I started deer hunting (gun and bow) in 87 and I remember Thanksgiving being the day the family would get together and figure out how many any sex tags we drew. It was exciting back then to be able to shoot a doe because in my area the bucks had been pounded from large party hunting groups and mostly buck only tags. It just wasn't feasible that 8 guys would all get a shot at a buck. We needed the meat so an any sex tag was a blessing. Bow season was the best ever because like said before I could get permission anywhere. I could hunt for two weeks and never even see another bowhunter on the road. This was in Van Buren county mind you. In the mid 90's I had access to over 2000 acres in that county and nobody else bow hunted any of it! Now I'm down to 300 and 75% of it is crop fields! From 2005 to 2009 the population in my area took a huge hit. The DNR was (and still is) offering up 5400 doe tags for the county and the group hunters were buying them up. The groups got even bigger. One year I counted 34 guys in a "church group". They were pushing everything and just slaughtering the herd banging pots and pans and two by fours, yelling and hollering. Thankfully in 2009 a few changes in neighboring bowhunters made a huge difference. These new neighbors were serious bowhunters like myself. The big groups no longer had permission to run through everything. (Trust me they still had plenty of ground to hunt because after all, they were from the church.) And in the last two years the population within that square mile has increased, finally. I used to see 10 to 15 deer per sit, easily. When the big groups and doe tags came I was lucky to see 2. Last year I was doing a bit better, seeing 3-5 per sit. This year 8-10 was common. We have not killed a doe in the area for two years and the difference is very noticeable. One positive thing that came from the doe slaughter is our buck to doe ratio. The rut this year was really really good. By the time I killed my buck mid November I has seen roughly the same number of bucks as I did does this season.
One thing I want to point out is no matter what formula the DNR comes up with for the "right number of doe tags" in a given county there will always be large population differences from one timber to the next in Van Buren. There are very large tracts of leased or privately owned ground that have huge food plots, great cover, but few hunters and nobody that cares to shoot a doe because they are trophy hunters. Then there is the next section over that may have great cover as well but it gets hammered for two weeks straight from gun hunters with an unlimited supply of doe tags. If they keep issuing the same number of doe tags the future doesn't look good for the average Joe that has to share his hunting ground with others that don't have the same mind set and will shoot anything that moves. Even if their aerial survey tells them the county has too many deer, they will never get to their desired levels with these large tracts that are more or less sanctuarys that are untouchable. They will just deplete the rest of the county to nothing. I got lucky because the neighbors and I are willing to actually manage the area best we can to bring our numbers back up.
I know I got slightly off topic in regards to the original question here but reading all these posts made me think about the past and how things have changed over the years.
Plus I'm on 3rd shift and bored out of my freakin mind!!!:way:
