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Question.

Trent Flesher

Trent Flesher

New Member
I shotgun hunt with a small group (6 to 8 people). Most of them haven't been hunting that long, some of them have never even shot a buck. Everyone in the past is always been saying don't shoot small bucks. Now everyone on this website is saying don't shoot does. I'm a little confused on what to do. Of course in a perfect world we would all shoot mature bucks but I have a feeling that's not gonna happen. I bow hunt so it don't really matter if I even shoot a deer. Now most of them on the other hand only shotgun hunt.
 
Good luck. I would say only shoot what you will eat. I know the HUSH program is a great program, but with the numbers way down I would think twice before blasting a bunch of deer and donating them.
 
I would still encourage everyone to shoot a small buck before they shot a doe if the numbers are way down......even beginners and kids should understand they are only hurting themselves in the future if they continue to shoot females. Thats why no one gets to shoot hen pheasants.
 
If you have a group of relatively inexperienced deer hunters then please have fun and enjoy deer hunting. If you have any sex tags then feel free to fill that 1 tag any way you see fit, but please don't go overboard by killing multiple does just to fill a tag and then just give the animal away to HUSH. While sometimes there are deserving people to give the meat to, just don't go crazy with it just so you can shoot deer. I have already said several times that I would'nt tell someone to not shoot a doe if that is the only deer they have a chance to shoot, but I don't think we need to shoot 4 or 5 does like many have done in the past.
 
bowmaker said:
If you have a group of relatively inexperienced deer hunters then please have fun and enjoy deer hunting. If you have any sex tags then feel free to fill that 1 tag any way you see fit, but please don't go overboard by killing multiple does just to fill a tag and then just give the animal away to HUSH. While sometimes there are deserving people to give the meat to, just don't go crazy with it just so you can shoot deer. I have already said several times that I would'nt tell someone to not shoot a doe if that is the only deer they have a chance to shoot, but I don't think we need to shoot 4 or 5 does like many have done in the past.
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So would it be ok to just shoot one hen pheasant ? if you shoot a doe that equals minus three more deer for next year. Hunters are the only tool the state has to manage the heard, but ultimately we make the decision if there is enough deer or not. Even shooting one doe backs us up as far as future deer hunting goes. Give it a few years for the deer to get back to normal and then shooting does is perfectly exceptable.

Its like trying to spend your way out of debt...it just doesn't work, no one should shoot does in areas where the deer numbers are way down
 
THEBAD said:
So would it be ok to just shoot one hen pheasant ? if you shoot a doe that equals minus three more deer for next year. Hunters are the only tool the state has to manage the heard, but ultimately we make the decision if there is enough deer or not. Even shooting one doe backs us up as far as future deer hunting goes. Give it a few years for the deer to get back to normal and then shooting does is perfectly exceptable.

Its like trying to spend your way out of debt...it just doesn't work, no one should shoot does in areas where the deer numbers are way down
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Oh jesus, get off your high horse and let the guys enjoy the weekend. Some of you think there are only going to be 3 deer left in the whole state next year..
 
Deer numbers across the state should have no bearing on individual property harvest selection. If your area needs does shot then that is what should happen. Not doing that just creates a breeding ground for EHD with high numbers. If your seeing no deer and everyone else is you shouldn't take deer.

The management practice should be based on your hunting area, not on the entire state.
 
THEBAD said:
So would it be ok to just shoot one hen pheasant ? if you shoot a doe that equals minus three more deer for next year. Hunters are the only tool the state has to manage the heard, but ultimately we make the decision if there is enough deer or not. Even shooting one doe backs us up as far as future deer hunting goes. Give it a few years for the deer to get back to normal and then shooting does is perfectly exceptable.

Its like trying to spend your way out of debt...it just doesn't work, no one should shoot does in areas where the deer numbers are way down
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Man you must not read many of my posts especially on this subject. For several years now I have been preaching about the same thing, and I have advocated shooting spikes or young bucks to help slow down the deer population decline. Perhaps 5 or 6 years ago I posted a very long post entitled "Are we killing off the cash cow" and the moderators were kind enough to put it on the main page for a couple of weeks. Earlier in another post I put up lots of facts from the IDNR page about the declining population and harvest numbers and asking hunters to not harvest as many does. I do think it is unrealistic and counter productive to tell inexperienced deer hunters to not shoot ONE doe if that is their only chance to harvest a deer, or to make them feel guilty for shooting a doe instead of passing on it to hope for a buck of some kind. I know what shooting a doe does to the next couple of years population and have broken that down several times with birth rates and survival rates and ratios between buck and doe fawns for several years into the future in posts on here and other boards. Almost every thing that I predicted several years ago have come to pass based on what I saw then as over harvest of does.

