The dirty side of whitetail hunting........

[CurtisWalker]

for sake of conversation why not lease? You said it yourself outfitters getting leases for super cheap. I was hooked at " Suoer Cheap" and needed to know more... i am far from a rich man and only been able to Primarily hunt Public land. but if its super cheap why not? Im confused now? Do Outfitters really get it for super cheap or were you ranting / venting? If you were just venting your dislike for Outfitters without facts i apoligize i asked.

Good Luck Hunting and God Bless....

He doesn't want leasing because soon all ground will be leased up and everyone will be having to pay.. We live in a place where good fashion door knocking will get you some great private properties you can hunt for free just takes a little bit of work a few months before the season.

 

[kodiak416]

You are correct. Outfitting displaces more local hunters due to leasing, than out of staters buying ground.

Where abouts in Iowa do you see this Outfitter Pressure? I am from the Waterloo / Cedar Falls area. So Central Iowa. is this a Southern Iowa Problem? Southern Iowa has been my only experience with Outfitters and alot of Leased land.

 

[kodiak416]

He doesn't want leasing because soon all ground will be leased up and everyone will be having to pay.. We live in a place where good fashion door knocking will get you some great private properties you can hunt for free just takes a little bit of work a few months before the season.

I understand that point of view and absolutly agree with you. Knocking on doors and talking to farmers will get you ground to hunt. ive just had bad luck with it though. Putting the time in to manage the existing herd over several years and you start getting bucks that are growing up. My experience was with a Dairy farmer, after three years he hired a new farm hand for milking. Farm hand also happened to shotgun. Nice farmer then gave him permission to hunt, he took a group through and shot everything that moved. alot of time and effort down the tube. its hard to get permission to hunt private ground, its impossible to get permission to hunt private ground for free and have the land ownertell everyone else that ask no. just my experiences in centeral iowa. May be different in other parts of the state...

 

[CurtisWalker]

I'm in Central Iowa and haven't had a problem farmers seem to give first come first serve. Have had three properties in a prime area that I have had access to and haven't had a problem with other people. Haven't paid a dime to hunt any of the properties. However I have told the farmers if they ever needed help around the farm to let me know. Have only had to bail hay once.

 

[kodiak416]

I'm in Central Iowa and haven't had a problem farmers seem to give first come first serve. Have had three properties in a prime area that I have had access to and haven't had a problem with other people. Haven't paid a dime to hunt any of the properties. However I have told the farmers if they ever needed help around the farm to let me know. Have only had to bail hay once.

There is hope then lol.. thank you for the advice...

 

[IowaChiro]

Where abouts in Iowa do you see this Outfitter Pressure? I am from the Waterloo / Cedar Falls area. So Central Iowa. is this a Southern Iowa Problem? Southern Iowa has been my only experience with Outfitters and alot of Leased land.

Southwest Iowa

 

[Altiman94]

Deer hunting is really a touchy subject here in IA. Honestly it's about the only animal (besides turkey) that people are willing to travel for to hunt. We no longer hardly have any pheasants. So what did the DNR do? Eliminate a good majority of our herd too. Might as well throw the biologists out the window because the QDMA philosophy they ran sure didn't work.

 

[Daver]

Deer hunting is really a touchy subject here in IA. Honestly it's about the only animal (besides turkey) that people are willing to travel for to hunt. We no longer hardly have any pheasants. So what did the DNR do? Eliminate a good majority of our herd too. Might as well throw the biologists out the window because the QDMA philosophy they ran sure didn't work.

Wow, I just responded to you in a separate thread and then read this...

Here it seems as though you are casting aspersions on the DNR, along with QDMA. Again, I urge you to become more informed prior to making blanket statements like these. It is well documented and understood by many, many people that the DNR is NOT the primary driver behind the very liberal harvest quotas of the past several years.

They(DNR) have actually recommended a reduced harvest but have been overridden by political interests at the highest levels of our state government. That is the short, short version. But in sum, to blame the DNR for the low deer numbers is to ignore many salient factors that are beyond their control and scope of influence.

I do not want to make this personal with you, but I really think we need to be better informed before making rash statements that may cause others to misunderstand the real issues and causes of the deer problems we are facing.

 

[Sligh1]

Governor Brandstad sided with insurance companies and put his executive order to use and over-ruled the DNR decisions on tag allocations & herd management recommendations.

