Something to think about

[DaveT]

http://files.dnr.state.mn.us/recreation/hunting/deer/2011_harvestreport.pdf

I just went through the harvest report and I stumbled across what may be the real reason we're all fighting about APRs and the rest of it.

Look at table 1. Look at the antlerless harvest gradually ramping up to 2002. In 2003 it exploded and stayed there until 2007. Remember that 33% of that antlerless harvest are bucks. When did you start seeing fewer mature bucks and fewer bucks in general? For me it was around 2005, and has gradually gotten worse since.

The reason people are complaining that their are fewer mature bucks and fewer bucks in general is because it's the truth. We've been killing too many antlerless deer. I'll give you back the APRs, the cross tagging, the gun season during the rut, the earn a buck, etc., just give me 30,000 less antlerless tags each year so we can have some decent hunting like we used to have.

[hockeybc69]

Quote:

The reason people are complaining that their are fewer mature bucks and fewer bucks in general is because it's the truth.

Wait a second..... so to get more mature bucks or bucks in general, we should lower antlerless permits by 30,000?

Exactly how does that improve buck harvest? now you will have 30,000 more people out there that are required to shoot a buck and nothing else. Seems to be counter productive on buck hunting.....

[DaveT]

Not if you think about it.

This population is well below carrying capacity. More does = more fawns = more buck fawns = more bucks. Everybody hunts for bucks first, the buck harvest is pretty consistent. Nobody goes out there, shoots a doe and calls it a year. They shoot a doe and keep hunting for a buck anyway. Lottery or not, they have a "party" and they keep hunting for that buck.

My point is that I don't believe the DNR has any idea how many deer there are in this state and they were too busy cashing in on those 13 dollar antlerless tags to care. Now we have a state full of unsatisfied deer hunters arguing about APRs and everything else, when the answer is right in front of us. There's less bucks and mature bucks in this state because we killed them all when they were fawns, fetuses, or before they even had a chance to be conceived.

[mrklean]

Thats right thats how all those guys who manage trophy deer properties do it, they dont shoot any does and dont think about selective harvest To be honest if you want bigger bucks its called selective harvest plan and simple

[Gordie]

I have herd it all not enough deer, to many deer,to many does, not enough doe to buck ratio, to many small bucks, not enough mature bucks To much this not.enough that.

Don't shoot anything unless its a mature buck or now don't shoot the does because its part of the breeding herd kill the doe and you kill any thing that could be.

Next thing someone will say we better not have a deer season because it will kill deer. Wait there is a group that does this so lets not help them out anyway we can.

You simply will not please everyone when it comes to the deer heard in Minnesota.

The DNR do they best they can when counting the deer heard.

Saying we have a state full of unsatisfied deer hunters is the farthest from the truth that could ever be. The unsatisfied ones are but a handfull compared to the satisfied ones.IMO

Like I have stated in other posts I'm really glad its not a brutal cold, unforgiving winter or these debates would be a whole lot worse.

[hockeybc69]

Dave

To be very honest, Table 1 is very hard to digest and understand in detail.

Year after year, regs changed and the numbers listed jump and drop due to licensing differences. I dont know how you can look at that table snd come to any specific conclusions.....

[certified jumbo]

amen,well said gordie. i'm so sick of this conversation i wanna puck. i used to be on the apr, qdma bandwagaon, but my opinion has changed. as well as many of my friends.

we have our own rules for our land, if our nieghbors want to shoot for meat, i don't care. this is already what happens and we have been shooting pope and young bucks anyways. we hunt hard, we shoot some nice bucks every year and we enjoy shooting does as well. my wife and i love venison!! buck or doe.

some people who have aproached me about qdma have been very in my face. i didn't like it. others have been pretty good about it. but, unfortunetely most have been in my face about it and thats what sticks. Some people need to take a more relaxed approach about it and quit blaming the dnr and everyonne else.

unfortunetely, imo the present qdma group has burned its bridges in most of minnesota. maybe, another group can take a tactful and subtle approach. i would be more willing to listen.

until then, we will keep hunting hard, shooting doe's and nice pope and young MN bucks.

[Jameson]

...There's less ... mature bucks in this state because we killed them all ... before they even had a chance to be conceived.

So, are you saying that we've lowered the deer population too low?

