The Other Hunting Seasons

Deer hunting has become such an industry it has blotted out the appeal of other outdoor pursuits. This is a shame, especially for outdoorspeople in Florida. By December a wide variety of hunting opportunities have opened. Some are as simple as lacing up a pair of boots and coursing the oak hammocks for squirrel or as tactic-driven as predator calling or fall turkey hunting.

So, I will just briefly peruse some of these other adventures that are hiding behind the sun.

(Click Here for Resident/Upland Game Season Dates!)

Wild Hogs

It is not really fair to lump wild hogs in with the rest of this list. They are probably pursued harder in FL than deer. But, as I’ve written before, my favorite time to hunt hogs is in the winter months. Hogs can be found statewide and numerous outfitters offer the chance to harvest at least a meat hog at reasonable prices.

This year’s acorn crop has been wicked. Combined with the dry the swine have all but abandoned my feeders for the deeper reaches of the arid swamps, and I’m hearing the same thing from buddies around the state. Still, the acorns should be gone soon, and the hogs will have a nice layer of fat. Should be just ripe for the BBQ.

Predators
Florida’s coyote population is going bananas. It really is the perfect state for them to thrive with the temperate weather and buffet of small critters and crops to eat. Hunting them here is a real challenge. I’ve tried numerous times but the best I can rely on is luck. I think the important thing is to hunt them where they can be killed. Hunt them along fire breaks and palmetto flats where your call can be heard. Hunting in the swamps drowns out the rabbit squealer and if they do come out, it will be in your lap.

Calling in bobcats is just plain fun. Sometimes they charge in immediately, sometimes they sneak in after 30-40 minutes of calling, though the latter is far more common. Either way, it’s chilling. The crouch. Those yellow eyes. The flick of the tail. Even if you don’t care about pulling the trigger, it’s a wonderfully wild spectacle.

Call for the wildcats on the edges of ag fields and swamps, especially if there are irrigation ditches or firebreaks for them to travel down. Be patient, of all things. Dedicate an hour or so to a set up.

Fall Turkey
Yes, Florida offers a fall turkey season. On many WMA’s one’s best chance at a gobbler or hen will be bow season which has largely passed – again, though, check local regulations.

Private land is at the discretion of the landholders. Some people prefer to wait on spring to harvest turkey, others not so much. Only toms may be taken on private land. There are two ways to success. Hope one ambles by your tree stand or sit and call.

I’ve been lucky with the stand situation, but it has been many years since I’ve tagged one in such a fashion. It’s been even longer since I’ve tried fall calling. It’s a slow process of calling softly and remaining seated. Gobblers flock up this time of year and seek out the thicker swamps. It's tough.

My lease is in Zone B and the fall turkey season runs through the end of January. I’ll be making a concerted effort at a tom this year. Chances at doing this are few and far between.

Small Game
I personally enjoy squirrel hunting. My Ruger 10/22 loves to dance with bushytails in January and February.

Same with rabbits. We do a rabbit hunt every December in Sarasota County. We glass down bush fencerows in the evenings with a 17 HMR. Good fun.

Most WMA’s have small game seasons. This is the time I usually visit WMA’s to scout for deer and turkey. Might as well tote a .22 with you and have some fun while you’re at it.

Quail

It has been years since I have taken a quail in FL. I’m not even sure where to go anymore. There are plenty of hunting preserves across the state. Duette Park in Manatee County has a thriving population and offers small game hunts. That would be my best advice. Outside of that, check with local biologists at your local WMA and give it a shot!

Winter gets to be a busy time here in Florida what with all the holidays and stuff. This is true for hunting season, too. I haven’t even touched some of the other possibilities today – waterfowl, snipe, dove, crows, furbearers, etc. It’s an exciting time.

Deer hunting is my favorite, for sure, but it sure is nice to get away from that for a while and give something else a try!

TWL Classics - Struttin' in South Carolina

Two years ago I started my volunteer outdoor writing service through a local newspaper's public blogging site. Unfortunately, through powers beyond my control, my archives from that source are gone and lost forever. Luckily, I saved rough drafts of this work on my computer, and once or twice a week I'll re-introduce a past column back into the wild of the World Wide Web. Enjoy!

Originally Published April 2008

Our timing was screwed up Friday morning. The alarm hammered off an hour early, which felt much worse considering we’d only gone to bed two hours prior, having left Lakeland later than planned. Then we screwed around too long getting dressed and breakfast. So I guess it should not have come as any surprise when we walked to our planned set-up in almost broad daylight that the gobblers were already doing their thing.

