H. Todd Holbrook

Hunting white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) with dogs is a 400-year-old tradition in the Southeastern United States. Today, this method of hunting involves using dogs, vehicles, and public roads to trail deer. Frequently, deer and dogs cover vast acreages requiring large consolidated tracts to keep dogs off neighboring lands. Conflicts among landowners, still hunters, and dog deer hunters in ascending order of intensity are: blocking of public roads, trespass to recover dogs, and trespass by deerhounds. During the 2002-03 hunting season, these conflicts escalated in four counties...

We used the 1988, 1989, and 1991 annual mail surveys to Georgia hunters to compare attitudes of successful and unsuccessful deer hunters. All hunters rated seeing game and lack of crowding as the most important components of hunter satisfaction. Important factors contributing to a positive perception of hunting season quality included number of deer observed and harvest success. All hunters indicated the opportunity to hunt for trophies as more important than killing game; however, successful deer hunters rated trophy opportunity higher than did unsuccessful deer hunters. The presence of...