You can ask the Pa. boys about shoot more does! SOME GO WEEKS AND ONLY SEE A SINGLE DEER OR DOE AND FAWN.Yes there are still some decent areas in Pa. but it's just a matter of time till they're out of deer too. You cannot recruit w/o a healthy doe population.The state was once a deer hunting mecca.Maybe not for trophies but try to get your child interested in hunting when every deer you see you have to say "he's not big enough son/daughter.Let that try competing with computer games and the pizza arcades. powdr

Hi guys,

First - I'm not a troll. Just talking about things I see. I live in Woodville, though not a native. Grew up in LaSalle parish started deer hunting as a high school senior (1974). We mainly hunted in Winn parish on timber company land. No leases back then. We had great hunting at the time, beautiful woods though not herds of deer - typical piney woods low carrying capacity. From what I hear from the locals here, it was a lot better in Mississippi at the time.

I see it a little differently than a lot of folks. Kids have a short attention span - start them on squirrels or rabbits. It's hard for a kid to sit still as much as it takes to kill bucks, particularly is you're not hunting over bait.

The other big problem - not trying to start a fight here, but it's true - is that it's hard to get kids interested if you don't have a place to take them hunting. Not debating good or bad of it, but it has gotten expensive enough that many who would have gotten interested in hunting in the past just don't have a place they can afford to go hunt. I saw the last hunter's education fire arms class of kids here in Woodville prior to start of '08 season and can tell you that the recruitment rate of kids to hunting is far less than those of us old guys dropping out due to natural causes. Ask MDWFP about declining license sales.

As to not shooting young bucks - that's great, I don't usually take more than 1 or 2 deer a year (all I'll eat), much rather shoot a doe than a small buck.

There are a lot of factors in play, but the bottom line is that unless some folks (by that I mean individual hunters & clubs) start looking long term, planning & acting accordingly hunting will die out in another couple of generations, if it takes that long...not due to gun control or other external enemies of our sport but due to a lack of hunters & available habitat to hunt on. You really can't count on the various game & fish departments to address it as they don't plan much longer than the next budget cycle.

Anyway, it will be interesting to see in 5 or 6 years if the impact of the new regulations really does achieve the desired effect. I hope it does. I really do like the part about letting kids 15 & under take a smaller buck. May help keep them interested long enough to learn to love to hunt...

I know what the intent of the law is - to get more mature bucks. But I wonder how many will be left out there due to ground shrinkage? Colorado had a four point rule on deer a while back and it was discarded due to the number of 3 pointers found dead of unnatural causes.

gldprimr
I get your drift, and I agree.

The thing I never liked in LA was some of the zones were set by purely political means rather than biological means. When they were changed around 20 years ago it was a joke. Look at the map and some of the zones were very small and were put in by legislative landowners. Our area ran right down the middle of our parish and the split went exactly around our rut because our rep didn't think you should deer hunt during the rut.

Portions of TX went to an antler spread restriction of 13" a number of years ago (mostly East/Central TX) and so far it has shown great results. The number of 3.5 year old deer and 150"+ deer has literally skyrocketed - even on our 4 national forest and other public lands. We also have the option to shoot an additon buck that is unbranched on one side - IE a spike or 3 point.

When they instituted this they also increased the limit on does and so far it has been great.

It was so succesful they rolled it out in limited counties and had a 3-5 year plan to start in other areas. After 2 years the result was so good they were ASKED to roll it out quicker in other areas.

I know Dave Moreland professionally and he was the right person for the job 25 years ago. He fought the fight for the increase in harvest of does which at the time was nearly non existent. I first met him at age 13 when I was on a limited draw controlled hunt for does on a property where the average deer weighed less than 90 pounds.....However once he won the kill more does fight I don't think he ever got on to the next step.

Never been one for horn restrictions

+1

It boils down to button bucks being shot as does and the number of antlerless permits issued.

The timber industry (forest regeneration) has become more important than income generated by hunting license revenue.

Great thread, I have been out of town for over a week. I like the added responses.