The meeting is tonight (Monday).

You got me, Clem. Mainly, I think I am sort of taken aback by Jeff`s vocal support of dog hunting. Being a news reporter, I thought he might have taken a more "middle of the road" stance. By showing his hajnd, I kinda view his opinions a little differently now. I think what I was trying to say was that if the state outlawed dog hunting, maybe that would cut down on the chatter about it being legitimate. It would be illegal and non-debatable.

I am in favor of dog hunting as long as the club has a large contiguous tract of land they can keep their dogs on, but when they impede others from enjoying their hunting by tresspass on others land then changes and restrictions need to be made.

Just think what the dog hunters would get away with if all the still hunt club menbers were at home for 10 days!

I got no beef with dog hunters, EXCEPT we aren't playing on a level field. My entire case against dog hunting rests solely on the merit of one recommendation: It should only be allowed on private land.
Exhibit A is "Cheaha Mountain" (Talladega Nat'l Forest). It seems that nearly every day during the dog/gun season, there are literally dozens of dog hunters, lining every road. One Saturday around New Years I rode the entire length of FS Road 637 (Cherrytree Rd) and saw 33 trucks parked with dog boxes, or riding with dog boxes. That road is 15 miles long, and that's just the trucks that were on the main road, who knows how many were spread down the side roads??? I wasted two hours trying to find an unaffected place to hunt, and couldn't find one single place that dog hunters weren't at. What should be 100,000 acres of prime deer real estate is reduced to smoldering, hammered, pressured to death, waste-land after only a week or so of the season. There's a period of two weeks during Christmas where I guarantee you the dogs run all day, and all night if they aren't caught. What this results in is that nobody outside of these dog hunting groups can expect to have an ounce of success hunting there. The roads are wollered out, the deer are run out of the county, you can't even Fall turkey hunt anywhere on that entire mountain because of it.

On the other hand, someone like me, carrying a tree stand in and climbing every weekend or two, does essentially NOTHING to affect the dog hunters.

It's an inequitable trade off. Dog hunting should be totally outlawed on all public lands.

Public land is just that PUBLIC. It is for everyone to use. That being said if it is not already being done whoever is over that land needs to balance it's use to try and accommodate everyone such as limit the use of dogs to maybe two alternating days each week during the season.

Not a bad idea, t.

BUT, as soon as you told the Still-Hunters that they could not hunt while the dog hunters were having their equal share.....the chit would hit the fan!!!!

Well, the thing I have learned from running a hunting club is that is impossible to make everyone happy,but it is my responsibility to try and make it fair to everyone that hunts on my property as long as it is legal and does not negatively affect the hunting resources. That is what the state needs to do on all public land. People are always going to complain you just have to learn to sift through all the selfish bs to get to what really needs to be done.