Numbers.. Ohio's 2011-12 White-tailed Deer Season -8%

[hickslawns]

How do you know how the participants were chosen? How do you know that someone "picked" them? How do you know it wasn't computer-generated at random?

I wasn't picked Jim. I say it is flawed. lmao

In all seriousness, it irritates me not being able to voice my data. I don't care if they read it or start the fire with the paperwork. As an avid outdoorsman, I would like to think I at least had the opportunity to voice my opinion. I am not saying it is flawed, skewed, hand picked, or anything of the sorts. I do NOT know this. However, it would have been nice to at least answer the questions. It isn't like there is a "Comment" section. Pretty cut and dry questions. Not sure there was much room for opinion in there outside of the increase vs decrease question and the early ML season question. Those were the only two questions where I felt they wanted to hear my opinion.

Truth be told, my numbers would have been in their favor. I tagged 4 skinheads this year. BUT. . .that is pretty dang flawed math if you only answer the questions in the format they offered. I killed one in Hocking at an outfitter's with tons of food plots the first week of the season. Early season feeding patterns in a lightly hunted/pressured area. The other 3 came off one farm in Allen county with 20 acres of food plots. Every single other property in Allen county I hunted I saw jack squat. Of the other 3 properties I hunted, I only had one sit where I saw ANY deer. That was a late season sit which was a completely different pattern than I had seen all year. My point here is, no matter how you answer these questions, most times the responses do not tell the whole story. I have decided to await next season and see how the numbers look on the other properties. If I am not seeing deer, I will NOT shoot any does off these properties. I will do my doe hunting where I did this year.

 

[jagermeister]

Im assuming its flawed on a couple fronts.

we still have 750,000 deer and we have had that many for 5 years ....
we cant count a flippin deer herd to save our ass ...
and every method we have used to base everything off of is now thrown out...
and fayette county had more deer killed on the road than in hunting season....

You guys say you want the state to change they're ways... to come up with more accurate methods... Yet, when the state sends out surveys in an attempt to gather more data which could help produce more accurate methods, you criticize them and make slanderous assumptions.

 

[jagermeister]

I wasn't picked Jim. I say it is flawed. lmao

In all seriousness, it irritates me not being able to voice my data. I don't care if they read it or start the fire with the paperwork. As an avid outdoorsman, I would like to think I at least had the opportunity to voice my opinion. I am not saying it is flawed, skewed, hand picked, or anything of the sorts. I do NOT know this. However, it would have been nice to at least answer the questions. It isn't like there is a "Comment" section. Pretty cut and dry questions. Not sure there was much room for opinion in there outside of the increase vs decrease question and the early ML season question. Those were the only two questions where I felt they wanted to hear my opinion.

Truth be told, my numbers would have been in their favor. I tagged 4 skinheads this year. BUT. . .that is pretty dang flawed math if you only answer the questions in the format they offered. I killed one in Hocking at an outfitter's with tons of food plots the first week of the season. Early season feeding patterns in a lightly hunted/pressured area. The other 3 came off one farm in Allen county with 20 acres of food plots. Every single other property in Allen county I hunted I saw jack squat. Of the other 3 properties I hunted, I only had one sit where I saw ANY deer. That was a late season sit which was a completely different pattern than I had seen all year. My point here is, no matter how you answer these questions, most times the responses do not tell the whole story. I have decided to await next season and see how the numbers look on the other properties. If I am not seeing deer, I will NOT shoot any does off these properties. I will do my doe hunting where I did this year.

No one is stopping you from voicing your opinion, Phil. It's actually pretty easy to get ahold of someone at the ODNR. I'm sure that, with very little effort, you could get Tonk's email address and send him your concerns directly. I'll send it to you via PM if you'd like. You don't need a survey in order to voice your opinion. Let me ask you this.... If you weren't a member of an online discussion forum like TOO, would you even know about the hunter surveys? Even if you found out about it, would you still feel as left out, since you wouldn't be hearing from all these guys saying they filled it out?

 

[JD Boyd]

I wasn't picked Jim. I say it is flawed. lmao

In all seriousness, it irritates me not being able to voice my data. I don't care if they read it or start the fire with the paperwork. As an avid outdoorsman, I would like to think I at least had the opportunity to voice my opinion. I am not saying it is flawed, skewed, hand picked, or anything of the sorts. I do NOT know this. However, it would have been nice to at least answer the questions. It isn't like there is a "Comment" section. Pretty cut and dry questions. Not sure there was much room for opinion in there outside of the increase vs decrease question and the early ML season question. Those were the only two questions where I felt they wanted to hear my opinion.

