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wondering: declining deer #'s, so why the rifle season

Liveinbarn

Liveinbarn

New Member
if deer numbers have been declining since something like 2003, then what was the point of adding the centerfire seasons. When now so many people are talking numbers too low now? I know those seasons are gone now, but why make them in the first place?
 
So, I think the sentiment on "fixing" Iowa's deer herd back then was "Farm Bureau" and many others (in all fairness) pushed extremely hard we had too many deer. Being neutral on that part, yes, we did have the most deer we've ever had at one point back then. But, it was good hunting back then, no doubt.
Everyone thought of a "KNEE JERK REACTION" to throw a wrench in our system. Like most regulation changes, it was SHORT SIGHTED. I'll make this short (and not explain everything I think I witnessed & reasoning & my opinion) but it was meant to be a short season and "short fix" to just be temporary. It was supposed to be 2 years or so. Well, once they got the foot in the door, forces like FB, lobbyists, etc twisted Governor's arm to make it stay. When DNR and hunters said "areas have been decimated". FINALLY... FINALLY we all got together with evidence on our side and finally got off our butts in # to voice up that we were going down a very bad path and many areas were decimated. FB took it way too far and we had to stop the insanity. We won. Season was FINALLY ended this year.
Another example of a "short sighted" & "good idea" folks don't think through all the ramifications down the road. **Kinda like crossbow proposition we'll eventually be fighting. Many will knee jerk jump on that bandwagon and 5 years later realize what it did to the hunting after they feel all the ripple effects. Which yes, will be different, stuff like (IN MY OPINION): far worse access to ground, deer quality, crowded bow hunting, fewer mature bucks, easier killing in higher #'s during bow season, etc, etc, etc. Who knows all the ripples really?! Ok, sorry on the swayed direction. But, yes, we will constantly have to fight special interest Lobbyists, companies, politicians where $ is to be gained or highly involved & our deer herd quality or your hunting experinece is not part of the equation at all.
 
Dead on Sligh. While I am a member and support the NRA, they were behind this legislation as well. One of the few NRA moves I do not support.

And just an FYI, The Abate of Iowa is another group that lobbies to remove all deer. I am a Harley rider but do not support the Abates kill all the deer agenda. IMO unlicensed, unlighted farm machinery and cell phones are a bigger threat to motorcyclists but hard to convince them.
 
Way back when. More than anyone, we were pushing this too. Shoot more does. Shoot more does. Shoot more does.
 
150 Class said:
Way back when. More than anyone, we were pushing this too. Shoot more does. Shoot more does. Shoot more does.
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Correct! I agree 100%. Here's where the problem came.... So, for example, in southern iowa, a guy has a 500 acre neighbor, a 300 acre neighbor and owns 180 acres himself. All managed and high deer #'s..... Well, we had vast pockets like that with high #'s. BUT, we blanketed the WHOLE STATE with "kill all the does" with a minimum of increasing doe tag allocations for almost all counties. The upper 2/3rd's of state that had "healthy #'s" when folks wanted war on deer - well those areas were full of 80 acre parcels, 40's, 160's, etc & much less timber, far easier to kill off a herd of deer, easy to hunt and kill. Well, in droves, the areas with many hunters and easy hunting did what might have been considered obvious (but it wasn't to many and not thought through).... They "killed everything off" (at least really rampaged most the state). So, the "everyday guy" was the one that felt the ripples that really came from as a result of pockets of big landowners or areas with vast cover. So yes, it was short sighted. Probably could have still "kill all the does!!!!!!" like you said... IF.... IF we didn't add the rifle season, that was too much for the herd to handle on top of "kill all the does" during regular season.
The guys who didn't suffer and never will.... The "I own 400 acres" guys. They will say "screw that, I'm not blasting the heck out of every deer on my farm, no thank you DNR & Farm Bureau, don't need your help or advice" and they kept much healthier amounts. It's always going to be the "little guy" and everyday hunter that is hurt far worse when regulation change takes place that ripples in a bad way. We enact crossbows during archery for example, you think the guys out hunting by permission on 40's & 80's with other hunters on shared land will be impacted OR the guys with 400 acres???? Iowa hunters & citizens hopefully have learned a valuable lesson in the last 5 years - short sighted regulation changes can do immense harm and rippling of damage and we need to quit screwing with our regulations and constantly throwing monkey wrenches into a good system.
 
