Dealing with Early antlerless Seasons and Intensive Harvest in Minnesota

[sandbur]

I would like to gather some ideas/modifications on this problem area for us.


Suggestion for areas free of contagious disease in our deer herd.

Early Antlerless seasons and Intensive Harvest should only be used on private land. Areas can be designated on a per section (one mile by one mile) basis by 2/3 of the landowners possessing 20 acres submitting a signed request to their Regional Area Manager.

Approval by the Regional or Area Wildlife Manager is needed and season will be held during the traditional fall hunting seasons.

All Intensive Harvest or Early Antlerless tags must have a signature on the back from the landowner or landowners where the tag(s) is/are valid.

 

[sandbur]

Modify it, offer better suggestions, good or bad????

 

[bueller]

I hate the early firearm seasons! I hate the early firearm seasons! Did I mention that I hated the early anterless seasons when we had them in WI? Lots of young bucks were dropped on accident and left to rot. Does were over harvested. The regular seasons later in the year sucked because the deer were in a spooky mood prior to the traditional opening morning. Did I mention that I hate the early firearm seasons? I would rather see unlimited antlerless tags during the regular season vs an early firearm hunt.

 

[sandbur]

I hate the early firearm seasons! I hate the early firearm seasons! Did I mention that I hated the early anterless seasons when we had them in WI? Lots of young bucks were dropped on accident and left to rot. Does were over harvested. The regular seasons later in the year sucked because the deer were in a spooky mood prior to the traditional opening morning. Did I mention that I hate the early firearm seasons? I would rather see unlimited antlerless tags during the regular season vs an early firearm hunt.

I don't like the early antlerless season for the same reason. Intensive harvest tags were for use during any of the regular seasons-bow, firearms, or mzle.

However, if landowners want the early antlerless season , their hunting experiences later in the year will suffer.

Perhaops any early (special) season should be dropped?

 

[bat man]

What are you doing? You want to create a loophole for guys to get more doe tags?

 

[SD51555]

No on all of it. 1 guy, 1 deer, 1 gun season. Its hard enough with spouse and kid tags. Maybe I know the most unethical people on earth, or maybe it's a representative sample of the broader population.

 

[Freeborn]

Can you quantify the risk, are you anticipating a problem? Seems like we are so far away from this that we would have to experience a huge change before we need to worry about such high concentrations. I agree with the others, lets nail down a method to improve the deer herd before we make up problems that don't exsist.

If we get to 40 DPSM then we can start to worry about this.

 

[sandbur]

I am very surprised at the above three replies-no offense, guys.

I am trying to find a way to handle hot spots of high deer numbers without blanketing the whole dmu with 5,6, 7, or 8 doe tags. The state will want some way of handling these areas.

Brooks- you and I have discussed some of the people who served on the stakeholder teams and who blocked consensus for a dmu in our block. I don't want more doe tags, I want excess doe tags targeted for only smaller areas.

Jerry-problem areas do exist. The city of Lakeshore on the north end of Gull Lake has been complaining and wants more doe tags.
Five doe tags in that whole dmu would be devastating.

There are a very few, small localized other hotspots.

Chris-What do you do for the farmer who has 20- 40 deer in his silage pile year after year and is in a lottery area where he can not get a doe tag? The rest of the dmu is very low on deer numbers and does not need excess doe tags at all.

I'm just looking for ideas on how to handle hotspots and not spread these excess doe tags across the whole zone.

This idea would make the landowner who is concerned about too many deer to go out and build consensus with the neighboring landowners. He would have to do some leg work instead of just going to the area manager and complaining about too many deer.

 

[sandbur]

Please note that I said Intensive Harvest Permits and Early Antlerless can ONLY be used on private land and ONLY in areas where the landowners have done the legwork with neighbors. The permits would ONLY be valid with a signature of the landowner.

I am open to other suggestions on how to reduce use of these excess tags across the whole dmu. Somehow we need to limit their use.

 

[sandbur]

How about none the first 2 years......

I think you have got that right, John!

 

[sandbur]

The model being used in SE MN to deal with farm depredation complaints needs to be expanded to the rest of the state. Problem solved

I need to learn more about that model. Do you have a link?

I know they have some extra people hired to work on the complaint areas. That is why I keep pushing on the audit including an evaluation of how much of the deer hunter's dollar is spent on deer management.

 

[sandbur]

$$$$ would be my guess

Let's see how many of our dollars are spent on prairie chicken hunts, wolf monitoring, fish programs, moose study, elk herd monitoring and feeding, quail recovery plan..

did you see a whitetail plan in the above list?

 

[bat man]

You accurately estimate the numbers and quantify damage. You dont have farmers tell you when there are too many deer and give them tags. Never.

 

[bat man]

And why was (farm depredation program) not changed to state wide? Would only make sense.

Merchant claimed it will roll statewide this year. But he has flat out lied to me several times.

 

[leexrayshady]

Here is an article Art, not sure if it helps or just muddys the water

http://www.winonadailynews.com/news...cle_d12ff892-496a-11e1-963d-0019bb2963f4.html

"Altura farmer Bob Marg estimates that over the past three years, he's lost about $3,800 to deer eating his crops" $1266/yr and Im sure it was just the deer to :confused:

 

[bat man]

Bob Marge is the Brooks Johnson of SE MN farm squawkers. He has a bill authored this year that goes further than Art proposed. 5 tags if you have 80 acres ag with any deer damage. Bad deal but the guys down SE where it may become pilot are not too concerned.

 

[West Branch]

Here is an article Art, not sure if it helps or just muddys the water

http://www.winonadailynews.com/news...cle_d12ff892-496a-11e1-963d-0019bb2963f4.html

"Altura farmer Bob Marg estimates that over the past three years, he's lost about $3,800 to deer eating his crops" $1266/yr and Im sure it was just the deer to :confused:

Other articles say that he has 145 acres of tillable land. So $8/acre. There are probably a lot of other farming practices that he is doing that impact his bottom line a helluva lot more.

 

[SD51555]

I am very surprised at the above three replies-no offense, guys.

I am trying to find a way to handle hot spots of high deer numbers without blanketing the whole dmu with 5,6, 7, or 8 doe tags. The state will want some way of handling these areas.

Chris-What do you do for the farmer who has 20- 40 deer in his silage pile year after year and is in a lottery area where he can not get a doe tag? The rest of the dmu is very low on deer numbers and does not need excess doe tags at all.

No worries Art. I misunderstood your original intent. I'm all for farmers being able to stand up for themselves. Deer, bear, wolf, seagulls behind the plow, farmer should be able to protect their stuff. There should be a dividing line between protecting your interests and carrying out a war on a critter, directed by a game warden. The smaller and more controlled the extraction, the better.

 

[bwoods11]

Landowner doe tags.

Issued in counties that have good deer numbers. No restrictions on them such as you must allow public hunting, landowner may use the tag on his farm only.

 

[sandbur]

Thanks, guys for the links and info.

IF this program does not go statewide or at least through out the ag belt, I could see one local manager quickly going back to excess doe permits in 221. Four or five big complainers and the whole unit might be back there.