Cat 1 WMA funding

[Duck Tape]

What do we do? 4 of 13 Cat 1's are closed this year.

[Elcid_Fowler]

Because of funding?

[Jay]

Sell them to people who will take care of them.

[JABIII]

Sell them to people who will take care of them.

Perhaps with a rider that for every X percentage knocked off of the sale price, the new owners will provide a specified number of lottery slots per season.

[flopduster]

Bet you could find a contractor who would take over management for what you existing budget is and they would make it happen.

What did they spend at Samworth this year?

State employees can’t do shit, dot used to pave roads and cut grass...


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[Duck Tape]

I am not sure about each one but I would expect many of the donated ones came with management requirements.

Of course there are many citizens who would be fine with just returning them to their natural state.

[mudeagle]

Manage them better, while increasing hunting opportunities. I would never want to see state land become private. Look at other state managed lands that are successful.

And sell for what gain? To be placed into the general fund and be recklessly spent?

[coonsqualler01]

I am not voting because I have 0 knowledge of difference of cat 1 or 5. I do think a private owner would turn it into a wildlife mecca and it would benefit everyone around them. History shows when the govt is involved the end result is shitty hunting. Just my 2 cents.

[Calibogue]

Any of y'all ever wondered why these fine properties were GIVEN to the State?

[Duckkiller]

Any of y'all ever wondered why these fine properties were GIVEN to the State?

A. Because they Knew migrations and weather were changing.

B. Because they thought the state could do a better job with more resources and money because it is extremely extremely hard to manage moist soil coastal impoundments. But they were wrong leaving it to the state.

[MattB]

Any of y'all ever wondered why these fine properties were GIVEN to the State?

I think if you can convince the public that they don't deserve to hunt such fine properties, they will allow the loss. I wonder who will buy it?...perhaps someone who just got a lot of free cash but didn't deliver a product in exchange? Pintail Pocket could be a prime retirement property. Who knows.

I hope its not lost on people that SCDNR manages some of the finest public hunts in the southeast. If you know how to hunt ducks, SCDNR host some of the finest, most consistent public lottery hunts in the Southeast. NC overhunts and has destroyed a one of their largest quality hunting products. FL overhunts. GA just has flounder (maybe). VA has smaller opportunities.

There are plenty of private owners that can ruin up a good pond too.

[BOGSTER]

We realize that SCDNR has proven incapable of hiring the type of people capable to manage these properties.

We realize that the draw hunt system is beyond broken.

We realize that the public has never gotten the bang for their buck with these places.....ever.

We realize that we’ve put them on a pedestal, when it’s just ducks.

I’d love to know the answers.

What we’ve been doing for the last 20 years is just asinine.

[santee11]

The state doesn’t have enough resources to properly manage a coastal duck property.

They do the best they can, but it’s the government.

[BOGSTER]

I’d agree KB, except that the BI crew seems to consistently do well.

In all fairness, BI and the Delta are worlds apart in terms of management and maintenance.

[scdiver]

Hire people who know how to manage them and pay them for their time.

Get control of the water coming downriver from the upstate lakes and manage vs fill and dump.

Don't shoot it Wednesday and Saturday with too many people, with to much pressure, it sucks worse than now.

Just because a place can or does hold ducks, it flat out cannot support all of the hunters in SC.

Public Water needs help too. No motor zones and limited access zones. Can you still hunt? Absolutely. Should you drive your mud motor through twice an afternoon "scouting," no.


Start drawing for X numbers of hunters/blinds on large public access points lakes and coastal. If you have private access to public water, you draw too if you want to hunt these areas.

1.5hr before legal entry. Blinds/blocks already drawn, you just enter at the entry time.



Too much pressure makes it all suck for everyone.

Is it possible to still kill ducks with our current system? Yes.

Can it be done better? Absolutely.

Fix the food, fix the pressure, and things might get better.

[Calibogue]

Most of these places are money pits, that is why so many of them were GIVEN to the State.
Take the prized Turner, St. Phillips Island for example......it's worth a mint right, but Turner couldn't sell it for a bargain much less the millions he was asking!
So, he gave it to the State and took a massive charitable deduction etc etc...

Now, the State takes on these properties each requiring massive budgets just for maintenance not even considering wildlife management budgets!
I'm just thinking out loud here at what sets these coastal impoundments apart from others in neighboring states and few important elements come to mind....

1. Most of them are 100+ year old infrastructure that was built for rice production
2. Most of them are under the influence of large fresh water tributaries and tidal influence
3. Most of them are influenced by much larger tidal influence (bigger tides) than similar structures in other states
There is no way these properties are maintained and managed within the black of a budget!
That begs the question, how much should the State be paying for each of us to duck hunt these properties?

Ha....why am I not surprised that 30% of you think they should be funded with no budgetary restraints for your hunting pleasure?

[Remy]

If the goal is to provide access to decent hunting, they could sell some of the Cat 1s and buy a couple hundred acres in Rimini to have corn ponds. The hunting would be decent and 20-40 people could hunt 1-2 times a week. The operating expenses would be a much smaller than those of a tidal impoundment. No, you wouldn’t kill the quality of ducks, but nonetheless average joes would have a chance to sit in a nice blind and kill a decent bag of ducks.

[bitesize]

Most of these places are money pits, that is why so many of them were GIVEN to the State.
Take the prized Turner, St. Phillips Island for example......it's worth a mint right, but Turner couldn't sell it for a bargain much less the millions he was asking!
So, he gave it to the State and took a massive charitable deduction etc etc...

Now, the State takes on these properties each requiring massive budgets just for maintenance not even considering wildlife management budgets!
I'm just thinking out loud here at what sets these coastal impoundments apart from others in neighboring states and few important elements come to mind....

1. Most of them are 100+ year old infrastructure that was built for rice production
2. Most of them are under the influence of large fresh water tributaries and tidal influence
3. Most of them are influenced by much larger tidal influence (bigger tides) than similar structures in other states
There is no way these properties are maintained and managed within the black of a budget!
That begs the question, how much should the State be paying for each of us to duck hunt these properties?

Ha....why am I not surprised that 30% of you think they should be funded with no budgetary restraints for you hunting pleasure?

This!

[ceddy]

Either spend the money to get it right or get out. It would also help us to not allow people to hunt all day and give the birds some relief. In areas where the state has a right they need to limit access. It works for other high pressure states. But back to the Cat 1s. I voted to spend what is needed because nothing pisses me off more than half assing something and that’s all the state is doing. Shit or get off the pot. Even if they can’t sell the properties, start leasing the fields they don’t have time or money to manage. As others have said nobody wants to buy some of these properties because of the cost to maintain. They need to be managed because they are important to the waterfowl habitat in each of their respective areas. Samworth, in particular, was mismanaged and let go for many years. It is significantly better now than it has been in a long time but every dike needing work and every trunk replaced is a huge undertaking and they have a long way to go. There are several there that know what they are doing now so what do they need to get it where it needs to be? Those fields cannot afford to not be managed in this area. Charge more for draws, open broken marsh up for hunting for more spots, lease fields that are lowest priority and allow someone else to maintain it, federal grants, DU partnerships, etc. There are ways to generate more revenue but the time to talk about fixing the system has passed.

[JABIII]

Ha....why am I not surprised that 30% of you think they should be funded with no budgetary restraints for your hunting pleasure?

For the same reason they get a big 10 paragraph rosy write up in the newspaper every time their tax dollars go to "protect" some group of doctor's flooding swampland from "development" with a conservation easement that is conserving absolutely nothing...