How to Have All the Hunting Land You Want to Hunt
Hunt
Predators – One of America’s Fastest-Growing
Sports
Editor’s Note: Do you want to have all the land
you need to hunt and even more? Instead of you looking
for land to hunt, how about if farmers and ranchers
call you to come hunt their properties? Predator hunters
often enjoy these kinds of perks. When coyotes, raccoons,
bobcats, foxes and/or feral hogs create problems for
landowners, deer hunters and turkey hunters, anyone
who can remove these predators generally has an open-ended
invitation and a warm welcome awaiting him to hunt new
property. Predators kill and eat newborn livestock,
including calves, lambs, goats, deer fawns, occasionally
adult deer, poultry, domestic pets at times and turkey
poults. They also destroy turkey nests and the nests
of songbirds. In years past, trappers have kept predator
numbers down. However, with the decrease in fur prices
for many years, the predator hunter has replaced the
trapper in many areas as the way to keep predator populations
in check. Therefore, to have all the hunting land you
want to hunt, become a predator hunter.
Predator
hunting has become one of America’s fastest-growing
sports because in most states predator hunters enjoy
long hunting seasons with an abundance of lands available
to hunt. Predators create problems, and predator hunters
can solve those problems. The numbers of coyotes, foxes,
bobcats, raccoons and feral hogs have grown at alarming
rates. Many suburbanites now hear the calls of coyotes
inside the city limits. Foxes often will show up in
the headlights of suburbanites. Bobcat numbers have
gone unchecked. For instance, in the spring of 2006,
wildlife agencies from across the country held a meeting
in Mobile, Alabama, to discuss the problems involved
with feral hog populations and to look for solutions
to control their alarming growth. These wildlife professionals
named feral hogs as the top predator problem in upcoming
years across the U.S.
Don’t
ever forget that predators have all the skills they
need to avoid humans. They primarily hunt at night,
stay out of the sight of hunters and possess extremely-keen
senses of smells and/or amazing eyesight and hearing,
making hunting them very exciting. Due to many predators’
sharp hearing, these predators even can hear a mouse
squeak from 100-yards away, which means predator hunters
will have great success calling them.
Use New Calls to Make Predator Hunting Easier:
In the past, the sport of predator hunting has consisted
primarily of hunters who have known how to blow predator
calls and make the distressed sounds of a wide variety
of species. However, the cassette player and the ability
to record predator sounds and play them
back in the woods has drawn new hunters, not necessarily
skilled callers, into the sport. With the invention
of the DVD and the portable DVD player that better records
sounds and makes carrying players in to the field easier,
simpler and lighter, large numbers of individuals have
begun hunting predators. Too, today's new DVD players
feature remote controls that can operate from as far
as 1/4-mile away and allow hunters to change calls while
remaining away from their players. Call manufacturers
have made predator calling available to any hunter at
almost any skill level. No longer do you have to blow
a mouth-blown call like a master caller. You can turn
on a DVD or a cassette player that produces the actual
distress calls of birds and animals like a master.
Tomorrow: Understand That Predators
Aren’t Easy
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