The gift of the deer tag vs trophy bucks

[Bear55]

So ecologically speaking how does it help the heard to have more mature bucks?

More mature bucks to handle all the breeding = less stress on the younger bucks who should only be filling in the gaps and worrying about surviving the winter. Having more bucks in the population in general will allow for most of the does to be bread during the first rut, this allows earlier fawn births so the new "crop" is larger and healthier going into the next winter. Mother nature has provided the deer with all the tools they need to reproduce the most healthy way possible to extend the survival of their species. Man just likes to step in and think they "know" better and only shoot young bucks.

Before the invention of the doe tag the hunters would just shoot the first deer they saw, basically an equal harvest of does and bucks. There weren't many deer back in those days but there were was a balanced her a lot of nice bucks shot. Just imagine what today's large herd could be if we allowed them to balance themselves out a little bit.

[lakevet]

Good point.

The true "brown its down" hunter selects first deer he sees and eats it. He harvests deer without respect to antlers so herd is "balanced".

The "Gotta get a buck!" hunter passes on all those does and blasts the first buck he sees, usually the young buck that is the reason for these new regs trying to protect that young buck. Unlike the brown its down meat hunters, Gotta get a buck hunter exerts a major amount of pressure to skew the deer population towards too many does and too few mature bucks.

I think that the brown its down hunter is blamed for the damage the Gotta get a buck hunter is doing. If I was wanting to pick my neighbors and wanted big bucks around, I would prefer the brown its down much better than the Gotta get a buck neighbor who lets all the does walk and blasts all the bucks. It is easier to get someone who readily shoots does to let a buck pass, he will be happy with a doe. The Gotta get a buck hunter is tougher because if he doesn't get a buck, he won't be able to brag "I got my buck, did you?"

My older relatives said that their harvest as brown its down party hunters back in the 30's 40's 50's 60's was usually close to 50:50 antlered vs antlerless, slight tilt towards antlerless. Also got some nice bucks every year. After the doe permit regs the buck quality dropped, as we were all pushed into gotta get a buck mode if we wanted to eat venison. Family pics before the doe permit era show a mix of deer ages and sexes. Family pics after doe permits started show mostly bucks and a mix of ages of deer, but more young bucks as time went on. With management and intensive harvest, our pics are trending back towards mix of sexes and maturities of deer.

The gotta get a buck hunter group still shows all bucks, often young. He hates earn a buck regulations.(I know this isn't about earn a buck, just pointing out the different motivations)

The brown its down hunter is less affected by a reg like earn a buck because he still has a very good chance to shoot something brown (especially since that one will taste better )

So when you are saying brown its down, don't confuse us them with Gotta get a buck, any buck hunters. They are not the same and impact the buck population size and age structure differently.

lakevet

[96trigger]

Valid points lakevet. In zone 3, the deer numbers are good. Is it so bad that someone has to wait a little longer to not blast the first deer they see, which is part of the brown its down crowd motto. Too often during the rut, the first brown animal is a little buck. If some of those its brown its down guys could keep their fingers off the trigger and just wait for the doe that eventually comes by and let the little guy walk, we would all be better off.

[lakevet]

What also helped keep a balanced harvest back in the "old days" was the season back then was the same as wisconsin is now (they never changed it like Minnesota did), the week of thanksgiving and past rut peak.

With all the outcry about Minnesota not being with the times by allowing cross tagging (just like our "backward" trophy producing neighbors wisc & iowa), why isn't there more outcry and effort to move the hunt back to its original thanksgiving week?

Letting little bucks walk is gaining ground steadily without regulatory constraints.

lakevet

[Bear55]

With all the outcry about Minnesota not being with the times by allowing cross tagging (just like our "backward" trophy producing neighbors wisc & iowa), why isn't there more outcry and effort to move the hunt back to its original thanksgiving week?

We have discussed this move before on this site but as usual people had a million excuses not to move it. It basically comes down to those for change and those against change. I vote change, lets try something new and see how it works instead of just blindly bashing something.

[Getanet]

More mature bucks to handle all the breeding = less stress on the younger bucks who should only be filling in the gaps and worrying about surviving the winter. Having more bucks in the population in general will allow for most of the does to be bread during the first rut, this allows earlier fawn births so the new "crop" is larger and healthier going into the next winter. Mother nature has provided the deer with all the tools they need to reproduce the most healthy way possible to extend the survival of their species. Man just likes to step in and think they "know" better and only shoot young bucks.

