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Antlerless Licenses

Surprized they got that many left right now in Story. I get mine a couple of days after they go on sale for fear of missing out if I wait. Its too bad the southern counties dont sell anymore that they do.
 
boneman said:
no thanks, deer numbers are way too low!
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Exactly. I hunt alot in Boone county and the numbers are way too low in my opinion. They've been steadily dropping for the past 3 years. This year I refuse to buy any antlerless tags and contribute to the decline anymore.
 
180class said:
Exactly. I hunt alot in Boone county and the numbers are way too low in my opinion. They've been steadily dropping for the past 3 years. This year I refuse to buy any antlerless tags and contribute to the decline anymore.
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I will only buy one antlerless tag this year. The numbers are not as great as they were.
 
180class said:
Exactly. I hunt alot in Boone county and the numbers are way too low in my opinion. They've been steadily dropping for the past 3 years. This year I refuse to buy any antlerless tags and contribute to the decline anymore.
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I know a lot of people say it is low, but it truely comes down to the property. I hunt right next to the ledges park and have still seen 15-20 does walk past me on a nightly basis for the last 10 years. Drive a mile or so to the river and maybe it is a totaly different situation.
 
KnuckleDragr said:
I know a lot of people say it is low, but it truely comes down to the property. I hunt right next to the ledges park and have still seen 15-20 does walk past me on a nightly basis for the last 10 years. Drive a mile or so to the river and maybe it is a totaly different situation.
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But just because Ledges Park has a certain amount of deer, like you say go even a couple of miles away and the population story may be drastically different. I just drove through Honey Creek State Park the other night and saw several deer in the park but none on the rest of the drive home. It still strikes me as nonsensical to have as many available tags in the lower counties when they have not sold out for years. For example Davis co has sold only 37 of the 3600 available, Van Buren 49 out of 5400, Wapello 49 out of 2150, and Jefferson 33 of 2150. Perhaps if the DNR made these extra antler-less tags a more sought after commodity by issuing far fewer of them then they might actually sell more and quicker. As it is right now a hunter can just wait and see how they will feel on the day that they fill their tag to see if they really care about buying another. If it is too cold or snowy or windy that day they might just pass, where as if they had bought it a month earlier while they could still get one then they might make more of a effort to fill it.

Don't get me wrong, I have been complaining about the excess doe harvest for several years now and believe that it need to be cut way back. I believe that we are going down a bad road and the decline in real harvest numbers show it. 136,000 for 2009 and 126,000 for 2010 shows what this antlerless program has gotten us, and for you buck hunters there were 18,000 button and shed bucks killed that you will never get a chance at mostly because of this over harvesting of deer with out antlers in that 2009 season.
 
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