddenly quit their private property and flood to public areas? Why?

No. There are public ground hunters that actually scouted and hunt places farther away that will fill the void by hunting a place closer once the word is out.

 

[rat]

Thanks for the advice but you didn't answer my question. Do you hunt public land at all? How does unlimted NR permits effect your hunting ground? If you aren't impacted in anyway by it I have a hard time taking your advice seriously. You call my concern for this complaining. I call it giving a damn enough to take action. I am doing more than "complaining" about in this forum. Time will tell if my efforts get any traction. Have you ever felt strongly enough about something to get involved to make a difference? Sorry if my "complaining" is annoying you.

Not any more.

It doesn’t.

If you want to get involved to make a difference, your way of doing that is a public Internet forum???

You glossed over all the things I suggested that actually take hard work. When I first moved to St. Louis and away from family farms in north Missouri, I had to hunt a lot of public areas. Little lost creek, whiteside, Danville, I knocked on doors, applied for managed hunts, I networked with colleagues, reached out to college buddies who owned farms, etc. I put on miles and invested the time. I did the same thing while I was in college. It takes work. I’m not tooting my own horn, just providing advice. It doesn’t sound like you are willing to do any of that.

You want the MDC to make your local spot better… good luck with that. Most of the people I know that really like and want to hunt/fish find ways.

 

[rat]

I’m 57 not sure what age has to do with it.

When I was between family farms, I worked at it. I have standing invites to 4 different properties to this day that I no longer need to hunt… North of MTL, Mineola, Fayette and Moselle. I volunteered to help put in food plots, volunteered to help at deer camps without asking to hunt dragging deer, cooking, helped run a saw to clear tornado damage… all kinds of things. I have standing invites to hunt in south Texas, Nebraska, Pennsylvania and Michigan. I actually only turkey hunted one time in Nebraska and pitched in to help while I was there. I sent a care package to that lady who lost her husband, knowing that she probably wouldn’t even remember me and got a nice note back saying I was welcome back anytime. Networking, volunteering to help during off season, etc.

The only reason I don’t do much of that anymore is because my inlaws own a farm and my FIL got very sick 6 years ago and I had to take a more prominent role in managing this place, decided to spend most of my time hunting here. I could have been hunting here for the past 25 years but still worked at finding other options. But I can tell you that I was in a position to not own anything, have nowhere to go and I always made it work, somehow. Maybe I was lucky, or maybe I made my own luck.

I’m not saying that you haven’t done all of that but it sounds obvious that you don’t have any other options than a public area 15 minutes from your home that you evidently . Non-resident hunters didn’t put you in that position.

Look… I really don’t mean to be terse with you at all. You’ve been given all this advice on here, all these ideas and yet here we are 10 pages later and you are still beating the NR drum.

I’ll just bow out. I really don’t think you are getting the point. Most all of us agree that MO is probably too liberal with NR regulations to suit us compared to other states, I get that.

So no, its not a problem for me. But only because I put myself in a position through the years to not be beholden to public ground. I hunted it way too many times in the past and worked my butt off to find other options.

 

[rat]

Anyone who goes to a CA close to two major metropolitan areas during “peak hunting times” and expects it to not be busy is living amongst the clouds

 

[rat]

I don't know if you are directing this at me, but I hunted public ground for many years before getting fed up with the nonsense of it all, and bought my place.

What I am trying to say, is that the most likely scenario you will be facing if you push to have pressure reduced on public CA's is they will fall into the managed hunt program. If you are so convinced MDC only cares about money, that makes sense in that regard too, cause you now will have to buy special tags to hunt there.

What I do believe is, the issue with CA's is not just NR's. And, putting more restrictions just on NR's is a slippery slope. Although, it does play well into the outfitters hands..... I don't want MO putting restrictions on NR's access to public ground, in part because of the amount of hunting I have done on other states public ground, but maybe you just hunt MO, and that don't matter to you.

He’s directing it at me but he doesn’t know either one of us so I really wonder who is “short on experience” as far as that goes.

I’ve met all kinds of folks on here personally that I had an opinion of prior, found out I was all wet.

But if I haven’t given any good advice to the OP regarding how much work successfully hunting public land can be, just tell me so. I did it for MANY years and had success hunting deer, turkey, rabbits, quail, squirrels and fishing public waters. The one thing I learned through all of that is that complaining about the regulations is far less productive than doing the actual work and setting your expectations accordingly.

 

[rat]

I understand your perspective but I have a question, do the other states you hunt allow unlimted NR tags and unlimited public land access? Are tags sold for specific zones or statewide? Is the process a "free for all" like MO or is it more controlled? I would think that even NR's coming to MO to hunt would appreciate a higher quality experience on public ground.

Sorry to quote you when you are talking to someone else, but I’ll give a couple of examples of how things can be.
I started turkey hunting in KS about 17 years ago I think. It was a bonanza for WIHA for OOS hunters, had a lot of success. That turned out to be very popular, word got out and we started running into a lot of other OOS hunters. We had to drive farther than we used to, seek out other areas (the turkey hunting atlas is great there), and yes, knock on doors. Same in Nebraska. Same in KS for pheasants as we did a LOT of that, lots of walking, talking to landowners, reciprocating when you get permission, etc. I ended up getting invited that way with a large landowner north of Hays that we ran into, still friends with them to this day.