Before the invention of the doe tag the hunters would just shoot the first deer they saw, basically an equal harvest of does and bucks. There weren't many deer back in those days but there were was a balanced her a lot of nice bucks shot. Just imagine what today's large herd could be if we allowed them to balance themselves out a little bit.

Bear, I was following you up until the last sentence of your first paragraph. If mature bucks are the ones that should be breeding, how is shooting young bucks hurting? If anything that would help the mature bucks by eliminating some of their breeding competition.

Again, based solely on deer population estimates and harvest figures we only harvest 1/4 of MN's entire deer population. Less than 50% of those are bucks. How can there be a lack of mature bucks in MN? I can understand how perhaps a very small part of the state has an imbalance - such as apparently is the case in SEMN. But there are enough people in these forums that would like to see measures implemented state wide where logically I can't see evidence to back up a claim of a lack of mature bucks in MN.

[Bear55]

Well when most of the bucks get shot as 1.5 years old and even more as 2.5 years olds that does not leave a lot of older breeding stock bucks left. You also have plenty of 1.5 year old bucks who maybe not be the best of the best doing breeding because they haven't lived long enough to go through that whole survival of the fittest thing. This isn't so much a antler genetics argument but more along the lines of herd health and hoping that the strongest-healthiest-smartest deer are passing on their genes.

My last sentence is basically taking a shot at our history managing for population vs herd health when we really should have been managing for both.

You say you can't see any evidence to show a lack of mature bucks? I'm not sure how you don't see it. Wasn't there an article in the last year or so that stated 70% of the bucks shot in Minnesota were 1.5 year olds? That alone should be enough for anyone to see that our mature buck population has a serious problem. Before someone chimes in with look at all the bucks on the back of Outdoor News, that is hardly a large enough sample size, of course we have some very nice bucks. If that is not enough I'd say public opinion might be a telling sign, 50% of deer hunter in the SE and probably state wide want to see regulation changes to help protect younger bucks. Could half the hunters who spend a lot of time in the woods be wrong or is there really a lack of mature bucks in the state when compared to other states and to mother natures balanced 1 to 1 buck/doe ratio.

[Getanet]

Bear, the article you mention was written by a director of the Quality Deer Management Association. The very beginning of the article cautions that states use several different techniques to collect this data, and some states collect more data than others. Nowhere does it cite where or how they got that data.

I've never found that statistic reported anywhere other than by QDM folks. If you can find the MN DNR reporting that figure I'd be more than happy to listen to it. Until then, I don't think that lone article by the QDMA validates anything.

[nonteepical]

let's say the average doe has a set of twins, of the fawns lets say one is a buck and one is a doe. last years antlerless kill was 170,000 and one third of that would leave 56,000 buck fawns killed. now, our buck harvest just surpassed our doe harvest.

[LightningBG]

nontee - where did 1/3 of antlerless was buck fawns come from? and where did 170K antlerless come from?

Just so we are clear. Here are the hard number for the past 16 or so years.

[Getanet]

The total deer harvest in 2009 was 194,186. Of those 94,367 were bucks and 99,819 were antlerless.

But what's your point Nonteepical?

[nonteepical]

they're counting fawns as antlerless or in other words the buck fawns are being counted as does in the antlerless count. a doe on average has twins. now you have mother doe, doe fawn and buck fawn =3. divide 99,819 by 3, equals 33,273 buck fawns shot. add that to the buck harvest and subtract from the antlerless total now you have: 127,640 bucks harvested and 66,546 does harvested. twice as many bucks. i thought someone posted 170,000 does harvested in one of the threads my mistake.

[LightningBG]

Here's another chart for just 2009. Might be a little easier to decipher.

[nonteepical]

Bear, the article you mention was written by a director of the Quality Deer Management Association. The very beginning of the article cautions that states use several different techniques to collect this data, and some states collect more data than others. Nowhere does it cite where or how they got that data.

I've never found that statistic reported anywhere other than by QDM folks. If you can find the MN DNR reporting that figure I'd be more than happy to listen to it. Until then, I don't think that lone article by the QDMA validates anything. QDMA requested the data from every state. the states that replied is where they got their data from thats why data varies from state to state. minnesota did send in their data same type of stuff thats on their websight.