[eyeguy 54]

+1 Gordie lotta happy hunters out there.

[DaveT]

Hockey, when you go from killing 60 or 70 thousand antlerless in the 90's to 147 thousand that's pretty easy to understand in my opinion.

I admittedly shouldn't speak for the whole state when I do all of my hunting in and around the metro. The guys I know who are serious bowhunters in and around the metro to a man are ALL saying the same things I am. Fewer deer, fewer bucks, fewer nice bucks, etc. I am not some hunyuck who sees the hunting videos and thinks there should be a monster behind every tree. I have personally witnessed the changes I'm talking about. I have killed Pope and Young bucks in MN. I used to see a couple every year. I've seen 2 in the last 7 years.

There's a few of the bucks I killed between 2000 and 2005 in MN. Do I have credibility now? You guys are sick of hearing about QDM (which I never brought up), I'm sick of being told there's nothing wrong with the hunting here, when my own experiences tell me there is. I have had more deerless sits in the last 6 years than I have had in my entire life. The only thing that's changed management wise is that antlerless harvest.

PS. There was a thread about people being bothered by calling antlers "horns". Mine is the words herd and heard. I heard what you were saying about the deer herd.

[hockeybc69]

Still not getting it Dave... Sorry.

18 years of data online.

Over that span the average anterless harvest is 96,000 annually.

The last 3 years harvest is slightly under that average. Not by much.

Keep in mind, lottery areas has increased dramatically in MN over the last 3 years...... Well simple math says that the less permits allocated, the less antlerless deer you are going to harvest....

I am not buying your theory yet. sorry.

Now lets add this to the discussion.... You say you hunt the metro.. Zone 601 I assume?

If its 601, then you really have no argument... its unlimited harvest quota.... So what do you expect????

[DaveT]

601 and first tier zones around it, I will admit this year was slightly better than the 5 in front of it. Maybe a result of the harvest slowing down the last few years.

I realize that it's unlimited around here, I also realize that there are longer and more seasons around here now too. What do I expect? More of the same unless people make their voices heard. The DNR thinks there are too many deer, I think there are too few. If my hunting continues to be sub par, I will continue to leave the state in pursuit of good hunting.

The last 12 years in Iowa or Kansas, I have spent 10% of my time hunting those states, 90% hunting here, in areas that I used to see many deer and occasionally really big deer in. That hasn't happened in 7 years. I don't know how to explain it to you, my experiences tell me something has changed. If you have a better explanation, I'm all ears.

[hockeybc69]

Oh you are doublelivers brother.

[Bear55]

I very much agree Dave T - when the population is up more bucks slip through the cracks and if you work hard you can find them. I hunt public land so I know I will never be able to manage it in any way and I don't really care if we have APR or whatever else. I just like a decent number of deer to hunt.

In my area when they went crazy with the doe tags we would shoot 2000 does a season (5K total deer), now the total harvest of bucks and does is around 1100. ouch!

[Jameson]

...If my hunting continues to be sub par, I will continue to leave the state in pursuit of good hunting. ...

Just wanted to point out nature in action. Prey population falls, predators population follows suit. If prey population rises, predator population will follow suit.

Kinda neat actually to see it happen to humans.

DaveT, I think that actually there are a few in the DNR who would agree with you and I would expect some modest changes in your favor soon. This past year I have read Lou C. a couple of different places stating that now that we have reached targeted population range in many areas that he thought their would be some buyer's remorse from when population goals were last set. I believe he stated that their would be the proper time to re-set those soon.

[DaveT]

Oh you are doublelivers brother.

[B. Amish]

http://files.dnr.state.mn.us/recreation/hunting/deer/2011_harvestreport.pdf

I just went through the harvest report and I stumbled across what may be the real reason we're all fighting about APRs and the rest of it.

Look at table 1. Look at the antlerless harvest gradually ramping up to 2002. In 2003 it exploded and stayed there until 2007. Remember that 33% of that antlerless harvest are bucks. When did you start seeing fewer mature bucks and fewer bucks in general? For me it was around 2005, and has gradually gotten worse since.

The reason people are complaining that their are fewer mature bucks and fewer bucks in general is because it's the truth. We've been killing too many antlerless deer. I'll give you back the APRs, the cross tagging, the gun season during the rut, the earn a buck, etc., just give me 30,000 less antlerless tags each year so we can have some decent hunting like we used to have.

