Harvest data & tags for late shed buck season…

[Sligh1]

Here’s raw data. I did a quick comparison of 2021 vs 2022 on one stat…. We are up over 150 shed bucks shot statewide in ‘22 vs ‘21. Probably due to the cold snap. Lot more dropped shed bucks this year vs last IMO. Today starts rifle season for shed bucks. Guys are gonna have an extra special time with all the bucks that shed early this year. Remember - u can’t eat horns & those giant shed pedicles are a trophy to some people! .
Here’s a top view of stats for this year.
The one county I would not want to be in….. WAYNE!!!!!……. Yikes!!!!! If those tags sell out…. OMG!!!!
Interesting year that’s not quite finished yet for some.
For the rest…. That’s a year folks!!!! I’d personally call it an “off year” but I’m just one blip of a gut opinion. Hope 2023 is better and best wishes to u all for 2023 season. Hope those sheds u pick up have a deer that’s alive & not rifled down this week too .

Last side note rant on the data…. Which is mainly pointless to mention & clearly won’t reach the intended audience….. IMAGINE if we could get folks to properly identify button bucks wide scale. 8,100 button bucks shot. Some of these counties: it’s dang near 10% of all the deer shot!! That’s the “easy to fix” change that would make the state a heck of a lot better. Not that hard. Needs to be taught to every hunter. Just my day dreaming pie in the sky thought.

 

[jflournoy]

We've got some late antlerless tags in Appanoose and Lucas counties. Wasn't going to buy today for Lucas, but after they went on sale this morning I noticed on-line they were going fast so I ran into town to get a few. App was at about 250 yesterday and they're now at zero, no more left as of several hours ago. Wayne for whatever reason doesn't seem to be selling near as quick, and there was way more to begin with. I remember it was pretty much the same last year, App sold out very quickly and Wayne still had plenty left.

I'll be taking my kids out to try and get them some shot opportunities where they can reach out a little farther with the .243. I'm taking a big quality pair of binos to scope out all potential targets to make sure no shed bucks or nubbins get shot.

 

[sep0667]

We've got some late antlerless tags in Appanoose and Lucas counties. Wasn't going to buy today for Lucas, but after they went on sale this morning I noticed on-line they were going fast so I ran into town to get a few. App was at about 250 yesterday and they're now at zero, no more left as of several hours ago. Wayne for whatever reason doesn't seem to be selling near as quick, and there was way more to begin with. I remember it was pretty much the same last year, App sold out very quickly and Wayne still had plenty left.

I'll be taking my kids out to try and get them some shot opportunities where they can reach out a little farther with the .243. I'm taking a big quality pair of binos to scope out all potential targets to make sure no shed bucks or nubbins get shot.

way more public ground in appanoose would be why IMO

 

[jflournoy]

way more public ground in appanoose would be why IMO

Yeah, I'm sure that has something to do with it.

I was told today at a license vendor in Lucas county that some guy came in and bought 30 of the late antlerless Lucas tags that went on sale today. That....would certainly be one reason they were running out pretty quick. Almost seems like someone shouldn't be allowed to buy *that* many just for one person. Started out over 200 were available when they started selling them this morning, and they were completely sold out as of about 4 p.m. today.

 

[bigbuckhunter88]

Probably someone buying a bunch and cutting them up just so others aren't. Someone who owns next to public

 

[Sligh1]

Can the late shed buck tags be used on Public Land?!???!!?! If so- that’s gonna really hurt public which is generally among the hardest hit of all land.

 

[CottonwoodCanyon]

Yeah can someone weigh in, is this private only or is public allowed too?? Geez I hope not...

 

[Rjack]

Absolutely can be used on public. What regulation would stop someone for using a county tag in public - unless there is no public in that county.

 

[Sligh1]

Absolutely can be used on public. What regulation would stop someone for using a county tag in public - unless there is no public in that county.

There’s always a theme with crap legislation…. Regular working man, everyday hunter gets screwed by bad politics like this. Rich dudes that lock up land (not knocking them one bit so don’t misunderstand) are immune to this madness. They won’t allow the masses to blast with rifles at 200-400 yards. I’ll be honest - I would never allow bunch of dudes access to do it on my land. So- they go to public or small parcels that been pounded all year - the last places that need more deer shot…. & blaze it up with rifles. Hunting quality on those parcels goes down further. Who gets hurt? The regular kid or dude that’s starting out or hunting public as it’s the only option. & legislation degrades those exact types of land while doing nothing for the large parcels that may actually have a lot of deer. Politicians &
Special interest mixing with hunting …. Who would have imagined they wouldn’t think through all this stuff with a bit of logic?!?!?