P.J. and I were fouled from the beginning. The first gobble came as we debated where to sit. We scrambled into the woods and deployed the decoys – a noisy waste of time at this point – and settled by a couple trees amid what can only be described as a biblical swarm of mosquitoes. I’d forgotten to heat up my Terma-Cell and was fully assaulted, slapping my head, legs, arms, and eyeballs. Only deaf, dumb, and blind were these gobblers coming our way. Not when they’re perched a mere 150 yards away.

This is not how I’d envisioned my first turkey hunt in South Carolina. Honestly, though, I didn’t know what to expect other than to see plenty of game. I’ve hunted deer in Allendale, Barnwell, and surrounding counties off and on since I was 16. Deer, deer, and more deer, is the only way to describe this Low Country portion of the state. I seem to remember reading once that the deer population ran from 30-40 per square mile, incredible considering the season starts in August, ends in January, and farmers and other landowners obtain permits to shoot them during the offseason.

Turkey, though, were always an afterthought. Sure, I’d seen plenty of them in corn piles and elsewhere, but I’d never considered packing up a truck and leaving Florida to hunt gobblers. That was back in my younger days, a time when I had access to all the turkey hunting I desired. That changed, but my passion for turkey hunting didn’t.

Unfortunately, around the same time we lost our Florida properties, hunting in South Carolina became expensive. Way back when, day hunts on soy bean fields were $100 per day for deer, and we balked at places that charged $150-200. The guy who managed all this offered turkey hunting for $50-75, another $20 a night to stay at a local motel - cheap now considering one well-known hunting outfit charges $495 per DAY.

Our old contact at that hunting land is gone now, so I never took advantage of those relatively inexpensive hunts, and in the years since, I’ve relied mostly on invitations to treat my gobbler fever.

So, it is nice to have friends. P.J. leases 150 acres in Allendale County, a beautiful piece of land with planted pines of varying ages and a deep swamp bottom over which the gobblers tend to roost. I’d been told there were plenty of toms on the property, and I’d been ready to make the trip since we first discussed it months earlier.

Since I’ve grown up spoiled rotten on Osceola’s, I still think of the eastern gobbler subspecies as some kind of exotic game. Like a lot of turkey hunters, I dream of completing the Slam, and though Rio’s and Merriam’s are still a few years off for my budget (not to mention Gould’s or Oscellated), a half slam of Osceola and eastern in a single spring still gets me excited.

So this year, with my Osceola side of the deal completed, I was ready to take a crack at South Carolina’s best toms. And as I wrote above, the whole venture started wrong. Besides being late and covered with mosquitoes, I felt I’d stepped on every loud-cracking stick and twig in the woods. I didn’t want to say it or think it out loud, but I knew those birds weren’t heading our way, no matter what I threw at them.

The tom, and some squeaky-clucking jake, gobbled two or three more times off the roost, pitching down on a ridge opposite our location. He gobbled now and then from the ground, but it became clear him and his entourage were moving away.

After a long silence, P.J. suggested we move shop and follow the road alongside the ridge leading to the swamp. We arrived at a bend in the trail, walked another 50-60 yards, planted a couple hen decoys in the right-of-way, found a good sittin’ tree, and leaned back, calling every once in a while.

No matter how many hunts I go on, I’ll always shake my head at how different gobblers respond to different calls. Slate call, no luck. Raspy Ol’ Hen yelps, nada. Excited clucks and putts from a single reed, bingo!

The tom gobbled from a startlingly close distance from the pines in front of us. In between the trees stood tall new growth grasses and weeds that provided cover and food for turkey, but limited our visibility. Not convinced he’d planned to hit our dekes, I hit him again with a series of high-pitched clucks that sent him into frenzy, gobbling five or six times in a row.

Game on now! Soon jakes came dodging through the pines, trailed by Mr. Longbeard. My heart had long since taken to pounding as the Shakes took hold. The gobbler strutted back and forth behind the decoys as the jakes milled around, becoming more agitated as time passed.


P.J., as the trigger man, swung his gun slowly towards the gobbler, but the jakes picked up on the movement, I guess. They grew spookier, so I whispered to take the gobbler. Maybe a second later, P.J.’s shotgun blasted, rolling the tom, as I tried to locate a jake to gun down as they beat a retreat, but with no luck. It’s possible we could’ve waited for both of us to take a shot, but I’d rather put one trophy bird in the bag than mess up trying to wait on the perfect double situation.