[LightningBG]

they're counting fawns as antlerless or in other words the buck fawns are being counted as does in the antlerless count. a doe on average has twins. now you have mother doe, doe fawn and buck fawn =3. divide 99,819 by 3, equals 33,273 buck fawns shot. add that to the buck harvest and subtract from the antlerless total now you have: 127,640 bucks harvested and 66,546 does harvested. twice as many bucks. i thought someone posted 170,000 does harvested in one of the threads my mistake.

But you're assuming that people are harvesting fawns at an equal rate to does (or even a 2:1 ratio fawns to does (female fawn/male fawn/mature female)), which I don't think is accurate. If I see a nice doe I'll take it down without a second thought. If I see a dinky little deer (presumably a fawn), I'm not going to take the shot, no matter what sex it is. Sure, some fawns get shot, but to think its equivalent to mature does is misguided.

[nonteepical]

with a 100,000 antlerless my guess is the law of averages wins out and that would be equal of each. especially over a 10 year peroid

[Bear55]

Bear, the article you mention was written by a director of the Quality Deer Management Association. The very beginning of the article cautions that states use several different techniques to collect this data, and some states collect more data than others. Nowhere does it cite where or how they got that data.

I've never found that statistic reported anywhere other than by QDM folks. If you can find the MN DNR reporting that figure I'd be more than happy to listen to it. Until then, I don't think that lone article by the QDMA validates anything.

Valid point that article was from a QDM guy so that has to be taken into consideration but that doesn't mean those number are not accurate or close to accurate. I would like to think that the DNR has more info but I fear they don't, or worse they have it but aren't giving us the info.

[nonteepical]

the QDMA artical was data requested by QDMA from the states who wanted to participate. minnesota gave them our data, pretty much same stuff on DNR websight.

[Getanet]

Here are those 2009 statistics:

Bucks = 94,367

Antlerless = 65,008

Male Fawns = 19,905

Female Fawns = 14,906

So yes, last year more male deer were shot than female deer. But that still doesn't signify anything specific to me. Perhaps a higher birth rate of male than female deer that particular year. People aren't specifically targeting male fawns as "bucks."

[Getanet]

I can't find the MN DNR data anywhere on its HSOforum about the age breakdown of harvested bucks. I would love to find it. With all the information, statistics and survey data the DNR does make public I would think that information wouldn't be too difficult to find.

Their harvest data only includes Adult Male, Adult Female, Male Fawn and Female Fawn.

[LightningBG]

Here are those 2009 statistics:

Bucks = 94,367

Antlerless = 65,008

Male Fawns = 19,905

Female Fawns = 14,906

So we're looking at

114,272 Male Deer

79,914 Female Deer

The numbers are skewed somewhat towards the male deer, but not because everyone is out to shoot a buck. People are taking approximately even numbers of antlered/antlerless deer.

And we see male fawns make up about 20% of the total antlerless deer harvested.

[nonteepical]

Here are those 2009 statistics:

Bucks = 94,367

Antlerless = 65,008

Male Fawns = 19,905

Female Fawns = 14,906

So yes, last year more male deer were shot than female deer. But that still doesn't signify anything specific to me. Perhaps a higher birth rate of male than female deer that particular year. People aren't specifically targeting male fawns as "bucks." i'll agree with those stats. 50% are fawns. along with a few hunters at the regristration station in denial they shot a fawn

[Big Dave2]

We have discussed this move before on this site but as usual people had a million excuses not to move it. It basically comes down to those for change and those against change. I vote change, lets try something new and see how it works instead of just blindly bashing something.

Blind change or changing strictly for the sake of change is no better than staying stagnant. If other states have found that moving the rifle hunt out of the rut timing is what works then that is what you should be lobbying for, not some blind change just that will make little difference just so you can say you tried something.

[Big Dave2]

You say you can't see any evidence to show a lack of mature bucks? I'm not sure how you don't see it. Wasn't there an article in the last year or so that stated 70% of the bucks shot in Minnesota were 1.5 year olds? That alone should be enough for anyone to see that our mature buck population has a serious problem.

Don't you guys tell us all the time that the older deer are wiser and a lot more illusive? Maybe this number is a result of that illusiveness? Maybe people are shooting young deer because that is all that is presenting itself? How can you be so sure that this figure means there is a problem with the population of mature deer?

[Bear55]

I don't think they post that data on their HSOforum, at least I have never been able to find it. The QDM article is the first I have seen it, if it is true that they got the #'s from the DNR then that is a number that needs to be fixed.