I agree. It would be a disservice to the great deer and successful hunters being honored if we highjacked a portion of their day IMO...
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I agree. It would be a disservice to the great deer and successful hunters being honored if we highjacked a portion of their day IMO...
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Maybe ill enter my buck so I can shake his hand and ask him in person if he's ready for the shit storm I'm about to bring...
IMO the time for discussion, negotiations and civil bantering has long since passed... The appropriate time to seek hunters opinions would have been when the lobbyst and odnr were at the table prior to the massive reduction efforts. Not once you appeased them and pissed off the others. And defenatly not in a public awards banquet.
IMO the time for discussion, negotiations and civil bantering has long since passed... The appropriate time to seek hunters opinions would have been when the lobbyst and odnr were at the table prior to the massive reduction efforts. Not once you appeased them and pissed off the others. And defenatly not in a public awards banquet.
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And I'm going to do it right... Try hard to remove all personal opinion and let the numbers speak for themselves. You guys are about to see the biggest non government grassroots opinion poll in the history of hunting!
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How about meeting with him there and leaving the shit storm behind? A civil discussion about numbers and goals of the ODOW shouldn't detract from the banquet. I'd say if anyone decided to go in screaming "They're all dead", they wouldn't last long in a conversation. Mike T is a sharp guy, and he is going to know the answers he believes to be fact. That being the case he would simply present what he believes to be fact and the screaming mob would be left looking like fools. Get the numbers together, questions you wish to ask, and present them like adults. Otherwise, it will be like an OBA clusterf... .
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You are correct... That is absolutely the wrong way ro go about it... So is 5 guys in his office having coffee. Once the site is up and running and the numbers are presented from the survey efforts and harvest data etc, he will have every opertunity in the world to make his statement right along side the numbers. I will also seek his official opinion of the data... If none is answered then the data will speak for itself. And the dnrs reply will be...
After repeated attempts to contact _____________ they refused to comment, confirm or deny said data and survey results..
From there we'll see what the Ohio Outdoor News thinks of it.. They love a good story I'm sure... Maybe that hunting show that's on the radio.
Lundy
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I have heard many of you suggest eliminating the 2 day gun season as a method to reduce the current harvest levels
I think that would be a hard sell due to fact that there are only 13 available days to hunt deer with a gun currently and 4 or those require the use of a MZ versus 4 months of bow season.
The other is that the guns season are not what has been growing the harvest. In 2005, prior to the first 2 day gun, a total of 209,513 deer were killed, all gun accounted for 149,423 or 71% of the harvest. Archery killed 60,090 which was 28% of the harvest.
Fast forward to 2009, the largest deer kill ever, 261,260. Gun accounted for 169,714 or 65% of the total harvest and that includes the added 2 day gun. Archery kills were 91,546 or 35% of the total harvest.
So from the year prior to the 2 day gun to the largest kill ever the increase for deer killed with a gun, including the 2 day gun the total went up by 20,000 deer or 12%. That same period bow kills went up by 31,000 kills or 34%.
So when you start wishing for restrictions be careful what you wish for because the the only growing harvest hunting segment since 2006, the first year of the 2 day gun, is archery. Does anyone want to reduce the archery season?
I think the goal is a reduction in harvest, preferably targeted reductions based upon county populations rather than expansive management zones.
When hunters, even with the best of intentions, want to restrict other hunters opportunities it makes me believe that must be a better way
The reduction should occur through reduction of tags and bag limits not hunting opportunities
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This is true... However we must be watchful that a reduction is tags is enough to regrow the population VS hold it steady... It's not going to do much good to reduce the tags to a levet that simply maintains the low level... The lower the deer numbers the less harvests are needed to maintain them.... We must caution that when they finally do back off that they don't sell us a hill of beans like they're doing us a favor. The quickest way to increase numbers will not be to simply reduce tags.. As we said earlier most hunters only shoot 1-2 anyway.. A 2 tag limit would have very minimal impact... The reason for the extra gun season was to increase opportunity in harvesting deer in order to better reduce their numbers.. Logically the way to increase them will be to reduce said opportunities that we're put in place to reduce the numbers in the first place. For example... If we look at harvest numbers today compared to 4 years ago I have no doubt we could reach those leves again next year.. All that is required is more gun in hand time. Even with the population low we could kill historic numbers by simply increasing opportunity. Logically, we must do the opposite to increase them. A couple days of gun, or end season Dec 31, I don't care. Long as we can show the numbers are moving back to the levels before this horrible plan was enacted.
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Thank you for chiming in Mrex. That was a great suggestion on my initial reading of it, but as the guys have stated, maybe not the right place. I tend to agree, our fellow hunters with OBB awards coming do not deserve to have this honor tarnished.
I will put on my creative thinking cap and try to brainstorm a name. I don't know the answers, but I am willing to help out my fellow deer hunters.
