Raw acreage is not good by itself. Land must be acquired for game production. This requires an experience eye of a long term successful hunter. First, is the recognition that not all areas of the states are equal. Second, habitat selection is an art that cannot be qualified by statistics of acres per hunter. Considerations include: membership hunting preferences as to type of game; amount of acres required by each game type to ensure a good day's hunt and the amount of game per acre. This together is a summation of hunting experience (art) and not a mathematical equation of acres per hunter divided by hunting days and overall membership levels, etc. Our turkey hunting statistics are very good, but they do not reflect the complete story. Keeping a score card on weight, beard length and spur is not the goal. A good turkey hunt of calling in birds to see just how good a hunter is and to be able to hunt one's own style mean more than a beard an inch longer than last year. There are plenty of mature toms around to test oneself against nature. Compare that to a guide service where the faster the hunt the better it is rated.
With us, hunters are not under pressure to tag the first or fifteenth bird that comes by. The only time limit is the amount of time the hunter wants to spend in the woods. And, after tagging a turkey the hunter needs not stop enjoying the outdoors. A guide service will hustle the hunter out of the area to not over pressure the game on the limited ground the guide may have. The guide will also be sure to take the hunter in and out to avoid an accidentally viewing of the feeders used to bait turkeys.
Another comparison or contrast. In this Association the character of the hunter is an issue, not just his dues check. A hunter must conduct him/herself as a sportsman and gentlemen or lady for continued membership. Being overly competitive or forgetting the true value of a good day in the field will cause some to be dismissed from the Association. What better example of how our approach to hunting allows each hunter to hunt his own style than to have a hunter using a muzzleloader for turkey hunting.
The same hunter with two other toms from the same season |
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