I gotta agree with Joe's last post. I'm a trophy hunter, but I'm a hunter first and foremost. I don't spend 150+ hours on stand each year to stare at sticks and leaves. I know we're along way from devastation, but the deer numbers are down in my area and it's because we are shooting TOO many does. Couple that with blue tongue a couple years ago, increasing numbers of yotes, and abused damage permits, and our herd in Washington County is down.
I don't have the answer, nor do I know all the insides and outs. All I know is through the last four years, I've hunted nearly 700 hours and ran 5+ cameras. Based on that, I have a good grasp of what's happening in my neck of the woods. That makes me a proponent of reducing out limits and doing our best to get a handle on a sensible herd count and management plan at a county level. That's all I ask as a hunter and constituent of the ODNR.
I don't have the answer, nor do I know all the insides and outs. All I know is through the last four years, I've hunted nearly 700 hours and ran 5+ cameras. Based on that, I have a good grasp of what's happening in my neck of the woods. That makes me a proponent of reducing out limits and doing our best to get a handle on a sensible herd count and management plan at a county level. That's all I ask as a hunter and constituent of the ODNR.
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Shoot your first 2 button bucks ever and you're labeled as a shit bag for life. lol Roger that Kaiser. No BBs.. lol
Yet another constructive thread about the lack of deer in Ohio. What do you guys expect? For the last decade, the ODNR has made it a point to halt and/or reduce deer population growth in Ohio. This year was really the first year that it has happened. We've seen an increase year after year until now... eventually, the population would have to hit a plateau and go the other way... WHICH IS WHAT THEY WANT. Well, guess what... looks like we may have made it. Does that mean it's the end of the world? I don't think so. Why keep beating the hell out of this dead horse on the internet? If you don't like it, go visit the ODNR headquarters... or write a letter to your congressman... or go punch Tonk in the face if you want. The point is, nothing is going to happen by complaining about it over and over on the internet.
OK... now feel free to rip this post apart if you'd like. It's merely my own opinion on the matter, and it's going to be my only "contribution" to this thread.
OK... now feel free to rip this post apart if you'd like. It's merely my own opinion on the matter, and it's going to be my only "contribution" to this thread.
It's the off season JB, you gotta have something to talk about! People still debate politics and religion, aren't those really dead horses TOO? I for one, enjoy hearing the different perspectives on this issue. It shows the true diversity of the herds an hunters in this state. I understand why you get a little hot under the collar on this subject, but don't take it so hard buddy. We're all friends here simply exchanging ideas and opinions that are close to our hearts. Sure, we've been down this road before. But again, it's the off season and we need some form of entertainment!!!
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Yeah, what jesse said.. Just cause we have a difference in opinion doesn't mean i hate ya. lol
but Have you not been reading previous statements on this subject? I have Tonks personal Email. Not his work email, PERSONAL.. And did talk with him about this 2 seasons ago. Brock talked with him on the phone. Deerhunt56 talked with him about it the same time i did. Do you not think Rexy talked with him about some of these very threads? I've seen the DNR ip addresses reading these threads as "guests", trust me they're listening.. And i know of others who have done the same.. The answers I / we got were same old story, same old song and dance bullshit... It's a waste of time talking to them and you know it, they have a plan and will sidestep, mislead and play stupid to accomplish it until it's too late. You know damn well it's pointless and they are going to continue to downplay and lie, just like he did in that news article where he said he hasn't heard "boo" about it... He fed Brock the same BS when Brock tried to tell him his concerns.. It wasn't until kill numbers in Fayette were decimated that he pulled back the reigns for next year.. Damnage done, mission success, in other words too fuckin late..Just because they are stonewalling doesn't mean I'm going to shut up and not voice my distrust and discourse, and make my point known to the people who it will have a direct impact on. US..
No sir.. The INTERNET is exactly where this belongs.. Not being sidestepped, ignored, and downplayed through official channels.. There is more than one way to skin a cat. I will continue to expose exactly what they are doing, and the impact it's having.. However futile that may be.. We told people years ago this day was coming that we would have a big drop. A couple years ago about 3 of us who saw bad things in our area brought it up on the net, and we were basically laughed at.. Who's laughing now? And without changes next year it's going to be worse. The problem is not going away, we aren't going to win this as the DNR will accomplish their goal. But when it comes finger pointing time, it will be blatantly known who to point it at..
If you enjoyed your season so much then why all the complaining?
You don't know me buddy. All I hear is you complaining about the DNR and the deer herd is not up to your standards, hell neither is the turkey population if I remember correctly. I have passed a shit load of bucks and does up just as you have and have plenty of memories in the bank. I'm not degrading you because you don't have wallhangers......I just don't agree with all of your opinions on this subject, although I do agree with most of them.