Truth be told, my numbers would have been in their favor. I tagged 4 skinheads this year. BUT. . .that is pretty dang flawed math if you only answer the questions in the format they offered. I killed one in Hocking at an outfitter's with tons of food plots the first week of the season. Early season feeding patterns in a lightly hunted/pressured area. The other 3 came off one farm in Allen county with 20 acres of food plots. Every single other property in Allen county I hunted I saw jack squat. Of the other 3 properties I hunted, I only had one sit where I saw ANY deer. That was a late season sit which was a completely different pattern than I had seen all year. My point here is, no matter how you answer these questions, most times the responses do not tell the whole story. I have decided to await next season and see how the numbers look on the other properties. If I am not seeing deer, I will NOT shoot any does off these properties. I will do my doe hunting where I did this year.

Have you talked to the outfitter to see how there season went???

 

[hickslawns]

Have you talked to the outfitter to see how there season went???

Have not. Left him a message last week as a follow up. He bought some tree stands off us. Was putting a bug in his ear for the April 1 order to see if he wanted to add anything extra to our order. Awaiting his reply.

Let me ask you this.... If you weren't a member of an online discussion forum like TOO, would you even know about the hunter surveys? Even if you found out about it, would you still feel as left out, since you wouldn't be hearing from all these guys saying they filled it out?

Yes. I would know about them. I received one once. I suppose there is a bit of frustration knowing others are receiving the opportunity to fill them out and I wasn't. I get where you are going. I just feel as this problem continues to grow, it becomes more critical to let them know our concerns.

 

[Huckleberry Finn]

You guys say you want the state to change they're ways... to come up with more accurate methods... Yet, when the state sends out surveys in an attempt to gather more data which could help produce more accurate methods, you criticize them and make slanderous assumptions.

If you were conducting any survey, wouldn't you want to get as much data as possible? Sure, I see what you are saying about statistics being flawed - any "honest" mathematician will tell you that. They are. Statistics are only as good as as much data as you can collect...so you want to send that survey to all of the hunters - as many as possible.

I won't lie that I find some agreement that people are, uh, rather passionate about the topic....I do believe that it was Jesse that said on this thread or another one that this is like arguing politics or religion...well, it's both - the politics of government and the religion of deer hunting.

 

[mrex]

You guys are out of control... honestly. Joe, your theory about hunting most where you see the most deer is not always true. I see the most deer in Carroll County... But I actually hunted the most in Morgan County this year, while on my rut trip. And next year I'll probably hunt most in Medina County, because it's where I live... but I bet I still see more deer in Carroll County.

I really can't comprehend why you guys are arguing against Mike's point of disturbing the randomness of the survey. How is it not effecting the randomness of it????? You posted the link in a discussion thread that is 90% made up of opinions pointing the finger at ODNR doing hunters wrong. It's blatantly obvious that that stacks the deck in YOUR favor here.

Jesus Christ, guys... quit worrying about the damn survey. If you got the mail and email correspondence, then fucking take the survey. If you didn't, don't worry about it... go to the open houses instead.

How do you know how the participants were chosen? How do you know that someone "picked" them? How do you know it wasn't computer-generated at random?

You guys say you want the state to change they're ways... to come up with more accurate methods... Yet, when the state sends out surveys in an attempt to gather more data which could help produce more accurate methods, you criticize them and make slanderous assumptions.

Jim – thank you for saving me all that typing. Apparently “random” and “biased” mean different things to different people.

 

[jagermeister]

If you were conducting any survey, wouldn't you want to get as much data as possible? Sure, I see what you are saying about statistics being flawed - any "honest" mathematician will tell you that. They are. Statistics are only as good as as much data as you can collect...so you want to send that survey to all of the hunters - as many as possible.

I won't lie that I find some agreement that people are, uh, rather passionate about the topic....I do believe that it was Jesse that said on this thread or another one that this is like arguing politics or religion...well, it's both - the politics of government and the religion of deer hunting.

Exactly, Huck... as many as possible. My guess is that sending the survey out to EVERY deer hunter in Ohio and then analyzing the results of several hundred thousand submissions is not feasible. So, they send out a limited number, at RANDOM, and interpret them as a snapshot of the entire data set. It's a method that's been done for years, and it works... If it didn't work, it wouldn't be done this way. Sure, the more data you collect, the more accurate your findings will be... But you get to a certain point where gaining the extra bit of accuracy isn't worth the amount of additional effort that's put into it.

BTW... If you argue against this post, keep in mind that you're arguing against over 100 years of evidence that supports the accuracy of random sampling.

 

[Huckleberry Finn]

Exactly, Huck... as many as possible. My guess is that sending the survey out to EVERY deer hunter in Ohio and then analyzing the results of several hundred thousand submissions is not feasible. So, they send out a limited number, at RANDOM, and interpret them as a snapshot of the entire data set. It's a method that's been done for years, and it works... If it didn't work, it wouldn't be done this way. Sure, the more data you collect, the more accurate your findings will be... But you get to a certain point where gaining the extra bit of accuracy isn't worth the amount of additional effort that's put into it.

