How many deer can your party legally take?

[MattL]

Let's hear how many deer your party can legally harvest.

Does anyone meet their limit?

Do you decide as a party how many deer you should take in a season, or just hunt until all tags are full/seasons end?

If you do decide how many deer to take, how is the decision based? Do you feel the area you hunt can handle the maximum legal amount of deer harvested?

This post originated due to a discussion in the "Hunting" forum, and I just want to know what everyone else thinks about the topic. Let's have a good, healthy debate.

[Walleye Guy]

I hunt on a unique piece of land that has been managed for deer for the last 12 years. Its in a Lottery zone. The land is hunted by 5 guys over the three separate seasons. We could take 5 deer total. Nobody will be shooting antlerless deer until the muzzleloader season as they don't want to burn their chance at a buck. Only bucks that the hunter would deem a Wall hanger" are harvest. We do not party hunt.

The property needs more does harvested. Unfortunately the rules don't allow more than one deer to be harvested. We would need to add more hunters and we don't want to do that.

Last year one buck and two does were shot. Nobody has harvested a deer yet this year.

On Saturday I saw close to 60 deer. Some I am sure were repeats. 14 antlerless were in range and I passed on a nice 8 pointer and a 10 pointer that I guess would go 110 inches. Collectively we saw at least 12 different bucks over 2 days.

When I head to Wisconsin in two weeks it will be more about filling the freezer.

[riverrat56]

We can legally take 5 deer (5 guys, Zone 2, Area 291) and with no doe tags we would have to harvest 5 bucks to reach that. We set a self proposed limit at 4 deer as that will give every family one deer. We have harvested 2 at this point.

Another group in our area had 7 hunters and stopped at 3 deer as that is all they wanted. A differt group had 17 people and shot all 17 deer, aided by alot of doe tags, both from kids and some lucky lottery results.

[child23]

Our group usally takes 10-12 deer but we do our own processing and every bit of meat is gone by the next season. Our group does contain anywere from 8 to 15 guys per year though

[child23]

Legally we could take how ever many we see because we are in the dead center of the TB zone (101)

[brassman]

This year our group "could" have shot 40 deer. We have 4 on the ground as of today. usually we shoot a deer a piece and thats good enough for a year. that equals about 8 deer. last year we got 9.

[Mark Christianson]

5 people/25 deer legally.

Frickin nuts if you ask me.

We pretty much are done at 3 or 4. But since we have had terrible luck the past 4 years, we cant even get that.

Really makes me wonder why we are an intensive harvest area, when we cant even hit our goal of 3 to 4 deer. Much less 25.

Man, to get 10 deer opportunities would be insanely fun. Not that we would shoot em. Just seeing some numbers would be cool.

[BigWadeS]

there are 6 of us and hunt intensive harvest area, so we could take 30 deer, but we certainly don't take that many I would say avg is 12-15 between the 6 of us.

[Coldfeet]

We also try to manage the deer herd in our hunting area. We've got 8 guys (actually 7 guys and 1 gal) and we hunt in a "management" area which means we can take a buck or doe with one tag and we can tag 1 doe on a bonus tag. We each buy a bonus tag but usually don't start taking does until the second weekend. I don't think we've ever filled every tag. The does are the "meat deer" and bucks are just a bonus. Usually we end up with 5 - 7 does and 2 or 3 bucks, but in '06 we actually filled all the buck tags (that was a very good year for bruiser bucks)

We have a rule that we all abide by that seems to work pretty well. You can shoot a buck under one of 2 conditions. It either has to be the biggest buck you've ever shot (which if you've never shot one can be a spike) or 8 points and wider than the ears. Once you reach the 8 point rule you can never go back. Breaking the rule will result in a $100 fine which goes to the rest of the group to buy beer. You have no say in what kind of beer they choose even though they are spending your money. That's the rule, but we've never applied the fine because nobody has broken it yet.

[kingr]

We have 13 guys in camp, 26 possible deer taken. Our record (28 yrs)is 12 deer. Our average we butcher is 8. We hunt public land. It's crazy if you ask me.

[MattL]

Good points by all. I especially like Coldfeet's management philosophy for a party hunting situation.

I don't party hunt, but legally I can take 3 deer. (I have access to private property on both lottery and managed land) I have taken a buck with my bow on lottery land a couple weeks ago, and a doe with my muzzleloader on managed land last weekend. I can still fill a mgmt tag on managed land, but I don't think I will.

I feel that the population in the area I shot the doe has been pressured enough and several does have already been taken off the area by other hunters. I still have access to a couple other farms, but I really don't need the meat that bad. I may still hunt, more or less for the joy of being out there and the scouting aspect, but I am undecided whether or not I will pull the trigger on another deer.

[Musky Buck]

Hey walleye guy, 12 years of managing big bucks and no one in your group saw a shooter, how's the management plan working ? Is it working great for the neighboring property owners ? In the past 10 years how many 3 1/2 year old bucks or older have you guys scored on ? Thanks.

[Tripleplay]

We hunt in Area 245 and since I've hunted on this property (across the road this year) and the neighboring property I've experienced the full range of license/bag rules. Started as full lottery and many an opening weekend was done by 10 or 11AM on Saturday the years when you didn't get drawn for an anterless tag. Then it jumped to Intensive Harvest and we were at 5 apiece. Last two or three years it's been a Managed area so two is the limit if you choose.

With the change to the new property and it's much smaller size it was just myself and my 15 year old son and daughter. Total of 6 possible and I always buy the kids their management tag so they have the option of shooting an anterless while still holding out the hope of a buck. I go legal and just buy my first tag. Enough deer was reached at 3 this year and I already pulled the stands. I'm still contemplating or "negotiating" a kitchen pass for myself to go back and fill my tag as the next door neighbors are done for the season and didn't fill any tags and really like venison. (I'd like to bring along one of their boys to try and fill his tag but he is battling a conflict that he can't seem to get out of.)

We would definitely be able to use up more than the 3 deer we took but they are great plenty and maybe a few will survive the following days/weekend and we'll see them next year.

[jnorm1984]

I slug hunt(bow about 1 er two weekends a year now) in lottery zone near wegdahl MN, we got 6-7 guys that hunt it every year..no doe tags, at this point 3 bucks have been taken, a spike and 2 8's (one a yearing 8), Im not proud of the hunters I hunt with, with their choices as far as havesting animals(they hunt 1 weekend a year, if they see antlers--its down).. but anyway, its frustraing because we cant take does, I saw more does than I maybe ever had in this area last weekend, our ratio is totally out of wack, i begin to wonder if every doe gets bred each fall... so to answer the post question this year our group can take 6 BUCKS!!, I dont like it, somethings gota change

[carpshooterdeluxe]

we will have 19 people on saturday and sunday. the 3 14 year old girls in the group wont do much walking but will sit incase a doe comes their way. our zone only had 30 doe permits for the entire season, and my buddy actually drew one, but we havent seen a large enough doe to consider harvesting yet. my bro got a 2 1/2 year old 9 point buck sunday morning, and two other guys each got basket 6 and 8's sunday morning as well, bringing our numbers so far to 3 for 19! if we get 2 more large bodied bucks and 1 doe i would consider it a successfull season where we hunt. many of the guys muzzleload now so we dont hunt as hard as we used to during gun season. i myself just come back to hang out with the guys and do the whole tradition thing.

[youngie22]

IF you come to the metro zone, there is an unlimited qouta. Buy your bonus tag and keep fillin' tags till the 30th!!! So if your freezer needs more the legislature and insurance lobbyist have a great option for you!