I hunt to kill things. I would never go hunting without a weapon. It's called bird watching or hiking not hunting if you don't have a weapon

Not old as you swampcracker or got as many deer it sounds. The first deer I ever shot was on paperwood land I was put on a garhole on a dog hunt. Cost to
hunt $0 for me. Land was open access. The next deer I took was a nice buck ran out on me by dogs on private land.
The most fun I ever had was hunting out of state over corn. Seen more action from animals other than deer those days than one would see in lifetime just sitting in woods. Probably what made me love the sport is not knowing what I would see next. Different kinds of hawks chasing other animals at that gathering place. Saw a few bobcats and shot a few. Went one day and got over twenty squirrels. The land I hunted you could hunt all season and maybe see two or three bucks. Never shot over two bucks a year cause just wasn't that many. Never shot a doe because others kept them thinned down and I just didn't eat that much meat anyways. Saw the transition from land being open to everyone closing land off. Never thought I would see anyone pay $1500 or more to deer hunt. To each there own and some people just got money. Maybe those that hunt will have as much fun as I did those first few years I hunted until everyone came in and thought they had to shoot every buck in the woods.

I think its called scouting.

I've been hunting for nearly 40 years.

It has gone down hill. In terms of expectations, money and quality of enjoyment for most hunters.

The mighty dollar has turned it into a rich man's game if you want good hunting. The way the seasons are structured I truly feel sorry for you guys having to hunt public land.

You guys making me feel ooooold! Killed my first buck with a .410 slug in the late fifties dog hunting. Saw him coming 100 yards away , sneaking out of the swamp. Can still remember the feeling of having to wait til he was in range to pull the trigger. We pretty much only hunted on Saturdays, everybody worked during the week. "Food plots" didn't exist! Pretty much a community hunt and everybody shared the meat. My dad and I had redbones and Black and Tans that wouldn't run a deer out of the country and would usually return when we blew the bull horn or truck horn and we would go to another spot. Only rifle hunting we allowed was on a power line. Picked up the stick and string in 1970 and never looked back. The recurve was good to me til the mid nineties when I got my first compound. Clubs and leasing land arrived in the early 80s and the woods were suddenly full of hunters. Didn't have turkeys in our areas until the late 70s but when they arrived they came in droves. Dog hunting gave way to the clubs. The forests have changed too has the mature mixed hardwoods and pines were replaced with pine plantations. Killed all my deer with the recurves still hunting ; switched to the compound and also started climbing and hanging. First tree stands were only 7-8'off the ground and were effective. Still climbing and hanging in spite of a fall in 2014. Still running and gunnin when necessary. If your heart is in it, you adapt. I have no complaints and have been blessed to see the changes.

I remember in the early 80's we had some good tracts of land that joined the Barbour Co Management Area and all of a sudden every dang Outdoor Life and other magazines had a story about hunting in Barbour County. Old Frank Stinson said "Boys, ya'll better enjoy it while we can cause they are going to lease every bit of our hunting land" and they did. Our Barbour County dog hunting was soon over.