Bill Cochran

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If you are a landowner, the next time someone knocks on your door seeking a place to hunt deer, ask him some specific questions.

Not just questions about his integrity, sportsmanship and honesty. That’s important, but also ask about his hunting philosophy.

Chances are you are inviting him to help you reduce the deer population on your land. Make certain that he adopts that objective.

This is the advice of Matt Knox and Nelson Lafon, deer project leaders for the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. On page 53 of the current game law digest, they make an open-letter appeal to hunters to help reduce deer numbers, especially in Bedford, Fairfax, Fauquier, Franklin, Loudoun, Patrick, Prince William and Roanoke counties. It gets my support, because I have been on both sides of the gate, as a landowner and as a hunter.

If the guy soliciting a place to hunt is interested only in taking a trophy buck, he’s not going to be much help if you are a landowner overrun with deer. Fact is, little is accomplished in deer herd control when an antlered deer is killed.

As the landowner, you are in the catbird’s seat. You can pick and choose who gets to hunt your property. You set the rules.

Knox and Lafon offer some strategies for landowners:

>Organize deer hunting that promotes the killing of does.

>Give hunting permission only to sportsmen who agree to assist in reducing the deer herd on your property.

>Favor sportsmen who hunt all seasons: archery, muzzleloading and modern firearms.

>Adopt an “earn a buck” policy that requires guest hunters to kill at least a doe or two for every antlered buck taken.

A few paragraphs ago I said that the landowner is in charge and can call the shots, but these also are great days to be a hunter. Access to private property seldom has been easier. Some landowners are all but replacing “No Trespassing” signs with “Hunters Welcome” banners. Hunters no longer are at the mercy of landowners. They have bargaining chips.

Even so, how does an urban hunter form a relationship with a landowner? Often through a third party, such as a friend, a business associate, the people you attend church or PTA with. Many people know a landowner who needs help with deer herd control.

Large tracts of land aren’t required to form a hunter/landowner relationship. Property owners who need help the most own small acreages, maybe 25 to 50 acres. Often they have moved to the country from an urban area. In the beginning, the last thing they would think about is allowing someone to kill one of “their” deer. But I’ve seen them quickly change their mind when the deer destroy the ornamentals around their house, clean out their garden, horn their fruit trees, bed down in their front yard and create a road hazard every time the landowner drives to and from town.

Even landowners who are squemish about allowing deer to be killed on their property should realize that hunting doesn’t just benefit hunters and landowners but also the deer herd. Healthy deer herds must be in balance with healthy habitats. The most unkind thing you can do to wildlife is to allow it to overrun its habitat.

Once a hunter gains permission to hunt, he owes the landowner courtesy, safety and strict adherence to game laws and fair chase standards. That’s always been the case. Now you can add to that and say the guest hunter also owes the landowner a pledge to kill some does. If the hunter or landowner can’t use the meat, it should go to Hunters for the Hungry.

Hunters willing to do this doubtlessly have locked themselves into a long-term friendships that will last well beyond the deer season.