re: Deer Hunting 50 years ago (Update in OP)

Deer have been living in areas with hardwoods and browse in North America for 1000s if Years. I think it’s pretty easy to figure out that with much of the land being cotton fields, half the men routinely carrying guns and shooting game year round, and the early 1900s being a dirt poor time for most that every deer seen was shot quickly. After 10-20 years of this they get scarce pretty quick.

Hunting with dogs is fun, human deer drives are fun also. But you have to have the land for it, and there are simply not many tracts big enough anymore. I’ve found deer dogs 2-3 miles away from the closest deer dog hunting areas on public land. You need miles.

My dad grew up in Illinois my grandfather was 2nd generation American.

My dad has said in hindsight they should have stand hunted a lot more. But it was cold. They had home made wooden ladder stands, they’d hunt the ladder stands in the morning for a couple of hours until it got light and everyone got cold. Then they’d push with human deer drives.

I grew up hunting in Concordia Parish in the early 80's. They were still hunting then, very much the same way they always had.

My grandaddy had a pack of Walkers,along with a few Blueticks, Redticks and Black and Tans. Other club members did had the same. The hunting area was several thousand acres leased and owned between several clubs with cooperative relationships and friendships.

The dogs would be staged in a couple of areas with either riders on horseback or owners who would release them at predetermined times.

The riders would "cut off" any races that were identified to be heading off of the property. After the early races died down, the second staging of dogs would be released, usually around 9:30 or 10:00, but sometimes earlier.

I was brought up to sit in the stand until 12 noon. There was zero consideration of leaving your "stand" (sometimes a bucket or log) until noon. If my grandaddy saw a deer after about ten thirty, he'd decide they were going to "move late" and we'd sit even later lol.

I'll confess I miss the romance of it, but the only way I would consider doing it now, would be on one part of a multi thousand acre property. Its a bygone thing, because to be done with respect for other landowners, you need BIG acres if you are going to use Walkers.

ETA: We usually saw a fair number of deer, sometimes a lot. Club killed in the neighborhood of 30 bucks/year. Not all ahead of hounds, sometimes slipping away or returning back after ditching the hounds. A fair number killed "still hunting" in the evenings. (That just meant no dogs.)

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If you even saw deer during season you had a good season

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You ain't kidding. I remember seeing exactly 2 deer while hunting for probably the first 10 years of still hunting.

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you need BIG acres if you are going to use Walkers.

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We only have +/-2000 acres so we switched to beagles about 15 years ago. In the last 10 years they have gotten away from us twice.

If you've got enough acres, you can.

Enough acres would need to be the whole maurepaus swamp WMA. We've picked up dogs many many miles from where they were turned loose. Youd need 10 square miles to not worry about a dog crossing a boundary and getting shot.

Deer hunting with dogs is definitely hunting and is fun and rewarding. Not sorry you angry boone and crockett matching camo heated box stand corn piling rice bran food plot figs missed out.

Also, I never tell what I see, you're a damned fool if you do.

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beer guy, dog guy who chases them down in the neighbors yard or under their stand, smooth talking guy who tells landowner they are only dogs and you can’t control dogs and tough guy with a gun ( 2-3 of them) who bows up to landowners kids.. I’ve actually felt sorry for kids in the trucks with some of these guys thinking what in the hell do they tell them after they’ve been caught trespassing and hearing their dad’s act so innocent and foolish.

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All of this sounds like your imagination.