One buck a year. No group or party hunting. Absolutely no baiting. Reduced doe tags based on sound science. We do not want to go back to way to many deer we want to find the acceptable level. I would like to see antler restrictions as well.
Hell yes. Besides a few places, the WI mentality is "doe, doe, doe, doe, doe, doe, doe, doe, doe, spike....BOOM!"
That's just funny Dan!:D I won't deny that it's very true for many WI hunters to be like that, but I have in fact noticed a bit of swing out of the EAB rules. Many of the people over the last few years started waiting for bigger bucks because they already had meat in the freezer from their doe just to be able to hunt for a buck. I find it sad how many of them will still take the 4 tags per day in the CWD zone here and then they P&M about not seeing many deer, and all I can say is you can't fix STUPID! Kimberley(vixen) and I will eat 2 or 3 deer per year ourselves, and this year we have to continue to hunt hard even though we have been managing the property we hunt the neighbors will shoot everything. We only saw one deer from stand this year during the Nov. 9 day hunt and it was a spike that only had one side. We watched him for about a half an hour and when he headed north out of our property there was a single shot...hope they didn't think he was doe. I believe the DNR needs to give up the facade of fighting a phantom disease like CWD because though it's a very real thing, they'll NEVER be rid of it. I find their population goal of 730,000 animals for the entire state absolutely insane because how long could they count on the precious revenue from out of state hunters like Duke if the deer become that far and few between? I mean really; there are 600K to 650K firearm hunting licenses sold every year here so they would have to expect a pretty low success rate or the herd would be gone. As far as a season structure goes for the 2010 season I would open archery at the usual time, have the youth hunt to continue to grow the sport with young hunters in EARLY October perhaps the first weekend, and then the traditional 9 day firearm hunt the week of Thanksgiving followed by the 7 day M/L hunt with archery finishing out the season on Dec. 31st like it used to be. The one thing that really bothers me about a DNR spokesperson comments to the low harvest numbers this year is the lack of hunting opportunities. The DNR says it wants to speak to landowners and farmers about making their lands available to hunting, but yet they won't say anything about opening the many CLOSED AREAS of state lands to hunting. I find that a slap in the face to all landowners!
I agree with most of this except the antler restriction part. Only because I do not know how I feel about it yet. I agree that it means that there will be some larger bucks on public land and then have an effect on the entire state. However, not everyone hunts for a wall hanger. Some hunt for food and fun. I also think that this would decrease the number of deer taken each year since older deer tend to be smarter deer. What is very clear to me is that there are many hunters that hunt only private land and can afford to hunt in a way that they only take 3 1/2 years or older. But what about the rest of the hunters? We have some of them here on this forum. For action there is a consequence, and I believe that a consequence of this will be a reduction in the number of hunters over a three or four period of time. Partly because if a guy hunts three or four years they dont see deer (or shooters) they will fell less inclined to return. Just playing both sides, as I said I do not have a solid opinion yet as to antler restrictions.
