Wis. Deer Audit-=Opinions?
- Thread starter sandbur
- Start date
D
dipper
Guest
What did I miss? I think they throw numbers out every year. If you are talking about their estimates? On my farm, the numbers are way higher than the dnrs estimates. I can drive 2 miles down the road and they are below the dnrs estimates, here is my example.
I have what I call an extended neighbor that owns a large chunk of land around 700 acres. I can hunt the land, and they slaughter the does there every year. The habitat is great and so is the trophy potiental. It is hard to see a deer, but they still find a way to shoot 20 a year. Now if I was a neighbor to them and owned 40 acres, I would be furious at the dnr for giving so many tags. I'm only a mile away and I'm still seeing a herd of 60, after I shot 40 myself.
Sometimes the dnr is in a lose lose situation. I've said it before, deer hunters as a group are bipolar.
I have what I call an extended neighbor that owns a large chunk of land around 700 acres. I can hunt the land, and they slaughter the does there every year. The habitat is great and so is the trophy potiental. It is hard to see a deer, but they still find a way to shoot 20 a year. Now if I was a neighbor to them and owned 40 acres, I would be furious at the dnr for giving so many tags. I'm only a mile away and I'm still seeing a herd of 60, after I shot 40 myself.
Sometimes the dnr is in a lose lose situation. I've said it before, deer hunters as a group are bipolar.
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I was disappointed that the audit didn't take a more firm stance on the baiting issue despite the prevalence of CWD in WI. But then again Dr. Deer was from Texas I believe he doesn't look at baiting as a big deal but I certainly think it is.
I didn't like the change in zones since that may make it more difficult to compare historical data since the zones have been altered.
Despite the 2 issues noted above, it was nice to see that they saw the importance of having an audit to verify that the ship is headed in the right direction. I might not agree with all of the decisions they came up with, but I was happy to see that they looked at the deer as important enough to periodically review to make sure best practices are followed.
I didn't like the change in zones since that may make it more difficult to compare historical data since the zones have been altered.
Despite the 2 issues noted above, it was nice to see that they saw the importance of having an audit to verify that the ship is headed in the right direction. I might not agree with all of the decisions they came up with, but I was happy to see that they looked at the deer as important enough to periodically review to make sure best practices are followed.
wiscwhip
5 year old buck +
Not sure what you mean here Ben? The data was all there, the DNR just had to reroute the pertinent information. If you recall, when we register a deer, we have had to list not only the DMU of kill, but the County of kill also, and we have had to do this for quite a few years running now. All the DNR had to do was recount using the County of kill as opposed to the DMU of kill. So sure, maybe we don't have data from the 70's or 80's but that data is simply historical at this point anyway, as so, so many things have changed since then in many areas(DMU and Co alike). I'm not so sure that argument holds any water.
I haven't seen any graphs from the WI DNR that break down the harvests by county, but if that information was available then I would feel better about the unit changes. Did they release the historical county kill data?
In our area, I think the private or public doe tag change will balance out the density differences better than changing the zone locations. Everyone goes to the public land to fill antlerless tags and then goes back to private ground to fill their buck tags.
In our area, I think the private or public doe tag change will balance out the density differences better than changing the zone locations. Everyone goes to the public land to fill antlerless tags and then goes back to private ground to fill their buck tags.
Terrific_tom
5 year old buck +
In my opinion it came too late in the Northern part of the state. The damage has been done and I don't think that no matter what the DNR does in Northern Wisconsin for the deer herd it will not help. I only hope that you guys in Minnesota can get things changed before your deer herd is wrecked as it has been done to the Northern Wisconsin deer herd. I was up in Bayfield and Douglas County this past weekend helping my brother pick out a bear stand and traveled all over both counties and saw a total of 5 deer in 3 days.
wiscwhip
5 year old buck +
I believe you were in Rusk Co, correct? I think this is what you are looking for. It looks like this chart only goes back to 2006.
http://dnr.wi.gov/topic/hunt/forum/Rusk.pdf
I tried to copy/paste the info but it jacked up the formatting, so I pasted the link instead.
kabic
5 year old buck +
Thanks for that link. The chart goes back to 2006, but the graph for the total deer kill goes back to 1983
LessRice
5 year old buck +
First trailcam card pull a couple weeks ago spanning from late winter to now. Pretty bleak outlook on my land in Burnett County so far with only 5 unique deer, no bucks, and zero fawns; compared to about 10-15 hanging around last year. I didn't see a single pregnant doe early spring either, so needless to say I am ecstatic about buck only.
Nice, thanks. It will be interesting to see how quickly the deer numbers will increase with the bucks only regulations.
Cuervo
5 year old buck +
I'm simply glad they tried something different, and I think the buck only areas make a lot of sense. I tell anyone that will listen, that if you started deer hunting in Wisconsin in the 90's or after, you are spoiled and have skewed view of deer hunting. I just wish the DNR would have been a little more proactive. The herd will come back in areas that it is low, just wait a few years.
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