wisconsin meat hunters not crying

[nonteepical]

You can have your big bucks and eat your venison to!

MADISON -- The number of trophy bucks taken in Wisconsin has risen by 857 percent in 30 years, with a record-breaking 383 entries during the five years ending in 2010, according to historical records kept by the venerable Boone and Crockett Club.

Wisconsin Buck & Bear Club measurer Marlin Laidlaw of Marshfield with a large buck he shot a few years ago. While impressive, it falls short of record book standards.

Contributed photo

That makes Wisconsin the number one state or Canadian province in North America for trophy whitetail production, muscling up from its earlier position of third.

The records show the number of trophy white-tailed deer in North America shot up by 400 percent during the past 30 years. During the period from 1980 to 1985, North American hunters entered 617 trophy whitetails, every one of those antlers scored by a certified Boone and Crocket “measurer,” a designation that can take years to earn.

For the period 2005-2010, that number jumped to 3,090 trophy deer, dramatic evidence that North America’s whitetail deer herd has grown by leaps and bounds.

One long-time, certified measurer is Marlin Laidlaw of the Wisconsin Buck & Bear Club, also a member of the Wisconsin Conservation Congress big game committee. Laidlaw says Wisconsin’s number one ranking is about a lot more than numbers.

Laidlaw said while there is good deer range throughout the state, there are more unofficial refuges now – private lands where deer are not hunted or are hunted lightly – where bucks have a chance to grow older.

“Plus, you have people who just don’t care to shoot small bucks anymore,” Laidlaw said.

The last half century has seen a remarkable shift in hunter attitudes, Laidlaw said. He recalls the story of the third largest buck ever shot in Wisconsin, taken by Joe Haske in Wood County in 1945.

Haske was surprised when a big buck flushed right in front of him. He instinctively fired, hitting the deer in the rear, an unfortunate shot placement from the standpoint of a butcher.

As Haske’s son, Roger, told the story, other hunters gathered to admire the magnificent antlers. Even then, when hunters didn’t think much in terms of trophies, they recognized there was something special about this deer.

“But I remember my dad just being so mad about all the meat he’d ruined,” the younger Haske told Laidlaw. “When the others remarked on the antlers, he shot back, ‘You can’t eat the horns.’”

Back then, and even into the 1980s, Laidlaw said, hunters were primarily interested in trading their buck tag for a freezer full of venison. Then as now, a young deer became a legal buck, for hunting purposes, when its fork horns reached a length of just 3 inches.

“About 85 percent of the harvest was legal bucks,” Laidlaw said, “so there wasn’t much carry over. Meat was meat. If it had 3-inch horns, it was dead.”

But it’s a fact that big bucks excite hunters; research has shown that just seeing a big buck can cause a hunter’s heart rates to skyrocket. That’s one reason big game hunter Teddy Roosevelt founded the Boone and Crockett Club in 1887 and why he and others developed a system in 1906 for scoring trophy game animals – whether deer, elk, bighorn sheep, caribou, antelope or bear.

“He (Roosevelt) felt they deserved recognition for what they had accomplished in the wild,” Laidlaw said. “We don’t measure people. We measure their trophies.”

In the case of deer, antlers are scored with a series of precise measurements to include the circumference of the beams at four locations on each side, the length of each of the tines reaching skyward and the widest inside spread between the upward curving beams. Measuring the separate class of “non-typical” antlers is more complex.

In the 1960s, there were only a handful of Boone and Crockett measurers in Wisconsin. One of them was Pete Haupt, a colorful hunting guide in Hayward who believed Wisconsin wasn’t getting recognition for its trophy hunting opportunities. In 1965 he and others – including Bob Hults, Arnie Krueger and Gerald Younk – founded the Wisconsin Buck and Bear Club with the mission of training measurers and “keeping Wisconsin No.1 in the record books.”

In 1961, the national Pope and Young Club was formed to recognize trophies taken by bow hunters.

Both national clubs are ardent supporters of fair chase ethics and sound conservation practices as is the Wisconsin club.

In 1965, Wisconsin had five deer listed in the Boone and Crocket record book. There are now more than 300. There are more than 1,500 Wisconsin entries in the Pope and Young book and more than 5,000 deer have qualified for Wisconsin state records maintained by the Wisconsin Buck & Bear Club, which was sanctioned by the Wisconsin Legislature in 1996 as the as the state's official big game records keepers. The minimum standard for state trophy deer is marginally less stringent for gun hunting, 150 points vs. 170 points for the Boone and Crocket records.

Just as the number of certified trophy scorers has grown in Wisconsin, Laidlaw said, so has the information available to hunters. In the 1960s they were lucky to find a single book on deer hunting in a school library. Those same libraries are now well stocked, and the Internet – along with the emergence of cell phones, global positioning devices and motion-activated trail cameras – has changed the game completely.

“I’m wondering if there is a deer in Wisconsin that hasn’t been photographed,” Laidlaw said.

