Letters To The Editor April 2005

GON Gets Thank You Letter

Dear GON

I’m sorry I sent my thank you letter so late. Thank you for everything you gave me. The DVD you gave me I watched all hunting season. Thank you for putting my picture in the Realtree Georgia’s Outdoor Kids of May 2004 issue. I’ve enjoyed all the prizes you sent me. Thank you very much.

This past deer season I killed my first two deer, a doe and a spike while hunting with my dad. Thanks for the great magazine.

Freeman Edwards, Buford

Redlands Isn’t Private Land

Dear GON

Any hunter that utilizes public land can tell you that the numbers are just not there. If the WRD supports high limits, it’s a clear indication to me that they are not even familiar with WMAs they claim to manage.

Case in point, Redlands WMA. This past year it was open 44 days during firearm season for either sex. This is not including the 28 either-sex archery days. Redlands does not have a check-in hunt. They use a volunteer honorary sign-out system to record deer harvests. Additionally, there is no new habitat being created and the forests are 20-plus years over grown.

How can they possibly know that the deer population can support these proposed limits? The WRD needs to manage the deer herd in the WMAs separately than from private land, especially considering there’s no way to control hunter numbers and harvest. To apply these limits to WMAs is just plain negligence and is contrary to the very purpose of game management.

Joe Fagan, Loganville

One-Buck Limit?

Dear GON

By keeping the doe harvest high (10 is plenty) and enforcing a tagged, one-buck limit, we will raise the percentage of bucks in the herd and the age structure of those bucks. The resulting excitement from routinely seeing better bucks will help with recruitment of new hunters, and retention of existing ones, all while allowing the WRD biologists to move total herd numbers up or down as needed, with the doe limit. Georgia has the genetics, and in many places the nutrition and cover, to allow us to really shine as a BIG-BUCK state.

This single change will help all areas, from the suburbs to the big plantations. It has something for everyone.  Say you just want to shoot a small buck, or a kid wants to take his first one, no problem. However, you only get that one. It will require that we all help with the initial education and enforcement. It will mean that you will have to make it clear to all your hunting-club buddies that violation is not an option. Ground checking is O.K., but you better be willing to live with a mistake, because that is the only buck tag you get this year. It will force all of us to be more careful, and that is never a bad thing, is it?

Why be another Alabama, or South Carolina, when we can be another Kansas (but with better weather and prettier countryside)? In one fell swoop, true trophy hunting will be within the reach of every Georgian, without sacrificing the first-deer experience of a youngster, or coughing up the big bucks for an out-of-state trip.

Ren Anderson,  Covington

I Shot Seven Deer This Year

Dear GON,

Evidently I’m the best deer hunter and have the best deer property in the state. I keep reading all these articles about how everyone else’s deer season was terrible.

Y’all are asking the wrong people because mine was great. I killed seven deer this past year, and one of those was the biggest buck I’ve ever killed.

I’m tired of hearing there aren’t any deer in Georgia. Maybe I’m just lucky or maybe it’s the way I hunt for deer. I don’t hunt from my La-Z-Boy or the front porch of my hunting club, and I don’t let them walk.

Sincerely,

Johnny Armand, Flowery Branch

Coyotes Must Be Killed

Dear GON

The reason we are seeing less deer is because of the “eating-machine” coyote. Fox hunters brought the coyote into our state in the 80s never knowing the impact it would have 25 years later. Now it is becoming an epidemic.

Coyotes eat everything alive in the woods. They especially love fawn deer and turkey poults. They hunt in packs at night and also bring down full-grown deer all the time. Remember when you could walk into the woods and deer would blow and even run off? When was the last time that happened to you?

The DNR says our deer population is fine. Do you believe that? I hunt in south Fulton County, and seven years ago I saw deer every time I entered the woods. This year I only saw about 10. At night around the campfire you can hear the evil howls of the coyotes. It makes me sick.

We must organize and kill off the coyotes. It won’t be easy, but it can be done. Remember the state of Georgia’s deer herd in the early 1900s was less than 300. It can and will go that low again if the coyote is not stopped.

Tommy Jacobs, Bethlehem

Non-Residents Pay Enough

Dear GON,

I can’t believe that Georgia would be so aggressive with the proposed increases in non-resident license fees.  I would be willing to bet that a small increase in resident fees of $2 would provide a  greater stream of revenue than the proposed non-resident increases. I  don’t mind nominal increases, but I do consider the proposed increases to be excessive, in light of all of the additional revenues local Georgia businesses receive as a result of non-resident hunters.

I spend a lot of money in Georgia on land leases, gas, licenses, hunting supplies, food, beverages, hotels, etc.

A lot of  non-resident hunters who are not part of a deer-management program will shoot any deer that moves to compensate the increased fee.

Fathers with sons wanting to hunt will not be able to  afford this. I doubt if the state will see any more revenue with this plan, because the number of hunters who quit hunting will wipe out all increases.

Raise the non-resident about $10; raise the  resident about $2. The result will be more than the proposal on the  table.

Pope Daniel, Brandon, Fla.