Point is, once the word is out, public lands can be pressured but that’s not the end of the game necessarily.

And again, I don’t disagree that the NR regs here don’t need changes. I agree that reciprocal pricing for OOS tags is out of whack here. If you are a turkey hunter, just wait to see what happens on public ground here once we go to ADH. Not sure if you turkey hunt or not, but states like KS and NE get pressured a lot because there is more time to hunt. OOS hunters in MO now have to shut down at 1pm with nothing else to do. It will become a lot more attractive when they can shoot birds going to roost, etc.

Again, I agree with your plight and agree that modifications could be made to relieve some of that pressure. But once there is parking available at state ground, it wont take long for word to get out. IMO, and per @MOGC I have zero practical experience on this evidently.

 

[rat]

Congrats, it can be done.

I completely agree that there should be reciprocity in how the tags are managed and priced. As I said, wait until turkey regs are liberalized.

 

[rat]

I never said that I don't have other opportunities. For various reasons, its in my best interest to hunt close to home these days. Reform is in my backyard so to speak which means it's very convenient. The fact that I'm so close makes me very intimately familiar with how hunters utilize it, both RES & NR.

If you would have said from the very start that there are extenuating circumstances that prevent you from finding other opportunities, you would have avoided people coaching you on expanding your possibilities.

It sounds like you are just stuck then. I’d really concentrate on early season bow hunting, hunting through the week or other times you feel like there is less pressure.
If I was restricted to one CA, I’d be taking a lot of notes on when the parking lots are full, figuring out patterns that avoid that pressure, etc.
Even so, you might still have the opportunity to knock on doors within the same drive time if you see private lands around you. It may not yield anything but its worth a try. If you could double the time from home, you would still be close by and would open up a lot more opportunities for knocking on doors.
Just some random thoughts here, good luck.

 

[rat]

I appreciate all those who have offered advice on things that I can do to avoid hunting on crowded public ground. Truth is though, I already know these things. My whole point to starting this post was to express my opinion that the sale of unlimted NR tags is causing an UNBELIEVABLE amount of pressure on some of our public hunting areas. I made a statement in a prior post that I would not be surprised if 90% of all NR's are hunting north of the Missouri River from the last week of October through mid November with most hunting public CA's. I'm not aware of any way to track that data so its pure speculation on my part based on what I see. At times, you would think CA parking lots were hosting Black Friday sales for Walmart and Best Buy with an extra discount for NR's.

Anyway, this thread has gotten a little off track. Things are kinda crazy in our country right now and we have lots more problems to solve than deer hunting problems. It's Thanksgiving and I'm thankful! I would like to wish everyone a safe and Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to you as well. Good luck and keep us posted on how things turn out for you. Having a place to hunt nearby is gold. I worked on a place with a local landowner in STL county and gained access to a farm 9 minutes from my house. I relished that opportunity, killed a buck and a couple does, was really nice to be in a stand 15 minutes after you leave the house. It got flooded and was never the same so I lost that.

Happy holidays man.

 

[rat]

no, a ton of jerk-offgs do apparently! If you pass them all week, why shoot last day or two?

I heard a LOT more shooting yesterday evening around me than I heard all rifle season and I hunted a lot. Seems that way every year.

 

[rat]

I see both sides of this coin...and have been on both sides and feel I could argue both ways. So, I won't do that.

One simple action that I do wish they would do is double the price of OOS tags. Even if you left them as over the county, I don't think you'd see much of a drop off in sales...I mean, it's only $275 additional. But, this would increase revenue over $13,000,000....which, if you evenly distributed this across all 114 counties (and yes, I know this is a simpleton / quick way of spreading the money evenly even though it is not) that would come out to around $115,000 per county. Use that $, hire 2 guys or contractors per county, and year around have them doing FSI / TSI / prescribed burning / food plots / NWSG plantings, etc....essentially anything habitat related to those conservation areas in their county. Make the conservation area's the model of what private lands should strive for. It would also be a huge benefit to the wildlife in the area.

I agree that the tag prices are part of the problem.

You hit on a good point tho. On the one hand, people drag the MDC through the mud on “unlimited NR tag sales” and being greedy. But on the other hand, as you demonstrated above, if they raised NR tags, just look at all the revenue they would stand to gain?

If the only thing they were worried about was money, why wouldn’t they raise the tag prices? Those two concepts are diametrically opposed if you think deeply about it.

Anyway, permit revenue (all hunting permits, not just deer) are only 17% of the annualized revenue that the MDC takes in. The meat of their revenue comes from the sales tax that Missourians pay (60%) and various federal reimbursements (15%). Their operating budget does not rely as much on permit sales as one would think.

 

[rat]

Assuming you are referring to Archery tags, you actually received 2 any deer tags and 2 turkey tags when you purchased it. You cannot buy a 2nd buck tag, but you can buy additional antlerless tags. If you put one of those initial ANY DEER “archery” tags on a doe then you can now only kill 1 buck with a bow to this year.

It always pays to triple check what tag you are using before you notch it. It’s easier than one would think to make a mistake using the app and telechecking.

 

[rat]

A deer cannot be smart. They lack the power to reason.