I will put on my creative thinking cap and try to brainstorm a name. I don't know the answers, but I am willing to help out my fellow deer hunters.
Lundy
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I sincerely doubt that eliminating the 2 day gun would show much of a reduction in the harvest numbers. We only average 20,000 deer per year during the 5 years of the 2 day gun season
Guys that can and do kill deer out of the 450,000 deer hunters, will just adjust one of two ways. Kill them during the 7 day gun week instead of waiting for the 2 day to fill the first or second tag or kill them during the MZ season. Either way I don't think the goal of a substantially reduced harvest is accomplished.
Again the goal is to reduce the harvest, not how many days you hunt. They only SURE way is through reduced bag limits and tags.
Maybe I am looking at this and applying how I hunt to too many other hunters. I know that I am going to kill one deer a year and only one. It is not a question of if, it is a question of when I decide to do it. Eliminating the 2 day would have zero impact on my harvest in any given year. For that matter eliminating all of the MZ season and half of the gun season wouldn't impact my harvest in any year. All a reduction of opportunity would do to my yearly harvest is eliminate some of the decision of when I want to kill one. Would this be typical of other hunters? I don't know.This is why I really have trouble with equating days of hunting opportunity with harvest numbers. By eliminating 22% of the currently available deer shotgun season days you do not reduce the harvest anywhere near 22%. In fact only 13% (2009 all time record)of gun harvests occur on the 2 day season.
The elimination of the 2 day maybe at best reduces total gun harvest by 10,000 deer. The archery harvest has grown 35%, 85,000-90,000 a year, during the last 5 years, the only hunting method to show any significant increase in harvest over the last 5 years. To achieve the stated goal of harvest reduction the archery harvest needs to be reduced back to 2005, 2006 levels. You believe it can be done by reducing opportunity, I think tags would need to be reduced.
What if bow season was only one month. If you only had the month of Oct to bowhunt how would it effect your harvest numbers and selection? Would you still kill a deer? Would the target selection change late in the month?
This is very interesting to read all of the different views and ideas
Guys that can and do kill deer out of the 450,000 deer hunters, will just adjust one of two ways. Kill them during the 7 day gun week instead of waiting for the 2 day to fill the first or second tag or kill them during the MZ season. Either way I don't think the goal of a substantially reduced harvest is accomplished.
Again the goal is to reduce the harvest, not how many days you hunt. They only SURE way is through reduced bag limits and tags.
Maybe I am looking at this and applying how I hunt to too many other hunters. I know that I am going to kill one deer a year and only one. It is not a question of if, it is a question of when I decide to do it. Eliminating the 2 day would have zero impact on my harvest in any given year. For that matter eliminating all of the MZ season and half of the gun season wouldn't impact my harvest in any year. All a reduction of opportunity would do to my yearly harvest is eliminate some of the decision of when I want to kill one. Would this be typical of other hunters? I don't know.This is why I really have trouble with equating days of hunting opportunity with harvest numbers. By eliminating 22% of the currently available deer shotgun season days you do not reduce the harvest anywhere near 22%. In fact only 13% (2009 all time record)of gun harvests occur on the 2 day season.
The elimination of the 2 day maybe at best reduces total gun harvest by 10,000 deer. The archery harvest has grown 35%, 85,000-90,000 a year, during the last 5 years, the only hunting method to show any significant increase in harvest over the last 5 years. To achieve the stated goal of harvest reduction the archery harvest needs to be reduced back to 2005, 2006 levels. You believe it can be done by reducing opportunity, I think tags would need to be reduced.
What if bow season was only one month. If you only had the month of Oct to bowhunt how would it effect your harvest numbers and selection? Would you still kill a deer? Would the target selection change late in the month?
This is very interesting to read all of the different views and ideas
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You may well be right, I haven't looked at the numbers closely to disagree. However, in the years we were still trying to grow the herd, our archery season was four months long. Granted, as was already stated, archery gear isn't what it once was. However, I think the dramatic increase in archery harvest is more likely due to the added "antlerless archery" tags. The promotion of taking a doe was pushed hardest to archers, and the shelf life of the tags prove that. I don't need to see the ODOW working to grow the herd to make me happy, I'd just like to see the promotion of slaughter ended. We still have a huntable herd (though I much prefer the number of deer I saw four or five years ago), I just hate to think about the few remaining being subject continued pressure at current levels. Years ago, they made it through 6 days of lead flying they were relatively safe - certainly not the case anymore. The woods will be packed with blood thirsty hunters next weekend (and I will be taking my son again as well). Many of them still looking to fill their first tag of the year, and many of them will. As was pointed out, it isn't the number of people that kill multiple deer making the largest impact, its the huge number that kill one.