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I had a great season. To me it's what I make of it. In the thread "Which season was better this one or last?" My reply was "Every season I'm on this side of the grass is better than the last"... However, I and others also saw the least deer of any season in the past 4 years.. I also see the direction the DNR is sending the population... I have seen VC go from seeing 15 deer a day to seeing 1 deer in 3 days.. And you ask why I'm complaining? I would think the giant list of red numbers posted before would make it quite obvious as to why I'm complaining. And while it is true, I don't know you personally. And this conversation could undoubtedly go better in person. I can only go by what you write, and the judgmental method in which you attempted to make a point was the reason for my retort.
You do not remember correctly, I never said there was anything "wrong" per-say with the turk population in VC. And my only gripe matter of fact with the DNR was they didn't allow all day hunting, limiting you to the period of time in the morning when birds were henned up. There are plenty of turks in VC. The argument was over if "Ohio, was a top turkey state".. Better than say Alabama, Ms, etc.. I don't believe it is, Mrex does. Has nothing to do with the population numbers. Kill numbers and hours maybe. But more about the workability of the birds. Funny though, after all that bitching about the DNR needing to increase hours to all day, they do it, and i didn't even hunt. lmao.. Wrong two weeks IMO though. which kind of proves my old point. They want you to hunt them and buy tags etc. But they don't actually want you to kill them. Hence the reason they limited it to the most henned up half of the day.. The DNRs excuse was they didn't want people in the woods in the evening causing turks to abandon their nests... But then they go and allow all day hunting the last two weeks of season.. :smiley_confused_vra The last two weeks birds are likely more often on their nest .. lamo. Thanks for proving my point all along mr DNR.. It was never about nesting... lol
OK so call me a liar... I couldn't stay away from this thread for long. LOL 
When you put it that way, I totally understand how it is a recurring subject here. In the beginning, I did tend to get "hot under the collar" about this subject... but at this point it really doesn't bother me anymore. Do I still get frustrated? Well yea... Joe is impossible to win a debate against LOL! That fuggar has a comeback for everything!
That exactly my point, man. I KNOW you have all the personal contact info... and I KNOW you've made multiple attempts to voice your opinion with them, but to no avail. The ODOW is going to make their decisions mostly based on their own data. They probably have the mentality that "you can't please everyone" and therefore make decisions that reflect their own best judgement, all the while knowing that there will inevitably be some pissed off mofos out there.
My biggest issue with this debate is how you mostly refer to your experiences on the Vinton County lease as your yardstick for the deer population. That 900 acre tract, being hunted by a limited number of guys, should easily be capable of micro-management for deer. You've said that you guys have stopped shooting the does for the last couple years, and yet the population appears to get worse and worse. To me, this makes absolutely no sense at all. Another thing I don't comprehend... Since you're not allowing the public to hunt there, and your members are holding back on the number/type of deer they harvest, how do the ODOW regs have any influence at all on the deer population on this lease? Maybe I am just extremely naive, but to me, if I had a 900 acre lease to hunt I wouldn't give two shits about how many permits the ODNR was handing out because they wouldn't affect me one bit.
Maybe it's just one of those things that I would never understand unless I saw it with my own eyes.
When you put it that way, I totally understand how it is a recurring subject here. In the beginning, I did tend to get "hot under the collar" about this subject... but at this point it really doesn't bother me anymore. Do I still get frustrated? Well yea... Joe is impossible to win a debate against LOL! That fuggar has a comeback for everything!
That exactly my point, man. I KNOW you have all the personal contact info... and I KNOW you've made multiple attempts to voice your opinion with them, but to no avail. The ODOW is going to make their decisions mostly based on their own data. They probably have the mentality that "you can't please everyone" and therefore make decisions that reflect their own best judgement, all the while knowing that there will inevitably be some pissed off mofos out there.
My biggest issue with this debate is how you mostly refer to your experiences on the Vinton County lease as your yardstick for the deer population. That 900 acre tract, being hunted by a limited number of guys, should easily be capable of micro-management for deer. You've said that you guys have stopped shooting the does for the last couple years, and yet the population appears to get worse and worse. To me, this makes absolutely no sense at all. Another thing I don't comprehend... Since you're not allowing the public to hunt there, and your members are holding back on the number/type of deer they harvest, how do the ODOW regs have any influence at all on the deer population on this lease? Maybe I am just extremely naive, but to me, if I had a 900 acre lease to hunt I wouldn't give two shits about how many permits the ODNR was handing out because they wouldn't affect me one bit.
Maybe it's just one of those things that I would never understand unless I saw it with my own eyes.
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OK so call me a liar... I couldn't stay away from this thread for long. LOL
When you put it that way, I totally understand how it is a recurring subject here. In the beginning, I did tend to get "hot under the collar" about this subject... but at this point it really doesn't bother me anymore. Do I still get frustrated? Well yea... Joe is impossible to win a debate against LOL! That fuggar has a comeback for everything!
