Lower bag limits. Allowing straight walled rifle cartridges. More expensive tags. They "claim" the deer harvest was down 13%. Anybody who was in the woods knows this isn't entitely true. The electronic tagging system is to blame for alot of untagged deer. Also, this year's gun season was extremely warm and less people were in the woods (doesn't mean the actual deer numbers are down). Bow season harvest was only down 2%.
Statewide was down 13%. Was discussing this with DNR last month. Got any links for the proposed changes?
I don't entirely understand the point of having some 3 deer counties w/ antlerless tags and some w/o, I mean you still can only kill 2 does and one buck so what difference does it really make?
The problems is, the DNR relies on hunters for $$$, and with electronic tagging, more and more deer are tagged landowner or not tagged at all. Makes the harvest look smaller. Not saying everyone is dishonest, but when you can save $50-$100 a year by not tagging your does...it happens.