I don’t know if I’d forgotten, didn’t pay attention, or what, but the realization that this was P.J.’s first bird skipped me - and what a fine tom, sporting a 10 ¼ inch beard, 1 inch spurs, and weighing in at 20 pounds. Not a bad start to what will be a successful turkey hunting career, I’m confident.

The Shakes still rattled me as I snapped photos and didn’t settle until long after we’d returned to the truck. I can tell you, no deer or other big game leaves me as manic as a run-in with a gobbling, strutting tom. We’d gotten the Show, the absolute pinnacle of any hunting experience, I believe. Love deer hunting, but I’d crawl over a Boone & Crockett buck any day of the week to call in a tom and watch it strut in the decoys.

The next morning, we almost made it 2/2 for the Silver Can Assassins, our team named after a particular brand of Rocky Mountain refreshment enjoyed throughout the weekend. We heard gobblers back down in the swamp, but I wanted to start the morning near some strut marks in the road we’d found, surmising the birds would work their way from the bottoms up to the grassy roads to feed.

I almost knew what I was doing. Again, this tom gobbled too close for comfort. He didn’t seem nearly as worked up as P.J.’s gobbler. Only twice more did he sound off, the last gobble toward the distant pines. I don’t know if he’d found the hens we’d heard from the roost, or if I sent him a call that rubbed him wrong, but I guess I’ll never know. One for the bush, I suppose.

Sunday, the weather changed to a cold, rainy morning. We sat in the truck awaiting daylight, but this morning was over before sunrise. I’d hunted in the rain once already this year and found success, but I’m never too angry at a turkey to go out in this pneumonia weather.

Maybe I’ll get my half-slam in Georgia later this year or maybe not. I don’t know. One thing is for sure though - I’m definitely excited to return to South Carolina. The state never disappoints for deer, and with turkey, well, our relationship is off to a great start.

The Tuesday Morning Jake

“*%$#!, I missed!”

I can work a pumpgun like an evil man when I have to.

I had set up on the edge of a cypress swamp bottom flooded by the recent heavy rains. To the east was a cow pasture broken by pines and palmettos. To the north, another deep swamp of state land where hunting is forbidden. God knows where they’d be roosting.

Dawn brought no help. For the second straight outing, there were no gobbles. And on a perfect, cool morning, too. When you have a fine ambush, though, there’s no real reason to get antsy and stomp around. Plus, the lease is only 100 acres, not much land to run and gun on.

PJ had found this lease in Polk County a month ago. We scouted it for deer and turkey without much success. The hogs are thick – you’ll be reading about the hogs soon enough. Six of us bought in to have a place close to home. If we could snag a few swine and a predator or two, it’d be worth it. Available hunting land – wait, affordable, available hunting land - in Central Florida is scarce. We hung feeders and stands and expected little other than a cool escape, camping trips, maybe a dove field, and aforementioned hogs.

The cowboy had told us turkeys were in the area, but we never could find any tracks in the sandy roads. It sure looked turkey-ish – tall pines, swamp bottoms, plenty of clearings for strutting - but I kinda put turkey hunting here out of my mind.

All that changed with circumstance. My Opening Weekend plans to hunt in Nassau County was cancelled at the 11th hour. As clinically hopeless turkey addicts, Cole and I decided to give the lease a try. Everything changed that first Saturday morning with a gobble. And a few more.

I won’t go too much into those details here, but our concept of the property changed in a hurry. Of course, you do realize the realities and difficulties of six people with varying turkey hunting experience navigating such a small piece of property. The other guys spotted a couple birds and heard a few more gobbles, but nothing came of it. There were birds here, just not many of them.

My problem was timing. Every other weekend during the season had been booked, limiting my outings for a gobbler close to home. Luckily, my new job is a mixture of office and field work. When I didn't need to be in the office early, I could run down to the property with a change of clothes and get where I needed to go after a morning hunt. It had worked last week, though I had zero luck. I stared at my desk calendar, looking for another available moment.

Today was the day. My fortunes started off poor again. The mosquitoes, held at bay by the uncommonly cold weather over the last several months, returned with a vengeance. My Therma-Cell broke on the fourth "click." The skeeters took full advantage, leaving a line of pimply bite marks along the borders of my facemask until my skin now resembles that of a 9th grader.

