new hunting regs

[ac777]

So does this mean I can shoot a deer with My bow, and a buck with my gun if I were to be drawn in the lottery for a lottery zone. I didnt find any where it said I couldnt. If not, please cite your source.

[lcornice]

So does this mean I can shoot a deer with My bow, and a buck with my gun if I were to be drawn in the lottery for a lottery zone. I didnt find any where it said I couldnt. If not, please cite your source.

No, it doesn't. The bag limit in lottery areas is one deer per year total. Source: me

Back up sources (cut and pasted from the online book):

page 67 (bag limits): Lottery deer areas: The bag limit is one deer total per year, regardless of license type. Bonus permits are not valid in lottery deer areas.

page 82 (description of lottery deer areas): The number of deer hunters can kill in a lottery deer area is one, regardless of license type.

page 90 (muzz section describing lottery deer areas): All hunters are limited to taking one deer total

page 92 (archery section describing lottery deer areas): The bag limit is one deer total.

[Jameson]

May we still shoot a doe with our archery either/or tag in a lottery area, and shoot a buck with our firearms or muzzleloader either/or tag in a managed or intensive area?

[lcornice]

May we still shoot a doe with our archery either/or tag in a lottery area, and shoot a buck with our firearms or muzzleloader either/or tag in a managed or intensive area?

Yes. Nothing related to bag limits has changed, other than the youth only antlerless areas in the SW.

[paceman]

Last year I bow-hunted in a managed area and took my two does, I then rifle hunted and muzzy hunted in an intensive area and I took 3 more deer. This year both areas are lottery. Does that mean that I am allowed one deer period?

[lcornice]

Last year I bow-hunted in a managed area and took my two does, I then rifle hunted and muzzy hunted in an intensive area and I took 3 more deer. This year both areas are lottery. Does that mean that I am allowed one deer period?

Yes unless you move to a managed or intensive area to fill out th rest.

[paceman]

Thanks Lcornice.....

[flipper]

Ok so now if I am going to get a muzzleloader only license do I have the same odds of getting an anterless tag in a lottery area as hunters in the regular firearms season? I do not understand how the tags are being allocated between the different seasons. Also, if there is truly a concern about overharvest of anterless deer, why don't the bowhunters have to be part of the lottery as well.

Thanks, Art

[lcornice]

Ok so now if I am going to get a muzzleloader only license do I have the same odds of getting an anterless tag in a lottery area as hunters in the regular firearms season? I do not understand how the tags are being allocated between the different seasons. Also, if there is truly a concern about overharvest of anterless deer, why don't the bowhunters have to be part of the lottery as well.

Thanks, Art

Art,

Those are good questions. Bowhunters aren't being restricted in lottery areas because they consistently take a small proportion of antlerless deer. In lottery areas, it amounts to about 9% of the total antlerless take. So, there’s really no reason to impose restrictions or create a lottery for 9%. As for allocating permits, you’ll have roughly the same odds. Say there are 100 lottery permits and the 100 firearm and 50 muzzleloader people apply. In that case, 67% of the tags will go to the firearm season and the rest for the muzzleloader. That way, gun hunters compete against gun hunters and muzz against muzz. The presumption is muzz only hunters may have less preference and if they had to compete against gun hunters (who likely have preference), they’d have no chance at a permit. So, it’ll be proportional. I’m the first to admit it’s not an ideal solution but it’s the best we could come up with given the desire from hunters to have more deer hunting opportunity. In areas where permits are limited that trade-off for more hunting opportunity will be less antlerless opportunity.

Of course in the youth only antlerless areas, everyone but a small number of youth hunters are hunting bucks only this year.

I hope that answers the question.

[flipper]

Thanks for the answer. I have one more question. What percentage of the legally harvested anterless deer were taken during muzzleloading season?

Thanks again, Art

[00rowe]

If I could add a couple more questions, what is the estimated deer population (statewide) and how much has that declined over the past few years. I'm assuming that's the reason for the new restrictions, is to lower the harvest to "build" the herd back up. Thanks.