For leasing, I don't do it but if a guy lives in an area, they will obviously hear of things and meet farmers who will lease land or give them permission. This would include "high price leases" and super good deals or hand shake permission. There's a huge spectrum. Outfitters generally find some good deals and run a ton of guys through and make a killing OR they also pay high dollar for the leases and again, run a ton of guys through and still do very well.

Personally, if a guy leased next to me and managed it well, ok, great. If an outfitter leased it and ran the guys through to make the cash (they have every right to do) - the ground would obviously be in very bad shape for management in the vast majority of cases, IMO. In that case, I'd simply face reality and put my assets, time, $ and management in a location where I have similar minded neighbors with similar goals & management.

 

[fletch920]

Deer hunting is really a touchy subject here in IA. Honestly it's about the only animal (besides turkey) that people are willing to travel for to hunt. We no longer hardly have any pheasants. So what did the DNR do? Eliminate a good majority of our herd too. Might as well throw the biologists out the window because the QDMA philosophy they ran sure didn't work.

The DNR has zero to do with it. If the DNR was allowed to do their job, we would still have a quality deer herd.

 

[Altiman94]

You are mis-understanding my comment and it was not 'rash' as you suggest. I understand fully how the tag quotas, etc work. What I am saying is the DNR waited much too long to suggest reduce #'s and it's my feeling that we never needed to over harvest our deer in the first place. You can hardly read anywhere that IA has better deer hunting now than it is did in the past. Isn't that the goal of the DNR? To manage our resources??

Harvesting more does did nothing but reduce the over all #'s of our herd. Most hunters prefer to actually see deer while hunting and if that means more does, so be it. Not everyone is after a huge buck. I would rather see our DNR manage for over all numbers.

It was many years ago that the DNR recommend we reduce our herd. You can read that directly on the iowa DNR site if you go thru the yearly harvest reports starting in about 2001. I've researched and seen the trend for many years. The DNR wanted our population to be near late 1990's levels...but we have a lot more hunters now than we had in the late 1990's. We need more deer to sustain those levels.

I understand that the .gov has the final say on #'s but what honestly where you expecting to happen?

(1) lose revenue with lower sales- nope
(2) not listen to insurance companies and farm bureau - nope
(3) listen to what the actual hunters have to say - nope

Well I guess that's 3 strikes. So before you all jump on on the bandwagon let's remember what got us into this mess. Hunters were jumping up and down crying because we had too many deer. I know we have alot of internet police on the forum just waiting to correct a statement but all my information is based on first hand experience hunting for many years.

And before you all respond with 'write your congress person'....I have...many times...and will continue to. I just personally feel that QDMA principles on a large scale along with the commercialization of hunting hurt the IA deer herd.

 

[fletch920]

You are mis-understanding my comment and it was not 'rash' as you suggest. I understand fully how the tag quotas, etc work. What I am saying is the DNR waited much too long to suggest reduce #'s and it's my feeling that we never needed to over harvest our deer in the first place. You can hardly read anywhere that IA has better deer hunting now than it is did in the past. Isn't that the goal of the DNR? To manage our resources??

Harvesting more does did nothing but reduce the over all #'s of our herd. Most hunters prefer to actually see deer while hunting and if that means more does, so be it. Not everyone is after a huge buck. I would rather see our DNR manage for over all numbers.

It was many years ago that the DNR recommend we reduce our herd. You can read that directly on the iowa DNR site if you go thru the yearly harvest reports starting in about 2001. I've researched and seen the trend for many years. The DNR wanted our population to be near late 1990's levels...but we have a lot more hunters now than we had in the late 1990's. We need more deer to sustain those levels.

I understand that the .gov has the final say on #'s but what honestly where you expecting to happen?

(1) lose revenue with lower sales- nope
(2) not listen to insurance companies and farm bureau - nope
(3) listen to what the actual hunters have to say - nope

Well I guess that's 3 strikes. So before you all jump on on the bandwagon let's remember what got us into this mess. Hunters were jumping up and down crying because we had too many deer. I know we have alot of internet police on the forum just waiting to correct a statement but all my information is based on first hand experience hunting for many years.

And before you all respond with 'write your congress person'....I have...many times...and will continue to. I just personally feel that QDMA principles on a large scale along with the commercialization of hunting hurt the IA deer herd.

Of course the DNR wanted to lower the herd numbers. They were way too high. Far too much crop damage and far too many auto/deer accidents. Only the most stubborn will not admit to this. The DNR began a program to lower the numbers. The obvious way to do this is by harvesting more does. It was effective and well though out. Implemented by county so it could be closely monitored and tweaked as needed. Where the whole thing fell apart is when the DNR lost the ability to implement a well designed plan.