So how do they feasibly keep track of 400k hunters with 6 deer tags a piece? Or logistically, managed whatever the total kill was coming in over a period of time via cell phones and identification numbers? ...the US census gathers how much data every year?

 

[jagermeister]

So how do they feasibly keep track of 400k hunters with 6 deer tags a piece? Or logistically, managed whatever the total kill was coming in over a period of time via cell phones and identification numbers? ...the US census gathers how much data every year?

Read the last part...
"Sure, the more data you collect, the more accurate your findings will be... But you get to a certain point where gaining the extra bit of accuracy isn't worth the amount of additional effort that's put into it."

Edit.... Shit, it's getting late. Way past my bed time. lmao

 

[Ohiosam]

Since we don't know the criteria for selecting the recipients of the survey we don't know how extra people added might skew the data. As a group the people on these forums probably aren't "average" hunters.

They might have picked recipients completely at random or based of zip codes, age, if you tagged one or more deer last year, gender(unlikely), what zone you tagged a deer(also unlikely).

 

[huntn2]

I can completely understand random sampling being used historically. Jim, to your point there is the law of diminishing returns...

However, that was prior to web-based tools for surveys. I don't see the benefit in not increasing your source population at this stage since they obviously have web enabled survey capabilities. Those tools collect and summarize the data for you so it isn't a matter of additional manual effort.

They could continue to offer the mail in option randomly and toss out duplicate responses based on hunter ID.

Therefore, I don't disagree with why it was once this way, but there are advatages to leveraging the available tools to the extent they were designed. Time/bodies is no longer a limitation requiring random sampling.

Rex, can you advise what the historic survey response rate has been on average?

Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk

 

[Jackalope]

I can completely understand random sampling being used historically. Jim, to your point there is the law of diminishing returns...

However, that was prior to web-based tools for surveys. I don't see the benefit in not increasing your source population at this stage since they obviously have web enabled survey capabilities. Those tools collect and summarize the data for you so it isn't a matter of additional manual effort.

They could continue to offer the mail in option randomly and toss out duplicate responses based on hunter ID.

Therefore, I don't disagree with why it was once this way, but there are advatages to leveraging the available tools to the extent they were designed. Time/bodies is no longer a limitation requiring random sampling.

Rex, can you advise what the historic survey response rate has been on average?

Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk

Correct. The third party survey tool they are using allows for analytic type reports to be ran on the fly with very little effort. It can be broken down to a micro level or broadly in about 5 clicks.. Take this site for instance. I use google analytics, you've seen the tool.. I can take the 200k+ visitors to TOO last year and break them down to the city they came from in a matter of moments. I can even tell you what operating system and browser they are using to view the site. For instance. Last month there were 3 unique visitors from the Athens area. One visiting over 60 times,one visiting over 40 times, and one visiting once or twice. I can tell you exactly who two of them are. The traffic to TOO is completely unbiased and unregulated, and Incan get a very accurate data sample without any influence.

The 8% could have been completely chosen at random. However you still aren't taking everyone's opinion that purchased a license into consideration. Meaning for whatever reason they are purposefully limiting the data. And there is no reason for it. The survey tool they are using is fully capable of analyzing all the data if they put this survey on the homepage of the odnr.

For the other part of your question. I have read a few times in my research where the dnr says they sent out YYY number of surveys and got ZZZ responses. The rate of response I remember was about 1/5th. So a "random" sampling of only 8% would be about 1.65% of the hunting population... Crazier things have happened though. The odnr did use survey responses from 1,244 farmers and allowed them to make the decision that the herd needed reducing 9% when there are over 74,000 working farms in this state. which amazingly is right at 1.68%... Speaking of that I didn't see a question to hunters on that survey like there was to farmers about what % do you think the herd should be increased or decreased. So farmers get to share their opinion on what % they want the herd reduced, but hunters don't get a chance to say what % they want it increased???? Nope. All we get is "in the best county you have to hunt and disregarding any county you hunted less, did you see more or less deer?" nope. This survey isn't biased at all... I ran it by the gf last night and let her look over the survey. This woman is six sigma certified and it's her job to compile and compare data to improve business processes. To achieve a six sigma process there must be less than 3.4 defects per one million opportunities. She agreed that it is not only stupid to limit your data sample to a maximum 8% but the increase decrease question in and of itself is flawed and skewed to achieve the best possible outcome. While you may achieve an answer in a single most hunted county you are completely ignoring the others. if a guy hunted 4 counties and has seen a major reduction in 3 and a slight reduction in the 4th you data will only show that slight reduction. However you have ignored a full 75% of your possible data set and purposefully skewed your numbers to the best 25%

Either way I'm done with it. we'll see where the numbers fall when we get the survey data.

