To piggyback...most mismanaged state for whitetails
- Thread starter Howboutthemdawgs
- Start date
bwoods11
5 year old buck +
So it’s all good? No faults
Peplin Creek
5 year old buck +
Wait.. so you’re saying I’m not qualified? I’ve watched enough of THE Crush... to know everything.
bigeight
5 year old buck +
I always think MI has to be up there. Our hunter numbers USE to be a lot higher making it a a fairer claim. When it was closer to 700k hunters, 2 buck tags, 5 doe tags, gun hunting starting at the peak of the rut, followed by Muzzleloader season pushing it to almost 45 straight days of gun pressure....the numbers have dropped, but the regulations have stayed the same.
I always THINK that, then think of the states that allow hunting with dogs and it makes me change my thoughts. Just seems like such a ridiculous situation to allow. Shooting at running deer knowing full well those are less than perfect shots for placement purposes, as well as not knowing exactly what you are shooting at. What age buck ? Size? Doe or button buck, doe fawn ? Etc...
I guess I cant get passed that enough to make the case for MI anymore !
I always THINK that, then think of the states that allow hunting with dogs and it makes me change my thoughts. Just seems like such a ridiculous situation to allow. Shooting at running deer knowing full well those are less than perfect shots for placement purposes, as well as not knowing exactly what you are shooting at. What age buck ? Size? Doe or button buck, doe fawn ? Etc...
I guess I cant get passed that enough to make the case for MI anymore !
Natty Bumppo
5 year old buck +
Fair enough, but most certainly hyperbolic. There are also guys, many here on this forum, who have decades of experience hunting their neck of the woods. They have seen decades of changes...changes to deer populations, to hunting laws, to the numbers of hunters in the woods each year, to the spread of diseases, to changes to the forest. There are guys who have managed parcels of land for years, who spend every waking minute thinking about deer hunting and habitat management...who know every square inch of their land and how deer react and move through it. There are guys with degrees in wildlife biology and management, forestry, conservation, etc...guys who understand the complicated principles of whitetail management beyond just the "Youtube" stuff of which you speak.
Personally, I think there is a wealth of information here on this forum based on experience, education, and hard work. And I trust it. Sure, you have to weed out the "weekend warriors" and the "Youtube" guys who think they know it all. But isn't that every forum you've ever been on?
With that said, I do think my state of Mass. terribly mismanages the zone in which I hunt. My zone is a cold, mountainous, snowy zone with no ag and little mast and maturing big woods. We have a DPSM of about 7 to 9...yet they allow almost 2 and a half months of deer hunting. It's insane. Instead of subdividing my neck of the woods into a sub-zone with very different limits and season lengths that reflect it's uniqueness compared to the rest of the state, it's managed like Cape Cod where they push 40 DPSM.
I would respectfully counter this. The one-buck limit is a real advantage compared to other states (I'll get to that). As for the doe bonus quotas, dig deeper into the harvest data. Virtually no hunters leverage the upper end of those quotas so they are effectively meaningless.
I've hunted deer in Indiana 15 years, came from Michigan with 12 years experience there. A few years experience in Montana and Wyoming as well. I think Indiana actually has it pretty good. The one-buck limit keeps people from shooting the first antlers they see and actually think about what they want. They have generous antlerless quotas to allow the few hunters who actually are meat hunters to help keep the population balanced. In the counties I have hunted, it is other factors -- disease, crops -- which have a more meaningful impact on the overall population than hunting.
I will contrast this with Michigan. Two-buck rule, much more restricted antlerless availability. In my experience virtually every hunter shoots the first antlers they see, then waits for "the big one". So there is heavy attrition of young bucks and it is much harder to get big bucks. Now I don't believe in point restrictions, I think everyone should get to decide what is a trophy to them. But with the two-buck rule it guarantees a large share of young bucks will get killed. Here in Indiana this year I passed on multiple really big 6pt bucks because I knew a number of 8-12pt bucks frequented the property. In MI I would have dropped the 6pt then waited for the "big one". And in MI they have higher restrictions on antlerless, I've never seen a higher deer concentration than where my parents still live. They are like rats and car-deer collisions are insanely high. They eat crops within 100yds of forest down to the dirt, and all underbrush 6ft or below in the forest, and we can't get a crop damage permit. Yet they ban baiting to try and stop deer from getting close together and spreading disease. It's insane.
Dukslayr
5 year old buck +
I’ve hunted hunted KS a couple times and own a farm in Missouri. Those the only two states I’ve whitetail hunted in. For years and years I’ve been frustrated with the Missouri Department of Conversation for many reasons. The department has changed a lot over the last 20 years. Anyway, after reading these posts it appears there are plenty of stages that have it worse than us. I do, however, think Missouri could transform from a “good” state to hunt to an outstanding state to hunt if they made a few reg changes (reduced buck limit to 1 all seasons, move rifle season to the second rut and not the heart of November rut, change out of state license process/fees...and a couple other things regarding CWD policies). That being said I’ll take what we have compared to some of what I’m seeing here.
swat1018
5 year old buck +
Be patient, your area is on the way to the crapper too. Indiana reacts too slowly. 50+ deer use to yard up in my neighborhood in the winter. Now lucky to see 8.