 

[Altiman94]

What evidence do u have of more car deer accidents in IA? All the data Ive read shows a flat trend only increasing with more miles driven. We also have depredation tags that could have been used for crop damage. So sure...I can argue against that.

 

[fletch920]

What evidence do u have of more car deer accidents in IA? All the data Ive read shows a flat trend only increasing with more miles driven. We also have depredation tags that could have been used for crop damage. So sure...I can argue against that.

I have been in the auto insurance industry for 24 years. I can guarantee you that as deer numbers increased, so did auto/deer accidents. The number of claims the last few years has decreased as the deer population was brought under control.

Depredation tags are not suited well to controlling a states deer herd. Many farmers were so fed up with the huge number of deer we had for a while that they were taking matters into their own hands. Not pretty, but I certainly cant blame them. Depredation tags are a crutch.

 

[Sligh1]

No science or proof on the deer collisions but coming from one Joe Schmo who drives lots of miles on 35 everyday... I see WAY WAY WAY less dead deer than 5 years ago. My non-scientific observation, I'd guess I see 80-90% less dead deer and of course my eyes keep a pretty close watch on that over the years. It's WAY DOWN. Good for drivers even though statistically - very few folks are killed or seriously injured in wrecks - really crappy for hunters & nature on the whole.

 

[Sligh1]

Deer–vehicle collisions lead to about 200 human deaths and $1.1 billion in property damage every year

That's some random data I found. NATIONWIDE.

2010 in the United States (latest figures available), including an estimated 10,228 people who died in drunk driving crashes. drunk driving costs the United States more than $132 billion each year

Pool drownings - Each year, approximately 1,150 children ages 14 and under/ more than half are preschoolers (ages 0-4).

Considering all these are very widespread: 35 million deer in the country, drunken drivers on almost every street at times & pools across our country - I honestly think the deer collision thing is LOW HANGING FRUIT that's simply gone after by insurance companies to save a few dollars. It's far less impactful than a million other/worse things out there we all face daily. The costs are honestly very small if you really start to look at the costs of anything in our economy on a wide scale. I honestly do not believe it's really about safety, I think it's insurance companies saving a few dollars and some emotional angry farmers screaming when they easily could take their efforts to something far more important.

 

[Jdubs]

I've lived in rural areas my entire life, hunt a lot, drive country roads a ton and have never hit a deer. Low hanging fruit is correct Sligh. Been driving 31 years by the way.

 

[Altiman94]

That's some random data I found. NATIONWIDE.







Considering all these are very widespread: 35 million deer in the country, drunken drivers on almost every street at times & pools across our country - I honestly think the deer collision thing is LOW HANGING FRUIT that's simply gone after by insurance companies to save a few dollars. It's far less impactful than a million other/worse things out there we all face daily. The costs are honestly very small if you really start to look at the costs of anything in our economy on a wide scale. I honestly do not believe it's really about safety, I think it's insurance companies saving a few dollars and some emotional angry farmers screaming when they easily could take their efforts to something far more important.

I agree and you said it much better than I did. There are alot more accidents every day attributed to solely poor driving (and drinking of course) than there ever will be car/deer accidents. It's just something the insurance companies gripe about since it lowers their profits. I think I read 8 people died due to car/deer accidents. Every one of those a trajedy but way more people died to other reasons as well....i.e. not a reason to eliminate our deer herd.

We never did need doe tags available on public land---they should have been valid on private only. There are enough people hunting public land + we dont have that much of it that we never needed more tags available. That was a big error on the part of the DNR's 'management' of our herd.

 

[Jdubs]

Fletch, are you solely in the auto insurance industry or the insurance industry? Most agents, claim reps, adjusters, etc. deal with auto insurance, residential and commercial insurance, etc. Just wondering exactly what you do for the insurance industry?

 

[fletch920]

Just found this.....

Interestingly, the number of miles driven by U.S. motorists, according to State Farm, has grown only 2 percent in the past five years ... while the number of deer/car smacks has surged 20 percent. From July 1, 2008 to June 30, 2010, there were approximately 2.3 million collisions between deer and vehicles. The average cost for an incident was $3,013


Also remember that the average cost per claim has continued to go up. I have seen a lot of car/deer claims exceed $7,000.