Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting the cheese hunters are serious

Whelen Nut,

I guess that I'm thinking there are better ways of trying to change things than getting politicians involved.

Somehow, these organizations that are funded by hunters, Whitetails Unlimited, WI Deer Hunters Association, etc. need to pony up some money and have some scientific research done that can refute without a doubt the stance and policies of the DNR. Only with sound scientific data do you have any grounds for opposition other than just being mad because you aren't seeing deer.

You can keep showing The DNR the trends of deer vehicle accidents, etc. This doesn't do anything to them other than to strengthen their stance that what they have been doing is working. Hunters need an advocate that can produce real numbers, based on science, that states what the carrying capacity of the habitat is, what the social population should be set at etc. until that happens, all we are doing is complaining and a politician isn't fixing it either.

It's funny to me that a lot of folks throw their money to organizations like Whitetails Unlimited, etc. and in blind faith believe they are out there working for them. But in reality these organizations are out there voting for the alternative seasons, EAB, etc. The guys everyone thinks are helping them are really throwing them under the bus and then come asking for more money the next year.

It's simply amazing!!

Wi. sounds like Pa.

Hey, they let you go back 'eh? I hope you get a monster! Good luck WN.

Tom

I am going to try and get and invite back to my original deer camp in Menominee County (Wallace area) for next year after hunting in Wisconsin for the last 10 years. I am willing to pay the out of state license fee for the chance to at least see a buck.

Seeing a deer would be nice. I had no intention of shooting a doe or a fawn, but it would have been nice to watch them at least once during the season.

I recently spoke with a couple insurance reps that have been in the business for quite some time and neither one of them said that the insurance agencies have any pull as far as tag numbers.


There's still a few places in SD that have decent numbers, but for the most part about 8 outta 10 people I've spoken with or heard about have been extremely disappointed in this years season.

The last 1/2 dozen years they've issued so many double/triple tags, extended seasons and what not plus with the high coyote numbers there's simply nothing left.

Yesterday and the afternoon before I had my nephew out trying to find a doe. In past years in all the acres we covered we'd of scene over a hundred deer easily. We've scene a 1/2 dozen tiny bucks, one decent buck, and two fawns.

cal24,
I'm here in Hot Springs and I saw at least 8 bucks the 1st morning before I shot my 4X5 (23" spread) at 8AM. They reduced 27A and 27B by a 100 less each because city of Hot Springs killed 100 during the summer of '09. But still, there seemed to be a good population of deer. Guess the complaining gardeners in town were too lazy to put up a fence. I just hope GFP doesn't make that mistake again.
I lived in Wisconsin my 1st 69 years, so I know about the glory years and also their downward spiral that state has been on the past 8 or 9 years. It was, at one time, the premier deer hunting state. No more.
V

This is a direct quote from a memorandum from DNR secretary Matt Frank to the DNR board dated April 23, 2008. You want to know why there's no deer in Wisconsin? Read this. Bold is mine.

"The department's management objective is to manage the population at the goals that have been established, not to set harvest records. This is important because the number of deer that hunters will be able to harvest is likely to decline in the future as hunter numbers decline. Clearly there will be a large decline in the number of deer hunters in the next 10-20 years as the baby boomer generation ages and moves out of the ranks of hunters. The ability to manage deer populations through hunting are at risk because the current deer herd is too large to be managed by fewer hunters. It is imperative that we move deer populations significantly downward toward goal now, because the harvest capacity in the future will be insufficient to hold the deer population stable at the levels it now exists."

This is obviously a self-fulfilling prophesy. If the deer numbers go down, hunter numbers will go down, too. There are at least three other congressman, not including the lefty, commie, Decker mentioned above, that are sending a letter to the DNR to cancel the T zone hunt this weekend. It is too little, too late. I have no idea how it would ever be cancelled. No way to make sure everyone knew about it.

This is a travesty. Write your congressmen and women and complain about Franks and his strategy to cut the herd down now for hunter numbers 20 years from now.

Fast Ed

No way that tzone hunt gets cancelled. But I'm not thinking many are going to participate, of if they do, they sure won't tell anyone about it.

On the cover it looks bad, but think about the ramifications of not taking the population down now. Less hunters is the trend, that can't be refuted and the baby boom generation is huge.

My question now becomes: Does anyone have any data for the number of tags purchased each season during the 70' and 80's? Can we get that information in relation to the growth/decline of the herd population? Do the trends show increasing herd numbers with stagnant to declining hunter participation? If so, wouldn't it stand to reason that this is a good idea to reduce the herd considerably now while you still have the numbers to do it instead of waiting until the DNR/State is required to put a lot of time and money towards thinning the herd through sharpshooters in the future. At the same time having declining budgets to do so because of a lack of hunter participation?

Is it popular now, no. Is it possibly a better preemtive move to keep the herd from killing itself because of a loss of a predator? Maybe the wolf reintroduction is a way of offsetting decling hunter numbers too, who knows?

If you think that there are simple answers and simple decisions that are being made or need to be made, your only fooling yourself. Let's maybe give these guys a little more credit for looking to the future of the resouce years down the road and not just next year.

I've read that CWD is a big problem in Wisconsin. How do you know that CWD is not the reason deer kill numbers are down?
One thing that should be kept in mind is that the state may make the hunting regulations, but it is still up to the hunters in a state to actually decide which animals need to be killed and how many. You can't control what other people do on their property but you can control what goes on, on your own property or lease. I know here in Mississippi, I can legally kill 5 does and 3 bucks. That does not mean that I have to kill that many deer or kill all of them on the same property. If I am dumb enough to try to wipe out the deer on my property, then I can blame nobody but myself when I can't seem to see very many deer in future years.