 

[epe]

You guys are out of control... honestly. Joe, your theory about hunting most where you see the most deer is not always true. I see the most deer in Carroll County... But I actually hunted the most in Morgan County this year, while on my rut trip. And next year I'll probably hunt most in Medina County, because it's where I live... but I bet I still see more deer in Carroll County.


Jesus Christ, guys... quit worrying about the damn survey. If you got the mail and email correspondence, then fucking take the survey. If you didn't, don't worry about it... go to the open houses instead.

I hunt in three counties, and I did hunt the county that I saw the most deer in, gave me the best chance to kill deer. Sorry but I think you are in the minority on that one. You would be stupid not to, all things being equal.

 

[Milo]

Read the last part...
"Sure, the more data you collect, the more accurate your findings will be... But you get to a certain point where gaining the extra bit of accuracy isn't worth the amount of additional effort that's put into it."

Edit.... Shit, it's getting late. Way past my bed time. lmao

in todays world of computers...I CALL absolute and utter BULLSHIT... TONK sure got his recommendations to the wildlife council pretty quickly after the close of season..:smiley_depressive: I mean come on a website dumps to a database(microsoft access) and from there you dump it into a excel spreadsheet and tally using a simple function. I did it with crossbow data i received from them in less than 3 minutes.

 

[Jackalope]

in todays world of computers...I CALL absolute and utter BULLSHIT... TONK sure got his recommendations to the wildlife council pretty quickly after the close of season..:smiley_depressive:

That's easy to do if the council or director is the one telling you what they want, then telling you to make it look good on paper and recommend a plan to make it happen. If you don't they will find someone who will. We always hear that its not he that mKes the rules, its the higher ups and the council.. I would not be so hell bent on going after the head biologist if I could see one inclination that he is willing to push back too against the powers that be.. But so far all I have seen is toe the line, mislead hunters, and bad data to support a higher agenda... I think the position has become more of a support the political and business agenda, than remain unbiased and do what's right based on your biologist opinion for all parties, sportsmen included. I understand the biologists may be looking up a cliff when it comes to higher up agendas.. The problem is the river is starting to rise, and will continue to if they keep reducing huntable deer numbers. One way or another someone has to pay the piper. And I doubt it will be the director or a council member appointed by the governor..

 

[LonewolfNopack]

lWe elect a president. We elect a governor. We elect county, city and township officials at all levels. I have never understood why at very least members of our state wildlife council are not elected. Anyone appointed by the governor is questionable if you ask me. Just look how fast our past chief David Lane ( who I thought was a great guy) came and went...

Oh well...Guess that's why I took my hunting decals off the back of my truck last week and replaced them with a yellow flag with a rattle snake in the middle.

 

[Milo]

http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/Default.aspx?tabid=5725


here is the list of proposed meeting on the wildlife council. I may start going to these I will get emails of these members and raise some hell

 

[Jackalope]

Thinking about this further I think I can see the DNRs reasoning behind only asking about the primary county hunted. It's convoluted but I see what they're thinking...

If we ask everyone about the primary county hunted, it is true they will not give us opinions about other counties...... However someone will give us an opinion of that county as it's their primary county..

For example.. Joe hunted Champaine and Vinton.. He will give us his opinion on Champaine as it was his primary county... We will get out vinton opinion from another person.. We have 40,000 people so we should get primary opinions for each county...... They assume this will give them the best observation by the people that hunted there the most.

Ok. Fair enough.. I get that.. However... They are forgetting one very massive piece of the puzzle that will slant their data drastically.... Hunters are mobile. They go where it gives them the best opportunity to kill a deer.. If JD didn't let me hunt on one of his places I would still be hunting Vinton last season. As a result i would answered the survey for vinton.. But I was mobile and have to answer it for Champaign. A place I have no prior year history.. I have no basis.. I do know there are far more deer in champagne than Vinton.. So I'm happy.. To hell with vinton... The problem is as numbers decline, hunters move, and so do their primary counties.. It's called adaptation..

It is for this reason a data sample for EVERY county hunted will be more accurate.. It may not be as authoritative since they hunted there less. But that doesn't matter.. hunters still know if a property is crappy or not very quickly.. They would have to make said observation or they wouldn't have hunted elsewhere. I walked on the vinton property for about an hour last season and instantly could tell you i didn't see a single sign of recovery. I know how it once was, I know how it is today.. But since I moved to find better deer my opinion doesn't count.. Instead I have to give an opinion on a county where I have zero history or a short history..

 

[Beentown]

Curious to see the outcome of all this. It may be just the beginning expecially if nothing else changes and next year is worse.