It is not like shooting one hen pheasant at all because hens are not legal game, where as female deer are legal game, at least for now! I rarely get defensevie about my posts here, but at least at first this one set me off a little.;) Now that I have thought it through a little more I do understand that the goal of all of us is to improve or at the very least maintain our deer hunting, but that there are differing opinouns on how to acomplish it. We all need to continue expresing our ideas and sharing our experiences and maybe we can help each other at least a little. :way:
 
bowmaker said:
Man you must not read many of my posts especially on this subject. For several years now I have been preaching about the same thing, and I have advocated shooting spikes or young bucks to help slow down the deer population decline. Perhaps 5 or 6 years ago I posted a very long post entitled "Are we killing off the cash cow" and the moderators were kind enough to put it on the main page for a couple of weeks. Earlier in another post I put up lots of facts from the IDNR page about the declining population and harvest numbers and asking hunters to not harvest as many does. I do think it is unrealistic and counter productive to tell inexperienced deer hunters to not shoot ONE doe if that is their only chance to harvest a deer, or to make them feel guilty for shooting a doe instead of passing on it to hope for a buck of some kind. I know what shooting a doe does to the next couple of years population and have broken that down several times with birth rates and survival rates and ratios between buck and doe fawns for several years into the future in posts on here and other boards. Almost every thing that I predicted several years ago have come to pass based on what I saw then as over harvest of does.

It is not like shooting one hen pheasant at all because hens are not legal game, where as female deer are legal game, at least for now! I rarely get defensevie about my posts here, but at least at first this one set me off a little.;) Now that I have thought it through a little more I do understand that the goal of all of us is to improve or at the very least maintain our deer hunting, but that there are differing opinouns on how to acomplish it. We all need to continue expresing our ideas and sharing our experiences and maybe we can help each other at least a little. :way:
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It is and it isnt, if you look a little a deeper than whats written in the black white game laws. Just because they say you can shoot female deer, does that in fact make it the right thing to do. If the population is way down is it ok to make it worse just because someone is a begginer hunter ? Its not about a guilt trip at all. If the regs for pheasant hunting said you could shoot hen pheasants would you. Thats my point .

Also No intention of causing any ill will, but people seem to understand not shooting hen pheasants a lot more than they get not shooting does, so it is a easy comparison for me to make when trying to get my point across.
 
THEBAD said:
Also No intention of causing any ill will, but people seem to understand not shooting hen pheasants a lot more than they get not shooting does, so it is a easy comparison for me to make when trying to get my point across.
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Should have used a drake duck over a hen comparison since they are both legal.
 
I would say you guys should enjoy your hunt and shoot whatever you want. If and when the deer population gets too low, tags will become limited again. I have seen almost no decline at all. One thing is for sure, you wont kill them all. Enjoy your hunt and enjoy any deer you shoot.
 
huntemup said:
I would say you guys should enjoy your hunt and shoot whatever you want. If and when the deer population gets too low, tags will become limited again. I have seen almost no decline at all. One thing is for sure, you wont kill them all. Enjoy your hunt and enjoy any deer you shoot.
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I agree, maybe deer hunting needs a little slowing down anyway. It's gone down hill fast the last 5 or so years and I'm not just talking about deer numbers.
 
Do you bow hunt the ground that you are going to gun hunt? Not every piece of ground has been stripped of does. Determine how many that you feel comfortable in harvesting prior to the hunt and stop there. Same with bucks...have fun.
 
Yea,,don't think deer tags will ever be limited. No matter what Biologists think,,What Politicians,What the Govenor, What the Farm Bureau, thinks is what counts! Add Insurance Companies in there too. Where I left my friend spends over 200 hrs hunting and due to almost unlimited doe tags,, over the past yrs, he says deer numbers are WAY down, but doe tags continue to be liberal.
 
Deer numbers are down in some areas. They are supposed to be. The numbers got completely out of control for a while. I still see as many as 40 or more deer in a single field. There are plenty of areas where the numbers are still higher than they need to be. Again, bonus tags need to be limited to private ground only and there would be no issues. Many of you that are crying about deer going extinct dont even remember what it was like to apply for an antlerless tag in the 70's. Deer numbers were nothing compared to what they are today and guess what......we still hunted deer and had a good time. We even killed a few. NOBODY needs to be ridiculed for going out and filling a tag on ANY deer.
 
huntemup said:
Deer numbers are down in some areas. They are supposed to be. The numbers got completely out of control for a while. I still see as many as 40 or more deer in a single field. There are plenty of areas where the numbers are still higher than they need to be. Again, bonus tags need to be limited to private ground only and there would be no issues. Many of you that are crying about deer going extinct dont even remember what it was like to apply for an antlerless tag in the 70's. Deer numbers were nothing compared to what they are today and guess what......we still hunted deer and had a good time. We even killed a few. NOBODY needs to be ridiculed for going out and filling a tag on ANY deer.
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AMEN!:way::way::way:
 
huntemup said:
If and when the deer population gets too low, tags will become limited again.
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The DNR actually had advocated lowering tag amounts because the #'s in many counties were too low - Biologist Terry Brandstad over-ruled the DNR and kept the high tag allotments. People in the general public are sadly not good at managing any resource without strict regulation. If an opportunity came to wipe out a county of deer, there will never be a day when there won't be some hunters to fill that last tag on the last deer. It's a sad but glaringly obvious truth.
 
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