So which State DNR do you work for?

CWD is not the problem...well the disease is not the problm. The DNR used it as an excuse to kill 100's of thousands of does the last few years.

If you read the bold quote, you have to wonder what the "goal" is, don't you? The goal is to discourage hunting and destroy the hunting heritage in Wisconsin. The wolf re-introduction was done for what reason? We didn't want the wolves. We exterminated them in the first place for good reason. The only reason leftys can come up with is that "they were here once." So what? We don't need them at all for anything. They will destroy the deer herd up north and the elk the DNR has been working so hard to re-introduce near Clam Lake. "At the end of March we estimated that there were 134 elk in the herd. During the second quarter of 2009 we had experienced 3 verified mortalities (all 3 by wolves) before the start of calving season..." This quote is from the DNR website. Here's more, again from the DNR website. "It�s apparent that a wolf pack, probably the Ghost Lake Pack, has learned that pregnant cows are vulnerable during these last stages of pregnancy. All 3 animals had been with groups of cows only a day or 2 before being killed, so it is likely these groups were being tested by the wolves and these 3 cows were the losers. It is likely that their advanced pregnancy was the issue that caused the wolves to separate them from the cow/calf groups they had accompanied just before death. This is the first time we�ve observed this hunting behavior and success on the herd. Time will tell whether this pack regularly exploits these pregnant cows." Time will tell?? Duh, what do they think? Wolves prey on weak animals. Pregnant elk and deer are the weakest of the herd.

Why do you think the bear population has been underreported by the DNR? They wanted to discourage bear hunting and get the numbers up. They want the bear population high for the same reason they want the wolves. To kill the deer. Bear eat a lot of fawns in the spring.

The herd reduction zones and CWD eradication zones are designed to essentially wipe out the deer herd. If you disagree, why did the DNR name it the "eradication zone"? Look up eradicate.

I hunt in area 49A. They used to give anywhere from 3500 to 6000 doe permits a year up there. The last two years the permits have numbered less than 400. Is this really what we want?

The DNR, through mismanagement and goals contrary to the interests of the hunters, is destroying our deer herd, period.

Fast Ed

Here's my 2 cents worth, again!
You guys got the bears, wolves and coyotes. We've got coyotes and lions. In fact, I had a lion kill on a deer 78 lasered yards from my back deck. He (she?) fed on it 4 nights
Doe killing - when the population gets that low, restraint and common sense has to rule. Just because you can have 10 tags does not mean you have use them.
The DNR destroying the Wisconsin Deer hunting Heritage? Sure looks like it! Guys, think about it. You got a Governor who is anti-gun, anti-hunting and has the ability to appoint his people in the DNR. This whole fiasco maybe is orchestrated higher up than most people think. Dunno, just a guess.
CWD. Yep, know about it well. I lived in Mount Horeb until 12/04, the epi-center of the CWD zone and it became the eradication zone. Yes, the goal was to kill every deer, take no prisioners.
What about CWD? Was it really something new or was it something that's been in the herd forever but only recently identified? I don't know but there was a lot of finger pointing as to the cause. Feeding and concentrating the animals, escaped deer from the UW farms in Madison, a gal from Wyoming blamed for importing animals into Wisconsin and probably a few other guesses too.
V

Bear numbers underestimated; wolf numbers underestimated; coyote numbers underestimated; it is a fact that wildlife census methodologies underestimate population numbers....including deer.

Yes, wolves kill deer; yes, coyotes kill deer; yes, bears kill deer; you can look on line or in the Journal of Wildlife Management and read the studies that document all that. Biologists don't ignore that. They know it happens and they account for that mortality as well in their population modeling.

I know the governor is a liberal anti, etc., etc.,and that is always a problem in my mind. But there are more important issues to worry about. Concerns about reduced hunter participation are real and are being discussed virtually nationwide, not only from the standpoint of population management for species like deer, but also from a revenue standpoint. How many deer camps have little kids in them?

Out here in Colorado, the outfitters and ranchers run EVERYTHING. Everything is for the trophy so the outfitters and ranchers can charge access fees and lobby for special landowner priveledges. I haven't drawn a tag in the 6 years I've been out here. I have a 14 year old son who wants to hunt, but we can't get tags because of preference points and draw-only tags for deer, short seasons even when you do get a tag. My son is so frustrated that he says he doesn't even want to apply next year. So, another young potential hunter turns to team sports and other activities.

In the mean time, we keep bitching about the DNR and how they must be stupid and incompetent because I didn't get my deer this year; their numbers have to be wrong and mine have to be right; the wolves are eating all my deer; blah, blah, blah. Meanwhile, hunting is coming full-circle back to a sport for the 'rich', just like it is in Europe. We keep fighting amongst ourselves while everything gets taken away while we aren't looking. I think we should just be enjoying what we have and working WITH the local wildlife managers, demanding accountability (they do work for us, after all) when necessary, but working with them to be part of the solution, not pouring gas on the fire.

formerbiologist!
You hit on a pretty good point. Outfitters get way too much sway in the make-up of allowable tags, etc. States like Montana, Idaho, Colorado and Wyoming are making this into a rich man's sport. Just keep prodding your son for his tag, we need him!
V