In the 90's , one farm I am associated with had 35+ does in 3 groups that shared a 100+ acre corn-stalk-field almost every night (sometimes on what seemed like a rotating basis among the groups. Now you'd be hard pressed to find more than 4-5 does in the same field on any given night. And IL just finished the shotgun season with the smallest harvest since 1991.
Chainsaw
5 year old buck +
Crazy deer numbers like 100 per square mile though unsustainable sure were a lot of fun. And still, most hunters were reluctant to shoot does in our part of the northern NY World.The hunters thinking the professional, deer management experts(DEC) were allowing Political bias to sway their deer management thinking did not trust the deer management experts who regulated in the shooting of does. Thus the deer population continued to spiral out of control and the deer management experts gave out more and more doe tags. And then suddenly seemingly on the same day of the same year everyone started shooting does In earnest. It was the correct action by the deer management experts and “everyone” as well but it was too late. Wood lots had already mostly transformed into monocultures of invasive Plants which had almost completely replaced the valuable diversity of what once was a deer Shangri-La. The damage to the landscape had already been done. And trust in the Deer management programs was shattered as in some cases politics had indeed begun to sway and control the deer management regulations.
Some properties by design or dumb luck are in the property rebuilding stage while other properties are still getting worse and are to the point that even five deer per square mile may be too many for those properties to support. For those of us that can see this as plain as day it is our charge to help other hunters and landowners see and understand what has actually happened and what needs to be done to fix the broken wood lots at least in this area.
Some properties by design or dumb luck are in the property rebuilding stage while other properties are still getting worse and are to the point that even five deer per square mile may be too many for those properties to support. For those of us that can see this as plain as day it is our charge to help other hunters and landowners see and understand what has actually happened and what needs to be done to fix the broken wood lots at least in this area.
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Jrozzi16
5 year old buck +
I couldn’t disagree more, you are an exception to passing on young deer. Our neighbors Ohio, KY and IL all produce more Boone and Crockett deer every year when the habitat is the exact same in IN. It’s as simple less deer not reaching 5+ years of age due the firearms seasons being too long and the wrong time of the season. The deer in Indiana have no chance to mature. To piggy back further on you being the exception to passing young deer just look at the numbers like 2/3 of Indiana’s harvest is opening weekend of gun season then nearly the rest of it the following weekend. No one is passing anything during gun.
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You just said too long of a season is to blame, but in the same comment stated most deer are shot opening weekend. These statement are in direct conflict with each other. By your logic a 2-day season would result in about the same outcome.
”No one is passing on anything during gun”. This hyperbolic statement is demonstrably false and not useful or helpful in a reasonable conversation.
We can share perspectives from different areas and experiences without reducing it to these sort of statements. There is not a right or wrong here. Im not sure I have ever seen a hunter say their state does an awesome job and they have an amazing deer herd. People point to states with high trophy numbers but those are still rare deer rolled up to the state level. At the individual hunter level people in those areas still complain they don’t see the deer.
Jrozzi16
5 year old buck +
These sort of statements ??? Did I hurt someone’s feelings ? I said you were the exception to passing on young deer in Indiana I was commending you for passing on young deer....I disagreed whole heartedly about Indiana being managed properly. Last time I checked these discussions were full of agreements and disagreements I didn’t realize I was breaking a rule. I definitely wasn’t disrespecting anyone....
Let me simplify it for you since you clearly don’t understand, also I don’t need you telling me what is useful in my posts DAD.
To clarify most of the deer are being taken on opening weekend of gun which comes when the mature bucks (let alone younger bucks) are most vulnerable then the other 5 weeks is just clean up for what didn’t get killed. It’s in the WRONG time of the year and it’s too long. You take away one or the other and it’s going to help I promise you. As I said before look at OH and IL gun seasons come in later and are shorter and they produce more mature deer year after year.
Both of my “conflicting” comments are problems in Indiana fixing one or the other will only help manage the herd. Obviously it’s fair to say one problem could be worse than the other which I think is the time gun season comes in then compound that with the length of it and we are back to my original statement of deer have no chance to mature in IN.
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Bill
Administrator
I hear you. My head was spinning just looking at it all...
AtomApple
5 year old buck +
A lot of valid points here.
In MN, they have gun season basically during rut, with no antler restriction for most of the state. So like said above, the deer are vulnerable and taken too easy, not a lot of bucks left to mature.
In WI, they have gun season after MN, maybe too late, could be a reason for high deer density. High density, CWD, and a tradition of baiting was probably not good management by the state.
MI, has the highest hunter density (according to the scent lok guy), yet they allow 2 bucks. Like said above, most will shoot the 1st thing they see, so not many mature deer.
I hear a lot about declining hunter numbers, while also hearing about over crowding and no places to hunt....
In MN, they have gun season basically during rut, with no antler restriction for most of the state. So like said above, the deer are vulnerable and taken too easy, not a lot of bucks left to mature.
In WI, they have gun season after MN, maybe too late, could be a reason for high deer density. High density, CWD, and a tradition of baiting was probably not good management by the state.
MI, has the highest hunter density (according to the scent lok guy), yet they allow 2 bucks. Like said above, most will shoot the 1st thing they see, so not many mature deer.
I hear a lot about declining hunter numbers, while also hearing about over crowding and no places to hunt....