So me and the misses been thinking hard about leaving the lovely cold and stupid laws of Ny and heading to Florida, more specifically the Sarasota area. Ive looked up some on gun laws which seem alot more reasonable. So how are hunting laws and such down there and how easy is it to find land to hunt on? Is florida encore pistol friendly - any specifics that should be aware of. Hows the hunting ??

I've never hunted down there but I've always wanted to hunt the Brady ranch, I know they have deer, pigs, gator, bear and cougar but I'm not sure about if they have seasons on the last two or not. I've heard they are pretty good about handgun hunting but I think most of the public land hunting is in the everglades which doesn't sound like my idea of fun but who knows.

I grew up in NE FL. Lots of public land opportunities across the state. The closer you are to metro areas the worse the pressure is. If you are willing to pay you can get in a private lease and have much better hunting IMO. Handguns are fine during gun season and you can hunt hogs year round on private land. Im headed down this month to hunt pigs with my two sons.

I used to live in Florida and have hunted many hogs down there. It's still my favorite hog hunting destination.

I live about 45 min north of the Sarasota area. Private land to hunt on is now near impossible to find. There is nolegal hunting of public land other that WMAs (Wild Life Management Areas). The laws are handgun friendly here. We have a quota system here that is kind of different. Example: the WMA that I hunt has a general gun season from Nov 8 - Jan 4. This first 9 days are only open to quota permit holders issued via sorta lotto type system. After the 1st 9 days anyone can hunt but there is usually a ton of pressure by the second week of open season. You can hunt hog on private land year round but you have to have a signed paper in hand from the land owner giving permission to hunt his land. Nice thing is that you can also hunt small game season with a handgun and in FL hogs are legal to take during small game. Only restriction is no center fire rifle. Handguns and shotguns are ok. But oyu will need to look at restrictions for each WMA seperately because they can very greatly from state hunting regs. Nice this is with in about 2 hours from you there are quite a few WMAs and if you do it right you can hunt from about October through March with some breaks in between.

Marc

PS hunting here is very different than up north. It is very dense vegetation every where. This year none of my shot opportunities were over 20 yards.

I like FL a lot and would love to go hunting alligators there. What should I think of concerning a FL gator hunt? Most of them are done with crossbow or bow, it seems, but I guess it must be possible to hunt a gator with a handgun as well. Any suggestions would be welcome.

Come to LA you can hunt Gators with your hands. As long as they are under 4' they are not bad to handle-- check them out let em go. Bigger than that I opt not to fool with them. There is no need to shoot one for meat or skin you can pick up all the fresh road kill you want on Lafitte- Larose Highway.

Florida hunting is great if you hunt hogs. There is a lot of public land and ranchers that allow hog hunting on their land for a fee, usually $100 for the day. There are a lot of outfitters here that will guide you on their land for $100 - $200 a day. Also, FL has quite a few exotic game ranches too. The Brady Ranch was mentioned here earlier. That's a great place for game from all over the globe. I enjoy their meat deer hunts. A full day of hunting on the ranch and you can take a meat hog and an Axis deer doe for $350. The meat from the Axis is delicious.

Whitetails are a different story. I have live in FL for 25 years and still have not had the opportunity to hunt a whitetail. Now, that's probably more fault of my own. I don't know any hunters here and have never hunted whitetail so I really don't feel confident enough to do a public land hunt by myself. All of my hunting experience has been with a guide/outfitter.

Last year I joined a deer lease in N. Florida. 870 acres with 9 hunters. The cost was $1,000. Unfortunately, I was only able to make it to the property once to set up a stand and never made it up during season. The lease was a 7 hour drive from me and I just couldn't get away from my business. I decided not to renew my lease and look closer to home.

So, there are opportunities here...the rest is up to you. I hear that a lot of people here hunt in GA too.

Good luck to you! I live 1.5 hours south of Sarasota. Southwest FL is a nice place to live...unless you like cold weather.

Hey Bug,

I just printed out the LA hunting regulations. Not a word about alligators in them. Very strange. Though 4' gators are maybe not what I was looking for....let me know if you know how I could hunt bigger ones with my .44 revolver. Or a lesser gun - I have a 9mm project currently which could be fine for gators if shots are close.

If he is less than 4' you can just grab him. Check him out all you want and then throw him back in the water. I am not sure what the regs are for shooting one. (a big one) I know they catch them with a stick a big chunk of chicken and a treble hook. You see those rigs all over the bayou.

Most places require you to have the gator secured before you dispatch him. Gig, hook and line, harpoon, or fish arrow. Its kind of a letdown. Snag the gator, drag him to the boat and put one in the base of head with a handgun or bangstick. This was our first season here in SC. I shot mine with an arrow and dispacted him with a revolver. Whole thing took about 10 minutes. It took longer to find the size gator I wanted to shoot, than to kill him.