by assateague » Wed Jul 17, 2013 6:27 pm
Yep.
And yes, quite a few people hunt. The problem is that a lot- and I mean a LOT- of the farmland which used to be hunted by locals, with the "it's brown it's down" mentality (count me among them) to put it in the freezer have been leased out by folks and "clubs" from the western shore, most notably from the Baltimore area. I don't fault the farmers a bit, they're getting gobs of money for this stuff. But thses guys are down for maybe a week, but more likely a long weekend, during rifle season. The rest of the time the farm is off limits to everyone, and when they come down, the last thing they're going to do is blast a doe on opening morning and "screw up" the rest of the hunt that morning. They're down here for one thing and one thing only- to kill a big buck. It's not even QDM, it's just a desire to shoot a big deer. But they don't realize that what they're doing is counterproductive, and that the farms here aren't big enough for any sort of management practice. I will almost guarantee that very, very few hunters sit in a stand and do NOT see a deer they could easily kill. Whether they pull the trigger or not is another story.
And another big part of the problem is the decreasing of public hunting areas, and a complete lack of effort to open the suburban areas up to bow hunting. They keep expanding the "buffer" area, which takes areas away, slowly but surely. It used to be 100 yards from an occupied structure. Then it became 100 yards from any structure. And then 150 yards. And now it's 250 yards. And there's a serious push to pass a bill which requires that you be 250 yards from any other PROPERTY LINE, not even a structure, which will pretty much lock out a shit ton of hunting area. I personally won't pay any attention to it, but many people will. And the rats will continue to multiply. At least I can pick up a road kill deer pretty much at any moment if I feel like going out and getting one.