As a person who grew up hunting in Wisconsin this is an interesting thread. My, how things have changed. Most of my deer were killed in the sixties and were all bucks. If I recall correctly the last deer I shot in Wisconsin was in the very early seventies and it sticks in my mind the gun kill was somewhere between 70 and 75 thousand then. I don't have a clue as to what the total population was then but I remember seeing 25 or 30 deer a season and I thought that was enough to make the season interesting. Bow-hunting was not real popular, or not anywhere near as popular as it is now. I don't ever remember seeing anyone hunt with a muzzle-loader although I heard some did. Predators were not a real problem, so in short I thought things were pretty cool as a whole.
Fast forward to today's world and things are pretty much the same in all parts of the country. What I mean by this is there is something wrong with the game management pretty much everywhere.
One thing I have observed wherever I have lived in recent years is that the bow-hunters have really gotten the best of both worlds. Their equipment is vastly improved and their seasons are usually the best. In some areas I've been the muzzle-loaders have pretty favorable seasons also and their equipment is also very high tech compared to what I first remember seeing. I have often wondered what would happen if everyone had the same seasons?
One thing I don't like is point restriction rules. They make for a very big pain in the butt where I now live. We have to shoot a three point or better deer, measured on one side, and can only shoot a spike elk. If you can keep away from such a thing in Wisconsin I think it would be the best way.
As for shooting does, there wasn't much of that at all when I hunted in Wisconsin, but it seems that from what I read it is a perfectly acceptable thing now. Can this train of thought be reversed again or has it become to natural a thing to stop now?
