Deer Tagging Question

[B. Amish]

If I shoot a doe in a lottery area with my bow, I have to use my regular tag to tag it. So, I am done hunting in lottery areas. Now, what if I hunt in a managed area and want to tag a buck when bow hunting. What tag would I use?

[johnsd16]

You can not shoot a buck with your bow after your regular archery tag (the ONE you get when you buy just the archery license) has been used. So if you choose to harvest a doe in a lottery area thus using your regular archery tag, you are no longer eligible to shoot a buck with your bow anywhere in the state.

Same goes for guys that rifle hunt in two areas (like I do). One area is a lottery area and the other is intensive harvest. If I get drawn for an either sex in the lottery area and I shoot a doe, I have now used my regular firearms tag. Now when I return to the intensive area, I have no buck tag (or tag period), I would have to purchase a doe management/intensive tag in order to have a tag to put on the deer.

After harvesting a deer of any sex in a lottery area, buck or doe (if you are licensed to do so by archery or by drawing a lottery for rifle/mzl) you are left with no tag. Thus, you must buy an extra tag, and, the only tags that can be purchased are doe only. Thus you cannot shoot a buck using the same method of harvest that you used to take a doe in the lottery area.

Good luck.

[BeezeHound]

I don't believe you could tag a buck because the only tags available to you would be bonus antlerless tags.

[Bear55]

Yes if you shoot a doe in a lotto area bowhunting you have to use your regular tag and are done hunting lotto areas.

If you shoot a buck in a Managed area you have to use your regular archery tag. Then you could still shoot another doe with a management tag.

I also hunt lotto and managed areas and my general rule while bow hunting is only shoot a nice buck in lotto areas so you don't have to burn up your buck tag on a doe, or you can shoot a buck or doe in a managed area.

[deerminator]

Yepper. It kind of stinks but no buck for you if you take a doe in a lottery area. Would be nice to see the DNR change this somehow, i.e., make it so if you took a doe in a lottery area, you could get a buck tag for a managed or intensive harvest area so long as you didn't take more than one or four additional deer in those areas. But that would likely be a very big headache for them and its understandable why they wouldn't do it.

[96trigger]

Why would it be such a headache for the DNR to let someone use their bonus tag in lotto area to take a doe as long as they were successful in the lottery? They would still have to register their deer in the lotto area and be done in that area, but they could still keep their regular archery and be able to take a buck. It would go along with the bag limit theory. Just my .02 cents

[Big Buck Buster]

Yepper. It kind of stinks but no buck for you if you take a doe in a lottery area. Would be nice to see the DNR change this somehow, i.e., make it so if you took a doe in a lottery area, you could get a buck tag for a managed or intensive harvest area so long as you didn't take more than one or four additional deer in those areas. But that would likely be a very big headache for them and its understandable why they wouldn't do it.

That is why they are intensive/management areas. They want you to take ANTLERLESS DEER.

[vister]

if you're upset about only getting to shoot one deer in a lotto area, then i would try my best to make sure that deer has antlers. by shooting does, you are thinning the herd furthermore. one buck can get with several does. the fewer does there are, the fewer offspring you have next season, meaning even fewer deer than you had to start with. thats why its a lotto, so only so many does get taken within a given zone. i'd take a buck, yearling, or fawn before i took a mature doe in a lotto area, but thats just me.

but to stay on track, once that tag is used up in a lotto zone, say you shot a doe with your bow, your bow tag is no longer valid anywhere in the state. you can use it to buy bonus tags in an appropriate zone, but they are for anterless only. now say you were successful in the lottery for firearms. if you tag a doe with your archery tag, you can no longer use that lotto tag on a deer, because in a lotto zone, you can only harvest ONE deer, regardless of the season. make sense?

[96trigger]

Some areas are lotto because there are lots of hunters in them. Zone 344 is largely Whitewater Wildlife Management area, that area has a ton of deer in it, but also a ton of hunters. What sucks is the neighboring farms get all those deer when they are pushed out of the state land on to their land, and they can only shoot the 1 deer. I can tell you this, there are a lot deer in that area that get pushed to private sanctuaries. I have more than one relative that live in 344 on farms and they are overrun with deer that get pushed out of Whitewater and they can only shoot one a year.

Vister is right on, when I hunt that lotto zone, I don't shoot a deer unless it's a nice one.

[deerminator]

I'm not sure why it would be a headache, I'm just imagining there's some reason they don't allow it from a licensing perspective. Perhaps it would be too complicated for the licensing agents to know how to do, etc. Heck, the lady at Fleet Farm told me several times the Elk lottery deadline had passed and pointed to a calendar they had on the wall reflecting that. I knew it hadn't and when I got home that day and looked at the DNR site, it was still a week away! They had their own calendar, obviously, they had made up and the lady refused to sell me a lottery application. I'm thinking perhaps they don't allow it to keep things simple for the agents. But as Vister said, it could be because they want you to shoot bucks in a lottery zone.

We went lottery several years ago and I would say I see a dozen does to every buck. They're all over the place. I only see bucks on a regular basis during the rut and that's because we have so many does. So with the one deer limit and does galore until later in the season, you have to make a choice, go for the more predictable doe early (or spike travling with her) and increase your chances of going home with A deer for the season or wait it out and hope for the best late season with increased chances of eating tag soup.