And no gobbling. That’s the excitement of turkey hunting to me. I tend to write-off mornings when the toms aren’t cooperating. Maybe the weather had them screwed up, or perhaps the gold strike-like rush to hunt the property after the first morning had silenced them. Who knows? All I knew was, I didn’t bust a bird last year, and the desire to hammer an incoming gobbler and frying turkey bites one weekend was too powerful to give up this go-round.

Also, while I am not a super-competitive guy, especially when it comes to hunting, I did like the thought of being the first to harvest a tom on this piece of property. Sort of a “Kilroy was here” thing. So, the challenge had been settled.

When the gobblers aren’t working and I strike up the patience, I tend to ease back myself. It can be rather boring, but I always remind myself that the best turkey hunters I know don’t cluck and cackle like they are in a competition. They stay still, call softly and sporadically. I pulled my cellphone out to track the time between my sessions of turkey-like noises, slipped a slate out of the vest and settled into the long wait. If I could discipline myself to only call every 15-20 minutes, this may just work.

After my third cadence of soft purrs and clucks, accentuated with a few louder yelps at the end, a red and white head popped up a 100 yards back into the private property swamp. The excitement of such a moment can't be adequately explained with words. Chilling, maybe. Attaining the clarity of what you must do next - keeping your calm and fighting back your nerves - is a skill I still have not mastered, but this time I prevailed over these life ruiners. Again, I had faith in my efforts. My decoys, set in the trim of the cattle pasture 20 yards from my haunt, would be in clear view once the tom emerged from the dark and through the broom sedge. As soon as he strolled behind a large oak and out of sight, I slipped the safety off and leaned into a solid rest.

He sure did take his time. The tom - a healthy jake - slowly maneuvered around pines and water oaks, and lifted his head occasionally to survey his surroundings. I refrained from calling any further as my philosophy is to just let ‘em come without betraying my mediocre calling skills.

The urgent need to breed certainly wasn’t on this fellow’s mind. He fed, picking through the grass, until he reached the wire gap separating the properties. All he had to do was slide under the fence, mosey 15 more yards, and it’d be all over.

Unfortunately, he hung up. Surely, he saw the decoys but paid little attention. The tom slowly started walking parallel to the fenceline; enough was enough with my not-calling-anymore decision. I putted and clucked a few times on the mouth call, and he swapped ends and charged under the fence into my spread.

Now, listen, children. Always pattern your shotgun. At twenty yards, there is no excuse for missing. Actually, this is a TWL exclusive since I didn’t tell any of my friends I'd missed - let's see how many of them read this - but it's only noble to fess up. That long, warty neck is too inviting of a target, and I was rock-solid. After last year's hunts and a few coyote jaunts, I hadn’t put that gun on paper, and those flimsy fiber optic sights on my Mossberg require more diligence than that.

The tom didn’t take two steps before Round 2 got him. I raced up to the bird, as is my custom, fist-pumping along the way. Trophy-wise, he won’t garner much attention from the record books. As you can see in the photo, his fan hadn’t quite matured, and the beard was maybe four inches long.

Some may look down on shooting a jake, but I’m not going to rationalize my decision-making any further on this point. Save the missed shot, my strategy was executed like the pick-and-roll, and I have turkey breast to fry this Easter weekend. That, to me, is the essence of a great hunt, and I am thankful for the moment.

TWL Classics - Action in the South Zone

Two years ago I started my volunteer outdoor writing service through a local newspaper's public blogging site. Unfortunately, through powers beyond my control, my archives from that source are gone and lost forever. Luckily, I saved rough drafts of this work on my computer, and once or twice a week I'll re-introduce a past column back into the wild of the World Wide Web. Enjoy!

Originally Published February 2008

For turkey hunters in the South Zone, start your engines, people. Of course, I seriously doubt you needed my reminder. This date has been on your mind for months. But yes, you are a-go on the 1st.

With the way the weather has been yo-yoing between cool and warm conditions every couple of days, I am looking forward to hearing some reports from down south on how the gobblers are responding. Generally, the earlier the warm weather, the earlier the birds are breeding. Cool weather knocks it back. Of course, farther south, this is not as much as of an issue as in other parts of the state. Maybe I’m just excited to talk turkey once again.

Two weekends ago in Manatee County, I found two separate gobblers, each on the edges of an oak hammock between a palmetto flat and river bottom – a perfect strutting area. Unfortunately, most of Manatee County is in the Central Zone, as is this place. I don’t have a tag here anyhow, so I guess the point is moot.

