Letters To The Editor: February 2024

Bubba Helton, of Augusta, with a Burke County buck taken at Wade Plantation that had 14 total points.

Enjoying All The Trapping Articles In GON

Dear GON,

I love the ongoing series on trapping, whether it is coyotes, foxes, hogs, etc.

There is an urgent need for trappers. Georgia DNR trap wild hogs that are destroying sea turtle nests on our barrier islands. Armadillos are destroying quail nest, as well as turkey nest.  A recent program by GPB Georgia Outdoors showed armadillos digging up quail nests. Coyotes are now present in our suburbs, subduing our domesticated pets.

Keep up the good work educating your readers.

Bobby Strozier, Lincolnton

Rate Your Season Survey Brings 750 Misc. Comments

We hear this one often: “Thanks for giving us a voice!” GON feels it’s so important that readers have a platform to share their thoughts, that we always tack that “Misc. Comments” on the end of our Rate Your Deer Season Survey. All 750 comments are online at GON.com. However, we’ve printed a few of them below to get you going.

• Stop managing deer on a statewide basis. Georgia has too many different topographies.

• I really enjoy the GON magazine, plus meeting a lot of you guys back when I was in the Truck-Buck Shoot-Out in 2018 was a memory will never be lost!

• Lack of quality deer processors.

• Eliminate the doe-only dates and make them available all season for rifle.

• Concerned about turkey numbers, like lots of folks are. Willing to have a bag limit of one per season to help populations going forward.

• I think the deer season is too long and limits are too high.

• Limit the number of poles that can be trolled per person to three.

• We need three buck tags and five doe tags. Buck tags need to be any size.

• I’d like to see the earlier turkey season come back.

• We need more coyote and hog control supported by the state.

• Deer season should be extended statewide.

• Something needs to be done about the flathead catfish. They are ruining the fishing on the river systems they have invaded. DNR can’t control them alone.

• Food plots, shooting shacks, trail cameras, all have changed it. What people call hunting, I call harvesting.

• Concern for CWD! We must find a cure!  I will stop hunting once the disease arrives in my area!

• I wish they would make the whole state QDM.

• Make bow season longer, shorten gun season.

• Everyone seems to trophy hunt, and I beg people to come shoot does.

• I wish we could afford a trapper. We have killed several hogs and coyotes. We are just some southwest Georgia rednecks enjoying God’s creation.

• Open all WMAs to archery hunting whenever there is not a gun hunt going on.

• Would like to see more food plots on public land in northeast Georgia.

• Why do you think there are less deer processing centers?

• Need to go back to crossbows only allowed with folks with a doctor’s documented excuse, etc.

• Would like to see a late muzzleloader season for antlerless deer in January.

• Hunting in Georgia is great. DNR, keep up the good work.

• Still not OK with the shortened turkey season. Gobbling is mostly over by new start date.

• I do NOT like the idea of electric bikes on WMAs and do NOT like baiting/corn.

• The extended archery season in southwest Georgia should be gun.

• Hunted for last 50 years, being able to lease land or get into a club is being priced out of reach for most hunters.

• Deer season is too long. I can’t get in the woods to small-game hunt.

• It would be nice if the state would have an extended archery-only season for a couple of weeks after rifle ends.

• Wish the whole state would go trophy.

• Coyotes are destroying our deer and especially the turkey population.

• New neighbors like to shoot.

• Stocking of larger trout.

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Russ Hiett, of Kennesaw, shot this buck in Haralson County.