"There’s not one single reason for them to stop making everything draw only"

I hope it doesn't happen. For money in the short term, the state would sell us down the river. They won't worry about the future. There is no shortage of examples of this happening in government in general. What makes people think it can't happen with hunting? The SOA might be ok. As long as it stops expanding. I never EVER dreamed baiting would be legal. I wonder if they figured they would make more by selling baiting permits than the money they made off ticketing hunters. My only point is If the people in charge can abuse it, they WILL abuse it. The SOA program has grown in just a few years and it won't stop growing. Not when there's money to be made.

"No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!" Ronald Reagan

bamaeyedoc "The chances of the state taking away any existing WMA lands and turning them into SOA’s is zero"

Why not? What makes you so confident the chances are zero?

"I haven't seen anything that would make me think that all or any public land will become draw only. If you have any proof this is going to happen then post it on the forum."

It's a real possibility. Hopefully there will never be proof of the state converting land in order to bring in more revenue. But no proof. You're right. But I think we do have proof they have expanded the SOA program. And in a fairly short period of time. Maybe the thing to do is not think about it until it happens and it's too late to stop.

And no. I don't think the sky is falling. I'm only saying it might be a good idea to be aware. Just in case.

I wouldn't be surprised if all Forever Wild land is converted to SOA's

That’s EXACTLY what I had in mind. I hunt a lot of forever wild land that is outside the wma system

Name one government program that has ever not expanded outside of its own good

Equating SOA to socialism while complaining that they may theoretically take away free or inexpensive hunting land is rich. Like I said, I'm not advocating taking away land that is currently open. Is it possible? Yes. It was also possible before the SOA hunting areas were purchased.

This conversation really goes to the root of the problem in the country today. Yes, anything that the government gets involved with and tries to regulate, generally gets screwed up. That’s a 100% fact.

I counted individual responses to this thread and 15 posters were positive toward the SOA hunts and 4 were negative. Yet, over 50% of the posts in this thread were made by those 4 people that are against the SOA hunts. Without getting into socioeconomic status, who’s got the money to afford private leases, who wants to hunt a well managed property and who wants to just hunt and kill every deer they see, and other stuff like that, take a step back and look.

We as a country cannot continue to cater to the lowest common denominator just because they yell louder or post more. That’s exactly how we’ve “earned” all the current problems that we have in this country and so many on here complain about.

I would hope that the state will always have open land, with unrestricted access, for people to hunt everyday and shoot anything they see for minimal cost, but I also think that the state should have these SOA areas for the people that want a quality hunt on a managed property. While the 15-4 in favor of the SOAs in this thread is a very small sample, it is most likely a representative consensus for most hunters in this state. If 20% of the license revenue and money for the dept. is supplied by those not wanting SOAs, with the 80% Of funds coming from those that do want SOAs, in a perfectly fair world, 80% of state owned or managed lands should be under SOA type management, and 20% should be a wide open free for all.

If you had asked anyone 2 years ago to prove that the government would botch the covid relief program so badly they wouldn’t have been able to

Take me up on what I say today. In the next couple years you’re gonna see many many formerly available properties only open as draw units and we will have less land to hunt. Sad

Unfortunately you’re right. I mean if it went to a vote, probably everyone would support 80% of land being SOA style. That’s what troubles me. The (apparent) minority of hunters like me who just want access to land to hunt will wind up loosing many opportunities

In all honesty, and I do understand and feel for your position, it’s the fair and equitable way to handle it. It’s not “ the kings land” it’s the people’s land. How that land is managed and used, should be proportionately reflective, of how the people that paid for it, want it used and how they want It managed and how they want to hunt it.

I don’t place my hunting season in the hands of the government in the first place but if it wasn’t for the SOA hunts I wouldn’t buy the permit to hunt public land. I like the idea of having state land that isn’t hunted to death as an opportunity for me to possibly get to hunt something managed other than my lease. Not to mention if it wasn’t for the SOA program the properties wouldn’t be available in the first place.

Also it has nothing to do with being easier to kill deer as much as it is the ability to take one of my few off days to go hunt a spot that I don’t have to worry about someone else walking in on me and ruining my hunt while also being surrounded by quality game.

I guess I’ll respond since I’m one of the naysayers.

1. There was a Facebook poll on one of the big groups and the results were much mote even.

2. Of the “positives” only a couple actually hunt public land. This is appealing to people who lease or are in clubs and want an occasional change of scenery and big buck potential, without a huge amount of work. Starting last year, the wma license requirement certainly produced some added revenue. Certainly not enough for the expense of these SOAs to be covered, but I’m sure it helped.

3. I’m not sure i fit into your socio economic point. I simply enjoy having some public land to turkey hunt, and there’s not any nearby. If you will notice, all of the known public land hunters on this board are fortunate to live in close proximity to existing lands. The rest of us, it’s not a reasonable option.

4. I’m not against managing public lands, or quotas in general. I am however against this dumbass drawing system. I’m against the rapid loss of open access lands, while adding premium places that most of us will only be able to use once or twice in a lifetime. Im against a place like Portland landing being purchased with our money, while we listen to stories of government big wigs turkey hunting and private dove shoots being held.

I agree with Atoler. The SOAs are ok but add more public land thats open to the public.

I don’t think it’s very easy to just go out and find 20,000 continuous acres for the state to purchase.

You don’t need to purchase 20,000 continuous acres to add more public land

What’s an amount that could be a regular WMA and could be hunted responsibly?

The state could add acreage to the existing WMA’s. Cahaba lost around 4000 acres if not more. My understanding is that the state didn’t renew the lease. Even thought I support the SOA system, I don’t understand why the state didn’t spend the money to keep the WMA intact.

Someone on here tell me this: how long would it take to completely ruin a couple prime properties, if the state was to acquire two 1500-2,500 acre tracts at Safford and Portland and then just put them into the general WMA pool with 7 day a week access and no shooting requirements other than state regs???

The truthful answer is that, even as prime as those two properties would be, with the pressure those two properties would receive, you wouldn’t be able to find a deer on them, much less kill one after the second week of gun season and that is the absolute truth. After a full deer season, they wouldn’t even be worth hunting the following year.

Unless it is massive tracts of land, People and access have to be controlled to some extent because when something is “free”, people are greedy by nature, and cannot control or limit themselves.

I used to regularly turkey hunt Boykin mgmt area, it was almost 18,000 acres and I cannot count the number of times I was working a bird and had multiple hunters rush in on me and the bird, even though they had to come right by my truck, and knew that someone was already in there. If access is not in some way limited by either quota draw or limited, first come first serve, limited number, daily issued permits, And closed days, the place is quickly ruined. I know what the deer hunting was like, and what was killed when it was in the WMA program and rest assured, the groups leasing that land, now that it is back in private hands, are killing bucks and seeing numbers of deer that were not ever seen or even there to be seen, when that land was open to public. It was shot to hell and back and any deer that was seen, was immediately put on the back of a truck or snuck out in a dog/tool box (does).