Deer Hunting Georgia Leases

Deer hunting leases can be a great place for some family fun and bonding. I've never taken anyone to hunting camp that didn't have a great time. You can spend time exchanging stories while roasting marshmallows over a flickering campfire, ride ATV's along natural trails, or just scout the woods looking for signs of game. There's no better place to relax with friends and family than a star filled sky with sounds of nature around you.

There's always the deer hunting which brings us together as a group. We spend countless hours preparing food plots, clearing trails, putting in mineral beds, and just plain scouting for deer sign. Are small group hunts several areas around SW Georgia, each lease is unique and offers something different. There are several things you must consider before looking for a lease, first is where are you staying and how far are you willing to drive. Then is always the cost issue, how much can you spend and how many people will be splitting the cost. Deer hunting can get costly so how much are you willing to spend. For us it's a get family getaway, some great quality hunting, and we own some property investment.

If you've never hunted Georgia, you'd be surprised as to how many quality deer you can see around some of these areas. Bucks over 200lbs. in the 120-150 class deer are taken quite often. Before hunting any area in Georgia make sure you know the regulations, they vary from zones and counties. For information on license, regulations or general rules check out the Georgia DNR website at www.georgiawildlife.com.

Georgia deer hunting has everything a hunter is looking for and more. There are plenty of hardwood bottoms, flowing creeks or swamps, various stages of planted pines, and large agricultural fields, everything you need for good healthy deer herds. Pictured to the right are some of the bucks we've taken over the last 2-3 years. If you're like me, I'd rather eat does they tend to be very tender and Georgia allows you to take up to 10. We personally practice trophy deer management so we usually take very few deer.

I've hunted several other states such as Kansas, Michigan, and Florida but I always see more deer in Georgia than anywhere else I've hunted. Several times I've seen dozens of deer in a morning hunt or driven thru our leases right before dark counting over 25 deer. It might not seem like a lot but we're only hunting 200-500 acre leases, for something that size it's a lot. There are also turkey, wild hogs, quail, dove and many other types of hunting. This past season 2 of our leases were loaded with turkey's but, I prefer properties that don't hold hogs. It's ok if they pass thru at times but they are eat too much of the food sources and are destructive.

Finding a good hunting lease in Georgia is quite simple, finding one that you won't get screwed over on is a different story. Many landowners will cash your check then turn around and timber the property soon as the cash is in the bank. Chris Jones from Weston,Ga. went as far as to take our money for a 200 ac. lease, timber it two weeks later, let his buddies go in and hunt when we weren't around, and spend all hunting season working on cleaning up the timber. They stole tree stands, wrecked our food plots, even stole feeders, then had enough balls to see if we wanted to release the property.

Well after a while you do get smarter, we now mostly lease from timber companies. They give you a better price, let you know when they are going to be working and try to do their work when it's not hunting season. However, I love leasing farm land because there's plenty of natural food sources, usually water close and plenty of deer. Make sure that everything is in writing before you sign a lease, it's for your own protection. If you want to know more about how to find a hunting lease, read more here

Recently while reviewing stats on Georgia Wildlife Resources Division website, I came across some interesting numbers. The first one the jumped out, 93% of land owners support hunting as a way to manage deer. With the insurance industry dishing out 3.5 billion annually on auto claims from deer accidents nation wide, there's an obvious need to manage deer somehow. A large majority of hunters(71%) would support an increase in deer hunting license fees if the money is used for deer management.

Some other things that people should consider, contrary to popular believe most hunters oppose using dogs to hunt, hunting over bait, hunting in enclosed fences or shooting a doe before harvesting a buck. Most hunters believe in fair chase hunting and wildlife management. In the state of Georgia, hunting brings a huge boost to the economy in many areas and is considered the best way of controlling wildlife populations. Hunting also helps control damage to agricultural crops and keeping down cost of auto insurance.

I've found that even people that don't hunt still don't want a deer across the hood of their car. Their aren't enough natural predators left to keep deer numbers in check. Coyotes do take a large percentage of fawns and yearling deer from the herds but not enough to keep populations in check. Even with 12 million plus hunters and natural predators deer numbers continue to stay the same or increase annually.