175 acres of land...

[Arty]

How many could safely hunt this much land?
I know...lots of variables. But your best guess, or rule of thumb

I'm meeting with a guy Saturday, who has a SMALL hunt club. He says 12-15 can hunt this piece of property.

Seems like a LOT to me. Regardless of how it's laid out.

[Captain]

Wow that sounds like a LOT of folks on that tract of land.... My NC club has 15 members and we have almost 1500 acres.
The 50 acres I bought on the river in Lancaster county SC I lease to 2 guys for 500 a year. They can take someone with them if one of them cannot go so they don't have to hunt alone but we basically keep it at 2 on that place.
I would be interested in how they assign stands or hunting areas on the tract you are talking about with that many people. Or are all stands first come first serve? Or do you have a couple (more or less) that only you can hunt?

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[jb]

We (son and I) post 180 acres. We always invite a few friends, but the land could hold a lot more. We're all woods with some pretty good topo so 10 acres could easily hold two hunters, so I guess our 180 could handle your 12-15 hunters

[Arty]

Looking at it on google maps... It's maybe 2000 feet wide at one end, and goes up to a tip on the other. So - it's Loooong.
Guy said 15 stands built. You claim your stand at 5am the day of the hunt. If only you there, then you pick where you want to go.
Oh- it's mostly swamp land. Low ground.

[Arty]

Let me restate how this land looks from google map.

Think of a triangle. The base being 2000 feet wide.

I'm guessing there's a way to figure out how tall that would be if it was 175 acres. It I wouldn't know how.

[Chicken Dinner]

If everyone is just going to sit in stand all day, a god many. Another variable is how hard all the guys hunt. Some if the clubs I've seen use 50 acres per member as a rule if thumb.

[Buckrub]

Regardless of what any of the sillier members here say, I can shoot 400 yards easily, and 800 if you take the trees out. :poke

So, divide that into the length of one side of the perimeter, divide by the cost, and add any record book animals, and there's your answer!!!

[LJ3]

I'd have a hard time feeling safe in that area size with that many people that I didn't know that well. I need to be around someone, shoot with them, SEE them being safe and mindful before I feel comfortable around them handling loaded weapons. Maybe I'm a little over the top with that stuff but it only takes one mistake.

[Buckrub]

I have 80 acres. There is probably room for one other guy there while I'm hunting it. Safe is one thing. Running all the animals out of the country is another issue.

[Captain]

Regardless of what any of the sillier members here say, I can shoot 400 yards easily, and 800 if you take the trees out

Yes you can, it's the hitting something at ANY distance you have a hard time with. ;)

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[Buckrub]

Now, there is no reason for you to follow me around and ensure that I'm made fun of properly. :biggrin

I have a VHS tape of an antelope hunt that you should see...........but I won't brag....hate those.

Still, I wouldn't feel safe with 15 guys on 175 acres with rifles. Not a chance.

[Captain]

I agree. That seems a bit crowded to me too. Seems like if just half that many showed up to hunt by the time folks walked to their stand they would run everything out of the woods.... Not to mention if someone shot, it would sound like they were in your lap...

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[Arty]

Yeah it sounds like 3 times the amount of people you'd want....
It's only 35 miles from here. Imma meet with him Saturday and see what's there. And talk to him a little More.

[quercus alba]

the top twenty counties in Virginia deer killed (Mecklenburg is not in top 20) averages about 11.5 per square mile. 175 acres is .273 sq miles. 15 hunters plus those on surrounding property helping you out will put a serious dent in the deer population fast quick and in a hurry. Crowded hunting conditions also lead to serious friction between hunters.

[Big Muddy]

The rule of thumb, when forming deer hunting clubs down here in MS, is 1 member per 100 acres.

[Buckrub]

Same here. Even that is a bit much for me..............considering the thickness of the woods here.......

[Trav]

I am with those who say that is too many folks unless it's for bow hunting only and has a lot of texture to it. My lease is close to 2000 acres and we have 8 guys on it, now mine is about 65% crop land so that is a little different.

[BaseballCoach (Rev A)]

Our club is 1,100 acres of mountain land and we have 200 family memberships. Most belong because we keep a lake stocked with trout. Probably only 30 people hunt and I've never seen more than 15 there at one time. I feel safe with those numbers but you occasionally see guys moving around. As long as everyone wears their orange, we are good.

[Niner]

I'd feel pretty skiddish in that situation. Toooooo many folks for me.

My lil place is 45 acres.
Of that, part is the lake and cabin area.
Then I have prolly 4 or so places where I either have stands (which I can't use, but Di can), and/or spots where I'll set up a blind or somesuch. But that's just me and the wifey. There's a good bit of the property that we never venture into....and call that area the sanctuary.

On some leases that I've been on, the ratio has been as low a 50 acres per hunter IF it was a tight group of friends.....and most of them would only hunt opening week and "doe days".

I personally haven't been in a lease in a since about 2004 or so, and I at this point in life.....I doubt I'll ever belong to another. Been hunting off of my deck for a while now......especially since I got sick.

[Penguin]

175 acres and around 15 hunters.

I agree that the topo and cover means everything. In the mountains with good forest cover that isn't too bad. Flatten it out or make a good bit of it into fields and all the sudden that's a bunch of guys. Still I like a little breathing space around me during deer season if I can. I prefer a little more than 15 or so acres to have around me unless I am with family.

Will

[Bwana]

Though I don't know what the area is like, to my way of thinking just the simple act of all those guys walking to their stands at one time would be enough to scare off any deer in the area.

When I think about this I envision a long row of trees with a vulture sitting in every other tree.