Mike

[CSSF]

Gotta say I LOVE the new zone 3 regs. Finally a group [Note from admin: Edited. Please read forum policy before posting again. Thank you.] got our two days back for 3A that we never should have lost to begin with. Now if only that group can get the season dates set permanently to a 9-day 3A starting the first weekend of November, and a 7 or 9 day 3B season starting the weekend before Thanksgiving, I'll be very happy

Not a huge fan of the APR or EAB thing, but as I understand it that's from a few [Note from admin: Edited. Please read forum policy before posting again. Thank you.] from that wonderful BWA group ticking off the legislators responsible for getting our two days back. And since I always shoot does early in the season anyway, those regs don't make a difference to me.

[96trigger]

You might change your tune if you hunt public land and all the 3B hunters figured out that there is absolutely NO advantage to going 3B anymore and now decide to go in 3A. The first year will be tricky trying to figure things out.

10 guys in my party have jumped the 3B ship without a second thought, I'm betting there will be 100's more. Those same guys with "balls" will not be pushing their election agendas when next year 3A is all antler restrictions and/or EAB. I'm hoping you bow hunt, otherwise shooting does early might have been tough.

[96trigger]

Quote:

Actually, in case you never noticed the numbers, there's ALWAYS been a trend in hunters moving from 3B to 3A. In fact, the trend actually increased when the 2 days were taken off, so the two days have no correlation to the amount of hunters moving from one season to the other.

Where did you get that data, love to know.

Quote:

And shooting does early isn't remotely hard in 3A. In fact, it's easier than in 3B in a lot of areas, including my own. All these articles I read about people complaining about there not being enough big bucks, they always complain all they see is does...so something tells me it can't be too hard to shoot a doe in zone 3. Especially since so much of zone 3 has an early antlerless season

3 out of 12 zones are early antlerless, this includes the metro zone. I don't consider that much of zone 3, in fact, I consider that a fraction. Take out the metro zone, which only looks big, and it is actually a very small percentage of the zone 3 area.

[CSSF]

that data is public information on the DNR HSOforum. If there's one thing that Lou does well, it's publishing the data on hunting. [Note from admin: Edited. Please read forum policy before posting again. Thank you.]

Those 2 areas in zone 3 with early antlerless account for 25% of the hunters in zone 3. They also account for 36% of the deer harvested. Not a majority, but when you take into account that those two areas only account for about 12% of the land area, it's rather significant.

All other areas are managed or intensive (except one), so there should still be no problem shooting a doe the first day or two in those areas. In that one lottery area, hunters can shoot any deer the first 7 days, or an antlerless deer or a buck with at least 4 points on one side during the last 2 days, so there's not EAB in that area at all, and statistically it can be taken out of the equation above completely.

[lcornice]

Mr. CSSF,

For the record, I was asked to post on this board to inform and educate the members. To the person, the members are gracious and appreciative even if they do not agree with the direction. I do not post to get into virtual arguments with people who quote and misquote statistics in this sort of environment. If you have an issue with my management, which you clearly do, by all means call me at my office and we can talk through the issues. I have not and will not enter into anonymous discussions with you or anyone else. As you have a grand total of 4 posts, I will presume you were unaware of what I post or even why I post.

To reiterate, I am happy to answer questions and distribute information but I won't take your bait. You'll have to call me directly. We could even talk through how the data are analyzed. As a person with no access to the electronic system or knoweldge of how it integrates between the license vendor and the department, I'd be interested to hear how you could do it by Jan. 2.

Back to answering questions ...

[flipper]

I hope my last question is not being out of line. I am just wondering what the percentage of legal anterless deer were taken during muzzleloader season. Just from talking to people I didn't think it would be much higher than those taken during archery season but I may be wrong because I don't have the stats.

I would like to express my opinion, though, that I feel the anterless tags should be distributed between all three seasons so it does not show a bias towards any method of harvest.

Thank-you much, I do appreciate your input here,

Art

[lcornice]

I hope my last question is not being out of line. I am just wondering what the percentage of legal anterless deer were taken during muzzleloader season.

