Do ATV's or 4 wheelers hurt your bowhunting area?

[Alex.B]

No, here where I live, on the Appalachian trail Federal land and adjacent State Parks, they don't hurt us at all because they left. 1.The land here is not very kind to any kind of wheeled travel: Too rocky, rooty, and steep. 2.We either locked the few remaining access points with boulders and deadfalls, or, as a very last resort, we made the ATV riders an offer they couldn't refuse  

[Adirondack Bowman]

there's no excuse for them.

[highnoonhunter]

No.

hnh

[Orion]

Yes.  They certainly disturb the piece.  They're smelly.  They damage the woods.  And where I hunt, ATV "hunters" run ruffshod through public lands, which is illegal.  

But the biggest problem with ATVs as it relates to hunting is that the machines severely reduce animals' sanctuary-- places they can go to get away from hunting pressure.  There's virtually no place that animals can go that people with ATVs can't get at them.  Take the slob off the ATV, he may still be a slob, but he's much less likely to be a threat to the animals he's "hunting."  But it's not just the slobs.  Even people who use the machines responsibly use them to get where they couldn't or wouldn't go on foot, therby continually shrinking the hunted sanctuary/secure areas.  The ultimate result, of course, is reduced game populations first, then reduced hunting opportunities second.

[Recurve50LBS]

I agree with what Chuck C said above when he says that We deserve what we get if we do nothing to report the lawless to the proper athorities.

But the problem I have here in NJ is that I have made several personel reports to out Game Warden face to face. Nothing has happened to curb the Lawless ATV riders. I have on more than one or two occasions called my Regional NJ Div of Fish and Wildlife and had no one answer the phone during working hours! This is unexcepitable to me and other hunters that hunt in this WMA I have spoken to about this ATV problem. The law says that ATV's or any other motorized vehicles are prohibited....PERIOD!

We hunters pay a lot of money for equipment, licence fees and fees for permits. If it wasn't for the hunters and their money there would be NO WMA's for people to hunt, fish, hike, bird watch, cross country ski....etc etc ect.

All I would like to see is the people who are paid a salary to ENFORCE THE LAW do just that and get rid of the people who are tearing up the public lands with these ATV's and dirt bikes.

I am not against anyone that ownes one of these vehicles as long as they are being used in a legal way. If those of you use one on private land that is your business as to how you operate your ATV. In the posts above those of you that use ATV's seem to be using them to have some kind of limited impact to the areas you are hunting. I have no gripe with you folks.

ATV's and dirt bikes are tools that need to used properly in accordance to the law of the land. Unfortunatly there are those people who miss use tools. Kind of like using a hammer to screw in a screw.

I know that this thread was asking the simple question "Do ATV's or 4 wheelers hurt your bow hunting area?"

My answer is YES it does harm my hunting since I hunt on a WMA.

[Pete W]

YES

Total Land destruction every where they go.
 Tread lightly is a foreign concept to the owners.

[JL]

Originally posted by Orion:
Yes.  They certainly disturb the piece.  They're smelly.  They damage the woods.  And where I hunt, ATV "hunters" run ruffshod through public lands, which is illegal.  

But the biggest problem with ATVs as it relates to hunting is that the machines severely reduce animals' sanctuary-- places they can go to get away from hunting pressure.  There's virtually no place that animals can go that people with ATVs can't get at them.  Take the slob off the ATV, he may still be a slob, but he's much less likely to be a threat to the animals he's "hunting."  But it's not just the slobs.  Even people who use the machines responsibly use them to get where they couldn't or wouldn't go on foot, therby continually shrinking the hunted sanctuary/secure areas.  The ultimate result, of course, is reduced game populations first, then reduced hunting opportunities second.

I think this pretty much sum's up my opinion on em. They have there place. Buzzing around the woods during hunting season is not one of them.

JL

[Voodoofire1]

They use to bother me quite a bit, made me furious a couple times, but I've learned to adapt over the years and now use thier rambling, smelly ways to my advantage,they can't go everywhere, the deer know this and head to their little sanctuaries when they hear the first hint of one, find the sanctuaries and you'll find the deer, don't know how many times I've seen deer walk out into an open field just minutes after an atv has left it, and then there is the mis-direction factor, while the deer are concerned with the noisy, smelly, aliens in the woods over there, they don't even notice my quiet scentless butt getting closer from the other way, adaptability is what makes us the ultimate predator,use everything in the woods to your advantage, even the things you don't like, a lot of us have no choice but to share our hunting grounds with them.

[elk ninja]

To those who say it is NOT the atvs.... it is, and it is the "slobs" who over utilize them as well.  Just like a full size truck, if one fella uses an atv the next guy along will follow his trail and so forth until the area is TORN UP.  Honestly, and I know they can be good tools, and some, if not all of you use them wisely, atvs disgust me.  So do snowmobiles, big, overdone hunting trucks....
My .02
Mike

[Jager]

I dont have a problem with them, I dont have one and I dont know what I do if I did. The only thing that bugs me is when I drop off a ridge and ninja creep down to a closed logging road only to have them round the corner and blow out my area...The least they could do is give me a lift back to the main road so I dont have to hump it back to the top.