In recent decades, Laidlaw said, the “quality deer” movement emerged with landowners banding together and establishing hunting guidelines under which young bucks were more likely to survive. “Let ‘em go, let ‘em grow” has become a mantra among some hunters, even being adopted as a trademarked slogan by the Wisconsin Bear & Buck Club.

Not everything is rosy, Laidlaw said. He and others, while often fond of their local deer biologists, have been critical of state Department of Natural Resources deer management policies. A common complaint is that the DNR has not found a way to manage for quality deer hunting on public lands where hunters with little or no access to private property congregate with little incentive to “let ‘em go.”

Laidlaw said many hunters believe predator populations, primarily wolf and bear, have been allowed to grow too large. A great deal of research and public debate is being directed at these issues.

But in the meantime, Laidlaw and other measurers with the Wisconsin Buck and Bear Club draw crowds when they set up at small town fairs and big city deer shows. At each of these events, dozens and sometimes hundreds of people bring in their deer mounts – or their grandparent’s deer mounts – to be officially scored, and they bring their stories with them, Laidlaw said.

While the Boone and Crockett Club is celebrating the resurgence of the North American deer herd and the exponential growth in trophy deer, the 150 or so highly trained measurers with the Wisconsin Buck and Bear Club can celebrate the unrivaled success of their public outreach efforts.

When it comes to keeping Wisconsin number one for trophy deer, they can justifiably claim “mission accomplished.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: Ed Culhane, DNR west central region public affairs manager, 715-781-1683.

The Boone and Crockett state-by-state ranking of trophy deer entries can be found on the organization's HSOforum: www.boone-crockett.org/news/featured_story.asp?area=news&ID=125.

Wisconsin Buck & Bear Club HSOforum: www.wi-buck-bear.org/.

Information on deer research in Wisconsin and much more can be found on the DNR HSOforum.

View all articles in this issue or check our previous Weekly News Issues

[DonBo]

Interesting reading, but the idea that record book deer numbers are up 400% from 30 years ago is ridiculous. It even goes on to say that very few people back then cared about the size of antlers, therefore most were never entered.

There's no question that ENTRIES are up (way up even), but to say the number of big deer is up? Doubt it.

[Jarrid Houston]

Or to say that some people have adapted to the "let em go, let em grow" philosophy? Maybe they should send some experts out to Burnett County!!!! There the sayin is "if its brown, its down", or "if I dont shoot it, the next guy will"......Way to many antlerless tags for a struggling deer population. Hopefully this mild winter and warm spring gives birth to lots of new deer, and hopefully people (DNR) will start to realize that this area of tradiional deer hunt has taken a pounding! I agree with having WI as a prime time destination to hunt, but they are not taking all areas of the state into consideration....Im talking about NW WI!!!!!!!

[lakevet]

Great post nontypical!

Let's see..big buck hunters getting more opportunity, venison loving party hunters have plenty of opportunity, no traditions made illegal, can gift my tag to my 81 yr old dad or my 11 year old, nontypical being able to see and harvest more mature bucks........can't wait for hunters to wake up to the fact that it used to and could again, and maybe already is happening here statewide, voluntarily, without even more government regulations.

Only problem is we are in Minnesota, which thinks they have to reinvent the wheel with new regulations when we have Wisconsin and Iowa right next door providing the hunting experience for a wide range of hunting styles for years.

The review of zone 3 regs should be interesting as well as any new FACTS that become known.

Remember 2011 QDMA annual report praised Minnesota for being the most improved state for letting little bucks go VOLUNTARILY STATEWIDE. Anyone know when the 2012 QDMA annual report comes out? It will be interesting to see if we again have the lower than average % of young bucks in our harvest. As of the 2009 season we are now one of the lower percentage states with regard to young bucks in the harvest STATEWIDE and BEFORE the unnecessary zone 3 apr/cross tagging ban was started.

lakevet

[james_walleye]

Am I correct in guessing that being from grand rapids, you are an mdha member? Or possibly have strong ties to people affiliated with them?

[james_walleye]

By the way, you can feel free to put the real reason for the drop in young buck harvest a couple years ago. Minnesotans didn't magically decide overnight that they were going to not shoot yearlings. It's called having oceans of corn standing during firearms season across the state. Or are you going to be like the guy from grand rapids that wrote to the outdoor news claiming somehow oceans of standing corn don't save deer. I hope you don't, because that guy clearly had no clue about farmbelt hunting.

[Musky Buck]

That corn was huge for the deer, it outacred their yearly cover 5-1 in my area, it saved a lot of deer, I just watched a 160 acre irrigated field those years and about halfway down where the tire tracks exit the field you'd see deer head poking out 1, then 2 then several etc. The cover in the area was completely abandoned by the deer. Knowing where they were didn't matter, I couldn't get in range and many would get to the edge and just turn around and head in again. Very few deer were harvested in that area and that cornfield wasn't alone, there were many many just like it all over the area. Made for great shed hunting that spring though !

[Getanet]

No matter where you stand on this issue, I really hope people take any QDMA report with an iceberg-sized grain of salt when it comes to MN's yearling harvest.