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Good points again, Lundy. THe fact that we now have four weekend days of shotgun vs one formerly have any impact you think?
I'm not suggesting that you accost Mike at the awards ceremony. The BBBC Banquet is a day long event...a semi loosely run sports show with a handful of vendors and seminar speakers, culminating with the dinner and awards ceremony in the evening. The cover for the daytime events is only $3 and that's just to help the club pay for the rental of the center. Most people come during the day to see the deer head display. We've been told by people like Gordon Whittington and James Kroll that our annual banquet assembles under one roof the most impressive collection of whitetail trophies seen anywhere in North America. The boards behind the head table usually display a dozen or so 200"+ bucks.
In addition to being extremely bright, Mike Tonkovich is a very likable person. Brock is correct, the "shit storm" approach would be counter productive. I personally don't agree with every regulation the DOW has thrown at us over the years and have never shied away from expressing my opinion. For example, the "proposed" early antlerless only Muzzy season is a really bad idea and I've made my feelings known.
I'm confident that at least a few of you would come away from an informal conversation with Tonk feeling a lot better about the future of deer and deer hunting in Ohio, and IMO, the BBBC event is not a bad place for that meeting.
In addition to being extremely bright, Mike Tonkovich is a very likable person. Brock is correct, the "shit storm" approach would be counter productive. I personally don't agree with every regulation the DOW has thrown at us over the years and have never shied away from expressing my opinion. For example, the "proposed" early antlerless only Muzzy season is a really bad idea and I've made my feelings known.
I'm confident that at least a few of you would come away from an informal conversation with Tonk feeling a lot better about the future of deer and deer hunting in Ohio, and IMO, the BBBC event is not a bad place for that meeting.
Thunderflight
Dignitary Member
I read about 1/2 of this thread and thought I'd mention my observations during my short Ohio hunting trip.
I only went out four times (really only three because I got chased off by a thunderstorm and my tree stand broke) and two were on a Knox county property that used to have a deer behind every tree. The only time we saw deer was on the first trip and my friend and his son have both been commenting on how the deer hunting has been off this year. One thing that stuck out to me was the lack of deer sign. The Licking county property I hunted (this was the hunt that was cut short) before didn't have 50% of the deer sign as before.
I wrote off all the bad luck on just that, but now I'm starting to wonder. Prior to this the last time I hunted Ohio was in 05. During that and the previous seasons there seemed to be a deer behind every tree and IMO it was like shooting fish in a barrel. Maybe those days are gone.
I only went out four times (really only three because I got chased off by a thunderstorm and my tree stand broke) and two were on a Knox county property that used to have a deer behind every tree. The only time we saw deer was on the first trip and my friend and his son have both been commenting on how the deer hunting has been off this year. One thing that stuck out to me was the lack of deer sign. The Licking county property I hunted (this was the hunt that was cut short) before didn't have 50% of the deer sign as before.
I wrote off all the bad luck on just that, but now I'm starting to wonder. Prior to this the last time I hunted Ohio was in 05. During that and the previous seasons there seemed to be a deer behind every tree and IMO it was like shooting fish in a barrel. Maybe those days are gone.
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Lundy
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I agree, that is why I personally believe a reduction in bag limits and tags has the largest impact.
Yes, I also agree that having 4 weekend days of gun season has to have some impact on hunter densities, and harvest just through the convenience of the hunting opportunity. I do not however believe it would be a one to one reduction in harvest. We average 20,000 deer killed in the 2 day. You don't achieve a harvest reduction of 20,000 by eliminating it. You just move the "blood Thirsty" time period to another time during the season in my opinion. Do you reduce the kill by half? Maybe.
609,417 tags sold in 2010, a 2% reduction from 2009. Every tag type, senior, youth, regular either sex, has shown declines of 2-9% since 2007 except the $15 antlerless tags. The sales in those has gone up each year. These sales certainly corresponds with the increased archery harvest over that same time period.
No tag harvest reduction plan would have any real significant impact unless it is a targeted reduction in areas of the state that suffer the most from a population reduction. I don't think you accomplish much with the current broad sweeping management zones. The reduction on harvest in my area is not as big of issue as it is where you hunt.
This is all based upon the assumption that the population is below where it was targeted and desired to be by the DOW. The problem is that the deer are not evenly distributed across the state which leads to discussions like these. Populations could boom in the coming years, but if it doesn't boom where you hunt it does you little good.
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Lundy
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That is a tough one to fix.
One idea would be a surcharge on every hunting license to either lease or purchase lands for hunter access. A $10 surcharge raises around 5 million dollars a year. A lot of hunter access on private property could achieved with that money not just for deer hunting but small game and birds as well. It would not benefit me but I would be very willing to pay my part
The problem would arise when some hunters lose their exclusive access to some private property because it is now enrolled in the hunter access lease program.