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DM Register - Hunters kill more deer than reported

Well maybe the old survey method wasn't all that accurate. I reported my deer easily on the IDNR website and I ended the year with a pocketful of unfilled tags. People I know had not trouble reporting.
 
Part of the problem was the poorly designed interface on the phone system. With a voice recognition system you don't make people say "one" or "two", you ask them to say "yes" or "no". Also, they didn't allow you to answer until you heard all the options. 90% of the time the first thing I heard was the option I wanted, but had to wait to hear the rest. If the menu were set up properly, you could do it in less than 1/2 the time that it takes now. Hopefully this gets some work done on it before turkey season.
 
I will say that coming from a state that I have always had to check my deer in, Iowa DNR website checking system is by far the easiest and quickest way to check in a deer. It took a what, whole 40 seconds to check a deer. And I really don't mind doing it. Better than having to take them to a check station
 
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I would probably think that alot of people just didn't report

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I know people didn't do it. Talked to quite a few of them and they had problems one time and said that they weren't going to do it because they said it was a hassle and they wont join the modern times and get the internet. I did it online and like nannyslayer said it takes about 40 seconds and was pretty painless.
 
I had no problem with the reporting however I would guess that there was close to a 30% decrease in harvests. I shot 5 does last year and only one this year for meat because of over harvesting in the areas that I hunt. My dad shot 3 does last year and none this year. I know several groups of shotgun hunters that also didn't fill their tags and wouldn't shoot does due to lack of deer numbers. A couple groups went back to haversting 1.5-2.5 year old bucks agian instead of does. I had spent 5 years promoting QDM and finally got these guys to harvest does and let the 1.5-2.5 year old bucks go. Now they went back to only shooting bucks due to low deer numbers and wanting to be sure to fill their tags. "Save a doe" mentality is spreading in some of the areas that I hunt. Guys are not buying into this kill every doe you see mentality anymore. I know guys that didn't hunt this year because of the low deer numbers. I was talking to a CO who said we may have to go back to a buck only season again if we continue to harvest does.
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deer numbers are way down in my area , from all the hunters i talked to they were shooting half the deer that they shot the years before plus i didn't see as many hunters 1st season as in the past maybe because it was so cold.

is the DNR afraid that they might have screwed them selfs by allowing so many xtra tags (revenue) could they have made a mistake about how many deer we have . what are they going to do if they nobody buys tags that can't be filled .it would be like buying tickets to a show and find out they over sold and would'nt refund your money
 
Who honestly didn't see this coming. I knew from the gitgo it was gonna be a problem. I also wonder it the previous system was really that acurate that they knew what was being killed. For all we know this year could have been a record kill for Iowa. We really didn't ever have a acurate count before.
 
The new system works.

The DNR knew that compliance was going to be roughly 70-80% going in (early DNR press releases).

I know at least one person who took the Us vs. Big Brother attitude and didn't report.

I don't go by "deer numbers", but rather buck to doe ratio to decide the condition of the herd in the areas I hunt. I'll continue shooting does.
 
If people don't cooperate with this system, then I see us following our neighboring states check stations. Which makes me
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I think it will take a year or two for people to catch on. One thing that I do know is many people report an antlerless deer regardless if it is a shed buck or button buck or legal spike as a doe. I think people think they will get in trouble if they say they shot a legal buck using an antlerless tag.
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I know a number of "local" folks who told me that didn't care about the !@8% DNR and were NEVER going to report their deer.

In all cases people who process their own deer, so they will be difficult to stop... until a few get fined and it makes the papers...
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Our local locker said #'s were down but I don't think the DNR ever takes a tally from lockers
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I'm not sure that previous methods were all that accurate but WJS knows a whole lot more then I do when it comes to crunching deer #'s.

Reporting itself was a breeze by both ph and net...I just didn't use the voice system but keyed in the #...NP that way.

Once I did have a slight problem but it then went thru to an operator...and talked to someone in person.

No excuse other then stubberness in my book.........
 
The obvious answer to this is that the old system was really a best guess. Basicly they took the number of returned survey cards, subtracted the nokills out and determined a ratio and then applied that ratio to the total number of licenses sold to arrive at total deer killed. All this means is that the kill numbers from the past were not very accurate, which the DNR recognized in trying to implement a new system. I am sure that there were some stiff necked soft brained folks who refused to report with the new system, but I am sure there wern't 50,000 or 60,000 of them. It appears to me that for several years we have overstated the kill numbers possibly for a number of reasons, but mostly from inaccurate data. The new system certainly has the potential for very good accuracy, but we as hunters have to utilize it if we want it to work without the many headaches and cost of actual check stations. Speaking personally, I reported all 4 of my little groups kills at the same time and it wasn't much of an inconvience or hassel. I also know that I left 6 of my own tags unfilled this year and others from my group left 4 more unfilled spread over the various seasons. All this means to me is that sold tags don't mean dead deer.
 
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The new system works.

The DNR knew that compliance was going to be roughly 70-80% going in (early DNR press releases).

I know at least one person who took the Us vs. Big Brother attitude and didn't report.

I don't go by "deer numbers", but rather buck to doe ratio to decide the condition of the herd in the areas I hunt. I'll continue shooting does.

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Dito
 
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