Liveinbarn said:
if deer numbers have been declining since something like 2003, then what was the point of adding the centerfire seasons. When now so many people are talking numbers too low now? I know those seasons are gone now, but why make them in the first place?
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In a nutshell, population reduction efforts brought them. Pockets and many other things along with our ignorance contributed to this. Remember the days not too long ago when very few of us had either sex tags? A few of us drew them when we applied for tags (yep, no over the counter tags for the 2 gun seasons, and most of us received "antlered only" tags), and there was no such thing as an "antlerless only" tag. The deer population grew and grew. Step by step we put things in place to reduce the deer population and the people of Iowa kept asking for more until drastic measures, such as November and late seasons were introduced, and then rifles allowed in part of the state during the late season. That there is what made them in the 1st place. Hindsight might tell us this was a mistake.
 
madplotter said:
Dead on Sligh. While I am a member and support the NRA, they were behind this legislation as well. One of the few NRA moves I do not support.

And just an FYI, The Abate of Iowa is another group that lobbies to remove all deer. I am a Harley rider but do not support the Abates kill all the deer agenda. IMO unlicensed, unlighted farm machinery and cell phones are a bigger threat to motorcyclists but hard to convince them.
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I know festivus was yesterday but I'm still in the festivus spirit.

The NRA did have some push on this under the guise of expanded weapon choice. I'm an NRA Life Member and it pains me to say that I fully expect a push by the NRA and other groups to expand the use of high power rifles into shotgun seasons and perhaps even late muzzle loader season. All in the name of expanded hunting opportunities. Look at what is going on in Indiana right now. They started with high power rifles with straight casings and now someone is pushing expanding to anything over .243.

As far as ABATE, I'm not a member but I am a motorcycle rider. ABATE has pushed for several years now that any deer is a deer that should be dead. They also push the "loud pipes save lives" line of BS. Where do they stand on helmet usage? I wonder which saves more lives, loud pipes or a skid lid?

Beware the "expanded hunting opportunities" ploy. It took us several years but we finally did get the late antlerless season stopped. Whether an arrow gun or high power rifle, think of the future. Todays "expanded hunting opportunities" are tomorrow's disasters.

Whew, I feel better. Now I'm going to take down the aluminum pole and try to recover from yesterday's feat of strength.
 
I could be off on my dates(years) and recollections, but I think the deer population was still very stout in 2007 and 2008 yet. But at any rate, it is very hard for the state to properly regulate an activity such as deer hunting from a statewide viewpoint. There are just so MANY variables in play, it is tough to come up with rules that fit all of those situations.

I think that by and large hunters were slow to react when the state(Dale Garner of the IDNR in particular) was virtually begging hunters to shoot more deer or else the political pressures were going to overtake the situation. That is about what happened then too if you ask me. Mr. Garner, and others like Tim Litchfield, deserve credit in my book for trying to avoid the big swoon we ultimately saw.

Then out came the late, late season, including rifles in some counties, the November doe season, the Christmas season and LOTS of additional antlerless tags. An overreaction IMO, but then the hunters went on a spree for a few years and then were shocked when the deer numbers plummeted. (Granted, a very widespread and severe EHD outbreak in two consecutive years didn't help the population decline.)

I don't think the use of rifles per se was the big culprit, I think the zillions of additional antlerless tags combined with the additional hunting days in January were more damaging. Let's face it, the average semi-regular poster on IW is NOT the average Iowa deer hunter.

The average Iowa deer hunter will fill, or try to, all of the tags that they can get. For many, there is not much thought behind the decision to pull the trigger, in terms of what this means to future populations. For those areas where there is active management...many of those areas are not suffering the same "deer drought" for no other reason than they did not buy into the "kill 'em all" approach over the past 4-8 years.
 