That exactly my point, man. I KNOW you have all the personal contact info... and I KNOW you've made multiple attempts to voice your opinion with them, but to no avail. The ODOW is going to make their decisions mostly based on their own data. They probably have the mentality that "you can't please everyone" and therefore make decisions that reflect their own best judgement, all the while knowing that there will inevitably be some pissed off mofos out there.
My biggest issue with this debate is how you mostly refer to your experiences on the Vinton County lease as your yardstick for the deer population. That 900 acre tract, being hunted by a limited number of guys, should easily be capable of micro-management for deer. You've said that you guys have stopped shooting the does for the last couple years, and yet the population appears to get worse and worse. To me, this makes absolutely no sense at all. Another thing I don't comprehend... Since you're not allowing the public to hunt there, and your members are holding back on the number/type of deer they harvest, how do the ODOW regs have any influence at all on the deer population on this lease? Maybe I am just extremely naive, but to me, if I had a 900 acre lease to hunt I wouldn't give two shits about how many permits the ODNR was handing out because they wouldn't affect me one bit.
Maybe it's just one of those things that I would never understand unless I saw it with my own eyes.
I'm not impossible to win a debate against.. lol .. I have conceded debate I think twice before. Buy you'll have to get up early and bring your A game for that to happen.
And your right. There will be some pissed off mofos out there.. But there is about to be a bunch more of them over the next couple years when they all wake up and say, "HEY WTF! Where did all the deer go!".. But by then the DNR will have completed their plan and it's too late.. They will feed us some BS about how they are lowering tags etc to help.. But by then, when they lower tags, it will be to hold the population steady. Not regrow it.. And the sheep will once again trust them to do the best thing for them.. They can keep this charade up for the foreseeable future.. And they know it.. Lets face it. As a whole, we're not the brightest group of people.. We here might be.. But the others out there are primarily clueless about the big picture.
As far as your VC lease question, it's because of what I have been saying all along.. You will never get enough people to start self limiting for it to be successful on a broad scale, and begin to increase deer numbers despite the DNR wanting them lowered. And 900 acres is not broad enough. Our property is not a giant square like up here in North ohio.. It's more a like WNF where has a large part but it also twists and turns.. Come shotgun every property for miles and miles and miles is a war zone.. I can easily count 80+ shots before 10am.. Drives.. It's all 99% of them do.. Drive this hollow flip around and drive that hollow.. Without lowering the limit you aren't going to get these people to slow down on something they have been doing since they were kids. Even then they will still probably party hunt. But right now there isn't a need they have 6 tags each. EHD killed our numbers down in VC, this is undeniable. The harvest would have dropped the next year.. But that very season they added tags and a bonus gun.. They added "opportunity".. When they added tags to those counties this year up north, almost all had a 20+% increase.. Same thing happened in VC except we just held the harvest level.. But we did it from less deer... But populations dropped because we are killing more than can reproduce in a given season. A negative population growth.
I'm not using "just" my property in VC as a yardstick for the populations.. Brocks is a long way away in fayette, Sean's is 30 minutes notth, Darons is about 20 minutes East and the countless other i have talked too all over VC, Pike, Ross etc.. It is evident to almost everyone there that we have drastically less deer. Including the processor who estimates an easy 30-40% reduction. We first started to see an issue there 3-4 years ago down there.. People who called us crazy then are now starting to see some of the same things start in their areas..
I would say my yardstick is quite accurate actually.. I have warned you guys for a couple years that we were killing too many deer... Tonks and most of your responses then "If they aren't there, how are we killing them, the numbers are steady" I knew that charade could only hold so long.. We'll, gigs up.. The vast majority of counties in ohio just reported 2 year lows in harvest.. With the majority of them being double digit decreases.. And with no change in regulation next year you will Kill even more from less.. Meaning that even if a county was down 20% this year, and only 10% next year.. That's not a positive bud.. That's not an improvement.. Yall need to get away from thinking of kill numbers as a solid number.. It's not. It's a very fluid number. killing 3,000 deer from 10,000 is one thing.. Killing 3,000 deer from 5,000 is a whole other story. If you simply look at the number and say 3,000 is 3,000 so what... You didn't miss the runway, you're in the wrong city all together..
And you are welcome to my lease and see it with your own eyes at any time.. I will give you every piece of knowledge I have on the property and you can pick any spot you like.. More telling though is we'll just throw a cooler of beer in the truck and spend 2 days driving miles and miles county to county talking to everyone we think might hunt.. Ask them. They will tell you the same.. Numbers are way way down..
I'm not impossible to win a debate against.. lol .. I have conceded debate I think twice before. Buy you'll have to get up early and bring your A game for that to happen.
Beating Jack isn't easy but getting him to admit he's been beat is damn near impossible. rotflmao
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