It has been three years since I’ve hunted in the South Zone. The last trip was on an invite to private property south of Immokalee. The person who invited me is no longer a member of that lease, so I doubt I’ll ever see the place again, but the memory of that hunt is not going away for a long time.

We rode down a few days before the start of the season and made it to a camp on the edge of a bromeliad-infested swamp that looked like Skunk Ape could have wandered out of it at any moment. The weather was pleasant, and we knew where a boss Osceola strutted from a previous scouting trip. The plan was to set up blinds early so when the other members of camp showed up, we were prepared to tell them we’d staked out our zone.

Now, let me tell you, the majority of people in this camp were not serious turkey hunters – Weekend Warriors, actually. Spring hunting meant driving around in swamp buggies all morning. Fun, yes, but not the most effective way of bagging a bird. We wanted them as far away from our set-ups as possible.

So we built blinds and did some additional scouting. Strolled through some of the dried-out strands in the area looking for orchids. So close to the famed Fakahatchee Strand, we talked about the rare ghost orchid. We found bear tracks in the dirt road leading into camp and panther tracks on the edges of a large cattle pasture as we did some preliminary hog hunting. And snakes, well, I prefer not to talk about them. Even after years of hunting this state, a wilder place in Florida, I have not been.

The opening morning of season was not so memorable. A lot of gunshots from our Rambo friends – came to find out later someone was shooting at running pigs with a .45ACP pistol from a swamp buggy. But, I could hear that ol’ boss gobbler we’d scouted hollering in the trees ahead of me. At flydown though, he wandered back into the swamp.

That evening, Travis and I set up in a hammock of some of the strangest looking trees I’d seen, which unfortunately, the name of them escapes me. The important part though, was the clearing in the trees where we hoped we could lure a gobbler. Before we set out, one of the guys in camp asked if we were heading out to roost a bird. In unison, Travis and I replied, “No, we’re going to kill one."

After fifteen minutes or so, a turkey flew into a tall pine on the edge of our strange hammock. Rested behind and to the right of me, I couldn’t see his red head until the sun hit him just right. I urged Travis to yelp a couple of more times, and as he did, the tom flew down, and I rolled around on my stomach simultaneously.

Just barely could I see the front of the tom’s head around the trunk of one of these trees. I whispered to Travis to cluck once more. The gobbler took three steps forward, and Travis ran to the dead bird before the smoke from my shot even cleared.

We brought out the camera and bipod, snapped photos, and laughed our way back to camp before the sun had even started to dip towards the horizon. At the shack, the tom was hung on a lodge pole, drinks were poured, and yeah, we showed off a little bit without being too obnoxious. We’d gone to kill one, and once in a while it’s nice to at least sound like you know what you’re talking about.

The next morning I returned to my blind where I’d hoped that big gobbler would stop for a visit. It wasn’t to be, though. As the day warmed, I heard the sharp cluck of a jake to my right. A couple of minutes later, nine red heads poured out of the swamp, no more than ten yards from my outstretched legs.

They were all jakes, and to take one after shooting a gobbler the night before seemed to push a little hard on our host’s graciousness. Fortunately for them, this was my mindset. They sure tempted fate. Instead of walking away, they wandered under the myrtle bush where I was sitting, the nearest one now inches from my black rubber boot.

If I wasn’t going to shoot the shotgun, I’d give my camera a try. Slowly, I pulled my Canon out of a pocket in my hunting vest. The birds seemed concerned, but with the sun sitting directly on my shoulder, they couldn’t get a good bead on my movement.

I snapped my last shot on the roll of film – I’ve since gone digital – and the jakes scooted amongst the decoys and finally away, leaving me with a memory and a photo that remains one of my best trophies.

Ah, turkey hunting, you never know what each morning will bring. To those of you packing your gear and heading south this weekend, best of luck. Hope you capture that unique memory of your own!!!

Scouting Chassahowitzka for Spring Turkey IV - A New Hope

Scouting is hope. You can pore through aerial maps, ride the roads, and ask others where to look for your chosen quarry, but the real excitement doesn’t start building until you do some actual snooping around. Sometimes the things you find aren’t exactly what you went seeking, but are certainly thrilling.

