Some people don't get to experience that. Or the bucket full of undersized fish.
23-24 Proposed Deer season changes
- Thread starter Hedgelj
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at1010
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I can kill 3 deer on my farm as is - that’s low and many counties are 2 deer counties.
my Amish neighbors are fantastic and I’m surrounded on multiple sides. They shot 4 does and a 4.5 year old buck this year on their 200 acre farm. I’d rather have that than the reverse.
at1010
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Exactly. Why at the state level individual experiences don’t mean much.
Although if there are no deer it’s amazing how the Amish continue to be so successful.
I’ve seen a lot of complaints over years (myself included).
so what do we all propose?
dmap?
1 doe and 1 buck for entire state?
No does?
Keep county tags but less opportunities?!
btw. At a 48% doe harvest, the state will be projecting growth from this year to next. Again at the state level.
I agree that it a localized problem.
Mapping would help me at my house a ton!
I don't know that the Amish can be stopped or slowed down. Not with the current amount of GW coverage. One guy just can't be everywhere they are. They know that.
Mapping would help me at my house a ton!
I don't know that the Amish can be stopped or slowed down. Not with the current amount of GW coverage. One guy just can't be everywhere they are. They know that.
They match up for me. 48% does, 52% male deer (bucks, BBs, and shed bucks).
Male deer can’t birth fawns. So in the context of population growth, the specific doe harvest is what matters… not total “antlerless” deer. I don’t want to speak for Al but I think that’s what his point was.
at1010
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I’m old enough to remember when we had a lot of deer in this area. I’m also old enough to remember when the vast majority of hunters did not kill a deer annually. The two correlate directly. When doe harvest become an explicit goal most jumped on board immediately. At the same time equipment improved and over the next few years, opportunities were added. We have far fewer deer now than we did them (mid-1990s). No question. That is not based on harvest numbers. That is based on in field sightings. The DoW didn’t try to be sneaky with the publicly stated goal.
Amish have come up yet again… locally, they have become a real issue over the last five years or so. The farm where Mason and I hunted the two giant bucks for three solid seasons is a good example. I t has been very heavily hunted for as long as I’ve lived here (1996). It borders very heavily hunted public land. Yet every year I could count on the vast majority of mature bucks surviving each year. One or two might be harvested, but the majority beat every legal hunting tactic employed. Since the Amish community developed in this area, that is not the case. Two year olds are not all that common. Older deer do not exist. Why? Are they super hunters or is it the one or two rifle shots we now hear every evening during the fall? Maybe they just target practice at sundown…one shot a day. Or maybe it’s because they shoot them with rifles during archery season whenever they take a notion. Albert, your neighbor may well be fine people. Mine are not. Amish are individuals like any other group. I’m sure not all are game hogging, trespassing, blood thirsty bums… but like it or not, stereotypes are often very accurate. And, I really miss being able to make the 15 mile trip to Hillsboro while driving the speed limit without narrowly avoiding an accident due to a moron driving his family of ten down the road in a black buggy at 10pm. I’ll never understand how it’s ok for them to operate a bulldozer in their lumber yard but drive a buggy on a hilly highway. They are idiots, if for no other reason. And five year old kids have no business on the same highway whipping a pony’s butt to get up those same hills in a built to scale tiny buggy. Idiots.
Amish have come up yet again… locally, they have become a real issue over the last five years or so. The farm where Mason and I hunted the two giant bucks for three solid seasons is a good example. I t has been very heavily hunted for as long as I’ve lived here (1996). It borders very heavily hunted public land. Yet every year I could count on the vast majority of mature bucks surviving each year. One or two might be harvested, but the majority beat every legal hunting tactic employed. Since the Amish community developed in this area, that is not the case. Two year olds are not all that common. Older deer do not exist. Why? Are they super hunters or is it the one or two rifle shots we now hear every evening during the fall? Maybe they just target practice at sundown…one shot a day. Or maybe it’s because they shoot them with rifles during archery season whenever they take a notion. Albert, your neighbor may well be fine people. Mine are not. Amish are individuals like any other group. I’m sure not all are game hogging, trespassing, blood thirsty bums… but like it or not, stereotypes are often very accurate. And, I really miss being able to make the 15 mile trip to Hillsboro while driving the speed limit without narrowly avoiding an accident due to a moron driving his family of ten down the road in a black buggy at 10pm. I’ll never understand how it’s ok for them to operate a bulldozer in their lumber yard but drive a buggy on a hilly highway. They are idiots, if for no other reason. And five year old kids have no business on the same highway whipping a pony’s butt to get up those same hills in a built to scale tiny buggy. Idiots.
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Additionally, my neighbor allowed them to hunt his place the first year or two. While checking things out one snowy day to run coyote snares I found four rabbits Amish had shot. I found them because those useless buggy driving morons didn’t even pick them up. I tracked them back to my neighbors barn where I found their buggy tracks. I told him about it and he told them they were no longer allowed to hunt. It didn’t stop them, but they no longer have permission.