I'm sure other states to a much better job of tracking the harvest of yearling bucks, but MN simply does not. When it comes to MN's buck harvest, in my eyes the QDMA report has no more authority then the guys who say "nearly every small buck in MN gets shot," or the guys that say "there are tons of mature deer shot in MN, just read the Outdoor News."

That's not meant to be a bash on the QDMA. I'm sure they know exactly what they're talking about when it comes to growing large-racked deer. But they would be better off saying in their report that there is insufficient data when it comes to MN's deer harvest.

[Musky Buck]

I'm a bit lost on all this QDMA talk ? I don't know their position on things and don't care really. All I know is we seemed to have better QDM when old zone 4 was still zone 4. More bucks survived to shed a rack. One of my uncles who I feel has the best stand site in the state on public land before Zone 4 changed averaged seeing 11 bucks during the 6 day season, 1st year of zone 2 was the same, the next 5, the next 3, last year 2, it's been dwindling.

[hockeybc69]

do you document this stuff MB?

I dont remember what I saw myself for bucks just a couple years ago, much less my dad,son, friend, uncle, aunt, cousins husband, etc....

[Musky Buck]

No my uncle does, he brings a notebook dating back to 1968 with him every day. Has everything in it temps, weather,you name it. He's more like a 2nd dad to me, he's over all the time, great guy and tremendous hunting spot, he does better on public land than the rest of us which is about 20-30 of us do on private. Hunts the exact same spot every year and has never been bothered by anyone else. The only reason he can extend the hunt because many years he bags a horse of a buck, his walls are lined with many of them, his daughter sits with him and he let her shoot the monster the past 2 years, but it's been about the only buck they've seen to shoot.

[DaveT]

2012 QDMA report is out now. I have no faith in last years data concerning yearling buck harvest in MN. I think they used the number of male fawns in the harvest as their yearling buck figure. Adult buck, adult doe, buck fawn and doe fawn are the only data the DNR collects at the time of registration. This year's report is NA regarding MN's yearling buck harvest. This data doesn't exist, nor did it last year.

[hockeybc69]

Yearling buck harvest data wont ever be close to accurate as long as people can do registrations and not have someone checking the actual deer.

A lot of people consider a yearling the same as a fawn. I have seen it on here...

[lakevet]

Am I correct in guessing that being from grand rapids, you are an mdha member? Or possibly have strong ties to people affiliated with them?

I am a MDHA member and they still want scopes on muzzleloaders!

Point being that I speak for myself and am not the official voice of MDHA. We do agree on wanting accurate facts to make judgements about zone three regs effectiveness. And that the regulations do impact negatively certain hunting styles/traditions to the benefit of other styles/traditions.

And no matter who is talking I look for facts and yardsticks that are reliable to measure things with, because opinions and guesswork often results in making things worse.

Can anyone produce accurate age structure of bucks harvested in zone 3 for the past 6 years or is it all about "looks good to me"? The QDMA numbers were all the talk and evidence for need for apr and buck cross tagging ban, but when the data stopped supporting the cause they get attacked as unreliable. Now QDMA 2012 report does't even give a % 1.5 year olds but just an "*" and say no data available. Data was always supposedly available before, where did it go? Why is it unavailable just when it could help determine the effectiveness of the very hotly debated trial regulations. Did it ever exist, and was it reliable in the first place?

Can anyone answer these with facts and links to where all of us can eyeball the sources for ourselves?

lakevet

p.s. Being a member of MDHA is not a requirement for residency in Grand Rapids

[DaveT]

Just found this in another thread. Which I just finished reading the harvest report and nowhere did I find anything about yearling buck harvest.

Re: 2011 Deer Harvest Results Available [Re: nonteepical]

nonteepical

Sr HotSpotOutdoors.com Family

Registered: 06/14/10

Posts: 605

Loc: minnesota

By the way the 2012 QDMA report is out http://www.qdma.com/media-room/ and their might be some legitimate complaints on our harvest data getting out to late because minnesotas data is unavailable when they did the report, but all other states data was available, and last years 41% yearling harvest was a number from a state hunt from ripley wich was the only data available at the time QDMA was doing their report.

[lakevet]

2012 QDMA report is out now. I have no faith in last years data concerning yearling buck harvest in MN. I think they used the number of male fawns in the harvest as their yearling buck figure. Adult buck, adult doe, buck fawn and doe fawn are the only data the DNR collects at the time of registration. This year's report is NA regarding MN's yearling buck harvest. This data doesn't exist, nor did it last year.

What did they use the past 6 years? Just the Fort Ripley hunt as someone posted on another thread? How did they come up with the 67% number and label MN as the worst state for shooting young bucks? Due to the heat and scrutiny of their numbers are they having to backpedal now?

If so then they have an integrity issue. If not then why the changes and why were they not noted in the report?

Any QDMA members able to provide the facts as to how QDMA generated their MN numbers for the past 6 years?

And the links or contacts we can verify as to what you post as the answer?

Not being combative (honest I am not), just frustrated about no hard RELIABLE, VERIFIABLE facts.

lakevet

[DaveT]

I have no idea how they get their numbers. Stay tuned for a new thread, found something interesting in the harvest report.