Party Hunting Question

[Water Hazard]

Here's a question for everyone.

During opening weekend, I was hunting on private land with a friend and his family. The first buck shot was tagged with my tag since I wasn't certain if I would be back up to hunt closing weekend.

After opening weekend, I found out that I would have been able to hunt closing weekend. However, I no longer had a buck tag and that is what that family hunts.

The guy who filled my tag still had his open, but it would not have made sense for him to sit around in the woods with a gun (to meet the definition of party hunting) just waiting for me to shoot a buck.

My question is this: is anyone aware of any discussion relating to transfer of tags? It seems like the DNR should have a spot on the registration form for party hunters. If both hunters put their DNR number down, could there be a way to later transfer the unused tag to the guy still wanting to hunt?

Any thoughts? Is this reasonable/unreasonable?

Thanks for your thoughts.

[fishinNhuntin]

I hear what you're saying, but to me that would open up a whole bunch of problems. Here's the scenario I see:

I could get my wife, sister, brother, dad or whoever that may not hunt, add them to my hunting party, shoot bucks on all those licenses myself, and they can be at home not stepping foot in the woods. No good.

My hunting party has this rule: Shoot what you want for your tag. You can fill my tag with a buck that's going "On the wall" ONLY! This rule, plus all the bonus tags available these days keeps our entire party hunting all season long.

fishin

[almostthere!]

Here is what you could have done.

Each carry a hand held radio and just call each other if one of you shot a buck. That way, both of you gets to hunt and when one of you kills a buck, both of you can stop hunting.

Other than that, the transfering of tags will run into the situation which FishingNhunting stated above and will not be considered party hunting since both of you are not in the woods together.

[Whoaru99]

Quote:

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Here is what you could have done.

Each carry a hand held radio and just call each other if one of you shot a buck. That way, both of you gets to hunt and when one of you kills a buck, both of you can stop hunting.

Other than that, the transfering of tags will run into the situation which FishingNhunting stated above and will not be considered party hunting since both of you are not in the woods together.

---

How does that fit in with use of radios for hunting?

[almostthere!]

Be more specific with your question.

[Water Hazard]

The WI DNR regulations say that you have to be within hearing range of one another...without the use of cell phones or two way radios. I think that might be what the previous poster meant.

The thing is, the other guy had all the venison he wanted. Making him sit outside seems pointless then (other than it would have allowed me a chance to keep hunting).

I've never shot an antlered deer before (and finally saw one from my stand this year), so that made this a little more of an issue this year.

I understand the excessive purchasing as described above. I am just trying to figure out a way for an ethical hunter to get a chance to keep hunting.

[almostthere!]

It is not ear-shot in MN. It used to be Eye-shot, but in the open, eye-shot is much farther than ear-shot.

The thing is if he is not willing to go hunting and there is no one else with a valid buck tag, then you are done with buck hunting.

[Powerstroke]

Party hunting has its drawbacks and you found one of them. I tagged a doe for my brother with the intention that he would buy me another bonus tag when we got back to town. Not only did he not buy me another tag he didn't hunt any more after that. He could've tagged the doe with his regualr tag and I coulda saved myself $14.

Its the unfortunate way things work.

I'm not trying to pick on your situation, but buck only hunting is the exact opposite of what people should be doing. Everyone should be doe hunting with the option to take a trophy buck. There's no upside to the population or the buck quality for shooting only bucks unless you like mounting 6pt racks.

Unfortunately there is no good way to make transfering tags work. Then you get the one guy who can hunt every weekend and everyone in the family just transfers a tag to him every time he fills a tag. NExt thing you know everyone from grandma to cousins can get meat in the freezer without ever hunting.

[lcornice]

People complain the regulations are too complex now. I can't imagine what they would look like if you could transfer tags. It would be a nightmare to administer and explain.

[Benny]

This is how we do the party hunt, if we hear another party member shoot we will assume they shot a buck so the rest can only shoot a doe or a buck for thier tag only.

At lunch or that night we find out what was killed and go from there.

We use the tag from the person with the least amount of time to hunt(usaully me),then we know that one buck has been taged so the rest can shoot one buck only and the person who shot the first buck can not shoot another buck unless it is a wall hanger.