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Regarding a person’s point of view:
Another neighbor of mine likes to fish Lake Erie for smallmouth in June. He was up there with a group the same time frame I had Mason and some buddies there. We had limited on walleye in the morning so we decided to run over to Put in Bay to fish with those guys. We pulled our boat up just as they were heading out. They had gave me the “we killed em” this morning talk before we made the decision to go fish with them. In reality, they had caught six fish that morning. Most of the group viewed it as a terrible morning- except the one guy I’d been texting. He caught one of the six fish, which happened to be a six pounder! In his mind, they killed em! The same guy during youth season called me to let me know his grandson killed his first buck and invited Mason and I to stop by to see it. He exclaimed there were deer everywhere, and his reality based grandson said, “we only saw two”. Perception is reality. I try to look at things like deer numbers analytically. Just because I killed one does not mean “they are everywhere “.
Another neighbor of mine likes to fish Lake Erie for smallmouth in June. He was up there with a group the same time frame I had Mason and some buddies there. We had limited on walleye in the morning so we decided to run over to Put in Bay to fish with those guys. We pulled our boat up just as they were heading out. They had gave me the “we killed em” this morning talk before we made the decision to go fish with them. In reality, they had caught six fish that morning. Most of the group viewed it as a terrible morning- except the one guy I’d been texting. He caught one of the six fish, which happened to be a six pounder! In his mind, they killed em! The same guy during youth season called me to let me know his grandson killed his first buck and invited Mason and I to stop by to see it. He exclaimed there were deer everywhere, and his reality based grandson said, “we only saw two”. Perception is reality. I try to look at things like deer numbers analytically. Just because I killed one does not mean “they are everywhere “.
Those are all great posts Brock. I respect everyone's opinions, but opinions don't always equal fact. Ohio is such a diverse state and its clear what is happening in one part may be poloar opposite of what's happening somewhere else. I don't for a second believe though that our little corner of the state is the only place experiencing these issues.
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I don't disagree with some of those points, but I also know Ohio had no problem breaking state records seemingly year after year at the peak of the deer population in 2005-2008 prior to their reduction effort. There wasn't a single problem with buck quality, Ohio was on fire all through the news and every magazine.
Ohio big buck entries.
2006 - 625 entries.
2020 - 315 entries.
Now granted many people don't register their bucks. But we can assume that percentage is roughly the same. We can also look at a bonus gun season and the use of rifles should have bumped those numbers. But despite more opportunity the numbers are falling. The undeniable fact is a state can't reduce the deer population by 30-50% and not expect a drop in trophy quality deer. Every one of those bucks fell out of a doe. If that doe is dead or never existed those future trophy quality deer won't be there at the same numbers.
I agree with you on hunters waking up and realizing they were lied to. If you knew the shit we took for telling people it was a trap and they were hurting themselves. The vast majority of hunters at that time were eating like baby birds from the odnr. The mentality today has almost completely flipped with the majority of people I've spoken to recently. It's unfortunate they first had to shoot themselves in the foot to know it hurts.
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I'll add my .02 cents.... I've been hunting Illinois since 2001.... I usually head out the first week of Nov. this puts me on Rte. 70 the entire length of Ohio... This is prime rut time... The last couple years I see fewer and fewer dead deer on Rte. 70.... That's gotta tell you something....
at1010
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Just curious - why did you pick 06 and 20? Top harvest year in early 2000 and top year in 20? Wouldn’t it be better to take this as a 3 year average in early 2000 and then again say 2019-2021 - then make it a percentage of the harvest to reflect the success rate of Ohio big bucks being harvested, relative to the overall number of deer ?
I have no idea how those numbers would show out but to me that would be a much better representative sample and data points.
@brock ratcliff - very nice write ups. I agree we all have varying experiences. As I mentioned I’m fortunate with good amish neighbors. However, I’ve had my struggles with some local amish folks -just not involving animals.
All in all - I am still interested in what the goal and/or proposal should be?
In my experiences reducing the tags per county was massively helpful. To the point where I am doing very in-depth analysis each year (another post for another day) to determine dpsm and doe harvest quotas.
At 48% statewide doe harvest (46% the year before) we should again see an increase in deer next year. 9% for BB seems to be running average.
So what do we want as a group?
I know I’d support higher license fees to support more GWs. I’d pay 2-3x more without a blink - if that meant we could increase GW coverage.
I’d also support the structuring of DMAPS - to help regulate the harvest goals and quotas far more specific area.
What I don’t support is reducing the tags to 2 deer per state or something at the macro level as that is far too strict. Likewise - I’d never support going back to zones with 6 deer per zone C and the guy with 6 acres and a corn pile has him and his buddies each shoot 6.
So what do we all want to see?
ps. I love being part of this forum and in no way want my tone to come off as rude.
I am truly enjoying the dialog.
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