This last weekend I finally burned calories wandering around Chassahowitzka (Part I, II, III). Emerging from a swamp bottom off the North Road, Dad and I cut a set of large hog tracks. Really large. One set of hoofprints led up the hill, and a corresponding set led back down the road to the swamp. We followed the tracks for a hundred yards or so to a skinny pine sapling in the middle of a burned scrub flat, far from the cover of the cypress. The poor tree had been rubbed raw by the hog. Teeth marks were gashed into the bark. The most remarkable aspect of this find was the height of the rub – up to my hip, and I am six feet tall. This was a bad boy, the Darth Vader of swine.

He had obviously been using this tree for some time. Why he chose this particular one and wandered all this way to it is beyond me. On a place that runs dogs throughout a good portion of the season, this pig had obviously been pretty smart or pretty lucky to avoid capture, though I will say I pity any mutt that decides to latch onto his ear. Heck, maybe he has slashed one or two in his time. Again, I’ll never know.

On a hiking trail through the thick black-water, mosquito-breeding cypress swamp off Rattlesnake Camp Road, we found a couple of old boards nailed into a tree. You’d be excommunicated these days for doing such a thing. Dad remarked it was possible some boy killed his first deer off that stand. I thought the stand was so old somebody may have killed their first bear off of it. No telling.

And I guess I should be excited by the turkey potential, too. We jumped a flock of a dozen hens in one swamp. Following the old fire trail into the dark, we heard the rushing noise of stampeding critters through the head-high vegetation. Only when they took flight did I realize it was turkeys and not some blood-thirsty beastie.

We found tracks in a burned flat and up and down the roads. Wish we could have spied a gobbler or some strut marks, but no. Identifying roosting trees? Ha! They are all roosting trees at this place. The continuous swamp is a repeating cartoon background of tall cypress and pines. The two of us walked many a mile down hiking paths and trails and identified some promising spots. From there, it’s a gamble of where to set up.

Sorry, but I’m gonna play coy for now on the location of these places. When I lay a bird low, I’ll share these spots as my chances of drawing this hunt again are slim. Hopefully though, I’ll leave a blueprint for another lucky hunter needing some advice.

There’s nothing left to do now. I won’t have any more chances to scout. The weekends are getting busy again. I have a general plan of how to proceed. The birds will gobble or they won’t. If they do, I can go to my woodsmanship and calling “skills.”

I’m crossing my fingers the birds and weather will cooperate - it all comes down to hope.

Your Lease Options

Six years ago, responding to an ad in the Lakeland Ledger, I hit pay-dirt. Hunt club in SW Georgia needed new members. 2500 acres, lots of deer and turkey. I called the guys, asked a few questions and sent them the money, sight unseen. I got extremely lucky.

The hunt club folded the next year as the timber property that owned the land sold it. But, some of the guys I met proved to be excellent hunters, and better, easy people to get along with. They invited me onto another lease that I hunted another four seasons, collecting my best two bucks and a smattering of other game. Better still, I learned a ton about deer hunting from these guys.

Year 3 was tough, though. A couple of the originals moved on, and we needed some warm bodies in order to afford the lease. The newbies were nice enough, but there were some serious personality conflicts, to say nothing of a gap in hunting experience and methods.

Case in point, Georgia law says you can run corn feeders on your property, but must hunt 200 yards away and without a view of the feeder. Of course, we did use corn to attract deer to the lease. These guys did not want feeders at all, in the off chance they might happen to wander within 200 yards of corn at the same time a game officer would be in the area – the odds of this occurring was miniscule, especially when the gates were locked and one lawman was spread throughout four counties. They were rock-steady in their objections, and one meeting with them turned hostile. We eventually conceded – well, some of us did – and went about the season.

That wasn’t the only issue that tested my patience. All of us who had hunted this land used tree stands, placed them early in the season, and they didn’t move until January. The deer in these parts were extremely spooky and the less movement and human interference, the better. The new guys came and placed their stands in the middle of the rut and moved them constantly. When they failed to see deer from the stand, they wandered throughout the property. The results were predictable. A couple of them shot yearling does and jumped deer and hogs without getting a shot. As a result, by early December the lease was a ghost town.

By season’s end, I was frustrated and angry. The Others moved along to a different lease and that was that. Again, they weren’t horrible people; it’s just important to see eye to eye, or at least compromise, with others when you invest in a lease.

Lease and hunt club memberships should become available in the coming months. Here are a few tips to help you if you decide to fork out the cash.