Fishbonker said:
Beware the "expanded hunting opportunities" ploy. It took us several years but we finally did get the late antlerless season stopped. Whether an arrow gun or high power rifle, think of the future. Todays "expanded hunting opportunities" are tomorrow's disasters.
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EXACTLY!!!! BINGO!!! I hope folks read this, think about what has happened in last 5 years and learn. Excellent post!
Fishbonker, did you finish with fighting or wrestling a family member after you told them all the things they did this year that disappointed you about them?
 
Richard Bishop and Al Farris of the DNR also had a lot to do with the start of the rifle season.
 
Sligh1 said:
Fishbonker, did you finish with fighting or wrestling a family member after you told them all the things they did this year that disappointed you about them?
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Helllloooooo, what do you think I used the aluminum pole for? It's a little bent up now but it still fits on its stand. Next year I'll have to bolt the pole to the base and secure the base to the floor so they can't use it on me.
 
you posted in2011 about ignorant people. when you make a general comment about farmers and fat wallets I think you may fall in that category yourself I'm a farmer and a hunter and am tired of hunters steotypeing farmers like this.
 
johndeere said:
you posted in2011 about ignorant people. when you make a general comment about farmers and fat wallets I think you may fall in that category yourself I'm a farmer and a hunter and am tired of hunters steotypeing farmers like this.
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Not sure who your post is referring to, but the people that were at fault for the decline in our deer herd are the hunters. They were the ones out shooting the deer. This post was in reference to the expanding of seasons which led to the over harvest. There are many sources of fault for the extra doe tags, Holiday doe season, late late antlerless season. But the blame of over harvest lies solely on the shoulders of the hunters (EHD certainly didn't help in some areas)
 
The numbers will rebound quickly and when they do, we will face another antlerless season. Hopefully they are giving that some thought now and will inject a little moderation and timing into their plan.
 
When the rifle season started I viewed it as a good thing it allowed me to do the doe management much more effectively. At this point was a firm believer in trying to keep a low buck to doe ratio. We shot does in these years like crazy still believing we will never get on top of the population. About 2010 I noticed we had made a difference and started to back off. Then came 2012 and 2013 and I realized the error of my ways in thinking I was solely in control of the herd Mother Nature is still in charge. The addition of rifles also had the un known consequence of attracting people to that season who had no management goals in mind and treated the deer in the southern tier county's like live target practice. The rifles need to stay gone but there is going to be a need for continued doe harvest in the future.
 
What our DNR should be embarrassed about it the over emphasis of the "management" of our natural resource and not understanding that nature plays a part in the ecological balance of wildlife. In the late 90's and early 2000's deer numbers were at their peak and deer had relatively low predator numbers and hadn't encountered a catastrophic drought which in turn causes EHD. Nature responded with high coyote numbers and the eventual happened with the droughts of 2012 and 2013. A perfect storm for killing off deer. Couple that with the mismanagement by our DNR and now we are where we are at now.

I agree that our herd will rebound but I disagree that it will rebound quickly. We have a much bigger predator issue than we did when our deer herd first got big. I know on the farms I hunt in southern Iowa, most of the fawns are being taken by coyotes in the springtime. I used to see does with 2 or 3 fawns, and now if you see a doe with a fawn on a trail camera, its a very good thing.

The elimination of the rifle season is probably the best thing the DNR could do at this point. It will decrease doe harvest and increase trophy potential since shed bucks will be able to make to the next year. Serious deer hunters need to step up and do their part in predator control with a combination of trapping and hunting. Plus, its about as fun of hunting as you'll find. Lay off shooting does until you see big groups of them again in the early season...not late season...they herd up naturally late and some may have a misperception of deer numbers. The rest is in the hands of mother nature...hopefully no more epic droughts for at least a decade.

I'm going to go out a couple of times late muzzleloader this year in search of a nice buck but I'm really looking forward to slaughtering some coyotes. :)
 
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