TheLBLman
Well-Known Member
Perhaps I'm looking at all this from a little different angle.Personally, I would love to see hunter numbers decline. The loss of habitat and access just doesn't seem to support the numbers of hunters we have.
"Free" private land access has certainly nose-dived over the past couple decades. At the same time, the supply of privately owned land available to lease for hunting has been steadily increasing (despite a steadily decreasing interest in people wanting to spend their time out hunting).
Some are also confusing access to publicly owned lands with "access" to privately owned timberlands, which used to be about as "accessible" to the general public as our publicly owned lands which allow hunting.
Differences vary greatly from area to area, and can be very different close in to major metropolitan areas such as Memphis or Nashville.
But let me share one example for which I'm familiar.
Between 20 & 30 years ago most of Stewart Co. (outside the publicly owned lands) was owned by a single timber company. This timber company's property was in fact "private" property, but they did allow any member of the public to hunt it.
During this "era", let's just say between 1990 & 2000, the majority of the hunters deer hunting there were driving over 4 hours one way, most coming from far East TN (Knoxville or farther east).
But beginning about the Year 2000, those numbers of deer hunters traveling from East TN to Tennessee's Western Highland Rim areas (mainly Stewart, Houston, & Humphreys Counties) began drastically declining. The beginning of this decline was not so much over a lack of accessible hunting lands in these 3 counties as it was more about an expansion of deer & growing deer densities across numerous East TN counties.
What actually happened was a majority of these formerly traveling East TN hunters simply found acceptable deer hunting closer, more convenient to their homes, AND less costly for them to hunt "close to home". At the same time, older generations of deer hunter have been dying faster than newer generations are replacing them. What's more, with each passing year, the remaining older hunters are becoming less willing to drive long distances to go deer hunting.
Now, there may be less private land in East TN offering "free" access to the general public than years ago, but there is now more private land with good deer hunting, and fewer deer hunters competing for it, than even 20 years ago. Most of the East TN deer leases are relatively cheap in cost compared to most in Middle & West TN.
I believe what many may be missing is this equation is not so much about the number of hunters as it has become about each individual hunter's annual time spent afield hunting. THAT has also nose-dived.
I'm been an avid hunter since childhood, pursuing a wide variety of game, and have spent much time hunting many of the publicly owned lands from far East TN to far West TN since the 1970's. Despite what some are saying, the publicly owned deer woods have a healthier deer herd now than 20 years ago, AND fewer deer hunters. I'm talking about the deer hunting on publicly owned lands.
Or course, some WMAs can be very crowded at times, especially those close to a place like Nashville or Memphis. Just saying, they are less crowded now than they were 20 years ago, AND the opportunity for a 3 1/2 or older buck is greater now than then.