 

[8bitnes]

There’s always a theme with crap legislation…. Regular working man, everyday hunter gets screwed by bad politics like this. Rich dudes that lock up land (not knocking them one bit so don’t misunderstand) are immune to this madness. They won’t allow the masses to blast with rifles at 200-400 yards. I’ll be honest - I would never allow bunch of dudes access to do it on my land. So- they go to public or small parcels that been pounded all year - the last places that need more deer shot…. & blaze it up with rifles. Hunting quality on those parcels goes down further. Who gets hurt? The regular kid or dude that’s starting out or hunting public as it’s the only option. & legislation degrades those exact types of land while doing nothing for the large parcels that may actually have a lot of deer. Politicians &
Special interest mixing with hunting …. Who would have imagined they wouldn’t think through all this stuff with a bit of logic?!?!?

Money talks. Legislators are no longer servant leaders, but rather career politicians. Insurance companies and farm bureau donations have their hands so deep in their pockets that they just as well be puppets

 

[jflournoy]

You've got to find the deer on public in late season before you can shoot them. No easy task. I pulled several cameras from a few different areas of public yesterday morning. Had put them out just after 2nd shotgun season ended. A couple of them in one area had very few deer pics in that time, even at night. Guess they don't winter much in that area. Another spot I had a few more cams watching a small standing bean field (on public). Half a dozen hunters walked by my camera. Lots of deer pics, but 99% at night. Was glad to recognize several bucks from November that had at least made it through the 2 shotgun seasons already.

 

[Slick]

Guessing 50% to 75% of the bucks I get pictures of have shed more than usual from my experience at this time of year. Like Skip said you got 4 months to trim the does back if you want this season is stupid. But we all need MORE opportunity right?

 

[newfarmer]

Guessing 50% to 75% of the bucks I get pictures of have shed more than usual from my experience at this time of year. Like Skip said you got 4 months to trim the does back if you want this season is stupid. But we all need MORE opportunity right?

Yup- I’ve said it for years- I’m still against how youth tags can be used all year ONLY because it’s going to lead to tags used longer, tags extended, “oh you didn’t fill your tag by the 10th, here have until the 20th”. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for the youth getting opportunities but you still have to teach that there is an end, and there are times you won’t fill a tag as well. When I grew up it was- deer season is a treat, holiday like where you ignored other things to a certain extent. Now they are treating it simply like a mission to kill them all off.

 

[Windlooker]

I don’t get it. Somewhere someone is yelling loud enough about trimming numbers. I’ll say this year was our worst for seeing the number of deer. We were way down in SC Iowa. Not sure how far they’re gonna take this.

 

[jflournoy]

Given these are tags that were allotted from the beginning of hunting season in Fall of 2022, I don't have an issue with the late season in general, they're not "extra" tags. Unfortunately there will certainly be hunters who end up shooting shed bucks, but the only thing I can control there is for myself and my kids. My daughter passed up a shed buck last evening after I studied it through my binos and confirmed it was not a doe. There were a few other antlerless deer we saw last evening for just a minute or two, but it wasn't time enough to confirm for sure whether they were does or shed bucks so I didn't allow her to shoot. She ended up not getting a shot as a result because the wind switched and they bugged out. That's just hunting. Back out after them again this evening and hoping for better results.

 

[Muskrat24]

Can’t look down on people waiting till now to harvest does if there are tags available but too often it turns into a shooting gallery!! Witnessed it first hand back when rifles were first allowed. Big groups come in from all over the state to long range blast with rifles to get their rocks off and haul a heaping pickup load to the HUSH locker. From a management side of things harvesting does for herd management before rut makes more sense as you may be shooting a doe that was bred by a good genetic mature deer this time of year. Thus affecting future antler quality somewhere.

 

[hans1]

I just checked the online harvest and there has been 994 shed bucks shot. i was talking to a landowner in Wayne Co. Pretty experienced guy that owns multiple farms. He commented needs to shoot one more doe to make 3 total this gets him an extra buck tag for next year. Haven’t seen or heard this anywhere else. He would be in the Cwd zone.

 

[CurtisWalker]

I just checked the online harvest and there has been 994 shed bucks shot. i was talking to a landowner in Wayne Co. Pretty experienced guy that owns multiple farms. He commented needs to shoot one more doe to make 3 total this gets him an extra buck tag for next year. Haven’t seen or heard this anywhere else. He would be in the Cwd zone.

Maybe he’s doing an urban hunt somewhere that’s the only place I’ve seen that gives an extra tag.

994 is 77 shed bucks since the screenshot of the report on Jan 11th at 8pm


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[Ishi]

I just checked the online harvest and there has been 994 shed bucks shot. i was talking to a landowner in Wayne Co. Pretty experienced guy that owns multiple farms. He commented needs to shoot one more doe to make 3 total this gets him an extra buck tag for next year. Haven’t seen or heard this anywhere else. He would be in the Cwd zone.

Could this be tied to depredation tags?

 

[hans1]

i did some more research including some info from a helpful DNR person but I did find it. It’s called CWD incentive zone. Basically submit 3 female deer from these areas for testing and you get a extra either sex tag for the 2023 season.