[Talondale]

Yes and No.  Depends on who, what, where, how, why.

[Lenny Stankowitz]

Yes, to the same extent that guns kill people I guess.

Lenny

[Roadkill]

Our country is dry and ruts created by vehicles-any vehicle-have a tendency to wash gullies when-if-we get rain or snow melt.  Just outside of town is the side of a mountain without a stitch of vegetation due to vehicles trying to gain the top. Three years ago I was in the Arc Dome wilderness and drove to the end of an authorized forest service road, parked.  I crossed the fence and went striaght up for about half mile and began seeing deer.  Had a couple of respectable 3X3's near the crest as i went back to t he truck. The next afternoon I drove back expecting to hunt solo on the top.  Someone had cut the fence and driven a quad to the top, through the only spring on that side of the mountain and generally all over.  No deer that eve or any other for us. Slobs on wheels in this case.  not all are abusive, but the numbers that are seem to outnumber those who aren't.  Isn't Dave Petersen working this issue?

[Kip]

The woods I hunt and camp we have to go through a 1000 plus acre rice farm with one main road and many levees.The farmer allows no trucks on the road or levees.He leases app. 20 duck blinds and his hunters and us app. 10 club members have to park our trucks at a large barn and equip area 1 1/2 from the camp and my hunting woods are another 1 1/2mile more then we enter a bottomland palmetto swamp that my fartherest stand is another 1/2 mile inside of some of the nastiest realestate you ever saw sometimes 2'deep of water.I would like to bring any one on this thread to hunt for a weekend.I promise after you walk in for one hunt you will be asking for a ride way before the weekend is over.The bike is my truck I have to carry everything in with it.I guess the rest you walk from you house to hunting area no matter how far.Kip

[Over&Under]

Originally posted by Starkman:
I think it's easy to blame ATV's.  I own one, but do not use it while hunting.  They do provide better access, albeit noisy which can be a problem. From what I've seen on our lease, deer become accustomed to all traffic in general.  Give me a responsible hunter using an ATV over a slob hunter on foot anyday.  Irresponsible hunters in general, whether on foot, auto, or ATV is what spoils hunting.  
Bob

Pretty much sums it up!!

[Lost Arra]

Orion            

I hate to sound like Tred Barta but as long as something makes hunting easier it will sell and will keep the lazy in the game.

[Labs4me]

Unquestionably yes.

[Dave2old]

I'm coming in on this thread late, but here's my 2 pennies worth: Certainly, where and how we hunt makes a lot of difference on how we think about many aspects, tools, and ethics of hunting. I hunt western public lands, mostly for elk but other game too. Been here and doing it for half my life time, which is getting quite long. And what I can say absolutely is that I have lost every single last one of my hard-won easy-access elk honey holes on public lands to the motorized invasion. Used to be a local could drive before daylight up many many national forest roads, park, walk half a mile or so uphill to get away from the easy-access mobs, and get into little-disturbed game and great hunting. Or, more important, "hunt of a lifetime" nonresidents could come west and camp alongside those same forest roads and walk out and get into game. And beyond the presence and relaxed nature of game, there are equally important aspects of hunting -- like a feeling of being in a wild, natural place; the ability to hear an elk bugle half a mile away, a turkey gobble a quarter-mile away, and know the are REAL. Bird song, silence, peace, personal restoration and spirituality ... the motorized take-over of our public lands already has or quickly is killing all of this. I live to hunt elk and have sacrificed more than most folks could ever understand to live in a place where wildness still lives. So has my wife, on my behalf. I have zero tolerance for "Me first! Me now! modern so-called hunters who can't or won't walk, won't work, have endless excuses and think of nothing and nobody but themselves. ATVs should not be allowed on public lands anywhere a regular vehicle can't legally and physically go. I try hard to be polite and understanding and "reasonable," but this whose stupid lazy sub-mentality is ruining my life. America is growing soft and lazy, and hunting along with it. Dave

[Orion]

       

[T. Downing]

"ATVs should not be allowed on public lands anywhere a regular vehicle can't legally and physically go." I totally agree. I am all for those law abiding citizens that use ATV's legally and for private use. They have their place. Unfotunately, there are too many ATVers that love to go off road and destroy habitat. Years ago, my father and I had to walk a good hour and a half to get to this fine elk spot we located. This place was amazing. One year I called in eleven bulls within fourteen days. One of those bulls, a nice 6X6 fell to one of my father's arrows. The place was a mini elk paradise, two years after my father shot that bull, we walked up to the old ribcage and what was parked right along side the old carcass? An ATV. The place completely went to crap. The elk disappeared. It was as if they were never there. The elk simply would not tolerate having a motorized vehicle invading their home. I wish they were outlawed on western public land. T