113 Critters Trapped On 210 Acres Is A Game Changer

Dear GON,

After reading cover to cover yet another fine edition of GON, I wish to briefly relate a predator control operation that I helped implement on a friend’s 210-acre tract.

After this friend had noticed years of decline of all his small game populations on his nearly perfect habitat for game species, he contacted me about developing a trapping program for him, for which I was glad to do.

The short story is he took 16 coyotes, seven bobcats, 55 raccoons and 35 opossums during a single trapping season. Said a different way, he took 113 hungry, nest raiding, poults eating, fawn ravaging, rabbit catching mouths off a relatively small piece of land. Just think of all the flesh required to feed 113 predators everyday of the year. No wonder his small game disappeared! Good news is he now has turkeys again.

I get it. Trapping is time consuming hard work that requires equipment, skill and patience. Or, we stewards can do nothing and hunt what nature’s mouths leave for us.

Martin W. Duke, Rome

Hearing Too Many Shots After Deer Season Near Cedartown

Dear GON,

Congratulations on a great outdoor magazine you publish. I’d like to bring something to your attention. I hear quite often that the deer hunting isn’t what it used to be. I have an idea why that is the case.

I live about 5 miles north of Cedartown off Rome Highway. Quite often just about daybreak any time of year I’ll hear a rifle shot. The same thing happens about dark. This indicates to me that some Southern boys like their deer meat all year long.

More than one time while hunting I’ve found the chops cut out and the rest left for the buzzards.

I was born in Pennsylvania and raised several years in the woods of south Jersey. Yes, I’ve seen the unsportsmanlike conduct up North, too.  I love the South and have worked for two aircraft companies in Florida and Georgia.

Maybe some of this writing will get someone to think before they ruin Georgia hunting for good.

Frank Posch, Cedartown

Walleye In Lake Allatoona?

Dear GON,

Good article in the March 2018 issue about Bob Geresti’s tiger trout, but I got a good laugh when he’s quoted saying, “but there are no walleye in Allatoona.”

Included is a poor photo (too poor to reprint in GON) of a walleye my brother caught in March 1969 while we were fishing out of the Wilderness Area. It weighed 3 1/2 pounds. I caught one that was real small, and I put it back. Ken caught his on a deep-diving Rebel about 5 or 6 inches long.

Bill Harbison, Brunswick

GON Social

GON Instagram: Shane Whitman’s first gun kill was a fine one, especially considering it came off Oconee National Forest in Putnam County. The buck was running does on Oct. 28.

GON Twitter: Chris Ford tweeted “Couple of good days up the Yellow and South rivers. Fried catfish is proof that God wants us to be happy @GONMagazine.”

GON Facebook: Devin Johnson caught this bass in a farm pond in Bacon County on April 16. It bit a Whopper Plopper and weighed 8 pounds.