Our deer are at around 10% of where they were when the "count" said 12-13K Yet we are at 16-18K and climbing, increasing over all herd numbers way over objective on B/D ratios. Those pro's at the DOW are masters of finding animals to count, the more we shoot the more we get, I think they should quit counting them and just machine gun them from the helicopter, in just a year or two we would be so swamped with animals we could eliminate the draw and give out bonus tags, we could call them "class B"...
On the elk side I used to see herds of 500+ nose to tail cruising the winter range for chow, now we have twice the number yet I cannot find a group of over 100, most are at <25. At some point the music will stop and a lot of people with cushy pensions are going to waltz off stage left without a chair or a care while the people who bought into the "pro's " managing their wildlife are left with the blame for the near extinction of the animals.
Who would have thought that unlimited OTC tags with modern equipment was unsustainable, except as a business model.