[InTheNorthwoods]

I think there are a lot of problems, a lot of solutions, and a lot of people who can't agree on either.

If you asked me, I think the best way to attempt to solve a portion of the issues (no matter what side of the fence you sit on), is to better manage individual hunting units. The way it stands right now, there is no control on the number of deer that can be killed in any unit while at the same time there is no limit on the number of hunters that can hunt that unit - despite the fact that there "supposed" limits set for the unit. I.e., the DNR has said that you can kill 2 antlerless deer in unit 2xx, but has not limited the number of licenses sold in that unit or capped the number of antlerless deer (or deer in general) than can be harvested in that unit. At the same time, the DNR has not limited those from surrounding units (where maybe you can only take one deer, or no antlerless deer) who come into that surrounding unit and take does. I really have no problem with allowing people to move in and out of areas, but when that is the case, and you have no cap on the number of deer that can be killed in any given unit, there is no real management of herd numbers going on.

*** Clearly there are other factors that have a great impact, but I am solely looking at this from a hunter impact side of things; in my opinion, the management issue remains constant no matter how the other factors are impacting the herd (i.e. winter kill, wolves, etc.). You still need to manage for a specific number that is believed to be the sustainable level.

[Crappie Rage]

There is no guarantee we are brothers. Just hearsay from our parents. There has never been any scientific testing done.

[DaveT]

Very true. It's like the movie "Twins", where one gets all the quality genetics and the other doesn't. I'm Schwarzenegger, he's Devito...

[mainbutter]

edit: nevermind.

[jmd1]

this is a topic that I had personal dealings with as president of the az deer assoc. We were trying to increase the number of animals both male and female on the Kaibab, so we could increase better quality hunts and animals. The one thing that our research showed was we could sustain many more animals on the habitat, not using the standard carrying capacity as a model. Looking at the overall habitat, wildfire, predator population, weather, invasive weeds, and other models.

We figured the number of animals on the land was between 7-8000. Our study showed that we could increase the number of animals by 7% for 5 yrs and it would not impact the habitat. The GFD (DNR) finally accepted out input and we were allowed to increase the numbers. We are in year 4 and the number is increasing along with some better looking deer and giving more youth a shot at decent deer. We also lowered the number of buck and anterless tags in the area to help with the buck-doe-fawn ratio. I can forward some of the study to anyone who wants it, just pm me. Jeff

[wannafish2]

I think there are many many reasons for why so many hunters saw fewer deer this season. My opinion? too many seasons of intensive harvest, coupled with all the ones stated in previous posts. Also, I feel the DNR has a tough job, and makes some mistakes along the way, but none that have had a devastating effect on our deer population. Now, I also have heard many other hunters who did not agree with the new regs and found easy ways to get around them. IE registering deer in intensive zones when they took the deer in buck only areas and utilizing the online registration option to do it....BUT, I only HEARD them talk about it so .... what could I do? We all know that there are many regs that are bent and broken...maybe if we could ensure that the deer that are taken are truly taken within the guidelines the DNR establishes we would get more accurate statistics...then the lawmakers and the hunters could work together to ensure the success of the program. Noone and no program is perfect. Instead of pointing fingers, lets make suggestions and fix it...look forward, use the past as a tool so we don't make the same mistakes. I wanna see more, bigger deer, and btw, bucks pass their genetics on to does too...and I love steak!

just my .02

[Waterwolf22]

I live in Southwest Minnesota and our deer decline has seemed to go hand -in - hand with the all season license... I agree with Dave T, in the early 2000's when the all-season license came in to effect, many hunters were taking 1-2 antlerless deer and holding out for a buck in the muzzleloader season.... The harvest in our zone was as high as 600 -700 deer, where now it is only around 300. The DNR responded a couple years ago with bucks only hunting for 2 years but then last year (2011) they allowed over 200 antlerless permits awarded to hunters and 380 deer were harvested in zone 234. I think better days are ahead if you like higher deer numbers because the dnr is conducting surveys and seems to be hearing that we would like to see more deer. If you live in a deer zone and do not have a chapter of MN deer hunters, get together,survey hunters and gather data. This is a good approach if you would like to see change and want the dnr to know how you feel.