Art

Oh heck no. I just don't have the data in front of me because it's on a different computer. I know the archery number off the top of my head, I just don't know the muzz. number. I'll try and post it tomorrow when I'm at my work computer.

[fishin58]

Thank you Lou for posting, it shows you care about what you do and I am guessing that you do take some of our posts to heart. It is great to have you on FM.

[lcornice]

Thank you Lou for posting, it shows you care about what you do and I am guessing that you do take some of our posts to heart. It is great to have you on FM.

I absolutely do. Managing deer in the context of 500,000 hunters with populations that vary tremendously depending on your location is not as clear cut as people think. This is actually the only board I post on and it's because you all share great information in a very respectful environment. For what it's worth I've got a pretty thick skin!

[archerystud]

Lou,

I know most (if not all) appreciate your posts.

I for one have my ideas on deer management but I also realize that I'm a single person. Would I want you job of managing the states deer herd for 500K hunters? NO WAY!

Keep up the good work!

[96trigger]

Lou, I do have one question, and I do appreciate your posts. I teach alot of kids and even some adults about the regs, alot based on the inormation you give us on here, many people are unclear about what they are actually saying, more so last year with the change to bag limits. But, to my question, Whats the reasoning behind 3A getting over the counter management tags? The 3B used to be the "management season". Was it not doing its job? I am fine with the way things are going to work out as I have always wanted to hunt the rut with a firearm but my party always went 3B based on tradition. The younger members have basically convinced our parents and uncles to go 3A this year so, aside from having to burn a few extra days off of work, it will not be a big deal and I am actually pretty pumped about it. However, I think public land could be a bit chaotic. What are your thoughts on that issue? Without tipping your hand, are done with changes, or will there be the "possibility" of more permanant changes next year?

[lcornice]

Most of 3A has had over-the-counter antlerless tags for a few years now. What happened this year in the SE is we decided to line up 3A and 3B so they have the same strategy. In some places 3A was lottery and 3B was intensive (341 I think). In others, they were intensive for both seasons (346,349). This caused confusion among archery and muzzleloader hunters because they didn't know what there bag limit was in their area. So, we lined up the strategies. It really shouldn't result in any shift in hunter patterns due to this particular change. Another reason for lining up the 2 seasons was the 3A law that was passed this year by the Legislature. Even though the law is specific to 3A, we didn’t want to add to the confusion that’s invariably going to happen this year.

As for tipping my hand, I don’t mind because I don’t have a hand to tip. We’re in the process of surveying 3,000 zone 3 hunters to determine what sort of regulatory package they want to see. If we learn that hunters are interested in say eliminating cross-tagging or starting antler point restrictions, we’ll take that to broader public input this winter. To be honest, nothing is on the table right now because our data won’t be in until early fall. I’m a firm believer that if we have to manage biological populations in the context of social desires. In other words, if populations are under control and people want antler point restrictions, who am I to say no just because I might not like APR’s? I think that’s why you’re seeing more surveys coming out of my program, more public meetings, and a much expanded dialogue among hunters. To that end, the zone 3 survey results should be pretty interested and our response rate has been quite robust. My inclination is we’ll be able to draw some pretty interesting conclusions with a rather small margin of error.

[CSTPETER]

I'd like to say I also appreciate The info Lou posts here. He goes out of his way to answer questions and clear up confusion regarding regulations. Knowing that Lou is on this forum gives me a little hope that my management philosophies might just be listened to by someone who has influence.

To CSSF, Please don't ruin this line of communication for the rest of us here who have a little more tact and the ability to engage in a civil discussion.

[00rowe]

Just curious, were the new regulations enacted by Lou alone? I agree with the overpopulation of deer and am disqusted at the lower limits, but I think to blame Lou on this is a little overboard. I still haven't found out what the current deer population is, and if it isn't any lower than a few years ago, why the DNR feels the need to lower the harvest. Many people on this forum complained last year after hunting season about the "lack of deer." For some reason that voice was heard much more clearly than that of the farmers, or people that watch deer year around, and not for 1 weekend a year and base their opinion solely on that 1 weekend.

Mike