The Gov and Drury's together ??

[buckeye]

Even with the amount of doe tags available...it's up to US (hunters) to do what we feel needs to be done. In this case, it's shoot fewer does and pass the smaller bucks. The DNR has already asked us to do this and if the .gov decides not to lower the amount of doe tags availabile then we need to limit the # of deer shot.

I know it's hard b/c we all enjoy the meat, but it'd be horrible to not see any deer the next season.

I dont know how to say this without sounding kinda judgemental and Im really not judging, just stating a fact so take it for what its worth.The DNR sent me a lotta data actually when i addressed them about the population and harvest trends that backs this up.

A lotta people are like myself, bowhunting and late season muzzleloading make it fairly easy to be patient and selective about what you kill, there failrly long seasons and bow season occurs during the rut when bucks are pretty vulnerable and easier to kill.

But the largest percent of the harvest occurs during the 2 shotgun seasons.They are short, damn short if you have a job and only get to hunt that weekend.Thats also when the majority of people that do only hunt for a couple days a year go out.Many of them just want to kill a deer, dont have any idea what the population is, and with just days to hunt they dont have the luxury of being picky.They may only hunt 3 or 4 days during the year for deer and they are going to take advantage of any shot offered.In short you have a lotta one weekend a year deer hunters out duruing this time frame who just want to kill something.Theyre not worried about the health of the herd, the population, the maturity of the deer, etc...

Problem now is the less deer we have the less picky this segment of hunters becomes.

 

[loneranger]

You are correct,,,but you don't want to go judging another group of deer hunters do you? I guess maybe I did. I know,,,there are many picky gun hunters too. Majority? Maybe not.

 

[JOSHBRNDT]

I think its great that the governor is a hunter. The one thing that I don't agree with is him hunting with out of state landowner's.
One thing that I've taken from this year is that the deer heard is drastically down. Granted the gov't allowed us to buy all of these doe tags but it is basically on the shoulders of us the hunters to control the population. We don't have to shoot the does, we don't have to buy the tags, but we do. I've killed my share of does and now looking back on it, I'm re-thinking my decision. Kill responsibly just because you can buy 20 tags doesn't mean you have to kill that many does. We are hurting the population by paying the tag prices and killing the baby makers. The DNR will continue to issue all of the tags as long as the hunter's are willing to buy them. There won't be any deer population if the slaughter continues. We need to quit blaming the gov't and start looking at ourselves the average hunter. Why kill a doe to send them to the HUSH program, I harvest deer to feed my family. If we want the deer herd to come back, we the HUNTER, must make better decisions about killing all of the does. Its time take a little bit of the blame and quit blaming others.

 

[loneranger]

I believe most persons on this site do harvest responsibly. Preaching to the choir. It's all those we can't speak to I am concerned about.