[Arty]

Well. I called he guy again today. (Supposed to meet Saturday)
He says the long edge of the land is 1 and 3/10 miles long.
That's 1 stand every 150 yards or so.
Dense / thick swamp.

Dunno. I'm doubtful. But will check it out with my own eyes and decide.

[Niner]

I just remembered a "club" my Dad and I were in when I was a lad. I don't remember how many acres it was, nor how many members, but we hunted WAY different than most folks do nowadays.

There were, it seemed to me as a lad, a LOT of guys in the club. A LOT of them were FBI agents out of Atlanta. The club was on an old "southern" farm.....with lots and lots of piney woods between the few fields there were.

They had lots of big comfy stands up all over the property.....this was before a lot of folks started building box blinds and WAAAAAY before the advent of the climbing stand.

The way THIS club worked was everyone who was going to hunt gathered in the kitchen of the hunt camp early in the morning and drew a number. Then the hunters picked their stands. Then everyone was loaded up into one or two pickups, and were taken out to the stands. Then the truck(s) came back to camp and the guy who owned the property and one other guy who'd been hunting there "forever" would go out and "walk around the woods" so-to-speak. They DID kill a lot of deer on that club....they really did. It was just a different way to hunt back in a different time. And NOBODY got out of their stand until the truck(s) came back to pick them up.

[Arty]

The guy told me everyone goes out at 5. Leaves stands at 11 (only other option is to stay all day) and goes back out at 2;30

All have radios. No one leaves stand without everyone's knowledge.

Sounds like safety is in tact if that's true.
My issue is 15 people going to stands in 4 wheelers and scarin everything away.

HE says that the swamp is where all the deer run when all the dog hunters drop their dogs on the surrounding properties.

[Captain]

You ought to ask the guy who gets the deer. The guy who draws first blood or the guy who's stand it falls under. With that many folks on that small a tract I can see a deer after being shot running past another hunter (or two) that might just take a pot shot on him too.... It's happens a lot.

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[Arty]

If you down it. It's yours. Regardless of the holes that might be in it. No sharing of meat.
I just have to drop it like I normally do ;)

[Captain]

You better get GOOD at neck shootin' :D

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[Captain]

So instead of first blood it's last blood. Where it falls in other words.
So if you shoot a deer and he runs 150 or 200 yards and falls over within sight of another hunter all he has to do is shoot it lying on the ground and say he "put it down" and it's his.... Hum....

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[Arty]

Theoretically.... Yes.
How often does that happen? I dunno.
From what I know so far (haven't been there) this is thick, marshy, thicket Huntin. He said you'd HAVE to have waders to get to the stands. He's bringing a pair for me to wear Saturday as the matter of fact.

Neck shootin'!?! With that .243 model 70 I'll shoot'em in the eye!

[Buckrub]

If you do, some of them will run 50 yards.

If you shoot them in the torso ANYWHERE, some of them will run 200 yards....they have 2.5 times the number of units of blood that a human does. They can be dead and still have blood coursing through their veins for a while.

If you shoot them in the butt, most times they fall............if you hit them right.....and bleat and bleat and bleat.....but they fall.....they DO try to dig their way out, but usually can't. Depends on what you shoot them with.

IF you shoot that .243, depending on the type of cartridge you use, you MIGHT drop 'em. But it'd be like me hitting Cappy in the jaw with my best right cross. He MIGHT go down, but I wouldn't bet the farm on it.

I hate to sound like a snotty hunter, but my thought in all of this has been, if it were me, "Geez. Can I not find somewhere other to hunt than this??".... This is worse than public hunting here......and I won't do that with a CF Rifle in all our hands, not a chance.

[Niner]

Another Thumpish story.........

Back in the .....ummmm....early 1980's when I'd gotten out of the service, and was a newly-wed living/working in Norfolk/VA Beach area, one of the guys where I was working was a local fellow. He invited me out to their family hunting club one weekend, and it was a bit of an "old south" experience....I suppose.

It was sortof kindof like the senario I talked about above. The diff was this that this was a bunch of Suffolk "rednecks" (so to speak). It was a fantastic mix of country white and black folks and EVERYONE was just the salt-of-the-earth kindof folks.

That part of VA back then was shotgun only....may still be for all I know. They were doing "deer drives" that weekend...which now that I think back on it may be why I got the invite. Maybe they needed more guns in the fieild. ANYWAY....
After they'd put all the standers out, they had a guy come working through the wood with a pack of dogs. Beagles maybe????....I forget. And I didn't even so much as see a squirrell, much less a deer.....

I said all that to say this. They DID kill several deer that day. And that evening they were skinned and cut up, and EVERYONE......every single hunter got a cut of the meat to take home. I got a nice rump roast.
:biggrin

Sorry for the Thumpish post. Y'all got the old memory banks rolliing and I'm remembering long-forgotten hunting adventures.

[Buckrub]

Deer Drives is how it used to be done in the South. Our cabin has a permanently painted map of the area, all roads (most don't exist anymore), and the name of "Drives" painted on. E.G., there's an Old Tram Road, and next to it is "Old Tram Drive". They had maps of where to put the standers and where to put the dogs out, and where to pick 'em up. You did NOT get off of your stand until they came and got you. No four wheelers, of course, and a Willys Jeep wouldn't hold everyone, so lots of folks had Power Wagons.

Those guys never thought that you could kill a deer by waiting on it to walk by. They were too wary. So you had to drive them out of the southern thickets, or do without.

While I have come to detest that kind of hunting, and hate it when someone's dogs get over on our property, there IS that tingling in the back of my neck when a chase gets close to me. After it's over, I think "Man, I wish they'd go away".........but when they are approaching, it's lightning in a bottle.