1. Game Selection – My biggest irritation with the lease in Georgia was not being allowed to hunt turkey, which was very disappointing. I stayed on the lease because I enjoyed the company of the other hunters in camp, plus there was a legitimate chance of a Boone & Crockett buck walking out any minute. Also, I had a great wood duck hole that I hunted close to the end of season, and if I felt spunky enough, I could hunt coyote year-round. Turkey notwithstanding, the hunting opportunity return on my dollar was pretty high. If all you care about is deer, fine. But if you like some variety, ask fellow lease-members if they do any other kinds of hunting on the property, and whether it would be a problem if you did.

2. Doe Management – Seemingly everyone is moving towards some version of Quality Deer Management (QDM), and doe harvest is a key component of this practice. Georgia allows a hunter to take 10 does a year, which would’ve been excessive on our property. My first year in the club, we tried to establish a reasonable limit per person on does, with weight requirements and fines for shooting button bucks. No one was happy. I wanted a higher limit – which in hindsight was dumb because I only took one anyhow. One guy popped a button buck and balked at having to pay a fine because it was almost dark, and everyone’s made this mistake before, excuse, excuse. Think about this when you sign up; you’re more likely to have a chance at capping a few does than a huge buck anyhow.

3. Antler Restrictions – Speaking of QDM, this could be the biggest sticking point with lease and club members. The whole point of our original club was to let young deer walk, and I let a couple really nice bucks slip on by - ones that’d been deader than fried chicken in Florida - to achieve this goal. But that’s what I wanted. One guy in camp shot a young 8 with a spread that was close to, but not quite, the 15-inch minimum, or whatever we had established. He hadn’t shot many deer, and I didn’t want to take away his joy by imposing a fine, but those were the rules; let one person break them and it’s all over. If you decide to join a lease these days, you better know for certain whether or not you can live under such guidelines. I fully realize it’s hard to plop down cold hard-earned cash, hunt days on end without seeing anything only to let a nice deer that is so close to meeting the qualifications just walk away. Trust me, I do.

4. Food Plots – I didn’t start deer hunting to become a farmer. I personally don’t deal much with food plots. Don’t plan on it. Some guys on our lease did. Some enjoy planting community plots, and I don’t mind pitching in a few dollars for this. I know some properties require members to visit the land during the summer to work on brush clearing, planting food plots, and other such chores. Personally, I’m not spending any more on gas than I must for trips to till the land. I know adding food plots provides the deer with supplemental nutrition, contributes to antler growth, and makes for an easy stand location, but financially, my choices have always boiled down to either spending the money raising peas or spending the money to hunt without them. Easy for me.

5. Other Hunters – As I opened with, I got extremely lucky just tossing money at someone I’d never met, to hunt land I’d never seen. But, I didn’t do it completely stupid. I spoke with a couple different members of the club, asked about the land and game and expectations. This painted a fairly clear picture of who I’d be dealing with. None the less, it had the potential to be the worst blind date of all time. (As it turned out, I was the rube - a majority of the people very experienced hunters.) Still, it’s tough to judge personalities over the phone, and in that original group of fifteen, a couple guys rubbed others wrong. I’m easygoing to a fault at times and get along with most everyone. But in a hunting camp, you often have the issue of “I’ve spent my money, I can do what I want,” or “you’re hunting too close to me or walking around too much,” and just other alpha male nonsense that ruins the levity. Running with the wrong crowd will kill your season in a hurry. My advice is, get to know the other hunters in advance of paying the money – this is probably more important than seeing the land.

My experience with leases and clubs has been roundly successful. Due to financial concerns, I’ve been off that Georgia property for over year, though I missed it like the dickens this past fall. I got everything out of it I could’ve possibly wanted: big deer, new friends, and an escape in the fall. Sleep is hard when I think of it.

If you decide to join a lease or hunt club this spring or summer, make sure you do your due diligence - I got lucky this once. Not banking on that happening again

ESPN Outdoors Wildlife Cameras

Looking for a way to blow some time while whittling away hours in the office? Perhaps you just haven't spent enough time in the deer stand this season - and let's face it, who has?

ESPN.com has had a streaming video camera set up on some remote Arkansas food plot for a few months now. With two active feeders and C'Mere Deer sprinkled about, deer, hogs, bear, and turkey are frequent visitors throughout the day and night.

So, check it out when you get a chance. In addition to a plethora of does, quite a few nice bucks turn up. It's an awesome site!

ESPN Outdoors Wildlife Cameras