Since we hunt with in ear shot by way of a whistle, if the one who shot the first buck shoots a wall hanger he blows on the whistle three times to make sure the party knows he has another buck.

Then it goes to the eldest party member to shoot the next buck that day till we all get together to agree on who can shoot the next buck.

After that is agreed on only does can be shot by the rest of the group.

It works good for us, all though when we had a bunch of first time hunters it had to change a little to give them thier chance at a buck when it appeared.

Benny

[Code-Man]

we usually party hunt and usually someone would always shoot a big buck with there tag and shot little ones and fill other people's tag's. a bunch of us this year are muzzleloading and when we had the "Party Hunting" discussion we all told the guys that were not that you shoot a buck it better be big otherwise your done with bucks. One guy thought he'd shoot a decent 6 pointer then a 4 pointer and told one of us to tag it with our all seasons tag. We told him if it was a wall mounter yes and that his son had a tag and to have him tag it (multizone). His son was not happy with him because we told everyone that filled there tag. Ya you can fill my buck tag 100 bucks will be the charge. They were mad and all of us that had multizone tags didn't want to spend the time and money with the all season tag and if they want to shoot more then one buck it will cost them. Does in our party this year were party hunting but bucks were up to each person. you shoot your buck but if you do shoot more then 2 bucks it will cost you. I know this might sound mean but if we don't put a money fine to use a person's tag one person will shoot spikes and fill our tags and we want to try trophy hunting for one for the wall.

it's what were doing and it seems to be working ok for us. First year of having the fines but we have to do something about people using other people's tags. The way it sounds a lot of states you can't party hunt and maybe that is something that should happen unless doing a drive or something like that. If you don't have the tag you shouldn't pull the trigger. Just what I feel I know others think differntly but I just feel if you have shot your buck already you could have passed it up for a bigger deer that they see later maybe they need to think twice about shooting the first buck they see in the season.

[Outdoors_Junkie]

We party hunt up by URL. We have two members of our party that hunt only the first weekend. We fill their tags first. We have others that hunt the first two weekends, their tags are used next. The members that come up the finally weekend always have tags left. If we need additional tags, we buy the management tags. We have 11-15 people in our party on a given year. We never fill out completely. So, we have not had any issues. The most dedicated folks, that go back for the final weekend have tags available.

[bigbucks]

Powerstroke,

I would assume that will be the last time you'll be tagging a deer for your brother...

We've always shared tags & it's the understanding that if you use someone elses tag to save yours, if they need one later & you still have one, it's theirs. I shot a small buck by accident this year, it was running in the brush & I didn't see his tiny little rack. I had an All-Season tag, several of our other guys didn't so one of them tagged it. Later in the season, my Dad, brother, & I went out. They'd used their buck tags one of them on a deer they'd shot, the other on someone else's buck. My brother shot a decent 8 pointer, guess who's tag went on it? That's fine, I've used their tags many times over the years. We hunted somewhere else later with guys who had buck tags & told us to shoot & I wound up getting a nicer 8 pointer than my brother's. Even if I hadn't been able to shoot I was still hunting does, which is just about as good to me, better than small bucks.

[bigbucks]

I guess I'd disagree with your comment about it not making sense for him to sit around waiting for you to shoot a buck. If he chose to use your tag over his, I would think that he's got to know that a possible consequence is hunting when he may not want to, in the event you get to go again. If that isn't the way it's going to work, I wouldn't share tags.

[lawdog]

I guess first off, I'd personally eliminate party hunting (or as some call it cross tagging) for bucks and only allow it for does and this would eliminate this issue of not wanting to tag a smaller buck or whatever causes guys to wait or use another tag first.

As for the situation as it is here, I agree with bigbucks, if this guy used your tag, he has to be ready for you to need to use his. Now that doesn't mean that he has to go when he really can't, but just saying no I'm gonna sit home and not go since I got my deer (actually your deer) is balony. In our party we will tag bucks for others (well, some people will, I don't shoot anybody else's or want them shooting mine), but regardless of who tags it, the main thing with us is if you get your deer and you don't show up then to keep party hunting and helping the others, don't bother ever trying to come with us again.